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A wonderful thing: a few weeks ago, I once again jumped into Adam Bede. Who knows how many times I’ve tried to read it over the last few decades.  Really read it, I mean, not just pick out the parts that were going to be on a test. And miraculously, this time it worked. I was transported.  I had begun it just before a trip to Charlottesville, and so had it with me through the airports, and among good, good friends on a lovely visit.  I was absorbed with it the way a new mother is absorbed with her baby.  I’d put it aside when I needed to, but couldn’t wait to get back to it.

And, as is the way after that sort of absorption in a book, I felt completely lost when I’d finished.  I scribbled notes about it. I talked about it with my friend Robin.  But I was in the mode.  I had to keep on reading. Something. Anything. 

About the time I’d picked up Adam, I had read a review in the NYT about the last book in Steig Larsson’s trilogy.  I had a vague sense of it from other word of mouth and reviews.  But this one (by David Kamp in the Sunday magazine) had been thoughtful enough to lay out the back story for me. I read along until I got to this gentlemanly warning: “If you haven’t read ‘Dragon Tattoo,’ I recommend that you forgo the remainder of this review and plunge into it headlong, both because you’ll enjoy yourself and because, as the kids say, spoilers lie ahead.” Drawing on reserves of discipline to which I had no idea I had access, I actually did stop. I didn’t think much about it again until I found myself in that hungry post-Adam space in Charlottesville.

My friend Robin (who deserves a post in her own right, and will get one very soon) had a copy of the first Larsson. I grabbed it, all but slobbering as I did so.  And within a week, I had ploughed through all three.  Since writers are supposed to read (and most writers are actually more readers, truth be told), I wrote the time off as a professional expense. I had a particular fascination with the Larsson trilogy given the fact that my father was Swedish, and I kind of knew Stockholm, and loved the fact that the books portrayed a real place, not just a nostalgia of wooden Dalarna horses and julboks and Santa Lucia lights.

Now although there is much to say about Adam and much to say about the three Girls, what I wanted to note here was a very odd synchronicity of character name.  Lisbeth is not a common name, after all. And yet there are Lisbeths in both. 

Lisbeth Bede is Adam’s mother, a truly distasteful character whose only redeeming characteristic seems to be that she (cloyingly) adores her son Adam.  A passive-aggressive whiner, she is manipulative, sycophantic, and really awful to her second son Seth. (Poor Seth. He deserves so much more. I guess Methodists don’t expect much. But then his Methodist girlfriend Dinah gets his brother Adam in the end. I don’t get it.) She lives her mature life at the end of the 18th century, when this story takes place.  Coy reference is made to The Lyrical Ballads, but I’m sure Lisbeth Bede has no concept of them.  Nor is she aware of the deep proto-Romantic beauty of her life in rustic rural England.  She drives her husband to drink and an early death in the town stream. She despises most the girls the boys would bring home for wives, consequently her two sons are pushing 30 with no girlfriends. To which they’ll admit anyway.

But Lisbeth Salander. Can there be a more diametrical opposite to Mrs. Bede? Salander – diminutive, “doll-like.” Aggressive, violent, silent.  Lisbeth Bede – tall, almost stately except for the fact of all that whining.

Quite the interesting feminist arc between these two women across 200 years. (How much Eliot did Larsson read, by the way, je me demande.) Ah well. More later.  Seems interesting, though. I’m just sayin’.

from Adam Bede, Chapter XVII “In Which the Story Pauses a Little”

“And it is these people  – amongst whom your life is passed –  that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love:   it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people, whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire – for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.”

I have a bone to pick with that competitor of Kindles and I-Pads, that thing being promoted in large booths in Barnes and Nobles outlets, and even in the Harvard Coop, known as the  “Nook.”  Ugh.

Nook is my word, and I am not willing to share with a chilly, plastic, electronic device.  Nook has been my word since I reflected on Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, and identified those cozy corners, spatially analogous in time-space continuum thought to kairotic time. 

Indeed, I currently work in a nook and I love it. Nook is nest. Nook is cozy reflection. I guess that’s why the marketers appropriated my word, and applied it to a nasty little truc that is completely antithetical to the word’s actual sense.

My nook: a roughly five by six foot space jogged off the library of a law office where I write most days nestled under an old North Cambridge third floor eave.  Given that said eave and my desk share the space vertically and horizontally, standing up room  in heels  is actually much less than “5 by 6” might indicate. The whole library, my nook included, is edged with bookshelves, crammed with law books,  Commonwealth case law going back to the century before last, and other things like West’s Massachusetts Digest volumes “1933 to date,” said date being 1986. Bender’s Forms of Discovery dated 1953. Schweitzer’s Trial Guides from 1945. As any practicing lawyer today knows, these books are loveable but completely worthless.  Indeed they may be dangerous, setting forth as they do legal principles which without updated pocket parts,articulate law that is hopelessly irrelevant, off-point, and even toxic in a 21st century context.  Nevertheless, scary as they are, the books are wonderfully cozy. And they deeply inform the nookness of my working environment.

I will figure out how to take a picture, and then will figure out how to post it. I am old but determined. My lawyer nook, physically, conceptually, emotionally, where I actually do lots of non-law stuff truth be told, is where I write this. I don’t practice much law these days, and will probably not renew my license in June. Don’t need the bar card. They are  embarrassing little self-laminating things here in Massachusetts which you have to assemble yourself from stuff they send in an envelope, once you pay your inflated annual dues. In fact, the whole act of being an attorney in this state, I mean Commonwealth, excuse me (they insist on the distinction here), is embarrassing. If you’re a lawyer, you’re not addressed as Mr. X or Ms. Y, you are “Attorney X or Y.”  That’s what the secretaries say when they answer your phone. That’s how people identify themselves when they call each other, when they go for tickets at Fenway or the Symphony. I have never said it. I couldn’t do it without laughing. “Hello, this is Attorney Aberg.”  Give me a break. But for most people, the phraseology cuts considerable cheese.

