Mon., Sept. 24 Jive

Good afternoon, it's Monday, Sept. 24th, and this is the Jive at Five - WESU's Daily community calendar and rundown of nighttime programming here on 88.1 FM WESU Middletown, your station for NPR, Pacifica, independent and local public affairs by day and the best in free-form community programming week nights and weekends. I'm Maria Johnson, host of the new show Reasonably Catholic: Keeping the Faith, a discussion of seldom-discussed progressive currents in the Catholic Church. It airs next at 4 p.m. on Oct. 2^nd. Thanks for tuning in.

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Here's a rundown of some of what’s happening in our area:

Tonight, at the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, it’s the “Anything Goes” Open Mic night.

Wednesday evening, it’s Karaoke with Deni, with over 25,000 songs to choose from.

Friday night at the Buttonwood, check out The Lost Acres String Band, serving up a rich stew of songs and instrumentals from a wide variety of musical traditions with the added spice of some exotic originals.

Saturday morning brings the last of three installments of the “Aligned with Source” Workshop for Empowerment, helping us to deal with life’s challenges through understanding. This interactive workshop’s leader Annaita is a Spiritual & Holistic Healer who moved to Connecticut from India and is experienced in applying varied healing modalities to a wide range of issues that may be keeping you stuck.

Saturday night at the Buttonwood, check out the Michael Coppola, Barry Ries Jazz Duo, just two players forming the groove, the harmonies, the entire feel all from what they are hearing from one another.

Barry Ries plays both trumpet and drums and has performed in every major jazz club in the US,  with many jazz legends.

Michael Coppola invented the 9 string guitar on which he exclusively performs. At a show at NYC’s Iridium, Les Paul himself once told Michael “you are really on to something, you’re a real innovator.” He has recently played at The Blue Note and the Montreal Jazz festival

On Sunday, in front of the Buttonwood Tree, Food Not Bombs shares food beginning about 1 p.m. Anyone is welcome. Consider yourself invited to help prepare vegetarian food at the First Church on 190 Court Street at 11:30 am.

Information about all Buttonwood events can be found on its website at www.buttonwood.org.

On Saturday at the Russell Library, the Russell Knitters meet from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

And through the rest of September, drawings, paintings and sculpture by inmates of Connecticut prisons will be displayed at the Russell Library. The exhibit is sponsored by Community Partners in Action, which operates on the belief that the arts are an important tool for inmates to develop life skills while also providing the general public a window into an often-unseen part of our community.

Over at the Wesleyan Potters gallery shop, from Wednesday through Nov. 2, “Fibers,” a show of baskets and weavings, will be on display. The opening reception is from 5 to 7 on Friday.

On Wednesday, Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts presents “The Voice of Kabul,” part of the Music & Public Life: Voices of Afghanistan Colloquium. Ustad Farida Mahwash will discuss her music and life as a female vocalist in Afghanistan. Rubab virtuoso Homayoun Sakhi and members of The Sakhi Ensemble will talk about the group’s instrumentation and performance practice. The event, at 4:15 at the university’s CFA Hall, is free, as are the evening performances on Friday.

On Thursday evening, the Center for the Arts presents The Musical Singularity, in which Wesleyan composers premiere organ works to be played by the Memorial Chapel pipe organ's computerized systems. There will also be a performance of a work for all three of the Chapel's organs.

See Wesleyan.edu/cfa for details about all events.

With the arrival of fall, farmers’ markets have given way to country fairs, including these:

Running through Sunday in West Springfield, Mass., it’s the Eastern States Exhibition, or the Big E.  Go to www.thebige.com  for the full schedule.

The Durham Fair kicks off on Thursday afternoon and also runs through Sunday. 

Coming up in October are the Berlin Fair and the Portland Fair. 

Okay, enough fresh air. Let’s head down to Toad’s Place in New Haven. Tonight brings A Night of Smooth Jazz with Rohn Lawrence & Friends to the stage.

Then Wednesday, it’s the weekly EDM NIGHT featuring DJ HighLife & DJ JiggaWompz.

Friday, it’s Snoop Dogg!

Details at www.toadsplace.com.

Over at Café Nine tonight, it’s Acoustic Open Mic w/ Miss Kriss.

Tomorrow brings Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King.

Then Wednesday, MANIC PRODUCTIONS Presents: Big Business; w/ Ferocious F’ing Teeth •

Thursday, it’s Xenosis; w/ Gates of Ivory; Lyra; and Open Denile.

Friday night, it’s the George Lesiw CD Release Show; with special guests M.O.B., the Matt Oestreicher Band.

Saturday, the Afternoon Jazz Jam is hosted by the George Baker Experience, followed by TACO HUT MUSIC Presents: Elison Jackson, a  CD release party featuring special guests.

Sunday, MANIC PRODUCTIONS Presents: Bob Log III; w/ Cheap Time; and Milksop:Unsung.

