01-26-15 Jive

Good evening, it's Monday, January 26th, and this is the Jive at Five – our daily community calendar and rundown of night time programming here on WESU 88.1 FM 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, producer and host of Reasonably Catholic: Keeping the Faith, which airs from 4 to right before the Jive at Five, usually every 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th Tuesday, but which tomorrow is pinch-hitting for Anarchy on Air, which returns Feb. 10. Tomorrow's episode of Reasonably Catholic takes us outside the WESU studios to a place for people who are spiritual but not religious. We’ll go on a tour of New England’s newest meditation center, which, while housed at a Catholic retreat house, dares to color outside the lines.  Can’t listen live? Find the audio at www.wesufm.org and www.reasonablycatholic.com.

Now here’s some of what’s going on in our area this week. Be aware that some events will likely be cancelled due to a blizzard that’s predicted to be of historic proportions. We hope you're listening to this while safely indoors and that if you're driving you're almost home!

At the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, tonight brings Moments of Gratitude at 7:45, followed by the Anything Goes open mic. On Friday, the Ricky Alfonso Jazz Duo plays at 7. Saturday brings the Greg Diamond Jazz Trio to the Buttonwood at 8. Sunday’s worship service at 10 is with Rev. Ronnie Bantum and at 11 with Pastor Sandra Steele. Food Not Bombs serves food outside the Buttonwood Tree every Sunday at about 1 p.m. Help prepare the meal at First Church on Court Street at 11:30. Next Monday morning at 10:30 the Hearing Voices Network meets.   http://www.buttonwood.org.

In New Haven tonight, at Cafe Nine, Manic Productions is scheduled to present The Besnard Lakes and USA Out of Vietnam. Tomorrow’s (Tuesday’s) show is Called Out, with Eric Hartlett and PUS. Wednesday brings the King & Queens of East Rock happy hour at 5. A performance by The Density Twins has been rescheduled for April 15. Thursday at Café Nine, it’s Creamery Station with Felicia March. Friday’s Weekly Wind-Down Happy Hour at 5 brings The Louds, followed at 9 by Johnny Carlevale & The Rolling Pins, with Sean Coleman and The Quasars, Jeff Deware & The Bop Thrills. Saturday afternoon’s Jazz Jam session is with Billy Cofrances, followed at 9 by Frank Viele, with Steve Broderick and The 100 Watt Suns and The Palindromes. Sunday afternoon, Kath Bloom performs, along with Linda Draper and Bop Tweedie. They’re followed at 8 by the Blues Boot Camp with Greg Sherrod. www.cafenine.com

Also this week in New Haven, at Toad’s Place, tonight's planned performance is a Night of Smooth Jazz with Rohn Lawrence & Friends in Lilly’s Pad. Thursday brings LOTUS to the stage, with Moon Hooch. Friday, it’s Opus’s B-Day Blizzard Bash 2015, two stages of music headlined by Jasta leading a long slate of acts. www.toadsplace.com has the complete line-up.

Up in Hartford, at Blackeyed Sally’s, tonight’s scheduled Jazz Monday performance is by Haneef Nelson. Tomorrow (Tuesday) brings Michael Palin's Other Orchestra, an 18-piece band working out new material. Wednesday’s Blues Jam is with Tim McDonald. On deck for Friday is Gong Tuff: A Tribute To Bob Marley. Saturday brings Hartford Hot Several and the Expandable Brass Band to Sally’s. www.blackeyedsallys.com for more.

You can tour the Wadsworth Mansion every Wednesday at 2 p.m.  Details at http://www.wadsworthmansion.com

The Middletown Scottish Country Dancers meet Wednesday at First Church on Court St.  Partners not necessary.  Call 860-347-0278 for details.

On Wednesday, Manic Productions brings Frontier Ruckus, with The Proud Flesh and Arcay, to Bar in New Haven, starting at 9 p.m.

At Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts, Wednesday's offering is a dance lecture by Dr. Rebecca Rossen, Wesleyan class of '90. Titled "Uneasy Duets: Contemporary American Dances about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," the lecture will focus on how Jewish choreographers have handled the shifting role of Zionism in American Jewish life. Dr. Rossen is a dance professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The snow date is Thursday for another Center for the Arts event, the opening reception for its Picture/Thing Exhibition, a show of ten artists; that’s at 5 p.m., with a talk by the curators at 5:30, at the Zilkha gallery.On Friday, the Center for the Arts brings the Calefax Reed Quintet, an Amsterdam-based classical chamber music group, to Crowell Concert Hall at 8 p.m., with a pre-concert talk at 7:15 by Wesleyan Prof. Neely Bruce. Info about all CFA events is at wesleyan.edu/cfa.

On Wednesday, the Middletown Commission on the Arts meets at 7 p.m. in Room B19 of the Municipal Bldg. at 245 deKoven Drive. www.arts2go.org.

