That’s what Chris Walker, manager of the new LaundroMax on Whalley Avenue, said to me as we watched 25 kids sit still between rows of gleaming washing machines and a cacophony of dryers tumbling and buzzers going off — and prepare to hear a story read aloud at New Haven’s most innovative new branch library.
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 21, 2024 8:48 am
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Ross Gay practiced what he preaches last night at Possible Futures, as the poet, essayist, and teacher offered a grateful crowd a selection of his work encompassing joy and tenderness that brought them from rapt silence to riotous laughter and everywhere in between.
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Michael Russem |
Feb 15, 2024 9:12 am
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Book designer Michael Russem gave the following eulogy at the recent funeral of Howard Gralla, a leader in the field who lived in Westville.
Yesterday morning I was in a used bookstore in Boston and spotted a book designed by Howard that I love: Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. It’s 9 × 12 inches, over 650 pages, and it weighs more than seven pounds.
This massive book had scores of Post-it notes poking out the top. The book was clearly well-used. Those Post-its were proof that Howard had done his job.
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Lisa Reisman |
Feb 12, 2024 9:13 am
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The Sunday, Aug. 21, 1994, edition of the Connecticut Post pictures a young Black man in police blues holding a hangman’s noose. The man was David Daniels, a police officer. The noose was left on his patrol car.
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 12, 2024 8:58 am
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As the temperature outside edged close to 60 degrees on Saturday, a warm and invigorating meeting of minds and hearts came together inside the Wilson branch of the New Haven Free Public Library for 2024’s first monthly installment of the Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 29, 2024 9:05 am
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The Bricks in Hamden was the place to be on Saturday night, as literature fans gathered to fete author and civil rights movement icon James Baldwin — and the beginning of a year’s worth of programming based on his works — helmed by IfeMichelle Gardin and her Kuturally Lit organization.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 19, 2024 10:52 am
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The vibe at Possible Futures was lit Thursday night — more specifically Kulturally Lit, as the literary-focused arts organization’s 100 Years of Baldwin Book Club had its inaugural meeting exploring the works of author, playwright, thinker, and civil rights icon James Baldwin.
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Karen Ponzio |
Nov 13, 2023 9:02 am
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Tiny Ghosts Haunting Small Things, The Band Plays in Front of a Big Audience, and Cars Go Too Fast (and our road design encourages it) are not titles you might find on the bestseller list or at your local news stand. But you can find them in the zine library making its way through the city as part of the New Haven Zine Scene, a group of creatives that meet up once a month to make, read, and talk about zines and share everything and anything zine related. This past Saturday, the group met for the first time at Possible Futures on Edgewood Avenue, where it will continue to trade off monthly meeting dates with Witch Bitch Black Box on Whitney.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 26, 2023 2:59 pm
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New Haven and Connecticut overall have a vibrant history, from the indigenous cultures that flourished here, to the religious zealots that founded the New Haven Colony, to the creation of the modern city as we know it in the 20th century. Weaving in and out of that is a folklore that includes sea serpents in the Long Island Sound, monsters in the woods in Winsted, Hamden, and elsewhere, and dragons in Fair Haven. All these and more are chronicled in Connecticut Cryptids: A Field Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Creatures of the Nutmeg State, written by Patrick Scalisi and illustrated by Valerie Ruby-Omen. The duo celebrated the book’s release with a party at Strange Ways this weekend, in which partygoers were invited to dress as their favorite fanciful creatures.
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Sheila Carmon |
Oct 5, 2023 10:00 pm
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The following photos were submitted by Links member Sheila Carmon about a Sept. 29 book signing and meet and greet with Daytime Emmy Award winner, author, and media executive Michelle Hord. The event was organized by the New Haven chapter of The Links, Incorporated.
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Allan Appel |
Sep 26, 2023 12:17 pm
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Over the course of just three days, the following all unfolded on the modest corner of Hotchkiss Street and Edgewood Avenue: A regular monthly meeting of a major local nonprofit; a happy hour for exhausted educators; three authors’ readings, and a two-hour-long neighbors’ knitting circle smack dab among the displays, plants, comfy couches, and shelf after shelf of shiny, new, colorful volumes.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 21, 2023 8:25 am
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A rumination on the question of why people write — delivered by legendary culture writer Greil Marcus — that took in his personal history, the history of the tail end of World War II, and David Lynch’s classic Blue Velvet proved a moving and thought-provoking start to Yale’s Windham Campbell Festival on Wednesday evening. The festival, which runs Thursday and Friday, celebrates the world of words, centering on this year’s recipients of the Windham Campbell Prizes.