Information at www.cafenine.com

Up in Hartford at Blackeyed Sally’s, tonight is Jazz Monday.

And tomorrow it’s Michael Palin's Other Orchestra, an 18-piece band jamming and working out new material

Wednesday brings the Blues Jam with Tim McDonald to Sally’s stage. The Blues Jam is one of the longest running open blues jams in New England, featuring a different host each week.

Then Friday night, it’s Royal Sons, and Saturday it’s Entrain.

More at blackeyedsallys.com.

Now let’s take a look at cinema – as well as a bit of public art – off the beaten path:

Last week, Real Art Ways in Hartford unveiled Adam Niklewicz’s “The Charter Oak,”  a water mural located at 215 Pearl Street in downtown Hartford, on the exterior wall of a long-vacant deconsecrated synagogue. The mural, while barely visible when the wall is dry, blossoms into full detail when water saturates the piece, a symbol of Connecticut’s revolutionary spirit. The iconic image, which appears and disappears from view, is based on Charles DeWolf Brownell’s painting of 1857 in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum. The mural will be "watered" every day at 3PM until the beginning of November. A companion piece, “Walking Around a Tree,” a projection which animates a young tree that revolves 360 degrees, is displayed at night, high on the exterior of the AT&T building adjacent to the synagogue.

Continuing into this week, the films “Mahler on the Couch” and “You’ve Been Trumped” are being screened. Information about all events can be found at realartways.org.

At Cinestudio, the Trinity College cinema, “Farewell, My Queen,” set during the French Revolution and focusing on the emotional lives of four women living at Versailles, continues.

Wednesday begins screenings of “Samsara,” a long-anticipated follow-up to “Baraka,” one of the Cinestudio audience’s most loved films! Samsara - a Sanskrit word meaning the ever turning wheel of life - is a nonverbal movie that was made, according to director Ron Fricke, to “delve deeper into my favorite theme: humanity’s relationship to the eternal.” Shot over four years in 100 locations in 25 countries, the images of our planet are simply stunning.

On Thursday, for one showing only, it’s “Windhorse.” Windhorses are the prayer flags and scraps of papers hung in remote mountain passes, on whose backs Tibetans send prayers to the spirits who look after them. The film (set to traditional Tibetan music) was shot secretly under the eyes of the Chinese authorities. 

Tickets and times can be found at cinestudio.org.

And now let’s take a look at tonight’s programming on WESU’s new fall schedule.

Right after the Jive At Five, it’s Afternoon Jazz with Charles Henry, a well-rounded jazz show for true jazz heads.

Then, from 6-6:30pm, it’s Free Speech Radio News, your daily dose of alternative international news and reporting from the Pacifica Network.

From 6:30-8pm, it’s 75% Folk with Michael Benson, a serving of contemporary folk and acoustic music with side orders of blues, jazz, world, pop, movie soundtracks, readings and occasional live interviews. Bring a big plate.

From 8-9:30pm, come to Anvil Isle with Nate for a musical monsoon of alternative, blues, dream, funk and other genres. Bury your feet in the sand and let the waves come crashing through your speakers.

From 9:30-11:30pm, focus on The Attention Deficit Disk Jockey with Lee, featuring he music of yesterday’s future, today.

From 11:30pm-12:30am, it’s The Noisy Wheelbarrow with Zach Schonfeld and DJ Meat Pie, merging noise rock and other noise-based music with poetry and verse, highlighting both seminal and up and coming artists who have blended the spoken word with experimental music.

Then, from 12:30-1:30am, it’s Bazaar Sounds with Mac Taylor, highlighting a different country and corresponding underground/experimental music scene every week, selecting international music that’s noisy, pretty, and everything in between.

From 1:30-2:30am, it’s Live From The Paris Hotel with The Sparrow, a mercurial mixture of pop music and poetry.

And then from 2:30-3:30am, it’s Maximum Rock and Roll Radio, a weekly radio show featuring the best DIY punk, garage rock and hardcore from the astounding, ever-growing Maximum Rocknroll record collection.

From 3:30-4am, DJ Vegetable Reads Missed Connections. You’ve lost someone. Let’s find them.

And then the BBC World News kicks on at 4, with international news coverage from the famous British news network, followed by Morning Edition from National Public Radio at 5, featuring up-to-the-minute news, background analysis, and coverage of arts and sports.

And that’s all for today’s Jive At Five. Tune in each weekday at 4:55 pm to hear about what’s going on in the community and on the air right here at 88.1 FM WESU, a community service of Wesleyan University since 1939.

The written form for what you've heard on today’s jive is online at wesufm.org/jive

And if you value WESU as a source for information and entertainment in your life, how about supporting the station with a donation? You can make that donation online at wesufm.org anytime. Thanks for listening! Now stay tuned for Charles Henry.