Focus on Your Health: Where and how to donate blood: Baystate to host monthly blood drives in Greenfield

By ANITA FRITZ

January is National Blood Donor Month, and beginning Jan. 17, the Baystate Blood Donor Program at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield will be hosting monthly blood drives. Throughout the year, Baystate Franklin invites and encourages people...

When greed takes over: Greenfield writer pens ‘a cautionary tale for all ages’

By TINKY WEISBLAT

The Green Palmers ChronicleBy Jon HuerAustin Macauley PublishersReaders of Jon Huer’s commentary in this newspaper may be surprised to see a slightly different side of the Greenfield writer in “The Green Palmers Chronicle.” Huer calls the novel “a...

Sounds Local: From the Balkans to Jamaica: Inaugural klezmer and reggae events happening in Franklin County this Saturday

By SHERYL HUNTER

On Saturday night, Jan. 20, at 7:30 p.m., the Montague Center Common Hall will host a special concert and workshop featuring music from Eastern Europe and the Balkans.Orkestar Banitsa and Myrtle Street Klezmer, local bands who play different styles of...

In the kitchen with Fannie Farmer: A brief history of the ‘Mother of Level Measurements’

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Like many American home cooks, I own more cookbooks than I can use.Over the years, hand-me-downs from family members, birthday gifts, and impulse purchases have brought more than 100 volumes to my kitchen shelves.When I decide to try preparing a dish...

Art inspired by nature’s relationships: Montague resident shares artworks and tidbits about our natural world

By EVELINE MACDOUGALL

Contra dance enthusiasts and Montague May Day fans may recognize today’s guest star as Jeanne Weintraub, while people who met the Montague resident following her marriage to Chris Mason — whose sustainability and alternative energy work merits a...

A cheery chalk surprise: Deerfield resident creates driveway art to uplift students and families each week

By CHRIS LARABEE

As Deerfield Elementary School students and their families walk, drive or take the bus to school every Friday morning this school year, they can often expect a chalky surprise just steps from the building.Like clockwork — except on nasty weather days...

‘A People’s History of Colrain’: Library produces new podcast to tell local stories

By BELLA LEVAVI

The Griswold Memorial Library is getting local people to tell their own stories in their recently launched podcast, “A People’s History of Colrain.” “We are trying to collect local history in people’s own voices,” explained Griswold Memorial Library...

Sounds Local: Dancing into the new year: Zydeco dance fest returns to Hawks & Reed this Sunday

By SHERYL HUNTER

For local musician Michael Pattavina, hosting a dance festival during Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend has become a tradition that started 20 years ago and continues to this day.This year, he is hosting a mid-winter and Zydeco dance fest at Hawks &...

‘A world of enchantment and sorcery’ awaits ‘The Tempest’ audiences in Turners Falls

By BELLA LEVAVI

The Young Shakespeare Players East theater program promises to transport audiences to “a world of enchantment and sorcery” during four performances of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” next weekend.The play, which lasts two hours and 45 minutes,...

Sounds Local: Trae Sheehan kicks off residency at Element Brewing

By SHERYL HUNTER

Singer-songwriter Trae Sheehan is new to performing here in Franklin County, but that’s about to change. After living in Nashville for a few years, Sheehan moved to the Berkshires this past September. A devoted road warrior, he has played hundreds of...

Following his guiding star: The Rev. Doug McGonagle, a former astrophysicist, explores mysterious Star of Bethlehem in new book

By MARY BYRNE

About 20 years ago, the Rev. Doug McGonagle — a former astrophysicist — discovered a book by the late astronomer Michael Molnar that explored the mystery of the Star of Bethlehem, also known as the star that guided the three wise men to baby Jesus,...

Sounds Local: John, Paul, George and Pamela: Means performs all 17 tracks of “Abbey Road,” solo and acoustically, this Saturday at Hawks & Reed

By SHERYL HUNTER

When “Abbey Road” by the Beatles celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019, guitarist/singer/songwriter Pamela Means decided to perform the album solo and acoustically in honor of the occasion.Of course, that meant learning all 17 songs from the classic...

The Shelburne Artisans Co-Op celebrates 25 years: Artist-owned space welcomes new members to join

By BELLA LEVAVI

For the past quarter century, artists have been owning where they sell their work right in the heart of the village.The Shelburne Artisans Co-Op is celebrating its silver anniversary this year, marking the opening of its doors 25 years ago. “Looking...

Wheeler Mansion to host haunted house

By DOMENIC POLI

You’ve possibly known a haunted house to be held in a school or an armory. But how about one inside a 15,000-square-foot Gilded Age brick mansion built for a sewing machine millionaire’s wife and eventually owned by a Masonic sisterhood called the...

Listening with his camera: The late photographer Don Hunstein captured a golden age of music 

By STEVE PFARRER

It’s arguably one of the most iconic album covers of all time, certainly in the folk and pop world: a young Bob Dylan, on the cusp of stardom, walks down a slushy street in Greenwich Village in New York City, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched...

A second wind: Peter Knapp tackles life changes and crises through his art

By STEVE PFARRER

Back when he was a student in the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the late 1960s/early 1970s, Peter Knapp imagined he might have a career as an artist. He studied woodcuts, drawing and painting and, after graduating in 1972, had a studio for...

Finding joy in art: New exhibit at Augusta Savage Gallery celebrates the Black community

By STEVE PFARRER

Like millions upon millions of people across the world, Eesha Suntai was horrified by the murder in May 2020 of George Floyd, who died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes...

Photographer Terri Cappucci salvages glass-plate negatives from another era

By DIANE BRONCACCIO

In February 2020, documentary photographer and photo preservationist Terri Sevene Cappucci of Turners Falls was winnowing down decades of photographic materials in her scrupulously clean studio when she was offered about 4,000 glass-plate negatives...

Burn, scrape and shape: Dugout canoe to be built at Pocumtuck Festival

By ANITA FRITZ

The first step to creating a mishoon, or dugout canoe, is to find the right tree.That’s exactly what organizers of the 6th annual Pocumtuck Homelands Festival have done, and the weekend celebration will highlight a traditional mishoon of the...

Where no band has gone before

Being in a band is often described as similar to being in a marriage. It’s a comparison that makes sense because, like a marriage, keeping a band together can be quite challenging.That’s why, when you hear of a band celebrating its 50th anniversary,...