New Haven magazine June 2012

JUNE/JULY 2012

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INTEL to the Barnum School for show-and-tell. His teacher took the drugs and alerted the principal, who then called police.

Land of Unsteady Habits Connecticut is hoping to lure new visitors to the state by proclaiming that the Nutmeg State is “Still Revolutionary.”

That’s the new tagline for a renewed tourism campaign focusing on the state as a historical and cultural destination.

The two-year, $27 million campaign will blanket the message across the television, radio, print and digital landscapes. TV commercials feature a song, “Better With You,” which was commissioned for the campaign and performed by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra with University of Connecticut singer Dinelle Glaze.

The Show-and-Tell Informant BRIDGEPORT — A fiveyear-old boy revealed more than he had probably intended.

The kindergartener brought 50 packets of heroin belonging to his stepfather, Santos Roman,

school.

A judge approved her request for Pattis, who is not licensed to practice in New York.

Former defense attorneys have argued that Gristina was running a dating service.

Look Out, Radioactive Man NEWTOWN — A Milford man was pulled over by police on Interstate 84 in Newtown after he set off a radioactivity detector in a state police car.

NYC ‘Madam’ Taps Pattis NEW YORK — The “Soccer Mom Madam,” suburban mother of four Anna Gristina, is accused of running a multimillion-dollar brothel out of a Manhattan apartment.

Now she’s asking for help from New Haven criminal defense lawyer Norman Pattis.

Pattis has been best known lately for representing the members of New Haven’s

Mike Apatow, 42, had a nuclear stress test earlier that day after a recent spike in blood pressure. The process involves injecting a small amount of radioactive material into the veins — equal to a CT scan or a few X-rays — and it was apparently enough to set off the detector, which is used to help spot potential terror threats.

Police said the devices are very sensitive, which is useful in determining if a car is carrying hazardous materials.

Longer Meter Hours NEW HAVEN — Drivers parking downtown will have to cough up some more coin for a few more hours.

Starting after Memorial Day, metered parking spaces downtown will be enforced until 9 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. daily except Sundays. Fees will stay the same, but after 5 p.m., drivers can pay for up to four hours in a space rather than the usual two.

The new 9 p.m. time is a compromise; the city originally wanted metered parking to run until midnight, but pushback from residents and retailers helped to quash that idea.

| Vol. 5, No. 4 | June/July 2012

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OUR COVER ROSANNE CASH to appear at Arts and Ideas on June 30, 2012 PHOTO::Deborah Feingold JUNE/JULY

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When Roman came to the school to retrieve his jacket, he found police waiting for him.

He was arrested and charged with risk of injury to a minor, possession of narcotics, sale of narcotics and possession of narcotics within 1,500 feet of a

Occupy encampment. Gristina has changed lawyers numerous times over the past three months, with nine lawyers having represented her thus far.

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5

Pattis for the Defense

An ‘accidental lawyer’ on why he defended Occupy New Haven, who really owns the Green, the Cheshire murders and the state of American justice in 2012 PHOTOGRAPHS:

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June/July 2012

ANTHONY DECARLOCO

N

ew Haven attorney Norman Pattis specializes in criminal defense and civil rights. The 56-year-old is also an author, speaker and ‘voice for freedom.’

Most recently he was in news for his role representing (on a pro bono basis) the Occupy New Haven protesters as they fought city efforts to evict them from their five-month encampment on the New Haven Green. That won’t be the last you’ll hear from Pattis — this spring he was retained by Anna Gristina, a/k/a the ‘Soccer Mom Madam,’ whom he will defend against charges of running a New York prostitution ring and whose trial is certain to generate a media frenzy. NHM Editor Michael C. Bingham interviewed Pattis for ONE2ONE. Is Occupy New Haven over and done with for good?

I am not general counsel to Occupy; [New Haven attorney] Irving Pinsky played a more ongoing role than I did. I just came in at the last minute to litigate the issues relating to the Green. The occupation of the Green is over. Where this movement goes now is anybody’s guess.

How did you become involved in the case?

I was on a criminal trial, which abruptly settled. So I had a week with nothing to do — which for me is a recipe for disaster. Somebody called me late in the day on a Monday and said, ‘You wouldn’t believe the letter that the city just gave the kids on the Green.’ So I looked at it and [thought], ‘What’s this all about?’ It looked like they were trying to tell these kids that, after having spent four or five months [on the Green] that they couldn’t speak there any longer. The letter looked unlawful on its face given the history.

So I was in touch with a few folks and they asked whether I would consider representing these folks in an effort to keep them on the Green, and I said, ‘Hell, yeah — I’ve got nothing better to do this week.’ So I drafted a writ the next morning and off we went.

What was it about the Occupy movement that struck a chord with you?

My wife and I are fellow travelers.

We went down to Zuccotti Park [in Manhattan, birthplace of Occupy Wall Street]. I marched outside [New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg’s home the night they shut Zuccotti Park down.

I’m not really a ‘movement’ kind of guy; I just have clients in trouble or in controversy, so I give everything I have there and move on to the next one. I am largely sympathetic, but don’t know that [Occupy] is the sort of organization that needs a lawyer.

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But you are philosophically in synch with its objectives.

Yes. I would call myself a methodological anarchist. I think any time people gather and make demands on those in power, rattle the foundation of things, life is good. So I was very happy to see those kids on the Green, and delighted that they lasted as long as they did.

Were the Occupy folks protesting those in power in New Haven or were they in fact protesting Wall Street — but simply doing so in New Haven.

Probably both. There is a vast gulf between the rhetoric of the American Dream and the reality of the lives many Americans live. The rhetoric of the one percent versus the 99 percent — power

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versus powerlessness — was what inspired the Occupy movement. We call ourselves the Land of the Free but incarcerate more [people] than anywhere else in the world.

We call ourselves the Land of Opportunity but seek to keep the homeless out of sight and out of mind. Young people are told to work their hearts out and put their noses to the grindstone, but are offered very little in exchange for their effort. In the New Haven context [this contrast] is amplified by these secret levers of power going back to the early 17th century and the acquisition of the Green from Indians for a trifle, and its secret ownership now.

Those people on the Green wanted to hold the community accountable to its rhetoric.

The gulf between rhetoric and reality — could you not say that’s true of many or most other countries in the world? Citizens of North Korea are told theirs is the freest and most prosperous society on the globe, and since they have no ability to compare it against others, they believe it.

You could, but I live here. But I’m not aware of any other country that has the history of its rhetoric about being the City on a Hill, that has a Statue of Liberty that says, ‘Give us your tired, your poor…longing to be free,’ and then takes these people and creates penal colonies,

as we do. We’ve got five percent of the world’s population [and] 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated. We say we have equal opportunity for all and it’s a healthy society? That’s the sign of a sick society.

And I think these kids were within their bounds to hold up a mirror and say, ‘Hypocrites, all.’

Who do you suppose actually decided that, after allowing the protestors to stay on the Green for five months, all of a sudden they had to be removed?

I don’t have admissible evidence that there was a meeting and one day a light bulb went on and somebody said, ‘Enough.’ But circumstantially, I think it’s pretty clear that they wanted the Green cleaned up for the Yale commencement. Look who’s on the Proprietors committee [that controls the Green]: The chairman is Drew Days of the Yale Law School. You have Janet Bond Arterton of the federal court; I believe she’s connected to Yale. Anne Calabresi, [former Yale law school dean] Guido Calabresi’s wife, is [a Proprietor].

So three of the five of them have very powerful ties to Yale. Don’t forget: Yale’s older than the United States. You try to subpoena one of their faculty members into court and they’ll act like they’re older than the United States. They’ll tell us

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when to jump; we won’t tell them.

So you think Yale called the mayor’s office and said, ‘Enough.’

The mayor looked like a horse’s ass the way he played this. He wanted to get liberal accolades for being accommodating, and then the minute he had a chance to dump [the protestors] and we’re in New York looking for a stay [of the order to vacate the Green], we asked him to wait until the court ruled, and he didn’t. At three minutes after [the] noon [deadline], the cops are there; we called the city to say we got the stay, and he wouldn’t call them off. What was that all about?

But then he did call them off.

It took him about a half-hour. But decent respect for the rule of law would have required waiting for the Second Circuit to act. They jumped the gun.

Did going through this process establish to your satisfaction exactly who ‘owns’ the Green? From what I can gather it is privately owned, but publicly maintained.

That seems to be the safest answer. There was a study done that I found in the Yale law library that was written by a Yale law student in 1982. He reported that in the late 1970s the Proprietors committee

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commissioned a prominent New Haven real-estate lawyer to do an abstract, an opinion, about ownership of the Green.

He concluded that it most likely owned in ‘fee simple absolute’ — that’s the best sort of title — to the exclusion of the rest of the world for all time, by the Proprietors committee. That’s a legal term that means its unclouded by any other claims.

Something that’s owned in fee simple absolute has one owner to the exclusion of the world forever.

Pattis on the decision to evict the Occupy protestors from the Green: ‘I think it’s pretty clear

How did that happen?

In 1638 some stragglers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony came into this region led by Theophilus Eaton — who is the lineal predecessor of Anne Calabresi, Guido Calabresi’s wife — and bought some land in exchange for pots, pans, coats and utensils from the local Indians. The land went at least as far as Fairfield, north as far as Wallingford and east as far as Guilford. All of this land was bought for a nominal sum and then the [New Haven] Colony began to give land to like-minded folks as they arrived [from England]. They had to be church members. This was a satisfactory arrangement until 1805, when it became too hard to locate and gather the Proprietors from all over the country.

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So those [who] could be located voted to create this five-person committee, the Proprietors of the Common & Undivided Lands. That committee was recognized by the General Assembly in 1810, then again in the 1830s. The anomaly is that in 1818 the state constitution was amended with an anti-emoluments clause, meaning you can’t have inherited privileges. So what we have is a group of five people who have acquired the right to own this 16-acre public space [the Green] and ultimately manage it, by yielding to New Haven such powers as they like, on a seemingly hereditary basis.

That has to be unconstitutional under state law. It’s ripe for litigation.

There’s nothing else like it in the United States. It’s an insult to the Republic.

You took this case pro bono. If you had billed the Occupy folks your going rate, how big would that bill have been?

I put a lot of work into that file. I don’t bill hourly; I take cases based on passion and what I need at a given moment. If a big firm did that it would have been a

work with troubled teens. He died just a few years ago. I didn’t know all that as a kid; I just knew that he disappeared when I was eight. I was an only child, and we had a peripatetic lifestyle for four or five years and ended up in Detroit, where my mother remarried an ironworker whose politics were somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. I left home when I was 16 and haven’t been back much since.

‘Nothing scares me more than a self-righteous mob.

And there was sure one howling for the blood of Komisarjevsky and Hayes.’

The First Amendment defense of the Occupiers, it seems to me, centers on the right of Americans to ‘peacable assembly.’

Does ‘assembly’ mean a one-time event with a specified starting and ending time?

Are there court precedents dealing with ongoing ‘assemblies’ — or is this case really unique?

We didn’t challenge it primarily on peacable assembly; we challenged it on speech grounds. Whoever has title to the Green — whether it’s the Proprietors, the city, some hybrid — it is managed as a public forum. If it’s a public forum, does the city have a right to place reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on speech? The answer is yes. But case law suggests that speech of that sort — camping out, putting posters up, the mere act of being present to make a political point — is speech. And [federal court] Judge [Mark] Kravitz agreed that it was.

[But] he didn’t think the city’s desire to move these folks off the Green was unreasonable. We took an emergency appeal to the Second Circuit to have the stay remain in place, and when we lost that the kids left the Green and scattered.

So the case is effectively over.

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June/July 2012

$40,000 or $50,000 legal bill. [By contrast, the city paid the law firm of Carmody & Torrance $65,000 for legal advice regarding Occupy New Haven.]

Tell me about your background. Where did you grow up?

I was born in Chicago and lived there until about [age] eight, and then moved to Detroit. I suppose the most interesting thing about my early childhood, that I didn’t learn until my 40s, was that my father was an illegal immigrant from Crete who snuck into the country from Windsor, Canada some time in the 1930s and lived by acts of…he was a criminal.

He lived by armed robbery for many years. He had a group of guys that he worked with, and they would rob payroll operations on payday when cash was [abundant]. In 1954 he got into a dispute with somebody and he shot ‘em. It’s unclear whether the guy died or not, but [my father] knew he was being looked for by law enforcement, and so he took the woman he was seeing and ran off to Chicago. She became my mom and they got married. He tried to live the straight life, but he couldn’t. He tried to return to a life of crime, but I guess he was getting old. He ultimately ended up settling in Williamsburg, Va., marrying someone else and becoming involved, paradoxically, in

Wow. So is that why you became interested in criminal law?

That’s a hard question to answer. I had no intention of being a lawyer.

I remember living in Detroit in 1967 during the riots and thinking that the riots were an appropriate response to inequality and racial injustice, and if I were a person of color I’d burning the [expletive] country down, too. I thought about law school, but two things deterred me: First, I didn’t know anyone who went to college, much less law school.

And second, I didn’t think the United States would endure, based on what I saw in the 1960s. I though the place was coming apart, and based on what I’d seen in my own childhood, I thought it should.

So how did you end up going to college?

Through the intervention of an assistant vice principal who even though my grades were no good — I guess I tested well — pulled me aside and said ‘What are you going to do after high school? If I could get you into college, would you go?’ So she got me the mothers club scholarship and I went to college [at Purdue University] and, much to my surprise, it turned out I was a good student. By the time I was done I had won a very good fellowship for graduate school at Columbia. I went there and studied political philosophy and taught there for a while.

What was that like?

I hated it. I didn’t like teaching at all, so I came to Connecticut to be a journalist. I wrote editorials for Bill Pape [publisher of the Waterbury Republican American]

in Waterbury and then at the Hartford Courant. Then I gravitated to law school because I got sick of sitting on the sidelines. So I’m sort of an accidental lawyer.

Did you ever have a criminal defense case where, in getting to know your client and the facts of the case, you became convinced that he or she was such a bad person that you couldn’t in good conscience defend them?

I don’t know what ‘bad’ means in that context.

Okay, then — people like Joshua Komisarjevsky or Steven Hayes [of the Cheshire home invasion and homicides], who anally raped an 11-year-old and then burned her to death.

And didn’t we feel so much better convicting them to death an making a show trial of that for the sake of an upper middle-class family.

You wrote a book, Taking Back the Courts.

From whom or what do they have to be taken back, and why?

I wrote another book coming out in about six weeks. It’s called Juries and Justice. I would say taking [courts] back from those who would seek to employ them for their own benefit. The courts belong to the people. We’ve got Citizens United, corporate speech, we’ve got lobbyists, we’ve got legal doctrines that deprive

juries of the right to decide cases. I think there’s a legitimacy crisis in the United States, which is why I’m so intrigued by the Occupy movement. It’s an awakening of people who say, ‘We want our country back. We want to occupy this space.’ I think we should ‘occupy’ courtrooms.

Historically, trials have been a place where the community can speak to power — ‘You can do this, you can’t do that in our name.’

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Why does the class of the Petit family matter?

In that case it did. Everybody in that courthouse, if you could get them to be candid with you — judges, almost every prosecutor — [would have admitted they were] somewhat disgusted by the special treatment the Petit family got. In no other homicide in Connecticut did we repaint a courtroom, dress it up and give a family its own staging area — and then insist on seeking the death penalty against two men who offered to plead guilty. I think the race and class of the victims in that case played a large role in it.

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You don’t think anyone else convicted of those crimes would have gotten the death penalty regardless of who the victims were?

I don’t. Dr. [William] Petit lobbied for death, and he got what he wanted.

But this notion of ‘badness’ — I’m not a moralist; I’m not a priest. I defend people against accusations brought by the state. And I do so with an easy and a clean conscience, because I think the state is a legal fiction. And the thing that scares me more than the miscellaneous crimes of individuals is the organized fury of people acting in the name of righteousness. Nothing scares me more than a self-righteous mob. And there was sure one howling for the blood of Komisarjevsky and Hayes.