I prefer my non-hierarchical nook, without a legal phone extension, stuffed with all the landlord’s worthless books, and some wonderful ones of my own. A French Dictionary. An outdated Tribe hornbook on Constitutional Law. A Cribett’s property law hornbook. A biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Roger Haight’s Jesus Symbol of God. and Paul Farmer’s The Uses of Haiti. These and my non-electronic rolodex, my colored pencils for filling in my doodles when I feel like it, a few files I work on for other guys, a big  bowl of paperclips, plants all over the place, and acco bars for my cute little files.

This would be the Nook.  I am happy here. I could probably recreate it anywhere in the world (le Marais would be nice). Maybe even somewhere where I might make enough money to actually support myself. Somewhere where I wouldn’t have to clear out at noon when all the guys that work here climb the stairs to the third floor to have lunch and talk about their cases and current events and occasionally about cute girls. (Some days, when I remember to pack lunch, I join in. Not so much about the girls.) It is not so bad, even given the periodic clearing outs. Indeed, I feel comfortable with, and very affectionate toward, the guys.

I’ll figure out how to work this “nookness” into my Moon book someday, a book that will reflect on themes of kairotic time and Bachelardian nook space. The book which, while I was still talking to my mother, I promised I wouldn’t write, seeing as how it is critical of Werner von Braun (who really was a lieutenant in the S.S., and for whom my father worked at NASA), and his ambitious amorality, and how that celestial light that had informed human hearts for millenia became a pile of rocks. How Albert Einstein died the same month that Von Braun and the hundred other Peenemunde guys he snuck out of Nazi Germany were naturalized as American citizens on my eventual high school stage, four months before I was born a half mile away at Huntsville Hospital. And how Teillhard de Chardin, S.J., one of my heroes, died the same month, too. On Easter Sunday. Having reflected, in the last recorded bit of his handwriting, on the parousia and St. Paul. Whom he misquotes endearingly in Greek.

Mommy doesn’t want me to write all that. But I probably will.

Martha’s Vineyard Times, Bride Guide & Party Planner 1998-99: “Things That Can Go Wrong – And How to Make Them Right” by Dawn Aberg. (Illustrations by Will Pfluger)

A thinker no less than U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas called marriage “an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.” By “our prior decisions” he meant, of course, those of the U.S. Supreme Court.

 The phrase is equally applicable to us mere mortals.  Our decision to marry may indeed be the most noble decision we ever make.  Then we come to the next step:  The Wedding. In the stubbornly optimistic mythology of our culture, the Wedding Day is the happiest of our lives.  But we are a practical as well as an optimistic people.  Inquiring minds want to know: how exactly do we go about organizing this “Happiest Day”?  The question poses particular problems when we want that day to pass on a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Massachusetts.

 To answer that question – and plenty of others – scores of talented and experienced wedding professionals now work on Martha’s Vineyard, ready to help wedding hopefuls implement their dreams.   The fact of the matter is, there is a lot that can go wrong on The Wedding Day, especially here.  Prospective brides, grooms, and in-laws-to-be need all the help they can get to remember Justice Douglas’ noble purpose in a Vineyard wedding.

Vineyard wedding advice may be summed up in three key imperatives: start early, be prepared, be flexible.  In order to help you predict the unpredictable, we polled our local wedding professionals for their thoughts on challenges people face in the course of planning a Vineyard wedding.  We hope their generous advice ennobles your big day. (Historical sidenote: Justice Douglas could probably have used their advice, too.)

The Special Quality of a Vineyard Wedding

Do not forget why you wanted to get married here in the first place.  Not so long ago, people chose to marry on Martha’s Vineyard for one of two reasons:  they lived here, or they wanted “that special Vineyard quality” for their wedding.  A Vineyard wedding can be informal without sacrificing quality.  It can be spiritual without being self-righteous, lighthearted without being superficial.  Many wedding clients have become increasingly unrealistic in their expectations for ceremonies and receptions.  “They want to recreate the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria on a sheep pasture,” lamented one wedding coordinator who chose to remain anonymous. If you really want the crystal slipper thing, you should probably go to New York City.

 But if your heart insists on the Vineyard as your wedding site (and it is your heart which should be making these decisions), focus on the special things the Island can offer – views, light, air, grace – instead of the things it can’t.  There are even local traditions that you may want to adopt.  For example, have you ever thought of a potluck reception? There are restaurants and caterers willing to organize and sumptuously present the food your guests bring. Or do you want your black Lab to be your flower girl or ring bearer? Maid of Honor? Be creative: it’s the Vineyard.

 High Tech During the Ceremony

Technology should be invisible in a wedding.  The guests shouldn’t be aware it is even there.  Because of the “creative venues” often chosen for Vineyard weddings (as in the aforementioned sheep pastures), things like sound can be an issue. The ordinary bride and groom are probably not accustomed to working with microphones.  If they are required to talk into a hand-held mike, they will more closely resemble participants in a karaoke contest than people exchanging wedding vows.  Even more distressing is the image of the minister holding the microphone and pointing it toward the bride and groom in turn, as they answer the questions, leaning awkwardly toward the device, twisting away from each other in the process.  More dreaded still is the ear-shattering sound of feedback – or it’s opposite. Dead silence. If it is necessary to amplify voices, a good sound technician can place microphones where they will not be seen, and will not require the couple’s attention as they proceed through what probably should be their solemn vows.

It is more difficult to make the videographer invisible. But a good videographer is a master of the innocuous.  The guests do not want to feel as though they are visitors on a movie set.  The bride and groom should not feel as though they are performing.

