Today, we have nostalgia in all sorts of flavors

Especially if you grew up watching roller derby on tv like we did. And if your dreams see you getting up on wheels with your friends and neighbors and creating a little chaos on the track, you’ll be happy to know that Pioneer Valley Roller Derby is hosting two recruitment sessions in the next few weeks. We talk with players Bash-it Hound and 23rd Century Fox Gorl (aka Bash and Fox) about the appeal of the game, and the many ways you can play it here. 

And it’s in the communities that have been built before. A new documentary takes a look at De Colores, an organization made to support lesbians of color in Northampton through the women who were a part of it, and we’ll chat with the team that brought De Colores: Defining Kinship, Finding Peace to screen: historian Erika Slocumb and multi disciplinary artist Michael Hanson

And speaking of screens and Northampton, if you miss the appeal of stepping into a brick and mortar location to choose your evening’s options rather than scrolling on a screen, then the community minded Vision Video is definitely for you. George Myers, Jesse Hassinger, and Bill Dwight still in process storefront of the non-profit to find out more about the efforts to get a full picture of what engendered the idea, and what they seek to build beyond the celluloid

Today’s show is jam packed with FACTS

Did you know that there’s a whole day to celebrate and encourage reparations? Professor Ousmane Power-Greene of Clark University tells us more about this grassroots holiday effort to get more folx more acclimated to the concepts being proposed in today's Power of History.

And did you know that only last week DOGE stripped away contracts with agencies that will affect many small farms in Western Mass and around the country? We’ll speak with Abby Ferla about the repercussions of these cuts at Foxtrot Farm, and why size may matter in the ways Federal funding comes to agriculture. 

How about the shortage of Primary Care Physicians in the Baystate? The NEPM Newsroom’s Karen Brown has just completed a series looking at the issue and how it relates not just in Massachusetts but nationwide and how both patients and doctors themselves are feeling the strain. 

Maybe you wanna find out about Asteroid 2024 YR4, which had a shift on the Torino Scale. Or perhaps a beloved Amherst College Astronomer we lost this week, both of which we’ll learn more about from Mr. Universe, Kainaat Studios and Hampshire College’s Salman Hameed. 

We’re celebrating a local band that is almost as old as we are, and that’s saying a lot because not many groups get to see 40 years. The Iron Horse is hosting the Lonesome Brothers’ birthday party where they and their friends will take the stage. We hear a couple songs and tales from the journey as they join us for Live Music Friday. 

And speaking of music to make your weekend bright, it’s getting close to Mardi Gras, and Nola flavor is coming to Springfield with the Fat Tuesday Jazz Night happening on Saturday. Organizer and Blues to Green director Kristen Neville visits the studios to talk about the impact this fundraiser has on arts programs in the area and all the event’s offerings to help bon temps to rollez.

Plus, the Tina Turner Memorial Wine Thunderdome looks at two grapes and a border between them. We head to Provisions in Northampton to pit France against Spain and Beaujolais-Villages against Bobal. 

We’re drawing connections in both likely and unlikely places. 

For instance the connection that those of the African diaspora have had with the land in the western hemisphere. The art exhibit Black Hands, Black Earth takes a look at the connections between people, earth, and the plants and people they’ve carried for generations. Artist and Educator Kerrita Mayfield walks us through her work and process to bring more of the roots of those connections to light. 

 Or perhaps it’s in gambling, and the Bay State’s unlikely penchant for it. The new podcast Scratch and win takes a look at Massachusetts connection to the lottery, and how that relationship has evolved in a significantly different way to the rest of the nation. Documentarian Ian Coss joins us to explore the course of scratch tickets, the Numbers, Megabucks and more, and even tie some of those tales directly to Western Mass. 

And our weekly chat with Jim McGovern tackles the house budget, the prospect of working *with* DOGE, conspiracy theories about Elon Musk and the elections, and more questions from listeners about what comes next. 

Congratulations parents, you’ve made it halfway through vacation week!

Just in case you still need a little something to get your littles up and going, we get to take a totally age appropriate journey to the Holyoke Children’s Museum, where program director Emmy Garick and operations manager Julie Cologne let us run around like the kids we are at heart, and show us how the city itself continues to contribute towards learning and play

Once the kids are done, you might want to relax with a seasonal beverage and snacks to boot. Protocol in Amherst unexpectedly stumbled into seasonal fair, but local produce is influencing not just its food, but its bar menu and appeal to the burgeoning downtown scene as well, and operations manager Alden Peotter walks us through bringing a cosmopolitan approach to a rural setting and more. 

And the horrors abound at our dictionary in Springfield as Word Nerd Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam Webster makes us face the vocab with the words we use to describe our fears (with apologies to the logophobes out there).

Malcolm X once said “Mississippi is anything South of the Canadian border.” And, when it comes to the legacy of slavery, northerners often tout our abolitionist history but overlook what happened above the Mason-Dixon line for the 200 years before abolition.