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A Connecticut homebody gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take an amazing journey

By MICHAEL C. BINGHAM

Photographs: Christopher A. Monk 12

June/July 2012

\In 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the victory of the revolution here in Beijing. Exactly 40 years later the revolution was nearly rent asunder by student protestors in this same public space — Tiananmen Square.

W

hen our son Chris announced that he intended to spend his junior second semester abroad in China, we basically freaked.

cubes beneath a hand-written sign that says “Seek immediate medical attention.”

The sign is written in Mandarin. We’re not sure he can read it.

surface continuously. (Labor is a lot cheaper here than at home, and in this workers’ paradise there are of course no labor unions.)

Other college students spend their junior year abroad in places like London — or, if they’re really ambitious, Barcelona.

So we’d better go visit him, right? To make sure he’s okay. Right?

When we debark, we meet Chris in the airport for a joyous but hurried reunion before immediately boarding another plane for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to Beijing (who planned this itinerary?).

My wife has slept for most of the flight from Newark, and (as always) is fresh as a daisy. Having not slept even a wink, I am a zombie.

But China? Really?

To the 19-year-old mind, unclouded by any conception of mortality, the idea had a kind of internal coherence. His major is international business and finance, and it is fashionable to predict that China, the world’s most populous country, will soon dominate the global economy. Also, his minor is Chinese — so, like, duh.

But that’s not how parents think. Parents think in terms of, “If something terrible happens, how quickly can we get there to save him?” Chris attends college in Columbia, S.C., which is bad enough in terms of distance — a 90-minute flight to Charlotte, N.C. followed by a 90-minute drive. So, if something happened we could, realistically, be there in, say, five hours door-to-door.

China? Um, no. First of all, it takes about a month to get even a tourist visa to travel to China. Then there’s the little matter of a 15-hour flight. Then there’s the little matter of the expense involved in traveling so far. (A first-class seat on our flight from Newark to Shanghai cost $12,000. Needless to say, we did not fly first-class.)

The bottom line: If you live in Connecticut, and your kid is in Shanghai, and something unthinkable happens, you are powerless to intervene. Now, make that kid an only child, and multiply the anxiety by, like, 1,000.

The problem is, we have passed through and beyond the ability to make absolute demands on him. As an almost-adult, he has the final call on the major decisions about his life. We can reason, nag, argue, guilt, cajole, hector, what-have-you. But in the end he has to make his own decisions.

Thus far in his young life he has mostly made pretty good ones.

But still. China?

Y So. Now he’s in China, attending school in Shanghai for six months. Shanghai has three times the population of New York City. Chris is tall and smart and strong, but he’s in a dorm room all alone. His mother and I have visions of him being kidnapped and his body organs harvested.

He’ll wake up in a bathtub filled with ice

Right.

So now we have to confront reality. First, I am not a very good traveler. To be honest, I am not even a mediocre traveler. I am an exceedingly crappy traveler.

I don’t like flying. I can’t sleep on things (e.g., airplanes) that move. Show me the most luxe four-star hotel and I will immediately identify all its flaws. I assume all service personnel are out to cheat me.

On a more existential level, I inherently distrust people who are different from me.

Which includes most people.

I am not sure why I am this way. Part of it I can blame on being an owner of a small business and fearing that some unforeseeable catastrophe will befall the company if I go away for even a few days.

And I am pretty cheap, too — or so my family tells me.

They’re not lousy travelers. My wife travels all over the world for business (which makes sense, as she works in international executive relocation). Now, at age 20, Chris has already seen far more of the world than I expect to in the remainder of my days, having traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.

No, it’s really just me — a veritable bump on the log.

The idea that I would ever travel to China would have seemed ludicrous just a few short months ago. But now it’s about to become a reality.

Day One Because Shanghai is 12 hours ahead of New York, and on the other side of the international dateline, Day One and Day Two are in fact the same day. Our flight departs Newark on Friday morning and, after crossing the top of the world (Jimmy Cagney in White Heat: “Top of the world, Ma!”) arrives 15 hours later at Pu Dong Airport in Shanghai. The gleaming glass-and-steel terminal seems surprisingly empty of humans compared with bustling American airports. No one is loitering or out of place — the only visible figures are passengers waiting to board flights, uniformed airport security and customs officials and the omnipresent army of drones cleaning every visible

Moreover, my greatest fear is of the three domestic Chinese flights we will take over the next nine days. I am more than a little skeptical of air-safety standards in the People’s Republic. (I recall the words of the almost comically sinister German Major Strasser to Humphrey Bogart’s character in the movie Casablanca: “As you may have observed, Monsieur Blaine, in Casablanca life is cheap.”)

And sure enough, peering through the window of our boarding gate our China Airlines Airbus A-340 looks pretty shopworn. Maybe it just needs a new coat of paint. That the aircraft pulls back from the gate 45 minutes late without explanation is cause for additional anxiety.

That fear is misplaced; the flight is fine.

The most striking contrast between this flight and our United Airlines flight from the States is the flight attendants. The United ones were brusque and treated the passengers as a bother. Most were well into middle age (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) and all, um, body types were represented. Their uniforms were careless and in fact less than uniform (which may have had something to do with the recent Continental-United merger).

By contrast, their China Air counterparts appeared all to be about 21 years old, petite and trim, with matching uniform jackets, scarves and skirts (!), Western makeup and long hair pinned gracefully up off their necks. (I understand that this comparison may be variously characterized as sexist, ageist and racist.

Oh, well.) They were pleasant and efficient. I mull the fact that they earn probably about one-20th of their American peers.

Landing in Beijing we are greeted by “Johnny,” our guide for the next three days.

He is in his late 20s, wearing jeans and a Harley-Davidson jacket. We are driven to the Quianmen Jiangguo Opera Hotel,

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During the 3rd century BC China first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, commissioned the creation of an army of terra-cotta warriors to protect him in the hereafter. Discovered by accident in 1974, some 8,000 of the figures (no two of which are alike) have been discovered.

where we check in, find our room and fall into a deep and profound sleep.

Day Two Today we have scheduled the trifecta of Beijing tourist attractions: Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. The first thing we notice about Beijing in the light of day is the appearance of the people who live here.

There are no fat people. There are hardly any old people. I expected to see few females (due to China’s one-child policy, and the fact that most parents want a son who will take care of them in their old age, many Westerners are led to believe that newborn girls are drowned in the river like unwanted puppies), but here there are lots of females and they are dressed quite stylishly. I half-expected everyone to be dressed in olive-drab Red Guard tunic and trousers, but young women in Beijing are hard to distinguish from their Western counterparts. Most have long, straight hair (at least half of the young women we saw had their hair henna’d, if that is a word), and a popular look is skinny jeans on top of high heels or wedges. (A common and charming sight is young female friends walking arm-in-arm.)

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June/July 2012

First stop: Tiananmen Square, where in 1989 China’s nascent democracy movement was crushed beneath the treads of People’s Liberation Army tanks. A vast public square, Tiananmen Square is where Mao Zedong proclaimed the victory of the revolution on October 1, 1949. So it has been a tourist destination for more than six decades. Chinese citizens know that something bad took place there in 1989, but the story line is a little different — young Chinese are taught that pro-democracy demonstrators attacked innocent soldiers (which is a little like saying that Chuck Wepner assaulted Muhammad Ali’s fist with his face). “But no shots were fired!” says our guide Johnny, instinctively leaping to the regime’s defense.

A couple of days later, after Johnny has gotten to know us a little and let his guard down a little, he explains some things to us. To become a tour guide in China for foreigners, you must have a license. Licenses are granted by the government. To obtain a license, you need to go through some fairly comprehensive training, conducted by the government, and must then pass an examination. By the government.

The government inculcates certain narratives pertaining to specific tourist destinations. Perhaps no destination is more of a raw nerve for those in power in China than Tiananmen Square.

You have to understand, Johnny explains to us, what was happening in the rest of the world in 1989. The Berlin Wall had been toppled. The Soviet Union was crumbling and the Iron Curtain dissolving.

The Chinese regime’s response to the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square was the only reaction that was likely to stem the tide of revolution — brute, naked force. And it worked.

Day Three This morning we travel to the suburban Changping District of Beijing municipality to take in the Ming Dynasty tombs and the Underground Palace of Dingling, which houses the tombs of the Emperor Wanli and his two Empresses (good luck with having two Empresses, smart guy). But for the afternoon, we know that if we’re going to do the tourist thing, I guess we have to climb the Great Wall.

After a two-hour car ride, we arrive at the foot of one of the many mountains that the Great Wall traverses. Making the long uphill trek on foot to the wall itself, the first thing we see is a Subway sandwich shop (Eat Fresh on the Great Wall!), and many, many T-shirt vendors.

The most popular T-shirt we will see for sale through the People’s Republic is one portraying President Obama as Mao Zedong (make of that what you will).

Many others have slogans in a kind of fractured English (“You Know? Heart Is Opaque” says one, while another has a motorcycle with the legend “We Are the Velocity in This Town”).

America ought to see this and consider the sweat and blood that literally millions of Chinese laborers sacrificed to satisfy the appetites of a tiny few at the top of humankind’s longest-enduring monarchy.

safety records in the aviation industry.”

But at least the service is good: As the pre-recorded announcement welcomes boarding passengers, the flight attendants bow in unison.

But we have a plane to catch.

After the two-hour flight and 60-minute drive we arrive in the ancient capital of Xi’an, eastern terminus of the Silk Road.

Although Xi’an is in the geographic center of China, culturally this is the Wild West of China (the two Chinese characters making up its name mean “Western Peace”), much more isolated from the rest

Our flight from Beijing to Xi’an is on Shanghai Airlines. “This plane is old,” observes my world-traveler wife of the shopworn 737. Shanghai Air is a subsidiary of China Eastern Airlines, which my son informs us has “one of the worst

The Wall of course is amazing not only for its length, grandeur and the view from on top, but also for its sheer dangerousness. In many places the ancient steps have crumbled or are loose, and there are many, many place from which it would be easy to fall to one’s death. I ponder that in the United States no one would ever be allowed anywhere near this in its present condition for certainty of lawsuits. But there are no lawsuits in the People’s Republic.

To sum up, as one young Western woman observes as we pass her on the parapet, “Who needs the Stairmaster when you’ve got the Great Wall of China?”

Day Four For our last day in Beijing we have scheduled visits to the Summer Palace, a dragon boat excursion across Kunming Lake, a brief tour of a private home and a rickshaw ride (exposing us as the true white devils we are).

Today is a national holiday known as the Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day. (If there is a Western equivalent, it might be All Souls Day, November 1.) The roads are jammed, and so are tourist attractions such as the Summer Palace, created by the 12th-century emperor Wanyang Liang as a lakeside respite from the stifling midsummer heat of the Forbidden City in central Beijing.

As with virtually every site we have seen from imperial China, the grandeur (or ostentation if you prefer) of these structures and their furnishings make their closest American equivalents — the fin de siècle mansions of Newport’s Bellevue Avenue — appear pale and threadbare by comparison.

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It occurs to us that the “Occupy Wall Street” types who bemoan the concentration of wealth in 21st-century new haven

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of the world than the eastern the Rockies. Maybe more like Chinese cities with their West Virginia, with its narrow bustling ports and trading “hollers.” histories. On the drive from On the drive back to the the airport to the hotel our new city we spy the 200-mph tour guide, Ma Jun (he goes by bullet train racing across the “M.J.” — as in Michael Jordan, countryside perhaps a halfor perhaps Michael Jackson) mile distant. Our car is doing explains that Xi’an is a small probably 70 mph on the sixChinese city — “only” eight lane expressway, but the train million inhabitants. Same as flashes by us like a ghost.

New York City.

I wonder why, with an administration in Washington Day Five that so wants to remove gasoline-fueled vehicles from We are staying at the City Hotel Xi’an. You know you are roadways that it is happy to choke American consumers at in a high-class establishment the pump with European-level when a tent card in your guest gas prices, why don’t we have room notes: “It is forbidden mass transit like this? to take any act that against the law [sic] of prostitution, The answer, of course, is whoring, gambling and drug impossible to address apart taking in the room.” At the from the political dimension: breakfast buffet the English “True” high-speed rail (not to sign identifying what I guess be confused with Amtrak’s we would call pigs in a blanket Acela) can’t operate on the describe them toothsomely as Northeast’s century-old rail “Ham intestines is rolled up.” right-of-way (the Acela limps Boy, do I ever go for those. through Rhode Island at 45 The city center of Xi’an is completely enclosed by a 12-meter-high rectangular wall that extends eight miles. The capital of Shaanxi Province is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world — from any vantage point in the city you can look in no direction without seeing a skyline dominated by building cranes. And because the city is landlocked, there are no geographic barriers to its seemingly limitless sprawl.

But what we have come to Xi’an to see is outside the city center. The first of these is Huanshang Mountain, known for the spectacular views from its 8,000-foot North Peak.

Chris and Nancy take a highspeed cable car to the top, but height-fearing me decides to climb, navigating some scary cliffside trails marked by signs that say things like “Carefully Slipping.” The Chinese mountains we’ve seen appear different from their American counterparts, with smaller “footprints” but steeper and craggier than, say, 16

June/July 2012

mph). But we simply can’t afford to replace those rails or build new rail infrastructure because the costs of unionized labor put game-changing projects like these beyond our society’s economic reach.

China doesn’t have that problem.

Day Six This morning we troll through the Muslim Market, which teems with shops selling jewelry, clothing, knickknacks and street food vendors. As far as we can tell the street vendors are unlicensed and unregulated by the government. And virtually every retail transaction is the product of negotiation between buyer and seller. (As a result of this we learn something new about our son — that he is a ferocious bargainer who is willing to say pretty much anything to beat the vendor out of, say, the equivalent of three cents.) It strikes us that in America this sort of commerce would be licensed, regulated and choked out of

existence by “public health” officials. The irony here is that in the “planned economy” of the People’s Republic commerce — at least at the street level — is truly free.

After lunch we drive to satisfy the true purpose of our visit to Xi’an — to see the amazing Terra-Cotta Warriors. This is a vast collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. Their purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife from, I suppose, terracotta invaders.

The figures, dating from the 3rd century B.C., were discovered by accident in 1974 by farmers digging a well.

The figures vary in height according to their roles (amazingly, no two are alike), with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots and horses.

Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in three pits.

The mind awes at how many millions and millions of person-hours it would have taken to create this assemblage.

bells tolling 33 times at the end of a service, one for each year Christ was on earth. But here, where Christianity was energetically suppressed for decades, we haven’t even figured out yet where or even if we will attend Easter services two days hence.

This a.m. Chris insists that we leave the hotel no later than 6:30 to travel across the city to his dorm on the Yanchang campus of Shanghai University. For the first time I get to see where our child has been living for three months. His eight-by-ten single room is spartan and a little depressing, but the urban campus is more attractive than I would have imagined — quiet and tastefully landscaped. An oasis from the chaos and noise of one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse cities.

In contrast to the relative grimness of landlocked Beijing, Shanghai is colorful, cosmopolitan and gay (in the traditional sense). During the colonial era the French, English and Americans carved out “concessions” in Shanghai that were essentially sovereign mini-colonies with their own political administrations and even law enforcement.

After dinner we board a Shanghai Airlines flight to Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport, and then the one-hour drive to our four-star hotel. After settling into our room, a light fixture falls out of the ceiling.

But having survived three domestic Chinese flights in six days, we don’t care, and fall into a deep slumber.

We spend the afternoon strolling what is still called the French Concession with its chic boutiques and smart cafés.

Seventy years ago these streets would have been the exclusive playground of moneyed Westerners, the natives functioning as their servants.

In the new China it is no longer for Europeans, but it is once again for the moneyed.

Day Seven

For dinner we choose a German restaurant on the riverfront where we happily gorge ourselves on Western food — sausages, potatoes, bread and even cheese (a true rarity in China). Then a stroll along the riverfront and a ferry ride across the river to take in Shanghai in all her nighttime finery. Our host Chris has even arranged for a full moon

Today is Good Friday (I ponder that here, in godless “Red” China, this day is better known as simply “Friday”).