Respect the Professionals

Hiring the right professionals is critical to the success of your wedding day.  For a Vineyard wedding, seriously consider hiring a local wedding consultant or coordinator to help you put your plans into action.  It will probably end up saving you money in the long run.

A good wedding consultant combines an in-depth knowledge of wedding mechanics with superb people skills.  Look for a coordinator you feel comfortable with, someone who seems to understand your vision of your wedding. Armed with this understanding, she will match local resources to your needs, something that is not particularly easy here on our Island.  There are scores of mechanical wedding problems off-Islanders don’t even think about.  Trash removal must be arranged. Septic restrictions in some towns require the importation of port-a-potties. The ferry:  guests bringing cars will need advance reservations.  Finding suitable accommodations for your wedding guests is tricky, given the limited number of rooms here (on an island, you can’t simply drive extra guests a little further down the road to the Motel 6 in the next town).

A coordinator will contact the other professionals who will pull your wedding together: the caterer, the florist, the rental companies, the musicians, the photographer — the works.  If you coordinate the wedding yourself, you will be the one to deal with these people directly.  Take their advice seriously. They know what they are doing. And respect them.  These are professional people.  Who but a pro would think to remind you to put the photographer on the dinner list — one way to make sure the pictures look great.

Location, Location, Location

The first thing you need to decide — after your choice of spouse, of course — is where your wedding will take place.  The availability of your chosen site may very well determine your wedding date. The Island has an extraordinary range of site options. The elegance of the Old Whaling Church, the intimacy of Fourway, outdoor vistas of your choice (woods, ocean, hills, fields, streams), or the lighthouses.  Just give yourself plenty of time. And be practical. You don’t want to have to carry Grandma over the sand dunes in a sedan chair.

Money Isn’t Everything

You don’t need tons of money to have a beautiful Vineyard wedding.  Furthermore, throwing money at problems does not always fix things.  Less is definitely more.  Simple can be incredibly beautiful, especially here.

Simplicity applies to the visual presentation as well as the extravagance of wedding arrangements. “A pox on floral tablecloths!” says one gifted local florist. Think of special, personal things to make your presentation unique. One couple, who had together collected old bottles for 30 years, used groupings of these bottles as centerpieces for the reception tables at their daughter’s wedding, with a single flower bud in each “vase.”

The Myth That People Won’t Come

Pay attention to the invitations you send out.  The myth that people won’t come to a Vineyard wedding because it is so far away and inaccessible is just that — a myth.  In fact, it is possible that a higher percentage of invitees show up for Vineyard weddings just because so many people want to come here.  People who have been here before are even less likely to turn down a nice weekend of free food and drink and entertainment on The Island.  Be prepared. Don’t expect polite regrets and a wedding present. Expect wedding guests.  Once word gets out about your Island nuptials, people may show up even if they weren’t invited.

Children and Animals

W.C. Fields wouldn’t work with them, and many wedding professionals know why.  Outside of the weather, children and animals are the wedding variables hardest to script into a clean performance line.  On the one hand, some four-year-old flower girls might last longer in a receiving line than the groom’s 20-something sisters.  On the other, a bored three-year-old ring bearer might just drop-kick the ring pillow straight at the priest’s head during the march up the aisle.

Children are like satellite dishes: they pick up even the most sensitive vibrations in their environments. On highly charged emotional days like weddings, child-vibes are apt to be oscillating at a fever pitch.

If you intend to include children as an active part of the wedding ceremony, plan to put someone in charge of their activities who is not a member of the immediate wedding family. There are professionals on the Island who specialize in keeping children entertained and organized at weddings.  If nothing else, hire a couple of patient and competent baby-sitters who have a clue about how weddings should work, and include them in the rehearsals.

Animals, particularly dogs and horses, are frequent participants in Vineyard weddings.  Whether the animal belongs to a member of the wedding party and has been deliberately chosen to participate (we’re not talking about Sparky’s impromptu run to the outdoor altar), or whether the animal has been hired by the party for a specific purpose (insert scary “flock of dove release behind the minister after vows” stories here), flexibility — and good wranglers — are required in dealing with this element of a wedding.

Realistic Expectations

With a year to plan a wedding, brides have time to read lots of magazines, and to fall in love with lots of pretty pictures of, for example, delicious looking cakes that are in fact made of Styrofoam and shaving cream for the photo shoot. Cakes with real butter cream fillings and edible insides are more prone to disaster in languorous, steamy outdoor summer weddings. Several pros recounted stories of sliding, tipping and falling cakes in response to our queries.

Another unrealistic expectation: native and locally grown flowers for floral displays.  Listen to the florists and gardeners who are honest enough to tell you that they don’t always know six months in advance what will be growing here in June or August or September.  (The converse of course — be a little suspicious of the grower who guarantees months ahead of time the availability of a certain local flower.) Vineyard weather is notoriously unpredictable.  Growers simply do not know from season to season whether the temperature and rain requirements necessary to bring certain varieties to bloom at a particular time will be met.

The same advice applies to requests for locally grown vegetables. There might not be any of those perfect local baby red potatoes around on your Special Day.

Transportation

Lest you forget: Martha’s Vineyard is an island.  If you want to bring a car here, you need a ferry reservation. Do not underestimate the complexity of this process.  It may very well be the trickiest thing you will deal with in planning your wedding, particularly if your nuptials are to take place on a holiday weekend.  Even the people who live here do not understand the ferry reservation and stand-by system.  Many will wisely opt for leaving their vehicles on the other side.  You will therefore need to deal with the issue of how to move guests around once they arrive. 

And do not forget distances.  The Island may only be 20 miles long.  But it is quite a hike between towns.  We have wonderful bike paths, it is true, but old Uncle Henry (remember him?) may not be the biker type.

Taxis and buses are available of course, as are rental cars.  But outside of a couple of last-minute cab calls, these resources are limited and need to be planned for in advance.  Stories abound of real-life mishaps.

