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Brian Slattery |
Feb 24, 2023 9:13 am
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Stone.
Cult band Buttery Cake Ass are playing what might be their final show, and it might be their best. There aren’t many people in the audience, but what they’re hearing is blowing their minds. The saddest songs make them all cry. The songs filled with rage seem like they could set the hall on fire. The band members are engaged in the kind of musical alchemy that maybe only happens a few times in every musician’s life. Somewhere on the soundboard, a tape is rolling. What will it sound like when they take it home?
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Allan Appel |
Feb 22, 2023 10:23 am
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Allan Appel photo
Library revelers Holly Nardini, Scott McClean, and Lisa Brandes.
Glittering bead necklaces, feather boas, whimsical hats sprouting purple tulips, and — finally! — masks that cover the eyes and the top of your face instead of the nose and mouth were spotted in profusion Tuesday night at the Mardi Gras love-fest for the New Haven Free Public Library.
At Tuesday's online book talk for Revolution in Our Time.
A dive into the history of the Black Panthers once again reverberated loudly into the present — from the Black Lives Matter movement to the backlash against critical race theory to the killing of Tyre Nichols — as educators and community members gathered online to hear award-winning author Kekla Magoon talk about her new book, Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 27, 2023 9:00 am
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Tripp and Godshall at Thursday's book talk.
Who built the iron fence around the New Haven Green? Where can we still see traces of the work of William Lanson? And what was possibly the biggest party in the city’s history?
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 16, 2023 12:42 pm
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Hanan Hameen of Dance and Beyond Sunday at New Haven Museum.
Through words, music, and movement, storytellers, drummers, and dancers offered dozens of families a chance to find their place in the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., the broader causes of social justice he dedicated his life to, and the rich culture he came out of.
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Thomas Breen |
Dec 22, 2022 4:00 pm
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At the newly opened Possible Futures bookstore in September ...
Brian Slattery Photo
... at a BAMN books event at Bloom in February.
Words flew off the pages of landmark new New Haven books, brought readers together in bustling new Dixwell and Edgewood community spaces, and sparked City Hall protests and public-education debates around how to create a better city — making 2022 a year even more than most in which books made a difference.
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Lisa Reisman |
Dec 13, 2022 1:52 pm
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Nina Lenitni photo
Bloom reads at Sunday's mActivity-hosted party.
After moving to a place that Conde-Nast Traveler had judged to be “one of the 10 unfriendliest cities in America,” author Lary Bloom worried that — if he were to slip and fall on an ice-coated sidewalk — his new neighbors would simply look the other way and keep on moving.
Instead, those neighbors sprawled on couches, perched themselves on stools, crammed into chairs that ranged outside a Goatville gym’s common room, and braved the December snow to listen to Bloom read and wisecrack about his newly published slim volume which is, in fact, a valentine to New Haven.
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Allan Appel |
Dec 12, 2022 12:04 pm
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Neighborhood Music School Director Noah Bloom and NMS Production Fellow Ibn Orator Friday.
A young African American musician named Ibn Orator wanted to know if Black and white people, who have such starkly different common memories — the one of slavery and incarceration and the other a rosier patriotic version of the American past — can ever develop a memory broad, shared, and potent enough to be the basis to solve our country’s seemingly intractable problems.
An answer, well, a partial answer to that profound question came during a Friday night book talk from Nicholas Dawidoff, the white, New Haven-born prize-winning author of the recently published The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Injustice, and The American City.
The answer was: “Yes, for all our enduring troubles, this is a country where historically change has happened. “
Gail Lerner set out to write a book about a brave 10-year-old girl who climbs trees in New Haven’s Edgerton Park — and summoned bravery of her own to complete it.
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Laura Glesby |
Nov 28, 2022 3:00 pm
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On “Small Business Saturday,” a stack of Michelle Obama’s latest books made its way from the shelf of New Haven’s newest local bookstore to the former First Lady’s Facebook page.
Generations after he unleashed federal law enforcement to destroy the lives of people who disagreed with him, J. Edgar Hoover has finally met his match.
Editor Rachel Kauder Nalebuff with contributor Sofiya Moore ...