Ever since I was a child Good Friday was always special — whether I went to school or worked or didn’t even go to church, it has always had a solemn and otherworldly quality. Think of church

to rise behind the expansive city skyline as if to pen the exclamation point at the conclusion of a most perfect day.

down during the Cultural Revolution (when its signature twin red spires were destroyed — they were rebuilt in 1980 — and the church itself used as a grain warehouse) and its pipe organ stripped and destroyed (or “recycled”) as a counterrevolutionary tool of retrograde Christianity. But it’s only surmise.

Day Eight A mostly unproductive day of shopping for gifts (we have spent seven days procrastinating on this), riding the Shanghai Metro (which is so clean you could eat off the floor of the cars) and walking, walking, walking.

Near the People’s Park (a magnificent public space that replaced the iniquitous Shanghai racetrack following the revolution) is the stunning new Shanghai Art Museum, which houses one of the best and most comprehensive collections in all of Asia. We haven’t time to do the museum justice, but we spend 40 minutes in the museum gift shop looking for a gift for an upcoming family wedding (which we will, at virtually the last minute, find in, of all places, our hotel’s gift shop).

Late in the afternoon we repair to the hotel to rest our weary dogs and plot dinner. To my dismay Chris has turned on the television to watch Friday’s second-round coverage of the Master’s golf tournament and salve his ESPN withdrawal symptoms. (I was hoping to make it through the entire week without seeing a television — but oh, well.)

As fatigue overcomes us we give up searching for the perfect restaurant in favor of a sub-optimal repast at one of our hotel’s four restaurants. Then back to the room where I drift off to sleep while Nancy and Chris giggle while watching Hop, a TV movie about, of all things, the Easter bunny, complete with incongruous Mandarin subtitles.

Day Nine Easter Sunday — my last full day in China. I think it would

Following church we make our way to a vast indoor market for some last-minute souvenir shopping. My wife picks up some pen sets and clutch purses for gifts, while I buy “I [Heart] SH” T-shirts for Nancy and Chris. Chris also talks me into buying a pair of fake Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses for 35 kuai (bucks, about $6 U.S.).

When it was built during the first decade of the 20th century, Shanghai’s St. Ignatius Cathedral was hailed as the grandest cathedral in the Far East. During the Cultural Revolution Red Guards vandalized the sacred space, toppling its signature twin spires (they were rebuilt in 1980) and smashing its roughly 300 square meters of stained-glass windows.

be far-fetched to try to explain the concept of “Easter” to a Chinese with little or no knowledge of Christianity.

How, on top of that, would you weave in the part about the Easter bunny?

It certainly doesn’t feel like Easter. After breakfast we take a stroll through the neighborhood bustling with middle-class shops, stores, restaurants. As was true in the other cities we visited, the most interesting places are often hidden down narrow alleyways. One of those is an Italian restaurant with the same name as Chris’ favorite pizza joint in our hometown of Stratford — Bella Napoli.

At 11:30 we set out for the Metro station for the 30-minute subway ride to St. Ignatius Cathedral for the noon Easter service. (We’re not Roman Catholic, but we

failed to find any Anglican churches in Shanghai.)

The noon service is conducted in English. Apparently Chinese are allowed to attend Christian churches in these more open times — but not at the same service with Westerners. So at this service the only Chinese in attendance seems to be the priest conducting the service.

The 1200-plus-year-old church has seen better days (cracked plaster, etc.) but retains much of its early 20th-century grandeur (when it was built it was considered the most beautiful cathedral in what was then known as the Far East).

It is strange that this great house of worship has no pipe organ — just a not-very-intune piano that is hardly up to the task of filling this vast space with sound. I surmise that St. Ignatius was shut

In the crowded marketplace merchants will boldly confront or even chase after Western shoppers in the aisles (“You like iPod? You like shoes?”).

The shopper asks the price and the vendor invariably whips out a handheld calculator to type in a number to show you.

“Two hundred 20 for a T-shirt?” you ask in disbelief. “I want to pay…20.” “Oh — no, no, no,” the merchant says, giving you a look as if you just ran over his puppy with your car.

So you start to walk away and he chases you down the aisle: “Okay — eighty!”

Shopping like this is stressful.

But I guess you get used to it.

After our last dinner together (Chris is staying in Shanghai, while Nancy is going to Hong Kong for four days on business), we return to the hotel and crash in front of the TV. Easter’s just getting started back in Connecticut.

Tomorrow I’ll fly home alone, spending 15 hours not sleeping a wink. I’ll arrive in Newark at dinnertime on Monday, then drive home to Connecticut.

The next morning I’ll get in my car and go to work, as if nothing unusual had even happened.

Or would ever happen again. new haven

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This Place Has Gone to the Dogs Dog parks have become more popular for canines and their humans, but there are still just a handful

By Ashley Chin

W

alking along Chapel Street,

walking along Chapel Street, alking along Chapel Street the warmest months of the year are upon us. For canine owners and lovers, warmer weather means more and longer walks, and if you have a dog park in your neighborhood where Fido can run free, that means more exercise and mingling with other canines.

“It’s important because dogs are social animals just like people,” says Mark Winik, co-founder of Our Dog Park in Branford. “They play and get a sense of freedom.”

But there are plenty of controversial reasons why there are not as many dog parks as area dog owners might wish for.

In New Haven County there are only seven “official” dog parks.

Winik and his wife Norma decided to open a dog park just two minutes from their home after a tragic hit-and-run accident took the life of the couple’s previous dog. They got the idea during a vacation to Buenos Aires, Argentina where the Winiks saw something that amazed them. “There are dog walkers everywhere, and they have a lot of space, and there are dog parks,” recalls Winik.

The fenced-enclosed, no-leash dog park, located on Shore Drive in Branford, is a 18

June/July 2012

small piece of property about 60 by 180 feet adjacent to an adult day-care facility.

It has benches, dog bowls, and raised structures that dogs can play on and around. The fenced-in area is scattered with mulch because grass would not grow, which makes it is easier for dog owners to pick up after their pets.

Whether dog-owners use plastic bags or pooper-scoopers, unremoved dog feces is one of many common issues dog park operators have to worry about. “We did distribute bags for probably four years, and it got expensive for us,” says Winik.

There is now a supply of used plastic shopping bags hung on the fence for people to use, right next to a sign listing the rules of the park.

J. Amento. It was also constructed and started with money that the group raised by private fundraising.

Young began bringing his dog BonnyLee, whom he rescued from a shelter in Mississippi, to the dog park for years.

After visiting the park so frequently he decided to become more actively involved.

“The dog park has helped me save this dog’s life,” says Young, who thought he had adopted a beagle, but the animal in fact turned out to be a hound. “I don’t have the yard for her to run around in so I bring her to the park,” he adds.

Young says that sometimes owners unconsciously forget, or fail to notice that their dog has relieved itself and forget to clean up after their pets.

“We have two systems [of cleaning up doggy business]”, explains Lenny Young, vice president of the Hamden Dog Park at Bassett. “We reuse small plastic shopping bags, and we do have dog dispensary bags at the park.”

“We’re all human and sometimes we forget,” Young says. “People don’t have a problem walking up to people to tell them that their dog has used the bathroom. We all work together.”

Young helps manage the Hamden dog park that has been open to residents and their four-legged friends for ten years.

The park is owned by the town, as well as a part of the Hamden Community Playground Inc., and was built with the support and interest of then-Mayor Carl

Keeping the park clean is one thing, but how do neighbors feel about dog parks so close to their homes? As cute and loving as dogs may be, having multiple dogs together may produce barks bigger and louder than their bite. Depending on the

Y

prospective location, some dog parks fail to win approval because neighbors do not want the noise that comes with them.

“It’s such a nice location that there’s not that many neighbors. We spoke to the adult day care, they were fine with it,” explains Branford’s Winik. “Some neighbors did have issues, but that’s expected.”

The Hamden Dog Park, on the other hand, is bordered by Bassett Field and Bassett Country Club, and is a heavily wooded area away from houses. But even Veronica Soell, the founder of the park, had issues with neighbors in the area.

“We did have problems with some neighbors on the corner of Ridge [Road],” Soell recalls. “They did not have rational arguments for why they thought it would be too noisy.”

Another issue is one that almost always influences the use of fences. Every town has a leash law, because there is always the risk of an unleashed dogs getting loose and possibly attacking someone.

In open areas there is always the risk of dogs running away from their owner and possibly getting injured as well.

“We’ve seen dogs hop over a stone barrier and sometimes get hurt,” says Winik.

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are issues with overly aggressive dogs or over-the-line dog fights.

Dog parks can be a social place not only for dogs, but for their owners as well.

“People are very social, they enjoy it,” says Winik. But with both dogs and people in an enclosed area there is always the risk of dogs attacking humans. “The only thing that scares me is when small children are here,” says Vicki Seitz, president of the Hamden Dog Park.

Keeping dog parks clean and safe are small prices to pay when it comes to watching a pet enjoy him or herself with others of their own species. Dog parks can literally run themselves with the help of responsible owners, but the most gratifying part of dog parks are the bonds forged.

Tom McNeely of Hamden and his trusty Lab, Jake, play at the Hamden Dog Park.

Of course fencing in dogs of different breeds and sizes can sometimes lead to altercations. Young and his team have found a way to reduce ruff play.

“The main part of the park is 1.1 acre of land, and then we have a 0.1 acre for small dogs,” Young explains. Because the Hamden Dog Park is owned by the town, Animal Control has to be called if there

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June/July 2012

“I love how much it benefited people, not just dogs,” says Soell. “It was a public space,” Soell says. Y

What’s the Big Idea? ’Serious fun’ is the theme of the 2012 Arts & Ideas

By MICHAEL C. BINGHAM

I

f you think about it in a certain way, it’s something of a miracle that the International Festival of Arts & Ideas has lasted as long — it turns 17 this year — as it has.

Since 2008, the economy has been dreadful, and the state government on which Arts & Ideas depends for a hefty chunk of its funding is broke (two years ago the marketing budget for the

Office of Tourism was slashed to $1 — not a misprint — but still Arts & Ideas got money from Hartford).

Moreover, the two-week event, which takes place June 16-30 this year, has remained strangely under the radar for many residents of greater New Haven.

Last year festival Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie lamented that the event received more attention from national media such as National Geographic Traveler and the New York Times than it did from Connecticut largest newspaper and mostwatched television station, the Hartford Courant and WFSB-TV, r respectively.

T festival’s 2012 theme The i “Serious Fun.” That ties is in with Aleskie’s goal to maximize “inclusion,” as well as the desire to create an event “ “that is a lot more about how [audiences] engage and enjoy than it is about, ‘You sit still and you watch this thing,’” she says. “We’re trying to make the point that this is for everybody, and it’s really about being a part of this than being just a spectator.”

Under Aleskie’s seven-year tenure at the festival, “We have tried to do more and more theater,” she says, “although without subsidy from international governments, it is increasingly difficult to do.”

Aleskie, who assumed the reins for the 11th Arts & Ideas in 2006, says she’s already planning the 20th anniversary in 2015.

Which brings up an evolution in how Arts & Ideas is funded. Individual giving accounts for 35 to 40 percent of the $2.7 million

annual budget, while state government pays for about one-quarter. Ticket sales, and corporate sponsorships (some cash, some in-kind) are likewise key sources of revenue.

Recently, the festival and its audiences have benefited from a fifth source of funding. “Increasingly, our international work is made possible through substantive relationships with ministries of culture all around the world,” explains Aleskie.

In such cases host government help to underwrite the cost of international tours by performing-arts groups. “That continues to grow,” she adds.

Examples at this year’s Arts & Ideas include a one-of-a-kind production of Shakespeare’s King Lear by Taiwan’s Contemporary Legend Theater that employs techniques of Peking Opera (the performance is in Mandarin with English supertitles), and the National Theatre of Scotland’s whimsical production of The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, which will be staged inside the Wicked Wolf Tavern on Temple Street.

The balance between and among the various performance disciplines has evolved over Aleskie’s tenure. “When I first got here we did a lot of music,” she says. “Music is quick and it’s less expensive [than theater] because there aren’t productions and sets. “ But that has changed.

Also, “We definitely have embraced dance and dance theater in a way that’s furthered the art form and the audience for it in our community,” Aleskie says. Headline 2012’s dance lineup are Kyle Abraham and his seven-member Abraham.In.Motion ensemble performing The Radio Show, the Continued on 25

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Wu Hsing-Kuo, director of Taiwan’s Contemporary Legend Theater, has created a tour-de-force solo performance that fuses time-honored Peking Opera techniques with the Bard’s classic tale of power and deception in his reinterpretation of King Lear.

ALL NEW HAVEN’S A STAGE Selected Events: Arts & Ideas Music Scott Wakefield. Spanning the spectrum of human emotion and societal observations, singer-songwriter Scott Wakefield presents musical tales of humor and heartbreak, from the sly to satiric.

Wakefield has traveled the nation for almost two decades, touching audiences with his song stylings. Noon June 21 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Imilonji Kantu Choral Society. The work of this South African choral ensemble reflects a motif to fight against apartheid through its traditional to contemporary African classical music. The group has performed across the globe, notably including an appearance at the presidential inauguration of Nelson Mandela. 5 p.m.

June 21 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St. $45-$35.

Brother Joscephus & the Love Revival Revolution Orchestra. Blending New Orleans party music with upbeat gospel (largely minus the religious overtones), this 12-piece “explosion of sound” blends soul in the style of Ray Charles and Al Green with touches of jambandy roots rock. 6 p.m. June 21 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

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June/July 2012

Mark Morris Dance Group. Renowned for its inventive and witty dances infused with verve and humor, choreographer Mark Morris’ ensemble offers a sublime display of sound and movement. Performers include an orchestra including members of the Yale Collegium Players and chorus from the Yale Choral Artists. 8 p.m. June 2122 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St. $50-$20.

Ilusha Tsinadze. Mountain songs and village dances from Georgia feature fiddle solos, jazz improvisation and African and Brazilian percussion. Guitarist/vocalist Illusha Tsinadze and his band recently released a new CD, Mother Tongue, melding the music of his native Georgia with the global city, creating a new and distinctive sound. Noon June 22 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Jonny Rodgers. Using tuned wine glasses, electronics and guitars Rodgers — co-founder with brother Steve of the legendary Elm City rock band the Mighty Purple — incorporates classical and new music vocabulary from across the world to craft quirky but beautiful songs. 6 p.m.

June 22 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green.

Free.

Cambridge University Consort of Voices.

Cambridge University’s most talented singers will perform music not typically

associated with its world-renowned chapel choirs, including works with orchestral accompaniment and secular repertoire geared to prepare singers to develop as soloists or sing in small groups. 8 p.m. June 22 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St. $45$35.

Yale Alumni Chorus with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and Russell Thomas, tenor perform Giuseppe Verdi’s transcendent Hymn of the Nations. 6 p.m.

June 23 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St. Free.

Carolina Chocolate Drops. The Grammynominated black string band offers a modern take on the traditional jug-band/ strong-band oeuvre. According to Rolling Stone, the three-member group revisits the jug-band music of the ‘20s and ‘30s with a joyful vengeance. 7 p.m. June 23 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Red Baraat & Noori. Two bands will bring two very different styles of music in this double-bill concert of cross-cultural song. Red Baraat’s nine-piece ensemble incorporates North Indian rhythms into go-go, funk, Latin and jazz to create an energetic sound and act. From Pakistan, the Sufi-rock band Noori has been fueling the 21st-century Pakistan pop revolution with its lively, rocking performances. 7

p.m. June 24 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Jennifer Hines and Tonna Miller: Can You Handel It? Melding opera and musical theater, contralto Jennifer Hines and soprano Tonna Miller will both pop hits and classical treasures. Noon June 26 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Annalivia. Rooted in tradition but brimming with musical innovation and new energy, Old and New World acoustic sounds collide to create an interactive performance as the five members demonstrate their virtuosity on guitars, violin and cello. The group’s musical vocabulary incorporates bluegrass, Celtic, Norwegian and oldtime. In their first festival appearance, the ensemble will present a family-oriented performance including demonstrations and participatory activities for children. 1:15 & 5 p.m. June 26 at Family Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Hector Del Curto Tango Quintet. Del Curto has worked with Arthur Piazzolla and Osvaldo Pugliese to bring new life to the Argentine tango, sensual music dating from the 19th century Buenos Aires. The music is at once driving, nostalgic and hypnotic. 8 p.m. June 26 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St. $45-$35.

