The Fabulous 413

Today is a sandwich, which is great because we are hungry for bookends. Perhaps ironically, this is an important part of a... whoops, that was about to be a spoiler for Double Edge Theater's Summer spectacular, "The Hidden Territories of the Bacchae", currently showing at their Ashfield facilities. This work is a re-imagining of the work that started the company and takes the audience on a journey not just through story, but across meadows and barns and more. We spoke with several members of the cast and crew about this production and broadening the scope of what theater can do, including co-founder and artistic director Stacy Klein. Double Edge played a tangential part in the establishment of The Ohketeau Cultural Center, of which Rhonda Anderson is a co-founder. But Rhonda is also the western Massachusetts commissioner of Indian affairs, and now has become a board member of the Woodlands Partnership of Western Massachusetts. We speak with her about increasing visibility for indigenous communities, about reconnecting with the land, and healing the wounds in both. And one might find the mistaken histories we've attributed to those indigenous communities craven. Or maybe you've noticed a shift in how that word is utilized lately. The Word Nerd, our resident wordster and senior editor at Merriam-Webster in Springfield, Emily Brewster, takes on a question from one of our listeners about a shift they've noticed in usage for two adjectives: mortifying and craven. The results are not shame-y, we promise.

We are making a way for the things we need today. It happens with newly made government offices. One of Gov. Healey's actions in her first 100 days in office was to create the Office of Rural Affairs, and former State senator Anne Gobi has recently been appointed to the post. We talk to her about the challenges her office is facing in light of the area's recent environmental disasters, about the ongoing transportation questions of the region, and which apples she likes best. It happens when a farm makes it's appeal a bit broader. Gran-Val Scoops in Granville is much more than an ice cream shop. In addition to offering gourmet ice cream in a wealth of flavors, they also sell dairy products from several farms, raise grass fed beef, have a petting zoo on premises, and more. We chat with Avola Bernt, co-owner about keeping their flavors local, and the rich intertwined history of their farm and family. It happens in dance. Within the wealth of the Jacob's Pillow Festival in Becket, a company seeking to make dance truly for every body makes its way to Western Mass. Axis Dance Company has purposefully sought to include professional dancers of all abilities, all disabilities, and all neurodivergences since 1987. We speak with their artistic director, Nadia Adame, about making equitable movement for all, and how we can have more folx dancing in more places everywhere. **Transcript of the interview with Nadia Adame will be available shortly, and the notes will be updated with a link as soon as they are completed**

This episode is a phoenix. Which is to say, we get to look at successes found in failures. This is one of the main tenets of Dr. Andrew Lam's latest book "The Masters of Medicine: Our Greatest Triumphs in the Race to Cure Humanity’s Deadliest Diseases". He joins us in studio to talk about the medical successes that emerged from our defeats, and how those may direct future breakthroughs. Mr. Universe, Salman Hameed, explains that it is behind the recent success of ISRO, or the Indian Space Research Organization, which successfully launched a rover and lander this past weekend. In addition to re-igniting the space race, it allows us to look at the world's previous rover/launcher missions and what nations are hoping to encounter with these endeavors. And it's in Pizza Quest volume 5. We have previously failed to eat a pie in Franklin County, but remedy that with a quick trip to Magpie in Greenfield. There we are joined by the rest of the Belmonte Family in our pursuit of the best pizza in western Massachusetts

It's our 100th episode! Can you believe it? Neither can we! So we head to Franklin County to share our celebrations with a whole building as we broadcast live from the brand new library in Greenfield. We speak with outgoing director Ellen Boyer, head of children's services Ellen Lavoie, teen libarian Francesca Passiglia, Jeremiah Rood of borrower services, and incoming director Anna Bognolo. To help us stay focused with our line of questioning, we bring in author/illustrator and previous guest Mo Willems as our guest co-host. Plus, it's still live music Friday, so we have Scottish harpist and Silk Road Ensemble member Maeve Gilchrist stop by just before her set at Antenna Cloud Farm.

We're getting the feeling this has happened before. That feeling is the impetus behind the new podcast "Deja News", where current events are linked to those with of the past with chilling, nigh prescient, similarities. At the helm of this endeavor is Rachel Maddow, and along with her co-host Isaac-Davey Aronson, we talk about adjusting to a more radio-like medium, journalistic integrity, and mocktails. Despite the flooding, highland games will return to Northampton this week. The Glasgow Lands Scottish Festival is in its 28th year, and has more pipe and drum bands than ever. After surveying its Look Park locale, organizer Peter Langmore swings through the studios to give us the run-down on all the food, music, dancing and more that will happen July 15th at the park, plus a brief history of caber tossing. And speaking of the floods, which are on all of our minds, especially with more rain slated for this weekend, our chat with congressman Jim McGovern focuses on what comes next for agriculture in western Massachusetts after this series of devastating blows.

Today we are arriving on shores after being underwater. The recent rains have lead to dams breaking, riverbanks overflowing, and hundreds if not thousands of acres of farmland being awash in several feet of water. After the February and May frosts, this is a gut wrenching third punch in a growing season that has already been a struggle. We speak with the farmers and organizers at Grow Food Northampton, CISA, MDAR, and State Senator Jo Comerford about the effects of the flooding and what comes next. After spending 3 years in sanctuary in Northampton, Irida Kakhtiranova is back at home, and the pirogi business that she started while in exile, P’frōgi, is thriving at local stores and a growing number of farmers markets. We speak with her about her ongoing pursuit of citizenship, the unforseen setbacks of that pursuit, and what makes a good dumpling. And the word nerd, Emily Brewster, resident wordster and senior editor at Merriam Webster, tackles a reader question from John Dionne about "irregardless". Though this word is much reviled, it is very much real and in the dictionary, which sparks a larger conversation about the evolution of certain prefixes.