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Karen Ponzio |
Sep 18, 2023 9:00 am
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Are you one of those people who grabs a book with all intentions of plowing through a decent number of pages and ends up not reading any — distracted by the phone, the TV or household chores? The Silent Book Club might be perfect for you.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 31, 2023 8:09 am
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On one side of Hotchkiss Street at the intersection of Edgewood Avenue on Wednesday evening, along the side of the bookstore Possible Futures, a DJ on the corner pumped out irresistible grooves while friends greeted one another, browsed books, and snacked on empanadas and mimosas.
On the other side of the street was a cheerful sign that read “Happy 75th Birthday Fred!” with a timeline laid out beneath it. The Fred in question is none other than Fred Hampton, Black Panther Party leader and revolutionary.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 23, 2023 8:24 am
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The outside wall of Possible Futures, the bookstore located at 318 Edgewood Ave., stood blank and dull against the street, devoid of inspiration and creativity. That was about to change.
Tuesday marked the beginning of a 10-day-long painting project to design a mural, a tribute to New Haven local and celebrated prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore. The blank wall became a canvas, as muralists and community volunteers worked together to explore all the possible futures the space could hold.
Journalist, documentary filmmaker, and musician Lindsay Skedgell wants to hear about it all. She’s starting a new journal called Heel and Hive that “explores the environmental and climate landscape of our times, our relationships to nature and ecology” — focusing on the region we live in.
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Brian Slattery |
Jul 11, 2023 11:31 am
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This torosarus skull, now part of the collection of the Yale Peabody Museum, was found at Lightning Creek in Wyoming in 1891 by American paleontologist John Bell Hatcher. A few years later, Hatcher would go fossil hunting in Patagonia and write a book about that expedition that would be published in 1903. Even with his success at the time, he may not have predicted that his star in paleontology would rise to the point where, in 2018, author and fellow paleontologist Lowell Dingus would publish a book about him called King of the Dinosaur Hunters.
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Eleanor Polak |
Jul 6, 2023 9:10 am
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The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds one of 26 known surviving copies of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence. The document, printed by John Dunlap in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, has a single typographical error, an indication that the founders issued it in a hurry to declare independence from England.
On Wednesday, a few dozen New Haveners got to hear the words of that revolutionary broadside read aloud — along with that of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 oration “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” — as part of an annual primary-source-focused tradition to celebrate the 247th anniversary of Independence Day.
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Eleanor Polak |
Jun 29, 2023 8:45 am
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“My book wouldn’t exist without my dad, so doing a reading with him is only fair, only fitting,” said Natalie Beach. She read from her memoir-in-essays, Adult Drama, Thursday night at RJ Julia bookstore in Madison. Her father, Randall Beach, joined her, reading from his collection of profiles, Connecticut Characters: Profiles of Rascals and Renegades. The father-daughter duo presented their work to a crowd of dedicated New Haveners in an event that celebrated community, culture, and family — both born and made.
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Brian Slattery |
Jun 14, 2023 2:38 pm
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Bill Lowe let out a cry from his tuba, guttural and keening, ecstatic and heartbreaking at the same time. Ken Filiano responded in kind from his bass. Hafez Modirzadeh joined in with a moan from his saxophone. Naledi Masilo unspooled a string of skittering vocalizations. Taylor Ho Bynum release a plaintive wail as Kevin Harris laid down ominous piano lines. Luther Gray arrived with a rattling drum line that solidified into a rhythm that Lowe emphasized with snapping fingers. As he directed each of the players to take solos, Lowe broke into smiles. The music may have spoken about complex emotions, but there was great satisfaction in the telling.
The Wilson Library branch is a “second home” to Helen and her children — especially to 7‑year-old Eli, who devours every animal-themed book he can find.
In spare moments, Wilson staff members set aside volumes they think Eli will like. But most days, they’re kept busy with adults needing job applications or a place to rest their head while inebriated.
So Wilson staff, regulars, and allies are calling on the city to fund a full-time children’s librarian at Wilson — the only branch in the city to lack the funding for one.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 21, 2023 8:15 am
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The thoughts and deeds of a young fallen revolutionary became fuel for poetic pursuits Monday evening at Possible Futures, the bookstore and meeting place on Edgewood Avenue, as Nyzae James and Nzima Hutchings led a dozen participants through “Fred Hampton 101,” a presentation that was part history, part poetry workshop, and all community building.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 24, 2023 9:13 am
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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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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.