One wedding consultant who had carefully arranged for buses to pick up the wedding party and guests from the church boarded the bus to find she recognized no one.  The bus driver had picked up the wrong wedding.  Now she always puts a large sign in the front and back windows of the bus to identify which wedding party the bus should actually be picking up.

Communication

In the absence of clear communication, if there are a million things that can go wrong in a non-Vineyard wedding, two million can go wrong here.  Off-island planners may be unaware of the fact, for instance, that [at the time this article was written there were] two exceptionally talented Island organists named Peter — Mr. Boak and Mr. Hutchings — and may inadvertently hire both for the same wedding.  This actually happened. A wedding party unaware that the sale of alcohol is forbidden up-Island may be faced with disaster when the families of the bride and groom forget to make clear which family was supposed to take care of the wine for the dinner reception. This also happened.

Then there is the particularly thorny issue of Vineyard directions. Although this is not as much of an issue here now as it was in the day (what with the advent of such novel concepts as street signs and house numbers), there is still that Yankee tendency to be vague as to location.  Identifying a critical left turn as the one “next to Bill Honey’s barn” may not work for an off-Island guest or service provider. Be specific. Put up markers and signs of your own. Or else the tent may go up in the wrong yard. (This happened, too.)

Music

A pipe organ, a cello and flute, a string quartet, or a jazz piano for the ceremony.  A jazz band, a rock group, or a DJ for reception dancing.  The music you choose will do more to set the tone for your nuptials than any other single element. (Even non-musicians will tell you this.) There are any number of talented musicians here on the island, but they book up fast for the big wedding months.  One local group currently has more than 30 demo tapes out in response to prospective client calls for next summer.

The musicians you hire should be flexible and respond to your needs. (Although you should not require a solo keyboard player, with 2,000 feet of extension cord in aforementioned sheep pasture to sound like a small string orchestra.)(Especially when aforementioned old Uncle Henry trips over the cord at the house after a couple of highballs, and there is no sound at all.)(Again – this has happened.)

An organist should be able to vamp for an hour if necessary at the church if the bride has had a meltdown and is late.  Bands should listen to you when you tell them to turn it down because no one can hear themselves talking and the police are at the door in response to neighbor complaints. If the bride’s aunt has a beautiful voice and wants to sing a song of her choice for her niece at the reception, or even if her voice is not so beautiful but her niece loves her, the band should be able to accomodate the request.

Be considerate of all your guests when you plan the music for the reception. The bride and groom may very well want to dance their brains out to mind-numbing techno, but there will be guests who don’t want to wear earplugs, and who might actually like to carry on a conversation. And of course, here on our Island, there are more than a few town ordinances to take into account before you implement your dream of rocking the night away.

Don’t Schedule Too Much for the Wedding Day

It is tempting, particularly here, with friends and family you haven’t seen forever and so much fun stuff to do, to try to do too much.  Keep it simple, particularly on the Wedding Day itself.  One wedding professional had to talk the bride out of competing in a tennis tournament the morning of the ceremony. (It had been the groom’s  idea.)  Even bridesmaid luncheons are dicey in the hours before a wedding. Why give yourself extra things to worry about?

Light and Wind

Ah, the Vineyard light. Even on beautiful weather days, things like it (and wind) can affect a ceremony, and not always in positive ways. If the bride and groom exchange their vows downwind of the assembled guests on the beach, no one will hear them. If the wind is strong, as it often is here, things will blow away if they are not attached firmly to a (solid) surface. Food caterers are adept at considering these issues, as are musicians using sheet music in the aforementioned sheep pastures or on the porch of the Harbor View.  Make sure other professionals are aware of them as well.

Remember to think of the importance of light to your photographer’s work. If the wedding party is positioned with the light directly behind them (the beautiful sunset on the beach in Menemsha, perhaps?), all the photographer is going to get is silhouette shots and huge light bursts. Dramatic, perhaps, but you won’t see faces. Plus … the light will be directly in your guests’ eyes.

The Weather

There is nothing more important in planning a Vineyard wedding than having a backup rain plan.  Wedding planners agree: If the wedding and reception are outdoors, you need a tent.  The tent should probably have sides.  Even if it doesn’t rain, you will be surprised how chilly a summer evening can get here, particularly for women in strappy heels and party dresses.

Even the most reputable company’s tent isn’t going to keep your guests dry if it rains eight inches in one day (as it did last June) and water starts bubbling out of the ground. One caterer tells the story of a bride’s father who insisted on going ahead with his daughter’s beach wedding in the face of hurricane warnings.  During the ceremony, with a pounding ocean surf as backdrop, the caterer was horrified to see the back of the tent begin to rise off the ground, then start to collapse. In a flash, she rallied her workers to move the tent siding aslant of the gale, and hold it Iwo Jima-style for the remainder of the ceremony.

One should never question the dedication of this Island’s wedding professionals.

Back in Boston, back to work.  Tucking all the dreams and predictable disappointments of the last few weeks away with the winter sweaters.  (Why did I think this time would be different?) Looks like I’m here to stay for a while. Drunken BU students shouting f-words at each other at 3 am. (I hate BU.) Girls squealing. Boys blustering. Trash on the streets. Vandalized car mirrors. Louche Asian kids hanging out on the corner of Brighton and Harvard with edgy haircuts and dangling cigarettes and 5 inch heels (the girls and/or girl wannabes) sipping bubble tea. Me waiting and waiting and waiting for the 66 bus.

I am committed to this work. And while I seemed destined not to be supported in it, well that’s OK.  Lots of us haven’t been. Bartok died penniless and alone on W. 59th Street when it wasn’t such a schnazzy neighborhood.  And people remember him more or less fondly. The main thing is to get things done. 