It's fun to take the long way around sometimes. We're not the only ones. John Burney's origin story for the start of Meadowbrook Farm in East Longmeadow involves a telephone pole in a field and a dream that's evolved to be ~400 acres of Western New England farmland. We speak with him and Jacob Nelson from CISA about blueberries, local wholesale, and the people who help to make that farm robust. We see it in the circuitous route language takes, even on our own tongues. Linguist and budding local historian Wren Wood helps us discover the sound of a Chicopee past, including a speech approximating the accents of the time. They share with us their passion for making the sounds of the gilded age, showing how that shapshot of language can connect us even closer with the people of the past. And it's happening in beloved mediums having a resurgence, in our case the return of vinyl records to the fore. Prodigal Massachusetts native, professor John Dougan has recently edited the anthology "The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Record Store: A Global History", so we take him to Easthampton's Platterpus Records, where owner Dave Witthaus joins us to discuss the nature and progress of how we consume music.

Today's show has a bit of an edge, or perhaps it is walking towards one. Renowned guitarist G.E. Smith will be playing a solo show and teaching a masterclass on the history of guitar both benefiting Belchertown Music Boosters, a local organization dedicated to supporting local arts programs in the Belchertown school system. After a bit of miscommunication, we're able to chat with the award winning sideman about the folx he's worked with, his start on guitar, and why helping programs like this is important. We're also at the edge of reinforcing ideas we've had about space and physics. Mr. Universe, Salman Hameed, not only mentions that we might see Aurora Borealis this weekend, but broaches the importance of the recent discovery of new ways to detect gravitational waves in space. It's a constant of the twenty-first century that we are in the midst of climate crisis. Philanthropist and author Chuck Collins' latest book, "Altar to an Erupting Sun", examines some very human possibilities for confronting this crisis. But even more than that, it's a love letter to many real activists of western Massachusetts and southern Vermont. We speak with him about the book, and about his evolution to philanthropist after giving away the fortune he'd inherited from Oscar Mayer.

We're exploring touchstones today. We find it in a new exhibit that seeks to highlight folx often overlooked. The Lava Center in Greenfield hosts a number of projects, as we hear from co-coordinator Jan Maher, from plays to visual art to film festivals and more. Now open and on display at the LAVA Center is "Black Families of Greenfield: A Brief Historical Snapshot" which seeks to highlight the legacies of folx in that town who have been often overlooked. The collection was researched by Carol Aleman, president of the Greenfield Historical Society, who offers some insights to the process of putting it together. We find these touchstones in the ways that we move. Berkshire based dance company, They Dance For Rain, has found these connections in tap. Over the years they've gone to Kenya to teach and share the medium, but this is the first year they've been invited as guests of the Nairobi Dance Life Festival, and Stefanie Weber and Josephine “JoJo” McDonald join us live from Nairobi to speak on their myriad experiences there. And we discover these connections closer than we knew. For our Wine Thunderdome we head to Mesa Verde in Greenfield to have proprietor Amy McMahon. But her incredible palate and two bottle challenge to us are only half as interesting as her recent efforts to collaborate with the nearly 150 Haitian refugees currently living just off the Greenfield rotary, so we talk about the connections and compassion of food and resilience.

Today we witness how the paths can diverge. Which is to say that this weekend in the Berkshires, our Tanglewood correspondent, Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, will lead his orchestra and an ensemble in a presentation of "Ragtime" that has been arranged specifically for them. Since the source novel and musical both deal with the potential, pitfalls, and triumphs of our young nation and the communities that are forced to intersect here, we speak with the maestro about how important works of this nature are and why they remain relevant today. Speaking of said young nation, we also get a glimpse of the ripples last week's Supreme Court decisions have had through the legislative branch as we mcgovern with Rep. Jim McGovern this week. He gives us his take on the full scope of the rulings, and how he decompresses from the intensity of all that on the Cape. We also head to Mason Square Public Library in Springfield for their Summer Reading Kickoff, where books and ice cream abound. In addition to discovering our ice cream names, programs & training librarian Elizabeth McKinstry also tells us about some of the other programs the library provides, including a project involving yearbooks that Springfield Libraries is about to display at it's Central Branch.

The things that shift when you're not looking is what this show is about. That happened last week with decisions that the Supreme Court handed down. Although some were expected, others were. To sort through the wreckage, we get Western New England University Law Professor Jen Taub involved to help us interpret the word of the justices. There's the slow subtle shift in how we understand things. Have you ever wondered why it sounds okay to say fine ancient white ceramic plates but not ceramic fine white ancient plates? The answer has to do with the order of adjectives. Resident wordster, Emily Brewster, senior editor from Merriam-Webster walks us through the evolution of that order and how the specifics of it are becoming simpler. And there's the shifts that happen just due to the circumstances of the day. Although we had planned to chat with Mike Calabrese of Calabrese Farm in Southwick about their corn crops, deliveries keep him on the road and unable to talk. Lucky for us, he's the younger brother of Joe Calabrese who is able to speak to us about all of the things that are fresh right now, how the May frost affected their fruit crops, and the pleasures of family dynamics on their acres in Southwick.

On paper, this is a holiday that celebrates us as a nation leaving the proverbial British nest to stumble out onto the world stage alone. But we'd rather celebrate the freedom to welcome new neighbors from near and far to these shores and make better, stronger, more diverse and interesting communities. Not so much melting pot, as tasty nuanced salad. So we celebrate with music, cause it's not a party without music. From the Green River Festival, we have our Roundhouse sessions with Larry and Joe and Miko Marks, all amazing musicians who buck the norm.Larry Bellorín was (and is) seeking asylum in North Carolina when his path crossed Joe Troop, and they've been blending Llanera and bluegrass ever since, mixing Americas North and South with their sound. Miko Marks left her music career behind for 14 years due to how unwelcoming the country music industry was, but is now back reclaiming her time at the microphone and on the stage. We celebrate with the words and experiences of those who have just arrived. The Performance Project's First Generation ensemble have designed the piece "Mother Tongue" from the stories of their collective. It's an explosive and poignant piece of theater, and they share an excerpt with us. And we're celebrating with tiny umbrellas and tasty beverages. Sean Billson of Gateway City Arts joins us to talk punches and sample them for the Tina Turner Memorial Cocktail Thunderdome. We get a couple of surprise visitors to join us as we take a brief look at the history of tiki cocktails.