So today, we introduce you to Charmaine A. Nelson, provost professor of Art History at UMass Amherst and founding director of the Slavery North Initiative, supporting research on the study of slavery in Canada and the American north. We hear how her background in art history has shaped Slavery North’s approach to tell this history. You can catch some of the tales she and her colleagues have discovered so far at a talk at Historic Northampton. 

And speaking of borders, we preview the documentary, “Borderland: The Line Within,” screening tomorrow at Amherst Cinema. The film discusses how the U.S. border is not just a geographic location, but is everywhere, creating a chilling effect for undocumented families under the threat of deportation. We talk with the director, Pamela Yates, and producer, Paco de Onis, about their work on and surrounding the film. We also speak to Jim Hicks, guest curator of the 32nd Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival: Documenting Dissent, about this year’s free program.

It’s President’s Day. And what’s a thing that ties the two presidents we’re celebrating today? Slavery. 

So, today we are going to hunker down and talk Black history for the whole hour with three local historians. 

We talk with Smith College professor Jennifer DeClue on the overlooked histories those who were enslaved in the Connecticut River Valley, how women have been often left out of the slavery narrative,  how the legacy of slavery is evident as you walk down Main St. even today and how you can learn all this and more through a talk she is giving through Historic Northampton Tuesday night. 

Clark University professor of history Ousmane Power-Greene will introduce us to two Black women who we all should know more about, one whom you would’ve found in the opera houses and one who you can find in your U.S. passport.

And, UMass Amherst doctoral candidate and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Museum director of interpretation and visitor experience, Erika Slocumb, will talk with us about the challenges and importance of preserving oral history and how to preserve the present day.

Today we bring you 13 instruments to hear on both sides of the mountains this weekend.

We head to Pittsfield to the 10 x 10 Upstreet Arts Festival where a celebration of short plays has grown to encompass the entire upstreet arts district and beyond. We chat with the director of the Office of Cultural Development of Pittsfield, Jen Glockner, and one of the festival performers, saxophonist Scott Robinson, who’ll bring 10 saxophones to the occasion, about the 11 days of arts and activities engulfing the city.

And, local musician and ethnomusicologist Tim Eriksen stops by the studio for Live Music Friday before you can catch him in a rare solo show at The Parlor Room. In addition to hearing his interpretation of old American songs and sounds, he brings a bevvy of fascinating instruments with interesting stories for us to explore and keys us into a convention bringing Sacred Harp singing enthusiasts to the valley.

Plus, one of our cinematic heroes is getting a posthumous celebration in Great Barrington. The Triplex Cinema starts their David Lynch festival tomorrow with the film “Wild at Heart,” and we talk with Creative Director Ben Elliott about the impact not just of Lynch’s work and style, but the importance of kicking off the “Time to Wake Up” series with this particular movie.

Today we’re taking a closer look at the folx telling stories about themselves in new ways and through new avenues

Including much beloved author of children’s books and more, local legend Jane Yolen. A new picture book has just been released about her earliest work titled "Janie Writes a Play: Jane Yolen’s First Great Story", which proves there’s no age restrictions on coming up with a great tale. And that book’s author has a tale of her own also. Heidi E. Y. Stemple joins us to talk about writing this book about her mother, how narrative clearly runs in the family, and how you can celebrate the heroine of the story and her 86th birthday this Saturday at High Five Books in Florence. 

We’ll also find out about a storytelling event in Florence.The second Queer Story Slam is happening at Bombyx Center for Arts and Equity this weekend exploring all expressions of love and desire in the tales being told onstage, and we’ll chat with organizers Wylder Ayres and Reen Smith about the power of seeing these lives in their own words, and how those visions reinforces community. 

 And our weekly chat with Congressman Jim McGovern tackles the possibilities of constitutional crisis, the consequences of lying in senatorial confirmation hearings, the budget, his vote on a recent bill concerning fentanyl and how you can ask your questions of the representative IN PERSON very soon. 

It’s a pre-Valentine’s Day extravaganza for those of you celebrating, with wine and chocolate and innuendos

We’ll take you to the heart of Thorne’s Marketplace in Northampton, where chocolate dreams are being made real from the worlds of pure imagination. Dan McKenney of Firetype Chocolate talks about his unlikely journey into confectionery, the impacts that climate change has on making sweets locally, and the many delicious treats you can get from their location year round

Then we head up to the hilltown hinterlands to get a taste of an extra special beverage. Headwater Cider is making Ice Wine with their apple bounty and we chat with proprietor Peter Mitchell about his apples and the many ciders they’re fashioning in Hawley, and with Doctoral Candidate Elizabeth Garofalo of UMass Extension about the science helping those apples to thrive.

And word nerd Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam Webster, shows us yet another evolution of language with a delve into algospeak, including a little exploration into the other online based language variations that got us to here.