It has been a joy to revisit my work. To remind myself of it.  To go with it. Be selfish and even sybaritic about it.  All writers are, after all.  When they’re men, or have independent resources, it’s seen as a good thing, the sort of obsession that words require. The fact that it’s not seen as a good thing in my case, well, it’s simply something to get past on my part.  I’ll figure it out. I always do.

Milton Times, May 1, 2008: “Frustrations Mark Budget Preparations”

Budget frustrations flared at the April 22 Warrant Committee meeting as town officials responded to the pressures of a rapidly approaching Town Meeting.  Attending the meeting at the Warrant Committee’s invitation were Selectmen and School Committee members.  Much political backtracking took place, as leaders conceded an override probably wouldn’t pass this year and insisted that budget numbers previously submitted to  ecommittee did not reflect actual operational realties.

The meeting was originally called, Warrant Committee Chair Katherine Conlon confirmed, to discuss projected level-service funding figures for fiscal years 2010 and 2011.  The discussion was set to clarify details of the town’s long-standing commitment to a multi-year budget  planning approach.  But the School Committee upstaged the planned agenda by deciding it would not support an override this year, despite the school system’s fiscal needs.

“This is really an about face,” Conlon said Wednesday night.

“Characterize it however you want. It’s our current position,” shot back School Committee Chair Beirne Lovely.

“But the warrant is in print, and we’ve recommended a contingent budget on the basis of information we received,” Conlon objected. “You’ve changed your position.”

“That’s our prerogative,” Lovely declared.

Lovely noted “uniform doubt” among elected officials that an override would succeed this year.  Echoing concerns voiced by Selectmen over the last few weeks, he pointed to the current lack of enthusiasm among residents for tax increases and the absence of leadership to press an override battle.

To take an override to the town and lose “would be extremely detrimental going forward,” Lovely said.  He admitted his perception was “a political conclusion.”  He also expressed his reluctance to base future school budget projections on current funding levels.

“If this is projected forward and called level service, it doesn’t serve the students of Milton well,” he said. School Committee member Chris Huban agreed.  “We don’t want to be hamstrung with the numbers being used in the contingent budget.”

Lovely said that the School Committee was, instead, prepared to “struggle through this year” and the inevitable cutbacks.  The budget cuts would involve movement of some school children to different districts, he said, as well as some increased class sizes.  He claimed changes in the school administration and new perspective would allow the committee to “work through the summer, rip through the budget and start again.” As of Wednesday night, the School Committee had not formally voted on its recommendation of an override.  When pressed for and official thumbs up or down position, Lovely said the School Committee would vote on the override recommendation only if Selectmen did.

Selectmen took their turn at the table accompanied by Town Administrator Kevin Mearn.  Chair Marion McEttrick described the bleak realities facing the town departments. “Every budget is very tight this year,” she said.  “Too tight.  People need to understand what the impact of a non-contingent budget would be” if there is no override.

Selectman Kathy Fagan underscored the point.  “There really will be cuts and changes if there is no override,” she said.  “But you can’t underestimate how much time it takes to educate people.  The timing is not such that we can put it together over the next few weeks.”

In line with Lovely’s long-term approach, Fagan suggested a “nine month concerted effort to educate voters on why we need the money.”

Fire Chief Malcolm Larson was present to substantiate Selectman John Shield’s position, laid out at the April 17 selectmen meeting that the Fire Department budget reflected in the warrant would present public safety concerns.  Warrant Committee members appeared particularly frustrated by the presentation.

Larson had endorsed the same budget in January, even in the face of what Warrant Committee members said were concerns that the numbers might be too low.  Committee member James Conley recalled that he had directly addressed the point.

“I remember the meeting,” he said. “I literally asked ‘is there a public safety issue.'”  He recalled that Larson had said he could work with the numbers.  Larson answered Conley by saying he had thought at the time that there would be an override.

Conlon said the elected boards have known about the override recommendation for months.  The position is reflected in the warrant, which went to press in early April.  The committee, a group of appointed residents, is assigned the job of coming up  with  the annual operating budget on the basis of the information it receives.

“We’re not a political board,” Conlon explained after Wednesday’s tumultuous meeting.  “We are appointed to take a financial view of things and make our recommendations on that basis.” But at this point, recommendations based on projections and a multi-year vision is “probably a moot issue,” she conceded. 

“We have a crisis,” said committee member Leroy Walker.”  There are problems with the way we fund services given the lack of our commercial tax base.  The way to educate the town is to talk about multi-year budgets.  We need to figure out how to start to make projections. Or we’re going to go through this every year.”

The Warrant Committee was considering a $6.1 million override, said to be enough for three years, but others doubted it was in fact enough.

Cape Cod Times,  March 20, 2002: “Tisbury police chief apparently forced into retirement” by Dawn Aberg.

 TISBURY – Town administrator Dennis Luttrell pulled the shiny badge of of his office drawer, an offer of proof.

 Tisbury Police Chief John McCarthy has left the department after nearly 29 years, and after several months of fighting for his job.  The move was announced yesterday as a retirement.  But all indications point to the fact that McCarthy was forced out. 

The departure comes just a little more than a year after a consultant’s report characterized the Tisbury Police Department’s operational dynamics as “dysfunctional at best.”  In the most dramatic example of labor unrest in the department, the town was forced to pay $375,000 to settle a discrimination complaint filed by a former patrolman.  The Wasserman Report, as the consultant’s study as called, recommended specific steps for getting the department back on track.  The report did not specifically call for the chief’s dismissal.  But its recommendation that operational control be turned over to a lieutenant hired from outside the department did raise questions as to what McCarthy would have left to do as chief if that advice were implemented.