Sometimes it is totally okay to cut wide swaths. So we go extra broad with Mr. Universe, Salman Hameed, and go looking for one of the cosmos' coolest mysteries: gamma rays. Or at least the theories behind them, of which there are a lot, including one tied to dinosaur extinction and a BOAT. We also cast a large net toward civics. In order to be naturalized, each potential new American must answer a randomly selected set of questions out of a standardized hundred. But it has been shown that many folx born in this country couldn't answer those questions correctly. So we invite Gairy Wynter, who has just passed his citizenship test and becomes an American on the holiday, and Laurie Millman of the Center for New Americans to come and administer the test to us to see if we would pass. And we are gazing on the largess of careers and fandom. We're joined by John Flansburgh of the band They Might Be Giants. The band is on a nearly sold out tour that makes a stop in Deerfield on July 6th, allowing us to delve into their history, our collective love and fondness for them, and some accidental connections we're thrilled to discover. We've been wondering since the mid-80s if they were giants. We'd say at this point they have made themselves so.

Today we have very long memories, especially in light of the shortsightedness of the news this week. So we reach back to a text that has remained relevant and prescient for 170 years. The speech "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" was given by Frederick Douglass in 1852, but is read aloud in towns across the Bay State, including several in western Mass, through a program launched by Mass Humanities called "Reading Frederick Douglas together". We gather several of these readers together, the program's director Dr. Latoya Bosworth, Dr. Toni McComb, Javier Luengo-Garrido, Prof. Ousmane Power-Greene, and Anika Lopes, to share a bit of the work and talk about why it remains important. We remembered that we have never tasted wine in Franklin County, and felt we needed to fix that immediately. So we head off to Ashfield Lake House, where proprietor Dre Rawlings comes to our rescue for the Tina Turner Memorial Wine Thunderdome. It is our second blind tasting, but in a neat twist, we only use wines from the restaurant's cellar. And if you've enjoyed our opening theme music for the show, today's your lucky day because the band that made that song is our guest for Live Music Friday. Spouse plays Gateway City Arts on June 30th (right after the show in fact) but made a quick side stop to come in and play our theme music in studio. Spouse isn't the largest group we've ever had in studio, but they are the loudest and have the most gear, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

The people we bring together are closer than you think. It happens somewhat ironically, in the portion of Rep. Jim McGovern's district that isn't actually in the 413, where he's just completed a round of town halls. In this week's mcgoverning with McGovern we find out about his constituents on the other side, and more solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ and drag communities. If you've got a question for the congressman, email us at [email protected] or text to [800-639-9120](tel:8006399120) and we'll ask it during the next show! It happens in eating local also. Karl Prahl recently moved his poultry operation, Underline Farm, to Easthampton, and in doing so landed directly across the street from the home of Vincent Corsello, who owns Corsello Butcheria. What happens next is a kismet of community coming together to be even more local, even more present in the way we handle livestock, and even more dedicated to making sure the impact of the industries we're involved in is beneficial to everyone. And it is a mainstay of making music. The Antenna Cloud Farm's Music Walk takes place July 1st in Downtown Turners/Great Falls, filling the town with innovative and interesting music from 2-8pm, both with in-person musicians and virtually in self guided tours. We hear a sample of the performers in Aisha Burns who is scheduled to play that evening, and hear more about how the Antenna Cloud Farm brings folx together to make such a fun event happen from founder Michi Wiancko (who you may have heard in the NERO Orchestra episode

This show is for babies. Just kidding, but it is about young ones, and that's almost as cute. First there's the music for kids and their grown-ups happening at The Parlor Room in Northampton. Liam Hurley and Nick Deysher, also known as Mr. Liam and Mr. Nick, curate The Parlor Room Kids Series, which happens every first Sunday of the month on a sliding scale so that everyone can be included. This is kids music for everyone, parents included, and we get a taste of what's in store for those families this Sunday when they stop by the studios, ukeleles in tow to evoke a couple 10 second dance parties for us. Then there's bear cubs. When young bears are orphaned, sometimes Kilham Bear Center in New Hampshire steps in to care for them until they can be released. If that seems a little far for our 413 focus, it turns out that they took in two cubs from Massachusetts, including a bear discovered in Greenfield that they named Alma. NEPM senior reporter Nancy Cohen has been following the story of Alma ever since its placement in the facility, so we chat with her about the things that happen to go along with Alma's release back into the wild this spring. And is it more mature to say that you feel bad or that you feel badly? We ask The Word Nerd, resident wordster Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster about which phrase is more correct, and what other phrases like that have become contentious.If you have a linguistic question for The Word Nerd, let us know! Email us at [email protected]

Community comes in all shapes and sizes and that's what we love best about it. It comes in the form of a long standing pillar of the coffee community turning his company over to his employees. Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans Organic Coffee announced his retirement a while ago, but his official last day was June 26th. And with that last day, the company became a worker-owned co-operative. We speak with Dean and the company's new CEO Beth Spong about making that shift happen and the legacy of societal change they've been able to enact in the coffee industry stateside and with their international partners. And pirates. Arrr. And it comes in the form of a long loved cultural celebration returning to the streets. The Springfield Puerto Rican Parade has been a fixture for over 33 years. Back in person and out on the streets, the event will have a kickoff party June 29th at White Lion. To get a better handle on all of the fun things you can do in it's 2+ mile stretch downtown, we invited parade administrator Shirley Rodríguez and NEPM's own Elizabeth Román into the studio to share their experiences and talk about the future of the parade.

We're still reeling from the awesome that was this weekend, and in that way, today's show is a bit of a recap. First we head to Amherst to check out the new Wes Anderson movie, "Asteroid City". We get to speak with executive director of Amherst Cinema Yasmin Chin Eisenhauer about some of the events coming to their theater, and then delve into the science-y-ness of the film with Mr. Universe, Salman Hameed. We promise no spoilers for the film. Next, a set of performances we held at the Green River Festival. Taking place in the Roundhouse in the middle of the Franklin County Fairgrounds, we cajoled a handful of the artists already performing at the festival to perform impromptu intimate performances and chat with us. We sit with The Wood Brothers, who mostly are brothers and talk about the instrument the not-quite-brother of the band has created out of an old guitar and many other things as well as how their latest album "Heart Is the Hero" came to be recorded. And we get to hang out with Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno who make up the folk duo Viv & Riley, just before Riley sat in on Raichel Baiman's set at the Back Porch Stage. We got to explore the world of old-fashioned string band sound as they continue to update it for a new millenium.