Old Town Gospel Choir. From Sweden, this 23-member choral ensemble will perform a unique mixture of traditional Swedish songs and gospel with American gospel music as well as new music composed by Lennart Johansson and his son, Samuel. Noon June 27 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Inca Son. The ethereal sound of panpipes charaterizes this Peruvian Andean group’s music, which ranges from happy to haunting, lively to plaintive. Performance will feature Peruvian Scissor dancers to accompany the wind-like sound the pan flautists create. 6 p.m. June 28 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Yuval Ron Ensemble. Arabic, Jewish and Christian artists unite to connect the musical pasts of Judaism, Sufism and the Christian Armenian Church, ranging from Sufi origin of Turkey and Jewish prayers from Yemen, Israel and Morocco to

Armenian chants. The show will include colorful dancers to stimulate audience members’ visual senses, too. 8 p.m. June 28 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St. $45-$35.

Seeker of Truth: The Yuval Ron Ensemble.

Performing music from Middle Eastern and Pakistan tradition, this performance of the Yuval Ron Ensemble (see previous listing) will feature Arabic singer Najwa Gibran as well as master qawwaii singer Sukhawat Ali Khan from Pakistan. The sacred melodies of Judaism, Sufism and the Armenian Church are infused into

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The Appledaughters. Majestic and melodious songs accompany clogging (!) to present lively harmony and strong dance performances showcasing this fourmember post-punk/post-folk/pre-space ensemble. 6 p.m. June 27 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Ben Allison Band with Robert Pinsky.

This performance combines the sharp and elegant poetry of Robert Pinsky with multi-music-inspired jazz of bassist Ben Allison in a mélange of folk, classical, rock and world music sounds. 8 p.m. June 27 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St. $45-$35.

Hiroya Tsukamoto. Cutting his teeth on five-string banjo at age 13 before graduating to the guitar, Hiroya Tsukamoto became an accomplished composer, guitarist and vocalist after studies at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. His music is described as earthy and organic, incorporating diverse genres of music. Noon June 28 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

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a soulful song. Noon June 29 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

DangerZone. The eight-member alternative R&B band will perform with a special guest: New Haven Idol contest winner Donijah Collier of Co-op Arts & Humanities High School. 6 p.m. June 29 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free. love fail. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang directs this story of two lovers who meet, come together and lose each other — but it doesn’t necessarily end there. Sung by the unearthly voices of the legendary vocal ensemble Anonymous 4, weaving together tales of medieval country love narratives with scraps from the libretto of Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. Presented in association with the Yale Repertory Theatre. 8 p.m. June 29, 4 p.m.

June 30 at Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St. $45-$35.

Rosanne Cash: The List. Earthy countryrock icon Rosanne Cash will show off her gritty, powerful and intimate sound from her latest album The List, which blurs the boundaries of pop, country, rock and roots music. The new album includes tunes mad famous by Cash’s father, country Johnny Cash, and represents a list of 100 essential country songs her father instructed her to learn. 7 p.m. June 30 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Theater Yale Institute for Music Theater.

Composers and playwrights are presented with the chance to develop and expose their work in a lab setting with professional actors, directors and singers providing guidance and artistic support.

Music and theater fans will receive a twohour “behind-the-scenes glimpse” of new music theater creation. 1 & 5 p.m. June 16-17 at Off Broadway Theater, 41 Broadway. $20.

National Theatre of Scotland perform The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart.

Created by David Grieg and directed by Wils Wilson, this interactive production, staged at a bar, is a story about a bookish academic who finds herself trapped in an isolated bar surrounded by strangers. She is taken on a journey of self-discovery and dream-like enchantment with tempting encounters and crazy karaoke. (Attendees have a $15 food-and-beverage minimum, and doors open 90 minutes before each performance.) 7 p.m. June 20-23, 26-30; 1 p.m.

June 23-24, 27 & 30 at Wicked Wolf Tavern, 144 Temple St. $45-$35.

Circa. This Australian circus arts troupe will wow audiences with thrilling

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acrobatics, vibrant dance and engaging theatrics in this moving story showing “human cooperation and frailty emerging” (Guardian, UK). 8 p.m. June 26-30, 2 p.m. June 30 at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, 177 College St. $45-$35.

Contemporary Legend Theater’s production of King Lear. Fusing Peking Opera techniques with Shakespeare’s classic tale of power and deception comes a much-praised adaptation of Eastern and Western theater, tapping into one of Shakespeare’s most memorable tragedies as director of Taiwan’s Contemporary Legend Theater and Asian film star Wu Hsing-Kuo plays all the characters in this tale about an aging king who divides his kingdom among his daughters and experiences disillusionment when their true natures surface. Wu will be accompanied by traditional Chinese musicians. 8 p.m. June 28-29 at University Theatre, 222 York St. $45-$35.

Dance The Radio Show. Dancer/choreographer Kyle Abraham and his seven-member company Abraham.in.Motion perform with an engaging style that combines ballet and hip-hop and demonstrates discovery of personal identity, cultural history and the core of the urban neighborhood that influenced Abraham after a Pittsburgh radio station closed and his community lost its musical voice. The act mixes soul and hip-hop with contemporary classical works by Ryoji ikeda and Alva Noto. 8 p.m.

June 19-22, 4 p.m. June 23 at Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St. $45-$35.

Adele Myers & Dancers and Elm City Dance Collective. Short works and extracts will be presented by two dance companies combining forces to create a world of dance and energy. Adele Myers & Dancers combine contemporary dance with humor, athleticism and theatrics to offer humanist-driven work. New Haven’s Elm City Dance Collective values collaboration and experimentation in its approach to creation, education and performance, challenging conventional conceptions of movement. Noon June 20 at Elm Street Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Mark Morris Dance Group. Renowned for its inventive and witty dances infused with verve and humor, choreographer Mark Morris’ ensemble offers a sublime display of sound and movement. Performers include an orchestra including members of the Yale Collegium Players and chorus from the Yale Choral Artists. 8 p.m. June 2122 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St. $50-$20.

Dance China NY: China Patterns.

Performed in traditional Chinese costumes, this dance program, distinguished as the resident company of the New York Chinese Cultural Center, teaches students about Chinese culture through history, language, demonstrations and audience interaction. 1:15 p.m. June 27 at Family Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Circa. This Australian circus arts troupe will wow audiences with thrilling acrobatics, vibrant dance and engaging theatrics in this moving story showing “human cooperation and frailty emerging” (Guardian, UK). 8 p.m. June 26-30, 2 p.m. June 30 at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, 177 College St. $45-$35.

Family Events Hip Hop Dimensions: Dance & History.

The history of hip-hop will be explored through a lively performance of hiphop and breakdancing as new ways of imagining motion and dance are discovered through this exciting performance. 1:15 p.m.

June 21 at Family Stage, New Haven Green.

Free.

Artfarm’s Circus for a Fragile Planet: Submerged! Illustrating the threats that Earth’s waters face as well as discussing issues pertaining to the Connecticut River watershed and Long Island Sound, this five-person circus group offers both information and amusement as they teach audiences about Earth’s endangered hydrosphere, how all are impacted and how audience members can help. 1:15 p.m. June 22 at Family Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Group Intelligence. Initiating a flash mob-inspired performance that melds science and art, this activity engages audiences through the use of MP3 players to experiment with different soundtracks of music and narration for guided actions.

Participants create and witness images of world creation and life beginning as they become performers while simulating the emergence of life. 1 p.m. June 23, 2 p.m. June 24 at New Haven Green. Free.

Theatre Moves Rajeckas and Intraub: Imagination in Motion. Drawing on diverse styles of theatrical expression including modern dance, mime and vaudeville, combined with audience participation, dialogue and soundtrack in a theatrical performance to engage people of all ages. 1:15 p.m. June 28 at Family Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Les Julian: We All Laugh in the Same Language. Award-winning songwriter and performer Julian inspires multiculturalism

and empathy through this engaging children’s show as he triggers thought, emotion and participation in his fun, hourlong musical and theatrical performance.

1:15 p.m. June 29 at Family Stage, New Haven Green. Free.

Ideas: Panels/Discussions Tamar Gendler: Five Ancient Secrets to Modern Happiness and the Good Life. Exploring 2,500 years of thought and sharing perspective on Greek and Roman philosophers in addition to contemporary findings from neuroscience and psychology, approaches to happiness are presented as Yale philosophy and cognitive science professor Tamar Gendler examines how one can make life more fulfilling. 3 p.m. June 17 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. Free.

Brenda Dixon Gottschild: AfricanAmerican Dance and the Measure of Culture. Dance writer and scholar Gottschild leads a discussion analyzing the impacts of black dance in America through consideration of history, image and performance. 5:30 p.m. June 19 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. Free.

Graham Sheffield, CBE: From Soft Power to Global Connectivity: The International Birds-Eye View of Arts & Culture. Graham Sheffield tells tales and offers insights on ever-moving art and culture to conceptually bring the local and the global together. International points of view are examined alongside national discussion of cultural place-making value.

5:30 p.m. June 20 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. Free.

world are shared in a discussion by scientists David Lynn and Martha Grover from NSF/NASA Center for Chemical Evolution, examining genome sequencing and recent molecular revelations as means of impact on the connection between intelligence behavior, selection and physical change, considering the birth of living systems, planets and solar systems.

5:30 p.m. June 21 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. Free.

Sing the Truth!: Reflections on Justice and Freedom’s Journey with Rev. Bernard Lafayette. The civil rights journey in Connecticut is revisited in this session as civil rights activist Lafayette gives a keynote address to share his Freedom Rides experience with Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first AfricanAmerican woman to argue before the Supreme Court and the first to become a federal court judge. 3 p.m. June 23 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. Free.

Sing the Truth!: Reflections on Art and Freedom’s Journey with Winfred Rembert. New Haven artist Rembert discusses his journey from 1960s Georgia to his Newhallville studio and his self-taught artistry and themes he has compiled in handtooled leather. The connections between the civil rights era and the present are revealed through examination of Rembert’s cultural contexts in his art. Moderated by Jock Reynolds, director of the Yale University Art Gallery, the discussion will precede a documentary screening of Rembert’s life. 3 p.m. June 24 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. Free.

Scientific Insights into Cooperation and Evolution. Facts about the natural

Music of the People: Artists Talk about Music Inspiring Change. Cultural critic Siddhartha Mitter with sociologist

Big Idea

School of Music and Yale Alumni Chorus Foundation.

Continued from 21

Mark Morris Dance Group performing original choreography to music of Haydn, J.S. Bach and Vivaldi performed live

by Yale Choral Artists and the Yale Collegium Players.

Which segues neatly into one performance medium largely absent from past festivals but assuming centerstage at this year’s event — choral music, most notably represented by the Yale International Choral Festival, which brings choirs from Indonesia, China, South Africa and the UK to perform as part of Arts & Ideas. The first-time event is a collaboration of the Yale Glee Club, Yale

Another entertainment offering that may surprise (and delight) festival-goers in 2012. Explains Aleskie: “This year we’re trying very hard to create the atmosphere of street animation that people loved about the festival in its earliest years.

We’re doing that with [Australian theater company] ERTH’s Dinosaur Petting Zoo, and the Asphalt Orchestra,” a oneof-a-kind street orchestra renowned for creating “flash” performances.

Every edition of Arts & Ideas is a different animal from every other. The theme and character of any particular year’s festival is driven in part by what performers are actively performing in any

and scholar of social politics Sujatha Fernandes join band artists noori and Red Baraat along with the Asphalt Orchestra to discuss music as a means for transformation in this age’s ever-changing world. 5:30 p.m. June 26 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St.. Free.

Slate’s Political Gabfest. Slate magazine editors Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson and David Plotz will deliver their weekly political podcast recorded live at the festival, discussing the approaching November elections and other pressing political issues of the day. A Q&A will follow the session. 5:30 p.m. June 27 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. Free.

Ha Jin and David Henry Hwang: The U.S.-China Literary Landscape. The juncture between Chinese cultural perspectives and modern writing are studied as National Book Award-winning poetry and fiction author Ha Jin and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang read from their recent work. 5:30 p.m. June 28 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. Free.

Dr. Daphne Miller: The Wisdom and Science of Traditional Foods. Insights on healthy eating are presented as author Daphne Miller, MD, discusses the relation between food, culture and the environment as she walks audiences through different food cultures around the globe that do not cause chronic diseases. 3 p.m. June 30 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. Free.

— Jessica Giannone

particular June (which is really before the summer arts festival season begins in earnest in July), and of course what funding sources are available to pay for particular productions.

It’s a delicate, ever-shifting juggling act — and one with a surprisingly long time horizon.

“Planning is concurrent for multiple [future] festivals at the same time,” Aleskie explains, taking into account factors such as performers schedules, when international acts might be touring the U.S., etc. “We are constantly in motion planning [future] festivals,” she adds. Indeed, planning has already begun for the 20th anniversary festival, which will take place in June 2015. new haven

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Power House A power couple create a perfect place for family

By Duo Dickinson

By DUO DICKINSON

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AT H O M E

I

t is said that an attorney who represents himself in a court of law “has a fool for a client.” However, for designers in almost any discipline — whether architect, interior, landscape or fine arts — the end user often designs for him/herself.

So when Roz Cama and Ron Mazzacane decided to build a house together some ten years ago, the potential downsides were evident. Both Cama and Mazzacane are forces in their respective professions. Onetime pharmacist Mazzacane works at Coldwell Banker Coast & Country in Guilford, where he is one of the area’s most prominent and successful residential real-estate agents.

Cama has helmed her own award-winning interior design firm, CAMA Inc. in New Haven, for decades. So when it came time to create their own nest, there was a substantial knowledge base from which to draw.

Their initial desire to build a home sprang from the availability of an extraordinary piece of property — the last parcel sold from an estate known as Oakledge, created in 1897 by the Wilcox family, which in turn over time intermarried with the Pignatelli family.

This Madison property is south of the Boston Post Road, just north of the Madison Beach Club. The connection between Mazzacane and Cama and the property’s owner, Marielena Pignatelli, began in 1995 when the former’s passion for sailing Hobie catamarans caught the eye of Pignatelli. Following a bit of friendly negotiation, this last buildable lot of the much larger original Oakledge was set aside for a new interpretation of a family home.

As Cama recalls: “First, of course, as an interior designer, I programmed the scope of the house from its inside out to meet our personal needs. We have a close family who likes to gather at our house. We like our quiet moments alone and wanted sweeping, long views of nature.”

PHOTOGRAPHS: ANTHONY DeCARLO

What resulted was a house that is intricately intertwined internally without any sense of fussiness or complexity. The home has a natural sense of openness and flow that happens only when a confident hand knows how to make the visual new haven

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background “noise” disappear, while at the same time provide enough detail, finish and surprise that this open interior never ceases to move the visitor through it.

The exterior design of the house could be described as Shingle style and its soft lines, expressive trim and natural materials make it a new house whose evident age is nevertheless quite ambiguous. “My favorite compliment is when someone walks in and asks when did we renovate the house,” Cama says.

Ron Mazzacane and Roz Cama surrounded by their home. Two people steeped in the world of buildings make their own space in Madison

Because of Cama’s and Mazzacane’s familiarity with construction and related fields, they were able to assemble a list of subcontractors with whom the couple would work directly. Having assumed the role of designer and general contractor, Cama sallied forth into a multi-year collaboration that yielded terrific results.