In December, the selectmen reportedly offered the chief a retirement package in exchange for his immediate resignation, an offer McCarthy did not accept. In February, the chief was forced to relinquish operational control of the department to his new lieutenant, Theodore Saulnier.  Then the selectmen notified McCarthy they would not renew his appointment in June. The selectmen never formally confirmed any of these widely reported events.  But, as Luttrell said last night, “they didn’t refute them either.” McCarthy, who officially left the department Monday afternoon, could not be reached for comment.

 The press release issued by the town quotes him as being “thankful for the opportunity to serve the citizens of Tisbury.”  At the selectman’s meeting last night, officials praised McCarthy for his long service to the town. Saulnier, who will serve as interim chief, announced that “everything is going well” in the newly structured department.

 But questions about McCarthy’s retirement benefits remain.  The timing of his departure calls into question his eligibility for full benefits. McCarthy served 20 years as chief, almost three times the state average of 7.3 years.  But his overall department service is still shy of the 30 years required to obtain maximum benefits. Luttrell noted that the county, not the town, sets the benefit level according to a statutory “equation.” Salary levels as well as length of service are factored into the formula. If only his department service is counted, McCarthy is 1 ½ years short of maximum benefits. But, according to Luttrell, when the chief’s military service is factored in, an acceptable adjustment under the rules, the pension level will be very close to maximum retirement levels.  Luttrell estimates that the pension will come to 78 percent, as opposed to a possible 80 percent, of the chief’s working salary.  McCarthy earned $72,702 in 2001.

Cape Cod Times:  March 7, 2002 “Vineyard may ‘take’ Southern Woodlands,” by Dawn Aberg

 The Land Bank of Martha’s Vineyard has offered Oak Bluffs selectmen 80 percent of the town’s costs should it decide to pursue an eminent domain action against what has become known as the “Southern Woodlands.”

 Landowner Corey Kupersmith had planned the contentious 276-acre parcel as a golf club.  But the Martha’s Vineyard Commission defeated his golf proposal last month for the second time in two years.  Under an alternative plan, Kupersmith has proposed building 366 housing units under the state’s “anti-snob zoning” law, Chapter 40B.  Town voters will consider the possibility of an eminent domain action in a special town meeting on March 26. The vote is simply the first step in the “takings” process.  Should the action against the property ultimately succeed, neither of Kupersmith’s plans for the woodlands will see the light of day.

Land Bank executive director James Lengyel made the group’s offer in a March 6 letter, received yesterday in the selectmen’s office.  Even if approved in Oak Bluffs, the land bank offer would require backing by the five other Vineyard towns in order to support a bond issue for the purchase.  It is unclear how much such a purchase would cost the six towns.  A successful eminent domain procedure allows the government to take private land for public use, upon payment of “just compensation.”  What “just compensation” might be for 276 acres of conservation land on Martha’s Vineyard is not at all clear.  Specific appraisals were not available last ngiht.

And, as acknowledge in Lengyle’s letter, it is ultimately the court that determines the land’s value in such a case.  But in a purchase of 11.6 a conservation acres in Edgartown last fall, the land sold for approximately $130,000 per acre. A similar valuation translates into a $35 million price tag for the Southern Woodlands.

Oak Bluffs would be expected to recoup its 20 percent share from the town treasury or, as Lengyel wrote, from “other sources.”

According Lengyel, the Land Bank advocates public conservation of the property in its entirety.  But, he said, the group would also support a partial conservation plan.  Furthermore, should an eminent domain action proceed but be unsuccessful before the court, his letter states the organization would be willing to share in payment of any damages assessed against the town.

Martha’s Vineyard Times, Galleries & Gourmets: Summer 2001, “Wines at the Fresh,” by Dawn Aberg.

Fresh.  The word has a meteorological significance in Europe.  Les temps frais in France is a cool, clear weather, for instance.  An atmosphere in which a relaxed summer gathering can elegantly move outside, en plein air with the artists, to chat, to eat, to drink, to socialize.  In Italy, fresh has an even more specific connotation.  Al fresco literally means “at the fresh” (the air is implied), an indication of experience itself in the great outdoors.

Back to fresh.  I call it a European notion, but how better to describe a Vineyard summer?  This is not the time to go with our heavier Yankee traditions.  The Island with its extraordinary light practically begs us to linger lightly in its outdoor presence.  With friends and flowers and yummy food.

Only one question remains. What wine to bring?

There is no shortage of oenological expertise on Martha’s Vineyard. Indeed, a brief Times survey last week of local purveyors pulled up lots of nifty responses to the al fresco wine question.  What would you suggest as the best summertime wine to drink in an open air setting?

As a preliminary matter, all wine mavens interviewed remind customers that drinking alcoholic beverages on public property – public beaches, parks, or on the street – is prohibited by town ordinances.  That said, there are plenty of wonderful private nooks and crannies, including your own backyard, in which you can take their advice.

Our Market’s Jamie McNeely neatly laid out the basic parameters for outdoor wine standards.  “You want something light bodied, with a low alcohol content.  Something refreshing. Something that can take a deep chill.”

How do you give something a deep chill?

“You put it on ice,” he said. “And then you chill.”

Mr. McNeely knows of what he speaks.  He has been purchasing wines for more than 16 years, and buys for some of the most sophisticated palates on the Island.  He bids on wines for customers at auction at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York and in California.  He stocks high-end Vineyard cellars.

Nevertheless, he says, these powerhouse wine credentials are not as important to his customers as what it is they like to drink.  “Wine is about personal preference,” he explained.  “We try to make wine as non-threatening as humanly possible.

What does “light” mean in the context of wine?

According to Mr. McNeely, light means simplicity.  Clarity. With heavier wines, there is a stronger oak influence, multiple layers of complex flavors that bloom on the palate.  And there is more alcohol.

“For an outdoor wine,” he said in recommendation of lighter, low-alcohol vintages, “you want something that will give you a light buzz.  Not something that will knock your socks off like a heavy California Chardonnay.”