It's Green River Festival Weekend! And we're broadcasting live from the Back Porch Stage! We chat with Jim Olsen, the man behind the whole thing as well as Signature Sounds in Northampton about the history of the festival and the acts that have gotten him excited over the course of his tenure. We get Nan Perrotti, artistic director of the festival, whose distinctive style is easily identified on signs at many events, to talk to us about how she came to work her magic in script and how she came to be in the 413 as well. Kent Hunt of East Branch Studio joins us to talk about building the Green House stage: a tiny house that is used for the festival and then repurposed. Professor Rob Williams and several students from the 5 colleges involved with the project arrived with him to explore why a construction effort of this nature is important not just to the festival itself, but to our community building as well. And it wouldn't be the Green River Festival without music. So Bridget Kearney makes her way to the stage just before her solo set, as does Suitcase Junket, fresh from his completion of his secret show for the campsite.

Technical difficulties are our favorite, let us tell you. But that doesn't stop us from chatting with Negin Farsad and Roy Blount Jr. of NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" just before they headed to the Berkshires for a live taping of the show. We subject them to a barrage of quiz adjacent questions as a warm up to the show on which they are regular guests, and broach the subject of farm animal sounds in various countries. Another part of our lemonade making involves Rep. Jim McGovern, who joins us for our weekly mcgoverning. We get his take on the Schiff censure, the rolling attempts at impeachment, and the Poor People's Campaign. If you have a question for the congressman, email us at [email protected] or text us at [1800-639-9120](tel:18006399120) and we’ll ask him on air. And for everyone not spending their whole weekend at the Franklin County Fairgrounds, we give a quick plywood ramp to the weekend, full of fun things to do in the 4 counties that isn't the Green River Festival.

It's finally summer! Astrologically, that is. We chat with local armchair meteorology expert Dave Hayes The Weather Nut about the differences between the summer of space and the summer of the skies and what we should expect at the Green River Festival this weekend. Local multi-disciplinary artist Terry Janoure is embarking on a new musical journey at Bombyx on June 25th. This new work titled "Secret to Life" highlights the lives of older women of color and is based on an ongoing series of interviews Janoure conducts. We talk with her and Linda McInerney of Eggtooth Productions, who are helping to bring this to the stage, about the importance of these stories and their retelling through music. And we're joined by The Word Nerd, Emily Brewster, Senior Editor at Merriam-Webster who guides our attention to a word they have been watching for a while: "parasocial". And we'll get into how a word might incur the watchful eye of our local dictionary here in Springfield.

We are back at full host capacity! Huzzah! But someone wasn't able to fully turn off while vacationing due to seeing a logo that referenced Western Mass. Monte chats with Tim Convery of Tim-Scapes about his city designs including the one for "HAMP", and other inspirations. Returning is hungry work, however, so we get a visit from Clarissa Lee-Madden of Grown Up Farm in Belchertown. Though this farm started out in mycology, it's branched out much more since it's origins and we get into what's good that's coming up from the ground right now, as well as some extra delicious ways to eat them from the personal chef herself. And speaking of eating, we also visit Bridge Street School's Better World Picnic. This annual celebration is not just in honor of the end of the school year, but also of the rich diversity that the student body and their families represent.

We are here for the uplift. It's found in the many Juneteenth celebrations happening next week, and especially in the one being thrown by Arise for Social Justice in Springfield. Founded 30 years ago, Arise has been a part of several initiatives for bettering the city, including opposing the biomass plant. We speak with Rusty Polsgrove about the importance of celebrating as a part of resistance, and how collaboration helps further causes faster. Plus that uplift is very much at the core of The Compost Cooperative as well. We continue our conversation with worker-owners Trenda Loftin and Revan Schendler about the progress the co-op has made with their housing project, and about the inherent flaws in our systems that their business model is actively attempting to combat.

Today was all about building the communities you need to see in the world. We take a brief breather from our Juneteenth gear up to look to the north at the things the Compost Cooperative is up to. Worker-owners Revan Schendler and Trenda Loftin swing through the studios to tell us more about the core mission of the co-operative and how their model seeks to combat recidivism and climate change at the same time. Then we brush the surface of nerdom, a topic near and dear to Kaliis' heart. The BEGIN Podcast features black nerds in western Mass digging into all things geeky. Two of the hosts, Neal Robinson and Garrick Perry, stop by to chat with Kaliis about our respective histories on what used to be the outskirts of society, and the intersectionality of black and nerd culture.

We're checking out the things that remain. It's in the rumors of a bluesman that stay with us to this day. Ms. Annye Anderson has made a mission out of dispelling those tales about her step-brother, Robert Johnson, in her book "Brother Robert: Growing Up With Robert Johnson". But her life is just as storied and interesting as his is, and we find out about both. It's in the celebrations we make as well. Juneteenth comes to Greenfield this Monday in an event thrown by Moving Mountains Media. The festivities are in their second year and we bring Mpress Bennu, the organizer behind the event, to the studios to talk about the happenings both new and famililar that you can encounter on our day of freedom. It's the parts of the language we keep. The Word Nerd, Emily Brewster, resident wordster and senior editor from Merriam-Webster shows us land-lubbers that some of our common phrases washed ashore from the sea, managing to evolve and thrive away from the briny depths and ships they originally sailed upon. If you've got a question you'd like to ask of The Word Nerd, send it to us at [email protected] or text to [1-800-639-9120](tel:18006399120) anytime

Sometimes it's good to dig into the roots of how we got to where we are. It is a compelling factor that will bring Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman's story to life at Historic Deerfield on Juneteenth. Tammy Denease of Hidden Women stage company presents her one woman show on Freeman's life. But it's just one of the many lives she portrays, so we speak about using theater as a tool to educate about history. It's where we are too. As Wisteriahurst Museum prepares to throw its Juneteenth celebrations on the holiday itself, we're joined by Erika Slocumb, a historian at the museum. In addition to organizing their Juneteenth event, she's been working on a project that looks to highlight and preserve the oral history of the black community in Holyoke, but has found that the reaches of community stretch much farther than she'd originally imagined. And it's in physical roots, including some of the ones we eat. We sat down with Phil Korman from CISA, Nate Shattuck of Shattuck's Sugarhouse and Devon Lane Farm, and Katie Bobbin, the new manager of the Belchertown Farmers & Artisans Market to check in on how their opening weekend went considering that they are one of the few Sunday markets in the area, and to take a look at how this particular market has evolved over the past 30 years or so.