Design began in 2001 and the house was completed two years later. But the house has been continually “tweaked”

by Cama ever since then, so the structure retains a fresh feel despite being occupied for nearly a decade. This hands-on process created a place for the couple that clearly “beat the market” in terms of value.

Cama and Mazzacane were savvy enough to hire John Harrington as a construction manager, but Russell Lanziero of Lanziero Restorations in Old Saybrook implemented Cama’s extraordinary interior designs and detailing with the highest level of artistry.

Lanziero became the real-life equivalent of Murphy Brown’s Eldin the painter who “showed up every day for the first three years of occupancy to detail a dream come true,” Cama recalls. “He still calls when I need him to execute yet another incredible detail — or just for dinner.”

Master suite. A fully open and flowing ensemble of spaces, the sanctum sanctorum of the couple allows for multiple points of use and focus, including a host of closets and exercise space behind the bed (note the fully present tub, left background).

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The front façade sits back from the street, not far from the shore. This home presents a centered asymmetry that makes the entry both inevitable and delightful.

Gedney Kitchens provided the kitchen and Swansea’s Brian Catabia provided customcrafted cabinets — all designed

by Cama, naturally.

Shavaun Towers of Towers Golde Landscape Architects in New Haven created the landscape design, and Nancy DeBrule of Natureworks in North Branford worked with Cama to create a final planting scheme. Stonemason Dave Barbinek created the sinuous landscape walls that envelope the home, including restoring the original stone wall and pillars that were part of the Oakledge estate.

Y But this was not just a family home for family and relatives to enjoy; it was actually two homes, as Cama knew that her mother, Angie Cama, would eventually be moving in with them. Thus the interior of the home was planned from the outset to have several truly discrete, but yet effortlessly interconnected, uses.

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First of these interconnected ensembles is the open family room/kitchen/dining room that flows effortlessly from the entryway. But tucked into the other side of the front door away from view (unless you know it’s there) is a mahogany-dominated study that Cama designed for Mazzacane to satisfy his one and only request — for an office that he could retreat to even in the midst of many social gatherings.

The second self-contained series of spaces is the couple’s master suite, an open, flowing space including a sleeping porch that eventually morphed into a three-season room, as well as a tub that is fully present in the overall space of the sleeping area. Generous closets accommodate every possible need for sartorial organization and a large bed is fully engaged in an open windowscape that looks north to avoid an unwanted, rude awakening in the morning. There’s even new haven

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an area dedicated to exercising in this multi-functional living accommodation.

The next ensemble of spaces are Cama’s mother’s “home” that includes her own living, sleeping and bathing spaces, completely separate from the flow of the home.

The combination of private places (Ron’s office, the master suite and Mom’s de facto apartment) are completely out of the flow of the public areas. Connecting these discrete interiors is a dramatic stair and second floor work space, a sequence that lives up to the level of detailing that surrounds it.

Given the quality of detail and careful coincidence with an existing site, the home exudes an affect of quiet repose that is uncommon for a building that has as many different interior functional requirements.

Stairway. Employing extraordinary light fixtures, paneling that accentuates the ascendant stepping and the sort of custom-crafted touches that are ever-present in this evolving home, this one threedimensional ‘binder’ for the variety of interweaving spaces has light at both ends and delight in its sequence.

Bedroom interior: the use of ingenious built-ins allows this bed not only to have a full focus to the outdoors, but also provides access to closets and bath (right).

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June/July 2012

Ultimately the home evidences the best aspects of what Cama calls “a busman’s holiday — it was excruciating fun, next to writing a book” (which she, as one might expect, has indeed done). “The hardest job is designing for yourself considering more than every detail

and resource and being sure to please your most important client — your family!”

Clearly, for professionals who dedicate their lives to the level of service that both Mazzacane and Cama have accomplished in their extraordinarily successful careers, there are professional accolades aplenty. (Cama just earned the highest award that the American Society of Interior Designers bestows nationally, the “The Designer of Distinction Award,” for 2012.) But more importantly, when people mature to the point that they know themselves well enough that they can edit and focus their own desires in built form, the result truly reflects decades of realworld experience.

Cama’s and Mazzacane’s home is a place of never-ending activity, but it’s also an escape for two frenetically paced lives. And that’s pretty nice description of any successful home.

Kitchen, living and dining — By varying ceiling heights and co-coordinating wood, trim and appurtenances, a potentially chaotic flow of different spaces feels both coherent and intimate under the careful hand of Cama’s experience as one of the nation’s premier interior designers.

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A ‘Mame’ Too Tame

Eli Baker as Patrick and Louise Pitre as the title character in Goodspeed Musicals’ Mame.

Goodspeed musical oddly out of character Mame, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.

Book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. Directed by Ray Roderick. Through July 7 at Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.

By BROOKS APPELBAUM

G

oodspeed Musicals is promoting its production of Mame as “a musical sensation!” Certainly, the music and lyrics of Jerry Herman are sensationally charming. But the word “sensation” also ironically captures director Ray Roderick’s skewed vision of this show. In Roderick’s “Director’s Vision,” he uses similar language: “thrilling,” “lavish,” “bold,” “opulence,” “bigger than life.” All of these words apply, of course, to the eccentric and wacky Auntie Mame, who believes with all her big, bold heart that “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!” But at the center of the show lies Mame’s love for her nephew, Patrick, and her fierce determination to show Patrick a joyous life, no matter what kind of dark reality might surround them.

The catalyst of the story, which spans the roaring ‘20s to the 1940s, is the death of Patrick’s father when Patrick is a young child. Acting on the father’s wishes, he and his nanny, Agnes Gooch (a marvelous Kirsten Wyatt) travel to New York to find Auntie Mame, who will raise Patrick.

The first odd note is struck here when Eli Baker, as Patrick, shows no sign of either sorrow or fear: Sadly, this child actor has been directed to “act” with a frozen smile. Absent a Patrick the audience can empathize with and love as Mame loves him on sight, much of the point of the story is lost before it has even begun.

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The actress playing Mame, of course, can do a lot to save such a situation. Mame doesn’t love Patrick simply because he is adorable. She needs someone to love (her need for a “project” is mentioned repeatedly in the script). If our Mame immediately makes this clear, we’ll focus not only on the marvelous, madcap adventures she devises for him, but

more poignantly on the deep bond that quickly develops between nephew and aunt. Jerry Herman’s songs — “Open a New Window,” “If He Walked into My Life” and especially “My Best Girl,” which is sung twice — illustrate this bond beautifully. And Mame’s eccentric, buoyant, one-of-a-kind personality is clear in such terrific numbers as “It’s Today,”

“We Need a Little Christmas” and “That’s How Young I Feel.”

Unfortunately, Louise Pitre as Mame has been directed to be breezy, matterof-fact and evincing no trace of need or vulnerability. She has a lovely voice, but it is conventionally lovely, while Mame should sing like no one else, since everything she does is unusual.

Pitre’s physical presentation likewise works against the show, which is never the actress’ fault. When Patrick first lays eyes on Auntie Mame in her lavish home, hosting a huge party centered on “bathtub gin,” his jaw should drop in astonishment — and so should ours.

Instead, Pitre arrives in a glittering white pantsuit that would not be out of place at a 2012 Goodspeed opening night, and her hair — a pretty natural silver — is given a contemporary cut that does the opposite of taking us into the 1920s, much less into the unique style of a unique personality.

Roderick indeed seems to have envisioned his production of Mame inside-out, with Pitre calm and collected amid a collection of clowns. As written, the show sets wildly unpredictable and fun-loving Auntie Mame against a restrictive, money-grubbing, social-climbing world. The entire plot rests on whether

straitlaced institutions, values and people (represented, most powerfully, by Mr. Babcock, well played by Paul Carlin) will win Patrick, in adulthood, or whether Patrick will ultimately choose to carry Auntie Mame’s torch of joy. Mame, then, must glow and glitter against a backdrop of conventionality.

What Roderick offers us instead is a Mame who comes across as warm and kind, but not particularly eccentric, while most of the other characters are hugely larger-than-life, to the point of vulgarity in certain scenes. Patrick’s college sweetheart, for example, who is from “a very restrictive” part of Connecticut, as well as her mother and father are certainly horrifying to Mame as potential family members, but the audience should experience them as authentic and therefore all the more horrifying. In Roderick’s production, these characters have been guided toward huge exaggeration, so there is no suspense, for one thing, and for another, Mame seems sane and — dare I say it — fairly conventional herself in comparison.

Sadly, some of the cast members who capture their roles as the script intends have the least stage time. The handsome and charming James Lloyd Reynolds,

Decisions Decisions I

who was so eloquent and touching in Goodspeed’s 42nd Street, plays Beau, and I wanted him to move center-stage and stay there all evening. Kirsten Wyatt as Agnes makes her quirky comedy feel truthful, and she has a marvelous voice. Charles Hagerty is a lovely older Patrick, and he too sings beautifully. Mame’s loyal butler Ito is played with grace by James Seol.

As Mame’s crony Vera, Judy Blazer comes closest to bringing Mame’s wild world to life. Blazer’s Vera is a true diva with a truly believable drinking problem. Blazer is charismatic in her state of perpetual mess. The most enjoyable number of the evening is her duet with Pitre, “Bosom Buddies”: Here, both women seem to be having effortless fun.

As usual with Goodspeed productions, the ensemble of singers and dancers are a wonder, projecting unstoppable energy and enthusiasm as they move with amazing skill. They are a hard act to top, but Mame herself must top them in order for the show to be truly sensational. Louise Pitre might have been an eccentric and electric sensation; but in this production, for whatever the reason, her director failed to open the right windows.

We’re Gonna Make Your Day...

must admit making the decision to leave my lovely home and move to Tower One was a big one. There were many hours of thought and discussions with my family. After visiting my new home we all came to the conclusion, that it was the “right move— to the right place—at the right time.”

It has turned out to be one of the wisest decisions I have ever made. Tower One has served as an excellent supportive, warm and gracious environment.

Sometimes I just don’t know where the time goes during the day. Between the activities and life enriching programs one can attend I find myself with a full schedule. Life is good.

Ruth Blum Resident Tower One/Tower East

Tower One / Tower East 18 Tower Lane • New Haven, CT 06519 203.772.1816 www.towerone.org A distinctive non-profit apartment and assisted living retirement community Fostering Independence and Community It’s all Right Here

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October 2010

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Food Fright Peabody exhibition shows why what we eat may be killing us Big Food: Health, Culture & the Evolution of Eating. Through December 2 at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. 203-432-5050, peabody.yale.edu.

By ASHLEY CHIN

F

or a growing number of Americans, the old saw, “You are what you eat” has become more literally true than ever before. The exhibition Big Food: Health, Culture & The Evolution of Eating at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History shows visitors the breakdown of what and how much food Americans

consume on a regular basis, as well as why obesity rates continues to tip the scales.

This exhibit is one of just a handful related to human health that the museum has ever organized. The exhibition has been curated by Jeannette Ickovics, a Yale professor and director at the Yale School of Public Health. “Food is what brings us together,” says Ickovics.

Ickovics worked with a number of organizations to research and stage the exhibition. The very first thing visitors see when entering the exhibition area are two large glass windows that show the quantity of different foods that the average American consumes each year, using real products or containers (and some facsimiles).

“I’ve been in public health for 20 years, so there wasn’t that much that was shocking for me, but the excess 42 gallons of soda and 22 gallons of milk, are on average what people drink a year,” Ickovics says.

Humans of course need food to survive, but according to ongoing research obesity rates have continued to increase each year throughout the U.S. for both children

and adults, and have become one of the nation’s biggest public-health challenges.

“Fifty percent of adults and 15 percent of children are obese, or overweight,” says Ickovics. “There is not a state in the U.S. that does not have [at least] one in five adults who are obese.”

Food is closely linked to culture, and the way in which it is prepared has evolved.

There is a display in the exhibit that shows real=life spears as well as clubs and baskets that hunter-gatherers used to capture and kill their meals. Processed foods have taken the place of recently killed and fresh game, not to mention frozen meals.

The most nutritious foods are not always the best-tasting, and many “bad” foods can taste delicious, and thus sometimes be used for “comfort.” The approach of simply suggesting someone eat healthier is not always effective.

Fatty foods can clog arteries throughout the body, as well as interfere with or degrade other functions of the liver, heart, etc. One of Big Food’s most dramatic is

Photograph: Lisa Wilder

Photograph: Harold Shapiro

The first thing visitors to Big Food see is this graphic depiction of how much food and drink the average American consumes in a year. And it’s a lot.

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June/July 2012

“They can make choices and we can work to make a difference,” says Ickovics. “We hope to bring evidence to action,” The exhibit is instructive for visitors of all ages. There are two stations where children can play a touch-screen game.

The object of the game is to get your player across a rope above a ditch by tapping all the healthy foods that fall from the sky.

There are videos and charts with information about obesity rates as well as healthy eating. But one exhibition feature that is opening the eyes of visitors is not the intricately handmade and -painted displays of food products, or even a silicone blob of fat that demonstrates what a pound of fat looks like.

“One thing that shocks people is the portions,” Ickovics explains.

Whether it’s the portions of particular foods Americans consume over the course of a year, or the amount of sugar that is in

“I think that the new MyPlate which was just created is much better than the food pyramid,” says Ickovics. “It’s a much simpler concept.”

Photograph: Harold Shapiro

a glass case displaying real unhealthy pickled (chemically preserved) human organs. Visitors can see the difference between a healthy and unhealthy organ, which may or may not change their perspective on their eating habits.

So dramatic is Big Food that Ickovics says she has received feedback from visitors who have come to see it multiple times.

“I get e-mails from people I know and strangers [telling me] that they bring not just family members, but [other] people they know.”

How much sugar is in your favorite beverage?

Probably more than you thought.

one serving of popular soft drinks. One of the most dramatic illustrations of portions is the new concept of “MyPlate,” which is explained through a video.

In 2011 First Lady Michelle Obama adopted the idea of a new and improved nutrition system, because many nutritionists agreed that the traditional food pyramid no longer reflected what foods and in what proportions people should in fact eat. The MyPlate portions include fruits, vegetables, protein, grains and dairy.

One of the biggest issues with regard to food and nutrition is not just what we eat, or how much, but also how we work it off. Exercise is equally important as the calories we burn off while working out. Indeed, “[Exercise] seems to be more stressed when talking about food,” Ickovics says.

As visitors proceed through the exhibition, one of the last things they see is the Take a Stand section. Each viewer takes a few wooden chips and places them in a container labeled with things in the community that they think influences people to eat better. Ickovics plans on using the information for future research.

“Big Food is for everyone,” Ickovics says. “I want to improve health in New Haven.”

A SUMMER JOURNEY OF E X P L O R AT I O N A N D D I S C O V E RY

create!

JULY

7 to AUGUST 4, 2012

LEARNING PARTNERSHIPS FOR GIRLS AND BOYS ENTERING GRADES 7, 8, 9, AND 10 Cheshire CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Into Thin Air Festival of China Media and Society FUTURE EARTH: A GREEN PLANET NEW! and for international students: ESL for Non-Native Speakers of English D I AN E C O O K , D I R EC TO R : 2 0 3 -4 3 9 -7 4 0 0 S U MM E R @ C H E S HIR EAC ADEM Y.O R G W W W. C H E S H I R E AC ADEM Y.O R G / S UM M ER

fine pastries and confections HAVE AN ADVENTURE IN ART Visual art summer programs for ages 4 - 14

CREATIVE ARTS WORKSHOP 80 Audubon St New Haven 203.562.4927 www.creativeartsworkshop.org

961 State Street • New Haven

203-789-8589 new haven

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ART Opening Lined Up: A Clutch of Drawings is an exhibition of works on paper by several artists, curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa. June 30-July 28 at the Young Men’s Institute Library, 847 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed., 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. Free. 203-562-4045, institutelibrary.org/events.

A group exhibition featuring works in various media by Connecticut Women Artists. July 4-28 at Gallore Gallery, 68 Washington St., Middletown. Open 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Free. 860-7882764, galloregallery.com.