He had several specific wine suggestions for the Vineyard picnic basket or garden supper.  A charming Italian Moscato D’Asti, with a light frizzante sparkle (that is, a slight hint of carbonation).  A white from the Loire Valley in France.  Or a Vinho Verdo Branco from Portugal (with its own frizzante touch).  Casal Garcia, for example.

Then there are the Rieslings.  “German wines are the ultimate picnic wine,” Jamie said last Monday morning.  “They are not sweet, like people think.”  He went on to explain that under the guidance of strict German labeling procedures, a buyer knows exactly which wine “pick” he or she gets in a bottle.  The “Kabinet” designation means the wine was produced from the first grape harvest.  And the first harvest yields the driest wine.  Go for a vineyard’s Kabinet Riesling.

Jim Sorber works out of two Island wine venues, Great Harbour Gourmet & Spirits in Edgartown, as well as the Island’s only actual winery, Chicama Vineyards. In addition to a lightly sparkling wine or a Riesling, Mr. Sorber recommended a dry rosé from the south of France.  “It is an easy drinking wine,” he said.  “Vibrant with bright flavors.”  He sought to dispel the impression American consumers have of rosé wines in the wake of the madcap “white zin” craze of the last couple of decades. “A good rosé is not like a blush wine from California,” he explained.  Those sweet wines developed a popularity among Americans before they had developed a more sophisticated palate.  “White Zinfandel hit a niche, one that was a step up from Blue Nun and Riunite.  But it gave rosé a bad name.”  American wine drinkers have grown up, he said, and should experience what good rosé is about. 

With his Great Harbour hat on, Mr. Sorber recommended a rosé from an organic estate in Mouries, a village in Provence.  The wine, which is produced by a woman wine maker, is called Mas de Gourgonnier.  He also suggested a California rosé made in the French style, a Monterey County Robert Pecota.  “It’s a good, dry wine,” he said.

For a white wine, Mr. Sorber recommended a bright and fresh California blend of Chenin Blanc and Viognier grapes, Pine Ridge.  As a general rule, however, he said French whites would be lighter and more refreshing.

He explained why.

“In California, it is warmer, and the grapes get riper.” Even when the same grapes are grown in California as in France, the California grape has more sugar to be converted into alcohol during the fermentation process.

At his other job at Martha’s Vineyard’s own winery, Mr. Sorber had even more recommendations for “pic-a-nic baskets, Mr. Ranger sir.” (That would be a Yogi Bear, not a Jim Sorber, quote.)

Chicama Vineyards, located in West Tisbury in the Island’s agricultural heart, was the first bonded winery in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Although West Tisbury is a dry town, and wines cannot be served on premises, customers are welcome to purchase wines and enjoy a picnic outside on the winery property, overlooking wildflower fields and the vineyards themselves.

Last Tuesday, during a visit by The Times, the view from the picnic section was remarkable.  A tall pasture of yellow cosmos, daisies, clover, and sweet William moved under a gentle breeze and a half-dozen electric blue gnat-catchers darting in the wind.  Beyond the meadows lie the grapevines, the actual source of the picnic wine just purchased inside the shop.

Speaking of the shop, the winery sells a whole host of picnic accessories to complement an al fresco meal.  There are even citronella candles to keep the bugs away, if the gnat-catchers aren’t doing their job.

Mr. Sorber, who has worked in wineries in New York, California, France, Argentina, and Chile, recommended a Chicama Vineyard Chenin Blanc for a meadow picnic, or their Zinfandel, “Summer Island,” a wine with a fruity zesty flavor.  The vineyard also produces its own sparkling wine, “Sea Mist,” which he said is lovely out-of-doors.

The family-owned winery is one of those Island treats that tourists seem to know more about than locals.  But it is well worth the visit.  With its new bottling machine in place, and a new commercial kitchen under construction, Chicama Vineyards is moving confidently, yet charmingly, into the new century.

Beyond the whites and sparkling wines, red wine has its own role to play out of doors. “A Cote de Rhone begs to go with a barbecue,” said Bill Martin, wine manager at Jim’s Island Market, “or a light Italian red.”  He agreed that some of the California wines were too heavy for summer fare.  “You want something lively, soft and ripe, easy to drink.”

He cited Guigal as the best-known producer from the Rhone valley, but said there were plenty of others.  He suggested a Jean Luc in the $10-$12 range, but added there are lower priced wines that work as well, specifically a wine from Garrigues.

Mr. Martin also pointed in the direction of New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs.  “They are the hottest thing going right now,” he said.  “Lively, tropical fruit, grapefruit, a nice bright acidity. It stands up to chicken and vegetables.”

Beyond specific regions and grapes, Mr. Martin added a logistical tip for picnickers: half bottles.  If you’re headed to a (private) beach, half bottles are amazingly handy. Veuve Clicquot, this writer’s personal favorite in the champagne department, even comes in splits. “It’s not cheap,” he said, “but it’s good.”

Martha Look, one of the owners of Al’s Package Store, seconded the recommendations for light, white wines out-of-doors, a Frascati or a Riesling she suggested, as did the Vineyard Wine and Cheese Shop on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs.  But Ms. Look added that one shouldn’t overlook the possibility of box wine in some situations. “Most of our customers don’t ask questions like “what kind of wine do you drink with a hamburger? One person likes one thing, one likes another,” she said.

David Richardson of Tony’s Market also voiced support for the light, white idea, but was concerned about cost to the consumer.  He suggested René Barbier, white or red, as a respectably palatable wine at only $5 a bottle. “And then there’s Cook’s Champagne,” he said. “You can’t go wrong with that for the price.”