Kaliis flies solo this week! No one panic!Although there was some panic about microbes from space at one point. Mr. Universe, Dr. Salman Hameed joins us live to chat about the complete futility of quarantining to prevent microorganisms that would have been brought back by space missions. But our caution about cosmic cross-contamination still influences missions to this day, and may see some results on Mars. June 12th was once declared Nelson Stevens Day in Springfield. Since the artist currently has a show up at Springfield Museums, we talk with NEPM's Kari Njiri, who not only has reported on the exhibit and the folx involved in making it happen, but has stories to tell from knowing him in everyday life. And it's the start of our week long Juneteenth ramp up. I Am Afro: A Street Fair For All People is a Juneteenth event happening this weekend in North Adams featuring a wealth of activities. The festivities are being produced through a partnership of the Berkshire Black Economic Council and the First Congregational Church of North Adams. The BBEC's president and founder, A.J. Enchill, sits with us to talk about the festivities and other civic action as well. And we're interested in finding out about your connections to Juneteenth as the week goes on. Have you celebrated it before? Is this your first time hearing about the holiday? Let us know at [email protected] or send a text to [1-800-639-9120](tel:18006399120).

More celebrations, more better, we say. We're celebrating a widening palate, constantly tested and rested in the Tina Turner Memorial Thunderdome, which we enter with the folx at State Street in Northampton. There we take two rosés and pit them against the seafood melange of ceviche, as the Wine Uncle and Yankee Sippah consistently up their pairing game. We're celebrating our queer community, especially in these times where we are seeing it threatened in places near and far. Heather Mahoney, Jake Krain, and Kacie Dean of Franklin County Pride visit us in studio and let us know all of the wonderful events they have planed for their Pride happening all week and beyond, for all walks and ages of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. And we're celebrating innovators. Django in June highlights the musical style anchored by Django Reinhardt and is nearing its 20th year. For live music Friday, we're joined by organizer Andrew Lawrence, guitarist and instructor Jack Soref, and clarinetist Evan Arntzen who in addition to showing us the incredible virtuosity of the jazz manouche style, but key us into some of the unique perspectives this event brings to western Massachusetts.

Isn't it lovely when community comes together to make art? We think so! It's why we speak with The Greenfield Players, who for the next two weekends will bring the bard to Energy Park for their presentation of Twelfth Night. With company members Rachel Cronen-Townsend, Daniel Greycloud-Jacob, Steve Cronen-Townsend, Cassie Wood-Triplet, we get into the appeal of taking your Shakespeare outside for a little Vitamin D, and why this particular work continues to resonate. And it's in manner that we all wear ourselves, the hidden talents that bubble forth. Those talents are a thing that FAB Fashion Passion Week is actively seeking right now. This collaboration between Make It Springfield and FAB Fashion of Turners Falls is seeking to highlight local designers and hobbyists as well as global designers. Both groups are very much looking for folx in the community to participate! We chat with organizers Richie Richardson of Fab Fashion and Roberta Wilmore of Make It Springfield about the power and importance of globalizing our arts communities through collaborations like these on big and small scales. It's in the way we come together to preserve these spaces as well. There is currently a campaign to save the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington, which shut it's doors on June 5th. And some big names have come out in support of keeping this small but vital art-house theater operating, including Gregory Crewdson, who through June 9th is offering prints of one of his previously unreleased works as part of this fundraising effort. We chat with him about how cinematic sensibilities bleed into his work, and how he got involved in the preservation efforts. And if we're honest, making good legislature is an art as well. Which may be why Rep. Jim McGovern has a bit of ennui today. For today's mcgoverning with McGovern, we dig into his discontent with the Rules Committee, a board for which he was chair when the democrats had a majority in the House.

We explore language today! What's that? We explore language every Wednesday because of The Word Nerd? To that we rebut: indeed. But how is this Wednesday different from any other Wednesday? Perhaps it's because we had a great listener question from a listener about the origins of certain English phrases (inspired by our look at the origins of the language in a previous show). So Emily Brewster, resident wordster and senior editor at Merriam-Webster, dives right into the Middle-English of things to show us how some common phrases have evolved, and giving us more food for thought in the process. Or perhaps it is because we spent time with Polly Byers of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding. Their Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism in Schools (or the BRAVE Schools) program seeks to help middle and high school students, as well as the staff in those institutions, in using dialogue to deescalate instances of violence and hate. This weekend, they host "Bringing the Lessons Home:The Power of Dialogue, Locally and Globally" at the Amherst Women's Center to help folx see the applicability of the word to help everyone near and far. But mostly we're thinking it's because we have a bonus Live Music Wednesday. On tour from Boston, and making a stop at the Jewish Community of Amherst, is Levyosn. With their name taken from the Ashkenazi Hebrew for “Leviathan”, the group specializes in Yiddish song and klezmer, but they also sing in Hebrew, Ladino, and English and draw from adjacent Eastern European folk traditions, all of which you can hear on their brand new album "Lullabye". Lucky for us, they dropped by the studio to give us a taste of that new album in person.

Today is all about participation! It's exactly what we want to do in strawberry season! and since that has just started, we head to the pick-your-own fields of Pie In The Sky Farm in Northampton. There, proprietors Kristen Sykes and Fred Beddall walk us through their many different varieties (some ready and some not), show us some of their other PYO crops that are just getting started, and speak to how their particular land stewardship helps all their crops and the area itself do better. It's what we want to do with our neighborhoods too. And what better way to participate than making art! Britt Ruhe of Common Wealth Murals swings through the studios to talk about all of the murals her organization has been bringing to Springfield. We discover how Common Wealth Murals helps to train more muralists, how they got involved in the Nelson Stevens restorations, and how the second organization that CWA founded,Fresh Paint Springfield, truly gets the community involved while continuing to do bigger and better things (some this week even!) And speaking of cities, we participate in the civic process. NEPM reporter Jill Kaufman has been reporting on a motion to censor books in Ludlow school libraries. She, and author Jarret J. Krosoczka who has had his books banned before, sit with us to un-tease the Gordian knot of how we got here before the meeting next week that may put the sanctions into place.

