2.24.2011

Go Out for a Good Cause

Looking for an excuse to get out of the house this Saturday night? Well, here are a couple of possibilities for you, both offering a great evening of entertainment and both supporting good causes.

Highfields Center for Composting is hosting their Second Annual Compost Cabaret & Silent Auction. This "evening of steaming hot entertainment for the whole family" will take place at the Cabot Town Hall this Saturday, February 26, from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. A suggested donation of $10 will go to support Highfields' work Closing the Loop--an outreach that helps communities establish sustainable composting programs.

In Maple Corners, you can get down to the sounds of the Fresh Greenes, a trio of musicians hailing from Woodbury who play an original blend of jazz, folk, and rock infused music. This Saturday, from 7:30 p.m. - 10 p.m., you'll find them at the Maple Corners Community Center playing a benefit concert for the 4 month old daughter of Liz Knapp and John Dubois who has been diagnosed with acute infant lukemia. The suggested donation is $10, but every little bit helps.

The Hardwick area seems like a pretty quiet place, but there are often a lot of things going on! Typically, you can peruse the flyers on bulletin boards around town to find out about events and classes, but you can also keep tabs on what's happening in our area through some online resources. Just recently, a Front Porch Forum was created for the Hardwick/Walden community -- click on the link to sign up for email updates from the forum and to be able to add your own news and events for the area. The forum is new and just beginning to grow, but the more people who sign up, the more active and useful it can become.

You can also find and post events on the Hardwick Area Chamber of Commerce calendar, or sign up to receive calendar updates by email.

2.15.2011

Book Review: We, The Drowned

We, The Drowned by Carsten Jensen

This is a rare book in this age, and is all the more spellbinding for that. Spanning one hundred years in the life of a small town in Denmark, this extraordinary novel chronicles the lives of the people of Marstal who are all in some way bound to the sea. The story begins in the age of sail, and carries the reader through time to the day the Germans surrender to end World War Two. Each character introduced to the story is more powerful than the last, and events and places also come marvelously to life on every page of this nearly 700 page novel. Whether it is the life of schoolboys in Marstal, sailors unloading salt cod in Portugal, women managing their shipping companies, or a young Danish sailor looking for his father in the South Pacific, readers will be enthralled by these characters and their adventures as they come to life in this epic novel.

~ Linda