Mr. Richardson did point in the direction of a more subtle wine choice at Tony’s, one he said was his wife’s current favorite: Aprémont, White Savoy. “It’s a very light, crisp wine,” he said, “that has a little hint of carbonation.”  It is, however, more than $13 a bottle.  He also said Australian wines were very popular, citing an Australian Shiraz, “Selena Estate,” as very good.  It’s not as heavy as a burgundy.  It’s a lighter red.”

As a last suggestion for light white, the Town Provision Company in Edgartown recommended a Trimbach Reserve Pinot Gris, made from a Vouvray Chenin Blanc grape with a very bright clean taste.

But if all the ins and outs of wine choice feel like just too much activity for a warm Vineyard night, relax.  You can always go with David Richardson’s personal favorite at Toney’s.  “There’s nothing like an IPA beer in the summertime.”

Martha’s Vineyard Times, June 21, 2001: “Bloomsday Revisited” by Dawn Aberg.

The literati so rarely give themselves something to celebrate, beyond the birthdays of dead authors.  Maybe that’s why June 16 is such a beloved date for fans of words.  Bloomsday. The date on which the events of James Joyce’s Ulysses unfold.

According to Joyce’s biographer Richard Ellman, the author seized on June 16 as a tribute to his wife Nora.  It was, after all, on just such a Dublin Thursday in 1904 that he fell in love with her.

Perhaps because of the paucity of literary feast days, a rich tradition of Bloomsday celebrations has grown up in the last century.  Year after year, with varying degrees of polish and sobriety, Joyce’s dense, punny word games and searing social insights have been shared among his admirers.  By 1982, the tradition was formalized with public readings in Dublin and at Symphony Space in New York City.

As is our Island wont, local observances of the holiday have taken on a special character. Over the last 23 years, Vineyarder John Crelan has produced and directed an eclectic, shifting mix of Joyceana, for a Bloomsday that changes every year.  He eschews the more academic tradition of staid public reading, veering instead in the direction of interspersed performance bits, poetry and prose laced with music, songs which Joyce himself sand and admired.

No two Crelan Bloomsdays are identical.  Last summer, 20 performers combined to present a complex, vaudevillian show.  This past Sunday night’s performance at the Katharine Cornell Theatre was a simpler evening, not exactly a quiet one (there is a deliciously boisterous quality to these performances), but certainly more relaxed, under a heavy summer rain.

And yes, astute reader, last Sunday was June 17, not, therefore, Bloomsday proper.  However as all good Joyce fans know, Bloomsday runs into the wee hours of the morning of the 17^th, with Molly Bloom musing on life, love, and adulterous marriage well past midnight, in one of the most famous soliloquies in English literature. 

 Thus last Sunday seven players spun out their tributes to Joyce one by one, with selections that revealed lesser known aspects of  the author’s work (his radical political vision, for instance) as well as monologues based on its prototype: Homer’s Odysseus, proper.

Dublin born David O’Docherty opened the evening with a prologue of old, modal Irish tunes played on the tin whistle and a low pitched reed flute.  In good Irish tradition, he mixed his music with storytelling and humor.  “If you listen carefully,” he suggested, “you will hear fairy wings among the raindrops.”

Some tunes had names that were stories in their own right, as in “We Only Drink to Forget We’re Alcoholics.”  But whatever its title, each air was granted its own remarkable introduction.  “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now,” was one such launch into a tin whistle ditty.

Cahal Stephens, who has participated in every Crelan Bloomsday since 1989, performed a little known Joyce piece, a newspaper article written in Trieste in 190.  “The Last Fenian” not only gives a history of the radical tradition of Irish politics.  It conveys a sense of the fierceness of Joyce’s political critique, his gleeful reflections on the haplessness of the Irish political spirit.  “In Ireland, at just the right moment,” Joyce wryly noted through Mr. Stephens’ voice, “an informer always appears.”

Music in the program underscored the close connection between music and words in Joyce’s work.

Singer Michael Calmes, accompanied ably by John Whiteside, performed classic 19^th century Irish songs, songs Joyce himself was known to sing.  With a clear sweet arc into his higher range, Mr. Calmes hung notes in the air in a classic Irish tenor style.  But it was with a Benjamin Britten arrangement of “The Last Rose of Summer,” based on the traditional Irish air “Groves of Blarney,” that Mr. Calmes stole the audience’s heart.

 Then it was on to Ulysses itself.

Boston actress Pam Rogers gave us this year’s Molly Bloom, the randy wife of Leopold.  Ms. Rogers exuberantly pressed through the last pages of her famous soliloquy right up to the novel’s ineffable last line:  “yes I said yes I will Yes.”

And Donal O’Sullivan handsomely portrayed her tormented alienated husband. As Bloom, he presented the flirtation with Gertie MacDowell, a pretty girl he comes to discover is lame.  “Jilted beauty,” Mr. O’Sullivan mused in character. “A defect is ten times worse in a woman.”  His mental peregrinations bring him back to the point where Molly leaves us:  the moment in which the two not so much fell in love, as realized they could not escape each other.

By far the biggest treat of the evening was a last minute addition to the program, a wildly dramatic performance of Joyce’s poem “Gas from a Burner” by Gerry Yukevich.  Dr. Yukevich stormed into the theater precisely as the feisty and scatology-prone Joyce would have done, slicing through lines the author had scratched out in a train station, an angry response to yet another publisher’s rejection.  A scathingly ambivalent diatribe on Irish character, the poem is a good example of why James Joyce does not endear himself to the Celtic sentimentalist crowd, either in this country or in Ireland.

 But for those folks who love a heretical romp through the darker side of Celtic tradition as their brand of Irish, stay tuned, Martha’s Vineyard.  Same time, next year, but with no “same” about the ever-changing show.  Be there for yet another Bloomsday. “Glory-O, Glory-O to the bold Joycean men,” to paraphrase a lyric. Don’t miss it.