We did a whole show live from the stage at the NEPM Asparagus Festival in Hadley! Since this is our first time trying something like this, we figure we'd pull out all the stops and have a show just jam packed with guests. So that's exactly what we do. For something as iconic to Hadley as asparagus, we need to bring along someone who's been immersed in the crop for ages. So we bring in Wally Czajkowski of Plainville Farm, who not only has been growing Hadley grass for decades, but has the most delightful way of saying it as well. We have Ashley Randle of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resourses, Scott Soares of the USDA, and Rep. Jim McGovern join us to chat about the state of not just asparagus, but farming in western Massachusetts in general, especially in the fall out of a series of terrible weather events. We have a Tina Turner Memorial Wine Thunderdome with Michelle Kersbergen of Black Birch Vineyards, and a beer tasting with Jeff Goulet of Loophole Brewing, who gets to share more about the brewery's upcoming move to Springfield. And Latin Grammy Award winning local artist Mr. G regales us alongside the Global Citizen Ensemble. It's a wicked good time.

It's a day for acknowledgements. We're honoring the legacies of legends whose contributions can't be quantified. Such is the case with Ramsey Lewis, who is being honored on June 3rd at Gateway City Arts in Holyoke. Genuine Culture, LLC has gathered a group of jazz players and MCs to walk through his catalog to give a glimpse of the breadth of his influence across many genres. We speak with Damany Gordon about about the many innovations and connections Lewis made over the course of his life. We're honoring icons we recently lost by renaming the wine thunderdome for it's namesake. And under it's new heading, we head for Table and Vine in West Springfield to sip with Michael Quinlan. It's our third straight week of firsts, as we try two wines of the same type from the same vineyard and truly see the variety that terroir can bring. And we're honoring fortitude and virtuosity as well. Jeffrey Foucault starts his residency at Floodwater Brewing tonight, performing for the next three Fridays, but he's also playing in the Berkshires over the weekend at the Egremont Barn. Both he and his drummer for the night, Don McAulay were a part of Sparkletown: a tribute to Kate Lorenz a few weekends back at The Shea Theater, so in addition to hearing music from his catalog, we reminisce with the two of them about loss in the musical community near and far.

Today we're getting into the local glow-ups. There's no containing our excitement when we speak with Ruth E. Carter, Springfield native, four-time nominee and two-time winner of an Oscar for costume design. Over fifty movies later, we're still in awe of how her vision truly brings together characters. We talk about her start in costuming, working on Marvel movies, her late mother, and the truly impressive list of accolades she's acquired over the years. And we mcgovern with Rep. Jim McGovern, who's had a nail-biting week as we narrowly escape defaulting on our payments as a nation. But the final resolution didn't sit well with him and we'll find out why he voted against the measure in the end. Plus, Pride month is here! And although we'll have more on various events happening in the 4 counties of western Massachusetts soon, we give you a quick rundown of Pride events happening this very weekend in Pittsfield and Springfield! Please note: we mention in the show that Ruth E. Carter is being honored at a gala later in the month. More information about the Pink Magnolia Gala and the causes that supports can be found here.

Hidden gems are always fun to find. There's cool things to discover in our very language itself. Emily Brewster, resident wordster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster in Springfield, helps us delve into the conflict ridden marriage of German and French that ultimately resulted in the modern English Language. The Battle of Hastings is very involved, but your dinner might be also. We encounter gorgeous flora at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens. Nestled in Stockbridge, spring finds the grounds literally bursting with life, and new projects to bring more plant life to western Massachusetts. Executive director Thaddeus Thompson and director of horticulture Eric Ruquist speak with us on the new things they've got planned, the problems climate change is posing, and reveal some of the surprises found among their 24 acres. And perhaps there's a famous face in the crowd that gets noticed. Which is what happened this weekend during Amherst College's commencement where several folx spotted Harrison Ford in the wild. So we ask you what celebrity you've encountered in the 413, and share some of our own as well. **Please note: there is humor regarding death within our talk at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens

There is something to be said about just getting things done. It's not always easy, and this is an impasse that The Literacy Project seeks to address. In fact, on June 1st, they are holding a graduation ceremony at Greenfield Community College for folx who have just completed their GED through programs they have in place. We chat with outgoing executive director Judith Roberts, Kat Brenton and Amos Johnson who'll be graduating this week, and their keynote speaker, Tim Lovett, who is a graduate of the program himself, about the importance of keeping education open to everyone. It's happening in Northampton, where the 3rd Summer on Strong begins today, shutting down a portion of the street to instead offer outdoor dining, music, and entertainment all summer long. We interrupt them in the middle of setting up to talk about the power of eating local with Jeremy Werther of Homestead and invite Deb Flynn of Eastside Grill and Amy Cahillane of the Downtown Northampton Association along to look at how community has made this festival happen in more ways than one. And not to double down on Northampton, but it's happening in their City Hall as well. For our third installment of "Meet the Mayor", we get to hang out with Gina-Louise Sciarra. Now that the Bombyx debacle has mostly died down, we get to ask her about the redesign of downtown, the IHEG liquor license problem, and the finer points of city budgeting.

Sometimes the weekend requires a shift in perspective. Which is exactly what Provisions is aiming to do in the Wine Thunderdome. Benson Hyde and Bruce McAmis bring us a possibly contentious set of contenders as we pit two canned wine spritzers against each other, and examine one of the more sustainable routes wine may be taking forward. It's what all of us will have to take with the Bombyx Center for Arts and Equity in Florence. Over the past three weeks this venue has been through logistical and bureaucratic rollercoasters. But we chat with Cassandra Holden from Bombyx and Laudable Productions and Bombyx Board Chair, Elizabeth Dunaway about what exactly got them shut down, and about the steps they and the city are taking to get them opened up again. And we can even make a pivot with time signatures. In their own words, The Threesies rage against the tyranny that is common or 4/4 time by taking up the underappreciated 3/4 and it's many derivatives. The band itself is a frequently rotating cast of players, but Paul Kochanski, J.J. O'Connell, and Jim Henry join us (in a set of three themselves, no less) to bring more light to songs that swing.