Also on Wednesday, at the Russell Library in Middletown, the Connecticut Poetry Society holds its every-last-Wednesday-of-the-month meeting at 6 p.m. RSVP to Pamela: pamela.cps@hotmail.com or 860.563.5761.

Up the hill at Middlesex Community College, an artist’s reception is planned for Clarissa R. Gerber’s exhibit Figurative Color. That’s from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the Pegasus Gallery. Details by contacting curator Matt Weber at mweber@mxcc.edu.

Back up in Hartford, at Infinity Hall, on Thursday it’s Last Fair Deal with special guest The Meadows Brothers. Friday brings Bela Fleck with The Knights. Saturday’s performance is by John Reilly and Friends featuring Becky Stark and Tom Brosseau. Sunday, Infinity Gallery Presents Lori Racicot-Burrous. www.infinityhall.com.

Back in Middletown, on Sunday at 2 p.m., Adath Israel presents a program by Durham resident Dr. Michael Good, author of The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews. Dr. Good is the son of Holocaust survivors from Vilna, Lithuania. He tells the story of how Karl Plagge, a German army officer, saved his mother and more than 250 other Jews. His book is based on five years of research, using German documents that had been closed for fifty years and interviews with survivors. More info by calling 860-346-4709 or emailing office@adathisraelct.org.

Also on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Russell Library, there will be a free concert by award-winning folksinger and songwriter Joe Crookston, playing guitar, banjo and fiddle. Details at www.russelllibrary.org.

 Now here's a rundown of cinema off the beaten track in Central Connecticut:

At Real Art Ways in Hartford, the run continues of the Italian thriller “Human Capital,” about unexpected events that occur when two families from different economic backgrounds become entwined.  Also still playing is “Point and Shoot,” which won the Best Documentary award at the Tribeca Film Festival.  It follows a timid man with OCD who leaves home and ends up filming the war in Libya until he is captured by Gaddafi’s forces.  Starting Friday and running well into February are the always fun Oscar-nominated short films. www.realartways.com.

At Trinity College’s Cinestudio, the film scheduled for tonight and tomorrow is La Jour Se Leve,  a 4k restoration of the 1939 masterpiece of French poetic realism. Wednesday begins a run of Interstellar,  your first and only chance in Connecticut to see it on film, in 70mm, the format specifically recommended by celluloid devotee director Christopher Nolan! Unlike Gravity, Melancholia, and most cosmological movies, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar gets a “thumbs up” from most physicists. And environmental activists are said to like it, too. It plays through the end of January, then The Babadook opens. It’s a terrifying film in which a young widow struggles with her 8-year-old son Samuel's fears and tantrums as best she can. But rational thought goes out the window when they start reading a pop-up book with a monster called the Babadook, whose power to haunt the mind is chillingly real. www.cinestudio.org.

Now here's what's on the air tonight on WESU:

Right after the Jive at Five, stay tuned for Afternoon Jazz with Charles Henry.

At 6:00 p.m. stay tuned for Radio Curious from Pacifica.

In light of the ensuing blizzard, we’ll see what or “who” the cat drags in to cover tonight’s programming... it is very likely that there will be substitutions and fill-ins tonight and tomorrow on account of the storm. That said, here’s what is scheduled.

At 6:30 it's Michael Benson’s 75 % Folk, a mix of folk, blues, movie soundtracks, and interviews and more.   

At 8:00 p.m. there’s Unfocused Folk with Chip Austin, giving you Americana music from Nashville and around the country including Folk, acoustic Country, and roots-Rock.

From 9:30-midnight The Attention Deficit Disk Jockey with Lee brings you the music of yesterday’s future today.

In all likelihood, (We hope) our volunteer broadcasters will not make it into the station tonight. So here’s the alternate schedule of automated programming.

Following Radio curious from Pacifica at 6:30 catch a rebroadcast the Rumpus Room countdown of 2014’s most funky jams.\

At 9:30 stay tuned for 2 hours of swamp funk and rock and roll from Louisiana with Bill Boelens on  “Back Down the Bayou” on from Louisiana, thanks to the Pacifica network.

That’s followed at 11:30 by a free form music show from Pacifica called “all mixed up” from WBAI in NYC.

At 1:30am, Stay tuned for a radio advice show called, “You got a Problem” from the host of Maximum Rock and Roll Radio.

Maximum Rock and Roll Radio comes your way after that at 3am for a heavy dose of loud much from around the world.

The BBC World News takes over at 4 and we start tomorrow’s broadcast day at 5 a.m. with Morning Edition from NPR.

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

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.

Oh, and – blizzard be damned, Reasonably Catholic will air tomorrow at 4. See you then! Stay safe and have fun digging out! I’m Maria Johnson.