The Art of Beads II is a juried exhibition sponsored by the Connecticut Bead Society, featuring jewelry and art crafted from beads using a variety of techniques and approaches. July 6-August 5 at Guilford Art Center, 411 Church St., Guilford. Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Mon.-Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun. Free. 203453-5947, guilfordartcenter.org.

Maritime Art and Local Shoreline Scenes. July 19-August 12 at Susan Powell Fine Art, 679 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-6 p.m. Sat., noon-3 p.m. Sun. Free.

203-318-0616, susanpowellfineart.com.

Encompass is the name of the ninth annual Arts Council of Greater New Haven members show. July 20-September 14 at the Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery, 70 Audubon St., 2nd Fl., New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. newhavenarts.org.

Marine Art Exhibition showcases marine paintings by members of the American Society of Marine Artists (ASMA). August 3-September 22 at Lyme Art Association, South Galleries, 90 Lyme St., Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 860-4347802, lymeartassociation.org.

Robert Adams: The Place We Live — A Retrospective Selection of Photographs The exhibition traces Adams’ deep engagement with the geography of the American West. August 3-October 28 at Yale University Art Gallery, 111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays except Mon. (until 8 p.m.

Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgalleryinfo@yale.edu.

Continuing Wabi-Sabi: The Beauty of Things Imperfect, Impermanent and Incomplete. Collages and sculpture by artist Meg Bloom. Through July 1 at City Galley, 994 State St., New Haven. Open noon-4 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. Free. 203-7822489, city-gallery.org.

The thin membrane of glass that exposes the interior of Artspace acts like a fishbowl attracting the attention of the passersby to what is inside the

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Rosemary Benivegna’s ‘Chatham Lighthouse Remembered’ from Encompass, the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s ninth annual members show. space. The Insite/Out Project asks six artists to live at Artspace for two weeks and direct their attention outside of the gallery space into the Ninth Square neighborhood. Through July 6 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven.

Noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., Noon-8 p.m.

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

America Rising, Pt. III: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Exhibition: The third and final installation of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” examines the physical and artistic expansion of the United States during the second half of the 19th century.

Through July 8 at Yale University Art Gallery, 111 Chapel St., New Haven.

Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgalleryinfo@ yale.edu.

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven presents Landscapes, artwork

by Connecticut artists Rosemary Benivegna, Adriana Lee, Kimberly Tucker and Do Walker. The theme of landscape links the artists for this show, who come from varied backgrounds and stages in their respective careers.

The paintings and drawings range from traditional to interpretive. Through July 13 at Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery, 70 Audubon St., 2nd Floor, New Haven.

Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. Free. 203772-2788, newhavenarts.org.

Portraits and Figures: New Haven Brush and Palette Club Member Exhibit. A variety of styles are presented in this presentation of paintings of the portrait and human figure. Through July 15 at John Slade Ely House, Center for Contemporary Art, 51 Trumbull St., New Haven. Open 11 a.m.4 p.m. Wed-Fri., 2 -5 p.m. Sat-Sun. Free.

203-624-8055, elyhouse.org.

Harmony in Nature, works by Ira Barkoff, Peter Bergeron, Sandy Garvin and Dennis Sheehan. Through July 15 at Susan Powell Fine Art, 679 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.Fri., noon-6 p.m. Sat., noon-3 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-318-0616, susanpowellfineart. com.

Summer Painting and Sculpture Exhibition is the Cooper/Gerry and South Galleries member show. Through July 29 at Lyme Art Association, 90 Lyme St., Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 860-4347802, lymeartassociation.org.

Big as Life: Large-Scale Figure Exhibition is an invitational show curated by Jerry Weiss. Through July 29 at Lyme Art Association, Goodman Gallery, 90 Lyme St., Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon.., 1-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 860-434-7802, lymeartassociation.org.

While these visions did appear…

Shakespeare on Canvas explore historic representations of Shakespeare’s scenes and characters by artists working in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. Through July 29 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 203432-2800, britishart.yale.edu.

Hot Off the Presses: Representational Printmaking is a collection of handpulled works showcasing a variety of printmaking techniques. Through July 29 at Lyme Art Association, 90 Lyme St., Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 860-434-7802, lymeartassociation.org.

Reflections and Undercurrents: Ernest Roth and Printmaking in Venice, 19001940. Exhibition includes 95 works of Ernest David Roth (1879-1964). Through

August 26 at Mattatuck Museum, 144 W. Main St., Waterbury. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. $5 ($4 seniors, children under 16 free). 203-7530381, mattatuckmuseum.org.

Flossing the Lot is a site-specific installation involving a variety of shaped, spandex banners hung off metal rings and attached to the surrounding walls with free parts allowed to blow and billow in the wind.

Through September 30 at Artspace, 812 Chapel St., New Haven. Open noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Thurs. noon-8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Free. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org.

Maria Morabito & Lambert Edelmann is an exhibition of abstract paintings and prints. Through September 14 at Gallery 195, First Niagara, 195 Church St., 4th Fl., New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily (until 6 p.m Fri.) 9 a.m. -1 p.m. Sat. 203-772-2788, newhavenarts.org.

The Knights of Columbus Museum, in cooperation with the William G. Congdon Foundation, presents an exhibition of paintings by American artist William Congdon, together with a series of Lenten meditations written in the 1960s by Joseph Ratzinger, better known today as Pope Benedict XVI. Through September 16 at Knights of Columbus Museum, 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

Free. 203-865-0400, kofcmuseum.org.

On Hudson: Highlights from the Albany Institute of History & Art, an exhibition of 59 works that examines both the history and the symbolism of the Hudson River Valley, which shaped America’s culture for three centuries.

Through September 23 at Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors, $7 students, free 12 & under). 860-434-5542, flogris. com.

weaves moments in Haiti’s geopolitical history into Ulysse’s retelling. Noon July 24 at CFA Theater, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

ONSTAGE

Hear What’s In The Heart: A Shoemaker’s Tale features Middletown’s own Steve Scionti, who brings to life all the passion, comedy and drama inherent in a SicilianAmerican family. Co-written by director Anthony Crivello, the one-man play celebrates the life of Scionti’s grandfather, Angelo Morello, who owned Angelo’s Shoe Repair on Main Street in Middletown. 8 p.m. July 26-27 at CFA Theater, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. $19 ($17 seniors). 860-6853355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Opening Dinner Theater Consiglio’s restaurant continues its Outdoor Garden Theatre season with: The Return of Count Fangula, an interactive Italian musical comedy which tells the hilarious love story of an Italiano Vampire and the very attractive and very wacky daughter of Mama Aglio, owner of a sprawling garlic farm deep in Calabria, on which is held a three day musical festivale called GARLICSTOCK. The audience is drawn into joining the fun as they sing, clap and dance along to oldies.

Doors open 6 p.m. Saturdays through September 1 (4 p.m. July 15, August 5) at Consiglio’s Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven. $65 (includes prix xe dinner). Reservations. 203-865-4489, consiglios.com.

William Shakespeare’s classic love story Romeo and Juliet presented by Connecticut Free Shakespeare. 7:30 p.m. August 1-5 on the Guilford Green, Church St., Guilford. Free. 203-3933213, ctfreeshakespeare.org.

The Bikinis: A New Musical Beach Party. The 1960s girl group is bringing back the sun, fun and all the songs they sang on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore…all to raise money to save Sandy Shores Mobile Home Beach Resort. Songs include “Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” “Heat Wave” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” August 9-September 2 at the Norma Terris Theatre, 33 N. Main St., Chester. $43.

860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.

Cabaret One actress brings an entire town to life as she tells the tale of a rural Ohio community dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy, a gang of nervy kids on the cusp of adulthood, and a grieving young girl who may or may not have discovered a terrible power in … the K of D. Written by Laura Schellhardt.

8 p.m. June 20-21, 26 & 29, July 18, 20, 26 & 28, August 1 & 4, 16-17; 2 p.m. July 7; 1 p.m. July 14, August 11 at Yale Summer Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $40-$25. 203-432-1567, summercabaret.org.

Of Ogres Retold. In a shaded forest where tall, slender trees pierce the black sky, spirits dance in the shadows, orgres lurch across moonlit plains, and otherworldly creatures roam free. An original work of puppet theatre inspired

by Japanese folktales. Directed and conceived by Adam Rigg. 8 p.m. June 22, 27, 30, July 5-6, 8, 11, 19, 27, August 2, 5, 8, 18; 4:30 p.m. July 14, August 11; 2 p.m. June 23, July 21, August 18 at Yale Summer Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $40-$25. 203-432-1567, summercabaret.org.

Fairy tales come to life in the most unexpected ways when a sullen beast and a wary young girl wander down the path that connects “once upon a time” to “happily ever after.” The Secret in the Wings weaves seven tales into a theatrical tapestry that scales the heights of a child’s imagination — and plunges them into the depths of grown-up fears.

Written by Mary Zimmerman. Margot Bordelon directs. 8 p.m. June 23-24, 28, July 7, 12-14, 21-22, 25, August 3, 9, 11, 15, 19; 2 p.m. June 30, July 1, 28, August 4 at Yale Summer Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $40-$25. 203-4321567, summercabaret.org.

Opening The eighth annual Shakespeare in Library Park Festival presents Richard

Continuing Gina Ulysse, director of the Center for African-American Studies at Wesleyan, presents her new work: Voodoo Doll, What if Haiti Were a Woman? July 24 in Middletown.

III, the story of two warring families battling for the crown. 7 p.m. June 28, 2 & 8 p.m. June 29-30 at Library Park, 267 Grand St., Waterbury. $15. shakesperienceproductions.org.

The eighth annual Shakespeare in Library Park Festival presents: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, the dramatization of the C.S. Lewis classic featuring the characters from The Chronicles of Narnia. 2 p.m. June 29 at Library Park, 267 Grand St., Waterbury. $15. shakesperienceproductions.org.

Hairspray: The Broadway Musical. It’s 1962, and pleasingly plump Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad has but one desire — to dance on the popular Corny Collins Show. When her dream comes true, Tracy is transformed from social outcast to sudden star, but she must use her newfound power to vanquish the reigning Teen Queen, win the affections of heartthrob Link Larkin and integrate a TV network –—all without denting her ‘do! 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m.

Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Wed. & Sun. July 4-29 at Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton. $40 ($35 seniors, $20 students, $15 12 & under). 860-767-7318, ivorytonplayhouse.com.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s classic Carousel tells the tragic love affair of Billy Bigelow, a swaggering carnival

barker, and July Jordan, an innocent young millworker. Featuring songs “If I Loved You,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “June Is Busting Out All Over.”

July 13-September 23 at Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. $75.50-$31.50. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.

Rinde Eckert: Performance Musings.

Grammy Award-winning musician, writer, composer, librettist, performer and director, Rinde Eckert, performs excerpts of his new work The Last Days of the Old Wild Boy. 12 p.m. July 17 at Crowell Concert Hall, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Saybrook Stage Co. presents You Can’t Take it With You, a comedy set in New York City in the 1930s and one family’s eccentric life. 8 p.m. Thurs.Sun., 3 p.m. Sun. July 19-22 at Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $20 ($15 children).

877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater. org.

Gina Ulysse, director of the Center for African American Studies at Wesleyan, presents her new work: Voodoo Doll, What if Haiti Were a Woman?, an avant-garde meditation on coercion and consent inspired by Gédé, the Haitian Vodou spirit of life and death — that

Set in the swinging 1970s Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers portrays middle-aged Barney Cashman, a nebbish who desperately wants to join the sexual revolution before life passes him by.

7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Wed. & Sun. Though June 24 at Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton. $40 ($35 seniors, $20 students, $15 12 & under). 860-767-7318, ivorytonplayhouse.com.

Just Jim Dale, Starring Jim Dale.

Growing up in England with dreams of performing at the Music Hall, little Jimmy Smith became his country’s youngest working comedian. He then went on to voice all seven Harry Potter novels and become the Tony Awardwinning Broadway veteran now known as Jim Dale. Richard Maltby Jr. directs.

Through June 24 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $32. 203787-4282, longwharf.org.

The madcap adventures of the eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis and her adoring nephew who has been sent to live with her are told through the musical tale Mame: The Musical Sensation!

Through-July 1 at Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. $75.50-$47.50. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org

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MUSIC Classical The New England Guitar Society hosts its annual members recital. 7:30 p.m.

July 7 at Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Ave. South, Milford. Free. 203878-6647, milfordarts.org.

Chestnut Hill Concerts celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) with four August concerts of French chamber music by Debussy and his contemporaries. The first of these will be performed by Sheryl Staples, violin, cellist Julie Albers and Jon Klibinoff, piano. Program: GUIRAUD Deux Romances sans paroles for cello and piano; DEBUSSY Reflets dans L’eau (from Images Book 1), Prélude: La fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair), Prélude: La serenade interrompue; DEBUSSY Piano Trio in G Major; FRANCK Violin Sonata in A Major. 8 p.m. August 3 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $30-$25. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org

Popular The iconic Willie Nelson, his trusty guitar Trigger, and his longtime touring band will stop off in the Elm City for one night in support of his latest album, Heroes. Expect to hear plenty of hits from the country legend as well. 7:30 p.m. June 18 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $100-$58. 203624-1825, shubert.com.

Everyone’s favorite former Texas gubernatorial candidate, political commentator and self-proclaimed “author, columnist, musician and beautician,” Kinky Friedman is going bipolar, as in “Kinky Friedman’s BiPolar Tour.” As he has done on his recent “sojourns through America,” Friedman will be performing solo, dispensing the wisdom of the Jewish troubadour and signing books. 8 p.m.

June 19 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $25. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Slide guitar wiz Sonny Landreth uses a style that combines finger picking, palming and slapping the strings as well as fretting behind the slide for a very distinctive sound. Don’t miss this Louisiana blues wonder as he rocks the Kate. 7:30 p.m. June 21 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $35. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

The Mallet Brothers Band is a sixmember country rock band from Portland, Me., that has been winning accolades left and right for its hipsterfriendly blend of country, bluegrass, rock and punk. The band’s debut album has topped many best-of lists and reader’s polls in the region, and

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New York singer/songwriter Ingrid Michaelson rocks Toad’s Place July 26.

the group will bring its compelling live performance to the New Haven area for the first time. 7:30 p.m. June 21 at the Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $10. 203-288-6400, theouterspace.net.

In the tranquil seaside town of Mystic lives Barefoot Truth, an independent band that is quietly creating history.

You have never seen them on MTV or heard them on a Top 40 FM radio station. But with more than seven million spins on Pandora, Barefoot Truth has quickly become a symbol of independent music success, and just may be “the biggest band you’ve never heard of.” Mixing sounds of folk, rock, jazz and reggae, with lyrics brimming with unbridled optimism, the band has crafted a sound that is distinctly its own. 8 p.m. June 23 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $20. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

The a cappella supergroup the Swingle Singers started out in the 1960s

performing reinterpretations of Bach.

Decades later, a new generation of Swingles have added Bjork, the Beatles and others to their Grammy-winning repertoire. 7 p.m. June 24 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $38-$35. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

The Beehive Queen of blue-eyed rock ‘n’ soul returns to the Nine when Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez rock the house. 9:45 p.m. June 30 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. 203789-8281, cafenine.com.

Known for their powerful live performances, Thomas Wynn & the Believers have headlined 100-plus shows this year alone and have shared the stage with national acts Gov’t Mule, Leon Russell, Drive-By Truckers and many others. The themes of the band go beyond years of drugs, heartbreaks and hypocrisy to deliver a message of hope. 8 p.m. July 2 at Cafe Nine, 250

State St., New Haven. $6. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Co-founder of the influential British group Traffic, singer/songwriter Dave Mason (“Feelin’ Alright,” “We Just Disagree”) is a true rock legend. Get to hear him in an intimate setting.

8 p.m. July 7 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $38-$35. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

Singer-songwriter Willy Mason has come a long way from his beginnings on Martha’s Vineyard, having played big festivals across Europe and the U.S., and touring with the likes of Radiohead and Death Cab For Cutie. It helped that he was picked up by Bright Eyes mastermind Conor Oberst’s record label along the way. 10 p.m. July 7 at the Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $10. 203-288-6400, theouterspace.net.