... reading from Our Red Book on Saturday.
“We all know womanhood can be very challenging; that’s why it’s good to start it off with a sweet taste of support and a little cream cheese frosting,” Lily Grace Sutton read aloud to celebrate a new New Haven-rich book all about menstruation.
Attorney Mike Jefferson and author Nicholas Dawidoff in conversation at Stetson event Wednesday evening.
When Flemming “Nick” Norcott Jr. was growing up in the Dwight/Kensington neighborhood in the 1940s and ’50s, Prospect Hill wasn’t the only “other side” of town that was off limits to Black families like his.
“There were a lot of ‘other sides’ then,” the retired former state Supreme Court justice remembered at a Wednesday evening book talk. “As a young boy, a pre-teen, a teen, we couldn’t go to Westville. We couldn’t go to Morris Cove. We couldn’t go to Wooster Square, because there would be consequences that would be really, really bad.”
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Laura Glesby |
Oct 27, 2022 9:43 am
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Board of Directors President Anderson: The search is on.
The city’s public library has hired a search firm to find a permanent replacement for the late City Librarian John Jessen roughly five months after the beloved city figure died of cancer.
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Laura Glesby |
Oct 24, 2022 8:55 am
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Laura Glesby Photo
Erycka recites poetry on the Lit Fest stage ...
... as Lindsey Pina and Royal Bleu look for books on a whim.
Professional poets, emerging authors, scholars of Black literature, and kids learning to sound out words collectively transformed the Q House into a story-fueled time machine at the third annual Elm City Lit Fest.
Institute Library Executive Director Jan Swiatek won’t have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning for much longer to worry about rain pouring through the historic Chapel Street bookspace’s roof — thanks to a major renovation-funding grant approved by the state.
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Thomas Breen |
Oct 20, 2022 11:35 am
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Dwayne Betts and Nicholas Dawidoff at public library book talk.
What makes a neighborhood unique? What makes a neighborhood “iconic”? What makes a neighborhood, well, a neighborhood?
After eight years of research and 500 interviews for his landmark new book about a Newhallville murder, author Nicholas Dawidoff found the answers to those questions in the many individual voices that — taken together — add up to something rich and profound.
Bobby Johnson walks out of Church Street courthouse to freedom in 2015 after nine years of false imprisonment.
The individuals who murdered an innocent man, who framed an innocent teen, who copped a fake confession all made choices. So did Nicholas Dawidoff when he told their story — and he has now left New Haven with a choice of our own.
by
Lindsay Skedgell |
Aug 30, 2022 8:48 am
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Lindsay Skedgell Photos
Your Queer Plant Shop.
The outer edge of Pitkin Plaza on Sunday was lined with rare plants, bursts of pollinators, handmade leather goods, zines, and two birthday cakes of four different flavors. Nestled between vibrant murals, performers sang and folks from all around New Haven filled the brick park. One man next to a mural waved a cigar around in circles, dancing to the music Love n’ Co played. The band’s singer — Lovelind Richards — had various shades of blue painted across her eyes in thick bands. A leather worker from Beacon Craft Studio stitched a deep maroon leather piece with thick thread. It was East Rock House’s first birthday.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 29, 2022 9:27 am
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Brian Slattery Photos
The music poured onto Temple Street all the way from the plaza in the middle of the block, directing and enticing a steady stream of pedestrians and shoppers to the long rows of canopies set up for the Black Wall Street Festival, an afternoon-long event designed to showcase a wide range of Black entrepreneurs.
Thanks to the robust turnout, a live band, and a pervasive sense of cheer, the festival was true to its name, turning Temple Street Plaza into something like bazaar meets block party.
The Institute Library plans to embark on a comprehensive set of building repairs and improvements at its historic Chapel Street home, thanks to a recently approved $1.725 million grant from the state.
Lately, like a truffle dog on the hunt, I have sniffed along the New Haven trail of the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for literature.
The search led me to Yale’s Old Campus, where Harry Sinclair Lewis took his bachelor’s degree in 1908; up to the summit of East Rock, where his imagination flourished; down to the reading room of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where his papers are store; and finally to his forecast of the advent of Donald Trump.