Today, there is an overabundance of creativity. Scotty Swan is engendering it in kids. He teaches Rock Band Camp who will perform at the Northampton Center for the Arts on May 28th. We chat with him about getting kids comfortable enough to really shred, and about the other camp he runs in the summer: The Urban Wizards Academy. There's a whole organization that's encouraging this creativity in older kids also. MAPS, or Music and Poetry Synchronized has been operating for 17 years on a simple model: get two schools and have them bridge ethnic, gender, socio-economic, and environmental differences by making art together. In order to take a look at the whole program and see how it works and evolves while continuing to have more and more schools participate, we speak with some of the students participating this year, with the administrators and founder of the program, and the teachers getting their classes involved. And we see it in a cautionary tale of sorts. Our regular check in with Rep. Jim McGovern is besieged by technical difficulties, and we're forced to look at the congressman's own past words to figure out a way to salvage the whole thing.

There's a little extra curation happening today. The Word Nerd, Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster, and our resident wordster, alerts us that a shift is happening between our iced coffee and ice tea. Letters are disappearing from certain descriptive words in a totally natural way and we dig into why. Then we are figuring out how to un-curate, of sorts. Thousands of indigenous remains have been kept in museum, school, and library collections for ages. And the rules for giving those remains back to the peoples they came from are about to change in a drastic way. We sit with NEPM's Nancy Eve Cohen to find out more about the ways NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, is changing and how that affects some local tribes and institutions. And we're more than a little impressed by the curation Mass MoCA has done for it's summer program. From theater, to installations, to a bevvy of fantastic musicians from all over the globe, they're pulling out a lot of stops in these next few months. Addison McDonald, general manager of performing arts and film, chats with us about the things he's most excited to share with us in North Adams. Plus, we reminisce on the legacy that the great Tina Turner leaves in her wake.

Today, we peek behind the curtain. There's synergy to be found in young folx collaborating and figuring out new paths of expression. The School of Dance and Contemporary Thought approaches this from several fronts: working with other youth arts group, and by fostering it's own young pre-professional company in The Hatchery. Both prongs of this philosophy have shows this weekend at the Academy of Music in Northampton and we chat with Artistic Director and Founder Jen Polins about fostering a blossoming dance culture in the valley. There's adaptations to be found in Sunderland. Dave Wisseman of Millstone Market, Warner's Farm, and Mike's Maze gives us a real look at how devastating last week's frost has been, and at how learning on the go helped them not only survive that late season freeze but the pandemic as well. Also about his love for strawberries (which mostly managed to survive). And there's growth to be found in the mountains. We head to Tanglewood to visit it's namesake. Which isn't to say that the woods are tangled, but that their tales may be. So we seek out groundskeeper Thomas Leahy (who we have affectionately dubbed the Lorax-in-residence) to discover all things arboreal at the BSO's summer home. Between he and senior publicist Matthew Erikson we get a full view of the symphony of trees on their grounds, and their efforts to keep them in harmony.

We're starting the week with a flurry of activity. That activity includes veritable rock legends, as we talk with June Millington about her band, Fanny. They've got a documentary that's airing on PBS+ and covers all the boundaries that the still performing and touring band broke over their tenure. That's not all though, as proven by IMA: The Institute for the Musical Arts. We get into the origin stories of both the band and the hilltown organization helping folx rock hard. We encounter it in the 3rd Annual Odenong Powwow, which happens this weekend at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School. The event is free and open to the public, but is intentionally a space for especially Indigenous, Native, and First Nations people to convene and celebrate. Powwow singer, lecturer, and artist Justin Beatty and organizer Kara Nye sat with us in studio to elaborate more on the events they have planned (including ways you can help make the whole thing happen). And we find it in the collisions on planets, as that's how moons get born sometimes. Mr. Universe, Salman Hameed, explains how looking at the craters on Mars' moons through successful rover missions is giving folx a better understanding of how those celestial bodies come to be. And how, on occasion, those lunar blemishes accidentally ride the coattails of popstars.

So much happening this weekend, let's dig in. First, we head back to Lenox to enter the Wine Thunderdome once again. Nejaime's Wine Cellars has set a pretty high precedent for these, becoming our first setting for a rosé showdown. And once again, Joe Nejaime has us doing our tasting blind, which is always a fun extra challenge. Then we skip across the mountains to discover that modern beekeeping has its roots in Franklin County. Beefest is now in its 13th year of celebrating Greenfield's connection to our pollinating friends with art, demonstrations, and more. Organizer, and one of the founders of the festival, Sandy Thomas stops by to give us a rundown of the festival goings-on as well as a look at how reverend Lorenzo L. Langstroth's innovations still have impact today. And for Live music Friday, we bring in some big guns with Pamela Means, whose musical versatility simply cannot be contained. She's got a slew of gigs coming up all over New England, but you can often catch her at Luthier's Co-Op in Easthampton, where she's got a Jazz Residency happening every third Thursday. We dig into her musical history, wicked cool cover choices, and her passion for justice and protest songs.

Collaboration is the name of the game. We're pretty sure that Rep. Jim McGovern wishes that word was a little more prevalent in his goings-on Capitol Hill-wise. But debt ceiling and resignation woes aside, the congressman himself has been up to a lot of working with other folx, including using a little technology to aid in a recent commencement speech. Collaboration is at the very core of singing with other people, and we hear it in regional champions, all-female barbershop quartet Saffron. The four women who make up the group, Valerie Reynolds, Amanda Fowski, Sue Berry, and Christine Bulgini, stopped by the studios after teaching a master class on the genre to some of Marcos Carreras' students at Springfield Conservatory of the Arts. Saffron competes in the Northeast Regional Sweet Adeline's Competition on May19th, seeking to regain their title. And working together although your events are very far apart is what we got two former poet laureates to do. Martín Espada and Rich Michaelson will each be giving readings on May 20th: Espada at a benefit for the LAVA center, and Michaelson at Forbes Library (with Michaelson giving a bonus reading through Zoom on May 21st). In addition to hearing some of their new work, we also get a glimpse of the neighborhood in which they both grew up.