Nightmare Boyzzz are from Mussel Shoals, Ala., far from the beach but

in tune with the rhythm of the waves.

Handling garage, pop, surf and punk all with equal facility and invention, they’re gonna poke a beach umbrella in your brain and get sand in your toes. 9 p.m.

July 10 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $5. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

San Antonio’s Girl in a Coma have left a permanent tattoo on the hearts of music lovers with their piercing songs and nuclear performances. They’ve blazed a singular trail since Nina Diaz joined the band at age 13 and have found champions and comrades along the way including Joan Jett (who signed them), Morrissey, the Pogues and many more. Black Box Revelation opens. 8 p.m. July 17 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $12 ($10 advance).

203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

David Liebman Quartet. Over four decades Grammy-nominated reedman Liebman has performed with artists including Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Bob Moses, Chick Corea, John Scofield and Billy Hart. Since 2002, his quartet has explored an array of contemporary styles ranging from bebop and free jazz to fusion and Brazilian. Earlier this year Liebman was named a National Endowment for the Arts “Jazz Master.”

8 p.m. July 19 at Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave., Middletown. $22 ($19 seniors, faculty, staff; $10 students). 860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Party like it’s 1969 — in Woodstock, N.Y. If it’s July it must be time once again for the Gathering of the Vibes Music Festival. Acts include Primus, Phil Lesh & Friends, Bob Weir & Bruce Hornsby, Branford Marsalis, Steel Pulse, Zappa Plays Zappa and others (literally) too numerous to mention. July 19-22 at Seaside Park, Park Ave., Bridgeport. $65 single day July 20-21, $40 July 22. 203908-3030, govibes.com.

Nona Hendryx may be best known as one-third of the hit-making funk/ glam/rock group Labelle, but her solo career has garnered an equal amount of acclaim. After Labelle disbanded in 1976, Nona followed an idiosyncratic muse into her own solo career, which has often bordered on the avant-garde.

With DJ Dooly-O. 9 p.m. July 20 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $20.

203-789-8281, cafénine.com.

The latest album from Seattle-viaAustin singer/songwriter Jack Wilson is an impressive set of ‘70s-influenced country-rock and folk reminiscent of Neil Young and the Band, with the songs ranging from energetic, soultinged rockers to spare, intimate ballads. 9 p.m. July 24 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $5. 203-789-8281, cafénine.com.

An NYC-based indie folk fave, singer/ songwriter Ingrid Michaelson comes to York Street. 8:30 p.m. July 26 at

Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $25 ($22.50 advance). 203-624-8623, toadsplace.com.

The pride of Seattle, Washington, indie folk-pop practitioners The Head & the Heart rock the Toad. Lost in the Trees opens. 8 p.m. July 30 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $25 ($22.50 advance). 203-624-8623, toadsplace.com.

The “loudest band in New York,” A Place to Bury Strangers, will bring its ear-melting feedback scrawled sonic boom to the area. You might will need earplugs. 7 p.m. July 30 at the Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $12. 203-2886400, thespace.tk.

Brilliant singer, songwriter, poet and troubadour Ellis Paul has built a vast catalogue of music that weds striking poetic imagery and philosophical introspection with hook-laden melodies. Did we mention he’s a terrific showman as well? Peyton Tochterman opens. 8 p.m. August 4 at Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $25. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

Idiosyncratic folk legend Loudon Wainwright III has a prolific 22 albums under his belt; he’s also father to Rufus and Martha Wainwright, both successful artists themselves. But you can catch the “Dead Skunk”-singing original at the Kate this summer. 7

p.m. August 5 at Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $35-$40. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

Folk-legend Judy Collins will make her way to Old Saybrook after a halfcentury of performing, and a sold out performance last year. 7:30 p.m. August 9 at Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $75.

877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater. org.

Blues @ 9 presents the B. Willie Smith Band. Many consider B. Willie Smith to be quite simply the best blues-based band to come out of Connecticut — ever. 9 p.m. August 18 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $12. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

World Founded ten years ago in the South Bronx by lead singer and percussionist Alex LaSalle, the intergenerational band Alma Moyo performs Afro-Puerto Rican bomba folk music featuring dynamic drumming, dancing and rich vocals. 7 p.m. July 5 at CFA Courtyard (rain site: Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave.), Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free.

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

Performing Art

85 Willow Street, New Haven, CT 06511 203.799.6400 | audioetc.com

new haven

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CALENDAR SPECIAL EVENTS Before the new Miss Connecticut is crowned June 28-30 in New London, the Miss Connecticut Gala kicks off pageant week. The event is an opportunity to meet all 24 contestants, as well as the 22 teens competing for the title of Miss Connecticut’s Outstanding Teen. Dinner, raffle, dancing, revelry. The theme of the gala, as well as the pageant itself, is “Lights, Camera…Crown!” Attendees are encouraged to dress for the red carpet.

7 p.m. June 22 at Anthony’s Oceanview, 491 Lighthouse Rd., New Haven. $75 ($35 children). Reservations. 860-849-3863, shar2505@aol.com.

BELLES LETTRES The New Fiction Group discusses The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. The author’s debut novel introduces Victoria Jones, age 18 and recently emancipated from the foster care system. Victoria has a talent for flowers, an understanding of how blossoms can convey emotions, and a life in need of tending. 3 p.m. June 18 at Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main St., East Haven. Free. 203-468-3890, hagamanlibrary.info.

Release your inner poet. Time Out for Poetry meets third Thursdays and welcomes those who wish to share an original short poem, recite a stanza or simply to listen. Ogden Nash, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss and even the Burma Shave signs live again. 12:30-2 p.m. June 21, July 19 at Scranton Library, 801 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Free. 203-245-7365.

The Poetry Institute of New Haven hosts Poetry Open Mics each third Thursday Come hear an eclectic mix of poetic voices. 7 p.m. June 21, July 19 at Young Men’s Institute Library, 847 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. thepoetryinstitute. com.

Multitudes: A Celebration of the Yale Collection of American Literature, 1911-2011. Founded in 1911 when Yale College graduate Owen Franklin Aldis donated his library of first editions of American fiction, drama and poetry to the Yale Library, the Collection of American Literature is one of the most important of its kind. Exhibited materials reveal areas of bibliographic strength and new development while illustrating the collection’s depth and eclecticism. Through October 1 at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St., New Haven. Free.

Open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sat. 203-432-2977, beineckelibrary@yale.edu.

How Is a Book… illustrates how a book evolves from idea to ink-onpaper. Drawn from the archives of the Beinecke’s collections of children’s literature, exhibition will show visitors the many stages a (pre-digital) book goes through on its journey from inspiration to the hands of the reader.

Through October 1 at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St., New Haven. Free. Open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri., noon-5 p.m.

Sat. 203-432-2977, beineckelibrary@ yale.edu.

CINEMA Orchestra Wives (1942, 98 min., USA).

Connie Ward (Ann Rutherford) is in seventh heaven when Gene Morrison’s band rolls into town. She is swept off her feet by trumpeter Bill Abbot (George Montgomery). After marrying him, she joins the band’s tour and learns about life as an orchestra wife, weathering the catty attacks of the

One-of-a-kind treasures such as this ring by metal jeweler Ricky Boscarino (from 2011 event) are what draw thousands to the Guilford Craft Expo July 19-22 on the Guilford Green. other band wives. 5 p.m. June 28 at Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main St., East Haven. Free. Registration. 203468-3890, hagamanlibrary.info.

An American spinster’s dream of romance finally becomes a bittersweet reality when she meets a handsome but married Italian man while vacationing in Venice. Katharine Hepburn’s sensitive portrayal of the lonely heroine makes Summertime (1955, 99 min., USA) an endearing and enchanting film.

Directed by David Lean, co-starring Rossano Brazzi. 2, 4 & 7 p.m. August 14 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $8.

877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater. org.

COMEDY Every Wednesday evening Joker’s Wild opens its stage to anyone who wants to try standup comedy — from brandnew comics to amateurs to seasoned pros. As Forrest Gump might say, each Open-Mic Night is kind of like a box of chocolates. 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Joker’s Wild, 232 Wooster St., New Haven. $5.

203-773-0733, jokerswildclub.com.

The athletic and visually arresting Brian Brooks Moving Co. perform new works July 12-13 at Wesleyan.

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Just in time for Father’s Day comes the Who’s Your Daddy Comedy Fest, featuring the Coconuts Comedy Trio, singer/songwriter Rob Hamm and funnyman Dave Reilly. 8 p.m. June 16 at Palace Theatre, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $65-$45. 203-346-2000, palacetheatrect.com.

Don’t miss the next comedian to emerge from Philadelphia’s comedy scene: Coleman Green. Follow the funnyman’s edgy comedic adventures as he unveils his life, loves, family and the world in a style that has audiences all over “cracking the hell up.” Mike Finoia opens. 8 p.m. June 29, 8 & 10:30 p.m. June 30 at Joker’s Wild, 232 Wooster St., New Haven. $18. 203-773-0733, jokerswildclub.com.

Comedian Kevin Hart has burst onto the scene as one of the most versatile comedy actors in film and television.

Last September, he released Laugh At My Pain, a feature film version of his comedy tour (under the same name), which grossed more than $7 million. This summer he is on the road with his new tour, “Let Me Explain.” 7 p.m. August 25 at Palace Theatre, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $68. 203-346-2000, palacetheatrect.com.

CRAFTS Calling all knitters and crocheters!

Meeting last Tuesdays, the Hagaman Library’s casual Knitting Circle is open to all who want to share tips and show off new projects. 6-8 p.m. June 26, July 31 at Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main St., East Haven. Free. 203-4683890, hagamanlibrary.info.

The Milford Fine Arts Council presents the 26th annual New England Arts & Crafts Festival. More than 100 exhibitors plus music, theater, live performances and food court. 10 a.m.-

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Jill Schaefer Dir. of Admissions (203) 389-5500 ext. 17 www.ezraacademy.net Argentine Tango instructor Gem Duras perform throughout the weekend at the New England Arts & Crafts Festival July 7-8 on the Milford Green.

5 p.m. July 7-8 on Milford Green. Free. 203-878-6647, milfordarts.org.

In celebration of its 55th year, the Guilford Art Center hosts Craft Expo 2012. Event brings more than 175 nationally recognized craft artists to the Guilford Green for four days. Works in media including clay, glass, leather, metal, mixed media, metal and nonmetal jewelry, wearable and non-wearable fiber, paper, photography, polymer clay, soap and wood. A mustn’tmiss! Noon-9 p.m. July 19-20, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. July 21, noon-5 p.m. July 22 on the Guilford Green. $7 ($5 seniors, GAC members free). 203-453-5947, guilfordartcenter.org.

Midsummer Festival is Old Lyme’s annual showcase of its artistic heritage. Two-day event featuring French-style farmers market, art exhibitions and sales, musical performances, artisan fair, hands-on kids activities spanning several locations along Lyme

Street in Old Lyme. July 27-28 at the Florence Griswold Museum, Lyme Art Association and Old Lyme Inn, Lyme St., Old Lyme. 860-434-5542, oldlymeartalliance.org.

CULINARY Consiglio’s Cooking Class Club. Chef Maureen Nuzzo explains and demonstrates how to prepare mouthwatering southern Italian dishes that have been passed down from generation to generation. June’s menu includes polenta basket with shrimp, summer beans with walnuts and pecorino, spinach and porcini ravioli with grilled chicken followed by strawberry shortcake. For July: figs with goat cheese and prosciutto, zucchini stuffed with orzo and fresh herbs, shrimp provencale over baby spinach, topped off by

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Mystic. $30 ($20 ages 6-17). 207-359-4651, thewoodenboatshow.com.

lemon mousse. 6:30 p.m. June 14, July 13 at Consiglio’s Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven. $65. Reservations. 203865-4489, consiglios.com.

FAMILY EVENTS

City Farmers Markets New Haven.

Eat local! Enjoy seasonal fruits, vegetables, and herbs from local farms including seafood, meat, milk, cheese, handcrafted bread and baked goods, honey, more. WOOSTER SQUARE: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at Russo Park, corner Chapel St. and DePalma Ct. EDGEWOOD PARK: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays at Whalley and West Rock Aves. DOWNTOWN: 11 a.m.3 p.m. Wednesdays on Church Street at the Green. FAIR HAVEN: 2:30-6:30 p.m. Thursdays July 12-October 25 at Quinnipiac River Park. THE HILL: 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Fridays July 13-October 26 at Connecticut Mental Health Center, 34 Park St. 203-773-3736, cityseed.org.

DANCE Straight from the Joyce Theater’s Gotham Dance Festival, the athletic and visually arresting Brian Brooks Moving Company returns to Wesleyan with two of their intelligent and risky recent works: “Descent,” an exploration of the tendency of bodies to exhibit both dependency and detachment, performed against a liquid black backdrop; and the New England premiere of “Big City,” which features an architectural set design built by the performers as the dance unfolds, boldly spilling off the stage and throughout the theater. 8 p.m. July 12-13 at CFA Theater, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. $22 ($19 seniors, faculty, staff; $10 students). 860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Each Tuesday the Yale Astronomy Department hosts a Planetarium Show. Weather permitting there is also public viewing of planets, nebulae, star clusters and whatever happens to be interesting in the sky. Viewable celestial objects change seasonally. 7 & 8 p.m.

Tuesdays at Leitner Family Observatory, 355 Prospect St., New Haven. Free. cobb@astro.yale.edu, astro.yale.edu.

Philatelists unite! Young people ages eight to 15 are invited to join the Hagaman Library’s monthly (first Saturdays) Stamp Club. In addition to learning about stamps, attendees learn a lot of history and many other fascinating things from club leader and World War II veteran Judge Anthony DeMayo. 10 a.m. June 2, July 7 at Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main St., East Haven. Free. Registration. 203468-3890, hagamanlibrary.info.

The 2012 West River Water Festival combines family fun with educational activities. Free canoe rides, touch tanks, water games, river walks, exhibits, more. 1-4 p.m. July 14 at West River Memorial Park West, E.T. Grasso Blvd., New Haven. Free. 203-558-1300, wrwpartnership.webs.com.

Creating Readers Saturdays at 2 Program. A fun, interactive program that engages young readers by bringing books to life using theater, dance and music. Each family that attends receives a copy of that week’s book to take home. 2 p.m. Saturdays at Connecticut Children’s Museum, 22 Wall St., New Haven. $5. 203-562-5437, childrensbuilding.org.

MIND, BODY & SOUL EXPOSITIONS The annual Connecticut Irish Festival, Feis & Agricultural Fair highlights the best in Celtic dance, sports, music and culture. On Sunday, hundreds of dancers will participate in a competition that prepares many of them for world-class events. Celticity heads the musical lineup, which also features Celtic Cross, the Screaming Orphans and the Mickey Finns. The festival has traditional and contemporary Irish music and set dancing, food and a 5K road race to benefit ALS, cultural and agricultural displays, children’s activities and rides.

12:30-11 p.m. June 23, 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m.

June 24 at North Haven Fairgrounds, Washington Ave., North Haven. $10 advance, $12 at door (children under 16 free). ctirishfestival.com.

Sponsored by WoodenBoat Magazine, the 2ist annual Wooden Boat Show comes to Mystic Seaport. Featured exhibitor is Vixen, a 34-foot gaff cutter designed by John Atkin and launched in Black Rock in 1952. Plus, family boat-building event, Lance Lee tribute dinner, toy boatbuilding for wee ones and much more. June 29-July 1 at Mystic Seaport, 75 Greenmanville Ave.,

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

5-6:30 p.m. Fridays at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. $10. 203-4881441, ext. 313, yogidoakie@earthlink. net or events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org.

NATURAL HISTORY Featuring paintings and works from the New Haven Museum’s collection and geological objects from the Yale Peabody Museum and Wesleyan University, the exhibition New Haven’s Sentinels: The Art and Science of East and West Rock celebrates the local innovations in art and geology in 19th century New Haven. Exhibition centers on the changes in the worlds of art and science and the significance and inspiration of New Haven’s local geology from the founding of the colony to our modern city. Through May 31 at New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Ave., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

weekdays except Mon., noon-5 p.m. Sat. $4 ($3 seniors, $2 students, under 12 free).

203-562-4183, newhavenmuseum.org.

Big Food: Health, Culture & the Evolution of Eating is a collaboration between the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement at the Yale School of Public Health, and the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Multimedia exhibition begins with the neuroscience of appetite, genetics of obesity, and how food and energy are stored in the body.

It will examine behavioral choice in nutrition and exercise as well as the influence of social, environmental and cultural settings. Visitors will investigate our origins as huntergatherers; explore societal pressures such as the progressive growth of portion sizes; tackle media influences on food preferences; and consider serious health consequences that have increased the burden of chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease. Through December 2 at Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, noon-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors, $5 children). 203-432-5050, peabody.yale.edu.

SPORTS/RECREATION Canoeing Join the Connecticut Audubon Society on a Guided Canoe Tour of the Charles Wheeler Salt Marsh in Milford. Steeped in local history, the marsh hosts an abundance of birds and other wildlife, beautiful vistas and a chance to paddle and relax. Bring water and wear shoes that can get wet. 1:15-3:45 p.m. July 7, 2-4:30 p.m. July 8, noon-2:30 p.m. July 21, 12:45-3:15 p.m. July 22, noon-2:30 p.m.

August 4, 12:45-3:15 p.m. August 5 at Coastal Center at Milford Point, 1 Milford Pt. Rd., Milford. $25/person, $65/canoe (3 people) members, $35/$95 others. 203878-7440, ctaudubon.org.

into New Haven. May split into two groups based on riders’ speed but no one will be left behind to ride alone.

Lights are essential. 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays at Café Romeo, 534 Orange St., New Haven. Free. william.v.kurtz@gmail. com.

Elm City Cycling monthly meeting occurs on the second Monday. ECC is a non-profit organization of cycling advocates who meet to discuss biking issues in New Haven. Dedicated to making New Haven friendlier and more accessible to cyclists and pedestrians.

7 p.m. May 14 at City Hall Meeting Rm. 2, 165 Church St., New Haven. Free. elmcitycycling.org.

Road Races/Triathlons If it’s the Fourth of July it must be time for the Independence Day 5000 (as in meters, meaning 5K), hosted by the Milford Road Runners (motto: “10K Every Day — Well, Almost”). 9 a.m.

July 4 at Foran High School, 80 Foran Dr., Milford. $25 (free kids fun run).

Runbob48@aol.com.

Dip your toe into the world of triathlons with the 26th annual, USAT-sanctioned Pat Griskus Sprint Triathlon — a half-mile swim in spring-fed Lake Quassapaug, 10.mile bike around the lake finishing with a 5K out-and-back run. 6 p.m. July 11 at Quassy Amusement Park, 2132 Middlebury Rd., Middlebury. $70 USAT members, $80 others. 860868-0540, patgriskustri.com.

It sounds so romantic — and it is! The Trumbull Sunset Run is a 5K sponsored by the Trumbull Rotary Club. 6:45 p.m.

July 27 at Twin Brooks Park, Trumbull. $20 ($15 18 and under) advance, $25 race day. 203-268-5934.

It’s the seventh annual Walnut Beach Ice Cream Run 5K, which promises free ice cream cones to all runners at the conclusion of the race. 8:30 a.m. August 5 at Walnut Beach, 113 East Broadway, Milford. $25 (free kids fun run). 203-8787738, hitekracing.com/walnutbeach5k.

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

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

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

Tuesday Night Canal Rides. Mediumpaced rides up the Farmington Canal

Spectator Sports It’s Connecticut largest spectator sporting event and only PGA tour stop — the Travelers Championship, a 72-hole stroke play event featuring 156 players competing for a $6 million purse (winner’s share $1.08 million).

It’s for a good cause: the tourney is the primary fundraising event of the Greater Hartford Community Foundation. June 18-19 (practice rounds) June 20 (Pro-Pm) June 21-24 (tourney) at TPC River Highlands, 1 Golf Club Rd., Cromwell. General admission at gate $39 ($28 practice/Pro-Am rounds); $29/$24 over 60; under 16 free with ticketed adult.

860-502-6800, travelerschampionship. com.

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

W OR DS o f M O U T H EDITOR’S PICK: Jeera Thai

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ew Haven has long been home to small-scale eateries like Louis Lunch and the late, lamented Yankee Doodle, but Jeera Thai on Crown Street takes micro-dining to a new level. With only four seats fronting a prep area and barely room to turn around, diners have to be willing to sacrifice elbow room to enjoy some of the best Thai food in town.

Chef Daraporn Sourivong, visible at the stove from the counter, brings the bright, clear flavors of Northern Thailand to her dishes and a commitment to fresh ingredients and often vegetable-centered plates. Here you won’t find the muddy curries and sugary sauces that pass for Thai cuisine at many area eateries, just the fire of chile and the punch of lemongrass.

But if you catch a lull, a more intimate atmosphere kicks in, with framed pictures of a guru on the wall and wellchosen knickknacks. Glowing tile and mellow Asian pop music pull together the stylish pan-Asian vibe.

Thai iced tea ($2.50), with its earthy punch and mellow sweetness, helps tame the fire of dishes such as som tum ($6.95), a tart green papaya salad with a subtle heat that builds on the tongue.

Jeera’s version of this classic brings both the vinegar and chile for a lively interplay of flavor and texture.

Tom yum soup is also assertive with tart lemongrass and vibrant with crisp vegetables and sprouts. It’s one of the better bowls of soup in town and perfect for both sweating out the summer or warming up on a cold day. Other appetizers range from classic spring rolls and satay chicken to the more unusual roti canai, a crepe that reflects the influence of Malaysia, Thailand’s neighbor to the south.

Photograph: Lisa Wilder

Billing itself as a “Thai Healthy Kitchen,” Jeera is located on Crown Street amid a cluster of nightclubs.

Much of its business appears to be takeout and delivery to downtown workers and Yale students, and the counter can be chaotic with orders coming in and out during the lunch and dinner rushes.

At Jeeri Thai, Chef Daraporn Sourivong brings the bright, clear flavors of northern Thailand to her dishes and a commitment to fresh ingredients and often vegetable-centered plates.

For entrées, shrimp fried rice ($6.95) shone with tender red rice, crisp veggies and a flavorful if scant portion of seafood at lunch. Tuna was tender in a creamy curry with bamboo shoots and snow peas in a sauce with a lingering, peppery heat.

Barbecued beef was rich and complex with a mild tamarind dipping sauce.

In addition to such staples as pad Thai and drunken noodles, Jeera offers many vegan dishes and options like low-carb yam noodles for the dieting or glutenconscious. Watch for daily specials to expand your Thai dining repertoire.

Dessert choices include mango with sticky rice and coconut custard, but an even more appealing option lies next door at the Mochi Store. This Japanese treat by way of Hawaii consists of gourmet ice cream in tropical flavors encased in sweet and chewy rice taffy.

Exotic ingredients and the springy texture of mochi harmonize in flavors such as green tea and litchee.

With its lunch-counter charm and vibrant flavors, Jeera Thai is well worth squeezing into your schedule.

Jeera Thai, 216 Crown St., New Haven (203777-7230), jeerathai.com. –Liese Klein new haven

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NEW EATS: GILT

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Photograph: Lisa Wilder

ating out these days often means sorting through dozens of competing opinions: Do you take the word of an online reviewer or your local magazine critic? When spending your hard-earned money, do you take advice from a Facebook friend, food blogger or coworker?

Amid the clamor, good restaurants can be slighted and mediocre ones can coast on sentiment. A dedicated diner must sometimes just tune out the noise and just try a place for herself.

Gilt, a “Moroccan steakhouse” that opened this spring on College Street in New Haven, has received both praise and ample criticism in its first months of life. This diner’s experience had its ups and downs, but overall the restaurant makes a fine addition to the city’s dining landscape.

Chef Lauren Kendzierski has opened Gilt in the storefront once home to Bespoke, the beloved fusion eatery. The narrow space has undergone a slight North African makeover, although the warm lighting and stylish fixtures that made Bespoke a top choice for after-work drinks and romantic dinners remain. Stenciled patterns in gold and a sensuous Arab-pop soundtrack are enough to transport you far from Elm City streets.

Friendly (if somewhat distracted) servers helped us navigate the drinks menu, highlighted by some better-thanordinary cocktails and unusual craft beers. A “Houses of the Holy” cocktail ($12) spiked with Tito’s vodka and lemon refreshed and blended well with the décor and cuisine.

A selection of mezze small plates makes for a tantalizing start to a meal at Gilt, with vegetable-based dishes whetting the appetite without filling you up. Best was an herbal, smoky eggplant dip ($7), complemented by slices of fine-grained bread. “Smashed red pepper” dip ($7) showcased more assertive flavors with spice and a briny tang. Both were cool and light, perfect for a warm night.

Even better was a dish of gigante beans ($6) stewed in a lightly sweet tomato broth with hints of cinnamon and spice and topped with crisp shallots. This novel take was a welcome change from

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Gilt founding partner Lauren Kendzierski with a toothsome offering of roasted eggplant and grilled bread, salt and vinegar chips and a ‘Triple Goddess’ cocktail.

the city’s usual Italian and Mexican variations on the bean theme.

On the entrée side, the $50 sticker price of Gilt’s ribeye steak has raised eyebrows, but most dishes are in the $20$30 range and it was the $30 filet mignon that deserved center-stage. Unlike many filets around town, this seared slab retains its beefy flavor and an appealing texture when cooked medium-rare.

With a side of saffron couscous to soak up the juices, it was worth every penny.

Fish tagine ($20) also hit the mark with gently cooked fish and mussels in a spiced broth, but the dish could have used some couscous to fill out the portion and amplify the flavor.

We finished with an appealingly simple fig tart ($9), whole dried fruit simmered in red wine until soft and accented with sesame seeds and cinnamon ice cream.

No need to chip away the brittle tart shell, just enjoy the tender fruit.

Yes, it’s great that smartphones can now pull up every complaint that every diner in New Haven has ever had about the city’s restaurants, and Gilt is far from perfect. But by all means, put down the phone for a minute and give Gilt a chance.

Gilt, 266 College St., New Haven (203-5623331), giltnewhaven.com – Liese Klein

Walking by the Dive Bar in West Haven and peering in, you might be excused for thinking it lives up to its insalubrious name. The space is dark, narrow and often crowded — on occasion with Harley-logobedecked characters deep in their cups.

Photo:Lisa Wilder

JUST A SIP: JUST A SIP: Dive Bar & Restaurant

Appearances can deceive, however, and Dive Bar has become a destination for beer lovers and seafood fans alike from across the region.

A bristling bank of beer taps greets the eye when you first walk into the Dive Bar — as soon as your eyes adjust to the dimness, that is. Just across the road from a slice of West Haven’s beachfront, this taproom makes the most of its shore setting with nautical décor and Florida-accented menu.

Although mixed drinks and wine are served, a top-tier beer list is the draw for many, with hard-to-find draughts from regional craft brewers like New York’s Bluepoint and Maine’s Seadog. Check the bar’s Facebook page for current offerings and sit at the bar as the service can be spotty the farther you range from the taps.

The fine brews and cocktails complement a menu that often rises above typical pub grub. Start with the conch fritters ($9.95), a generous heap of nicely crisp nuggets.

The bright lime tartar sauce brings out the brininess of the conch for a satisfying starter. Other appetizers like coconut shrimp with spiced rum marmalade and mahi-mahi with fruit salsa play off the tropical theme.

Dive Bar manager Johanna Pallacio with a ‘Calimex’ burger and a Weyerbacher Blanche Beer.

A fish taco entrée ($15.99) was a bit less successful thanks to a wan tomato salsa and tired lettuce, but the fish was fresh and the portion ample. Perhaps Baja would be a better source of inspiration for this West Coast classic than Key West.

A better choice for a main dish is the whimsical array of burgers, from the Cuban ($10.95) featuring fried plantains and sliced ham to the Hangover ($9.95) topped with a fried egg. The pulled pork also gets good reviews. All go well with the craft beer and friendly ambience, which gets friendlier as the night unfolds.

Only steps from the beach and next-door to a frozen custard shop, the Dive Bar belongs on your summer to-do list. Bring your beer list and an appetite.

Dive Bar & Restaurant, 24 Ocean Ave., West Haven (203-933-3483), divebarandrestaurant.com.

– Liese Klein

new haven

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Take a Sky Trail Journey

By SUSAN E. CORNELL

W

ould you like to play Tarzan for a couple of hours, suspended in the air, flying from tree to tree as high as 70 feet off the ground and traveling at 25 to 35 mph?

So-called canopy tours, henceforth popular in tropical and touristy spots, are now available in Middletown at Empower Leadership Sports & Adventure Center.

While Connecticut hosts other zip-line facilities where adventurers can take one ride at a time, Empower is the only true canopy tour that features multiple zip lines and climbing elements installed in the treetops that make for a sky trail journey, according to founder/CEO Joe DeRing.

DeRing spent eight years in the military where he discovered that adventure sports and leadership training was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

So in 2009, after two years of seeking appropriate permits and certifications, the course was opened to the public.

Sited on 30 acres, the course consists of five zip lines ranging from 200 to 650 feet in length, two adventure sky bridges, a multi-vine traverse, and a cargo net obstacle.

But what about the “leadership sports” element of the name? Explains DeRing: ”Leadership sports are all those adventure activities that bring out the best in you through physical and emotional challenge. Once our guests start out on their adventures at Empower, whether it be the zip line canopy tour, tree climbing, scavenger hunting, team building or the Empower obstacle course, they will quickly realize the meaning of the phrase.”

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At Empower, flying through the air with the greatest of ease is about more than mere thrill-seeking.

Everything at Empower is designed to draw people out of their comfort zones and to recognize that with proper “leadership of self” techniques and the willingness to take a positive risk, they can accomplish what may initially seem impossible, he says. This concept extends to all Empower offerings — recreational “Friends and Families” tours, corporate teambuilding, and leadership and character-development programs.

To date kids as young as six years old through seniors up to age 90 have been “empowered.” While there are no age restrictions for zip-lining, the weight restriction is a minimum of 60 pounds.

The minimum age for the tree climbing adventures is ten years.

Sure, most experience some trepidation, but the guides “have several methods of trying to help people make that ‘rational connection’ in their brain to ‘let go’ and take a positive and uplifting risk,” DeRing explains. “Everything participants are faced with is ‘perceived risk’ not actual.”

He adds that there are “safety upon safety systems built in through the course so typically people find the speed, height, lack of control to be the issues.”

There are practice zip lines to help one gradually work up courage to step off the first platform and fly through the

treetops. DeRing explains that “99.9% of the people who find the courage to zip down line No. 1 [practice line] find themselves completing the entire course and truly feeling empowered.”

Participants walk away with a fun and unique experience in which they were able to overcome fear and build confidence.

The experience is affordable and great way for families to have fun together on the edge of their seats yet still safe. For corporate teambuilding, the course is suited to a group that isn’t in primo shape but want to have a challenging activity in which they can bond as well as improve efficiency, productivity and relationships.

The leadership and character development programs help students, campers and youth groups overcome fears and “discover courage to lead oneself through a difficult high-rope element,” says DeRing. “The reflection after these activities is really where students understand that the positive leadership and positive actions they do on the zip course or on the top of a tree climb can be used in school, home, sports, work, etc.”

To learn more phone 860-638-4754 or visit leadershipsports.com.

Be an optimist.

My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil.

J. PAUL GETTY

Sage advice to ensure a successful year at the oďŹƒce from the Cheney & Company 2012 Calendar.

20 Grand Avenue, New Haven CT 06513 cheneyandco.com 203-562-7719

Nationally recognized experts in creative marketing communications for independent schools, healthcare organizations and nonproďŹ ts. new haven

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