There is a certain strength in demanding what is needed. We find this in the civil rights movement. In particular, a smaller predecessor to the movements we know now and came from the meeting of two Massachusetts minds is highlighted in an upcoming documentary. Florence filmmaker Lawrence "Larry" Hott joins us to preview his latest film titled "The Niagra Movement: The Early Battle for Civil Rights", which you can also see this weekend at the Northampton Center for the Arts just ahead of its debut on PBS+. He brings with him professor Aldon Morris, who is featured in the film, to elaborate on the impact of the group's brief bright flame. It is also found in our ongoing struggle to bridge digital divides. May 18th is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (or GAAD) which seeks to highlight and address issues and solutions for inclusion for folx with disabilities/impairments. Shivaji Kumar, accessibility specialist, spoke to us about his personal experiences with technology as a blind person, and about some of the initiatives happening everywhere. And we find it as language evolves. The Word Nerd, Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster, teaches us about strong verbs and how we as a language are slowly moving away from them, except for one particular word which seems to have snuck it's way into being one.

Everyday is a good day to build more community. We forge connections between nature and humans, while watching what became of the dinosaurs, listening eagerly to their scintillating songs. David Sibley, ornithologist, author, and artist, joins us to speak on all things birds, just as he will on May 22nd at a fundraiser for Tilton Library. All this orchestrated by librarian Candice Bradbury, who tells us how this will all help the library's renovation plans. We also dig into connections forged while growing into a new home. The Center for New Americans helps immigrants in the area adapt and adjust to life stateside, and they'll be presenting "Immigrant Voices" at the Shea Theater this Sunday with some of the folx who have benefited from their programs. Director Laurie Millman and current student Roberto Loccident of Haiti give us a glimpse of what the organization does and will show us onstage. And we reconnect with our neighbors, especially those in need. Hunt Chase of the Hilltown CDC came to our studios to chat about all the things the organization does for all the folx in the hidden hills, especially the Hilltown Mobile Market, which has seen remarkable growth and is incredibly useful to those who might otherwise have to go without.

Today, we stumbled into turning points. Seems just about right for a Monday. There's the point at which a star looks at the planets around it and fails to recognize itself in the mirror. And we in turn, or at least those of us studying that star, fail to recognize it as well. This is the case with Fomalhaut, a star once likened to "The Eye of Sauron", but which is now being seen in a different light, and we sit with Mr. Universe, Salman Hameed, to discover why that is. There is the moment one realizes that the fight you're in may be the wrong one and you make a change. There are folx who bring forges to engender that change. Inspired by a passage in the Old Testament, Swords to Plowshares takes voluntarily surrendered firearms and converts them to usable garden tools using classic blacksmithing techniques. We chat with the head of the region's chapter of this organization, retired bishop Jim Curry, and the person helping to bring him and his forge to Southampton this weekend, Sue Teece. And there is the instance where dough, cheese and sauce are not necessarily enough. Thus we embark on Pizza Quest IV at Pizzeria Boema in Lenox, where we stray a little off of our regular path, to delicious results

Weekends are for spreading out and connecting. There's connections to be found among the many musicians that make up the Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra. Originally founded by Peter Blanchette, the collection of players combines now under the direction of Joseph Ricker. For live music Friday, we crashed their practice to hear them prepare for their spring concert "800 years", which will encompass a wide swath of pieces within that span of time, including work from Grieg, Stereolab, and the artistic director himself. Then we go even further to bring musicians together. UMass Professor Felipe Salles has just released an album new album called "Home Is Here", featuring the Interconnected Ensemble, a whopping 19 member big band which creates multi-diasporic jazz. His inspiration is rooted in the nature of immigrant experiences, and we dig into his work as the ensemble get ready to present this album live in June. And once again, we enter the wine thunderdome, pitting two wines against each other in the deep reaches under State Street Fruit Store in Northampton, seeking which vintage connects best with one of our favorite mollusks: oysters.

Ideologies and worlds collide on today's show. First, our weekly check-in with our congressperson as we mcgovern with Rep. Jim McGovern. There's a lot happening on capital hill and beyond and we get his take on Santos' charges, the expiration of title 42, and more. Then we head to Florence where worlds will meet sonically this weekend. Colliderfest is coming to Bombyx this weekend and bringing with it musicians from all over the world and the sounds of their dance parties with them, including joropo, gqom (or igqom), Ethiopian groove, afrobeat, rumba, and more. Curator Edo Mor joins us to talk about the importance of keeping one's ears open to new musical experiences, all of the extra non-music things you can do at Colliderfest, and about a new concert experience he's developing to have even more of these musicians visit the area in a more sustainable fashion. Plus Monte and Kaliis get a response to yesterday's conversation about "field", discuss a recent article about issues in an Amherst middle school, and introduce the concept of the "plywood ramp to the weekend". Author's Note: Since this episode was released, Colliderfest has since been canceled. No details of why have been made public, but more information about the artists who were coming is still available on the Bombyx website.

Today, we dive head first into local, and then national controversy surrounding one of our favorite things: word usage. There's buzz around the word "ladies" and how it impacted the search for a new school superintendent in Easthampton. Having heard from the mayor recently, we engage another side of this story: that of the word user himself, Vito Perrone, and get a different perspective on that situation and the impact of its aftermath. Then we sit with resident wordster, word nerd and senior editor at Merriam-Webster, Emily Brewster to discuss the word "field", which was recently removed from the language of an office at Smith College. And law professor at Western New England University, Jennifer Taub joins us and delves into the differences and distinctions between the two defamation cases Trump is embroiled in with E. Jean Carroll, including the one he just lost.

With the massive attrition of dairy farms in Massachusetts, (and the alarming amount of sad cow stories we've had on the show), we're turning our attention to a co-op that is still making milk magic happen. Angie Facey of Bree-z Knoll Farm, which is a part of Our Family Farms, shows us around their new facilities, including a robot that uses lasers to milk their cows, and a brand new, only-been-open-for-a-month milk processing plant. Then we head east to encounter a group determined to make everyone feel closer to symphonic music. The New England Repertory Orchestra, or NERO, is a boundary-breaking, canon-rethinking, community-entrenched organization that does that and more. Presenting a pair of works centering grief, including a premiere of a newly commissioned piece from Felix Jarrar, the orchestra takes the stage at The Shea Theater this weekend. We chat with artistic director and conductor Cailin Marcel Manson and violin first-chair Michi Wiancko about how diversity as a mantra helps them change the landscape and equity of symphonic and operatic music.