The Fabulous 413

Arcadia Folk Festival happens this weekend, bringing a slew of incredible artists to the 700 acres of conservation land in Easthampton, for a gathering that has proven itself super sustainable and impactful. We head to the trails where the stages will be situated for the now sold out festival, to take in the sounds of nature with festival founder and organizer Jim Olsen of Signature Sounds, and MJ Rappaport, sanctuary manager. 

Tonight in Northampton, someone who’s become an icon in punk music and gender is playing her second show at the Iron Horse this evening. Laura Jane Grace has always had a way of making songs that say *something* about the moments we are all living in, and we get a chance to gush over her catalog and explore her ever evolving artistic process. 

And Congressman Jim McGovern is currently on his farm tour of the district which makes him more philosophical about the role that agriculture plays in our lives, and his own role as legislator. But finds time to applaud the Bernardston Fire Dept, the Meta settlement, Dolly Parton’s legacy and more. 

Today we’ll meet challenger in the US Senate contest, Seth Moulton, though he’s no stranger to government as he’s been in congress for 6 terms. We get to talk with the physics degree holding veteran about technology in the legislative branch, his views on healthcare, his critiques of the democratic party, the work he’s done over those 12 years, and other important issues in this upcoming senatorial battle. 

On August 28th, the Springfield Museums are celebrating one of the largest populations of Springfield. The 4th Latino Arts Festival is a culmination of culture with art, music, food and more. Mi Museo chair Lydia Martinez-Alvarez joins us to talk about this new tradition in the city of firsts and how everyone can come together for free this Friday. 

And our summertime interim word nerd, editor at large at Merriam-Webster and NEPM Jazz a la mode host Peter Sokolowski takes us through the ways English’s roots seep through a number of words to create a whole new phrase that is distinctly ours with folk etymology.

We continue to meet the folx appearing on the primary ballots this coming Tuesday Sept 1st with the second candidate for the 1st Franklin state rep seat. Lora Wondolowski is well known to those in Greenfield as she’s served on city council and is currently its president. We speak with her about the connections between her non-profit service origins and running municipalities, the biases that erupt in a political race like this, the changes she’s seen in the area over her years in Franklin County, and much more.

This Friday, Aug 28th, Springfield Museums host the 4th Latino Arts Festival, and as part of that welcomes home someone whose taken their western Mass experiences and made them part of a national ethos. Dr. Ariana Curtis is Curator of Latinx Studies at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and will give a lecture on this subject as part of the festivities. We talk about her work as a part of that national museum and how her youth in the 413 has helped shape her curation practice. 

And Hadley is heating up with hot peppers at Kushi Farm and the North Hadley Chili Pepper Company. . We head to their plot to learn the history and legacy of their family’s relationship with the  land, and the pivot to hot peppers and hot pepper jelly with owner Matt Kushi. 

We begin our quest to talk with all the folx on the primary ballot ahead of the elections next Tuesday Sept 1st.

Starting with one of the candidates for the Franklin First State Rep. seat: Corinne Coryat. Stepping out of the shadow of the woman in whose office she’s worked for the past 5 years, we ask the former aide about the effect of those years with former Rep Blais, the impact of running for office amidst a number of other life changes, and the true course of her campaign which may get lost in the noise. 

Plus Mr. Universe, Consortium professor at UMass and Kainaat Studios’ Salman Hameed, is worried about the light, and crowding of the skies themselves. We talk about Reveal’s current project to launch more satellites in order to provide more light at night, and the many consequences that can have on humans, other earthbound species, the ways we study the skies, and much more. 

Today we explore the boundaries of sound and togetherness.

Because for 21 years Greenfield has been inviting the entire community to come and eat the bounty of the season in the center of Downtown. This Saturday the annual Harvest Supper returns to Greenfield inviting everyone to enjoy a full multi-coursed dinner featuring ingredients from farms all over franklin county. We speak with Kirsten Levitt of Stone Soup who’ve helmed the event in recent years about the important place this pay what you can feast and where it sits in the county’s ongoing issues with hunger. 

Roomful of Teeth returns to North Adams and the museum of its inception to bring a work in progress to life. The Puerto Rico Experiment is a song cycle rooted in our nation’s fraught relationship with our oldest colony.  Artistic director for Roomful of Teeth Cameron Beauchamp and composer of the work Angélica Negrón, who’ll bring her own ensemble , Balún to participate, chat with us about how this collaboration came to fruition, and what sounds they’ll create at Mass MoCA this evening. 

And speaking of musical experimentation, Sable Island Pony, performs at City Space in Easthampton on Aug 22nd. The show celebrates a new single and marks the beginning of shows making up this year’s Pay It Forward Grantee schedule for the venue, and we’ll hear more about both for live music friday. 

We once again enter THE THEATER.

In Great Barrington, The Berkshire Opera Festival is launching its main-stage production of Lucia di Lammermoor, a difficult bel canto classic, on the stage of the Mahaiwe. But the festival does much more than present incredible works as it hones the craft of young singers in the summer months. We speak with festival founder Jonathan Loy, and the tragic romantic interest from Lucia Terrence Chin-Loy about the importance of this work and more

In the north Berkshires is a wholly different take on theater and our connections with it. The Songbook is a theatrical experiment and expansion, one woman’s curious exploration on where script ends and drama and comedy begin to weave those threads in real time in front of an audience. We speak with the show’s creator and actor Williams College visiting professor Erica Terpening-Romeo about this work and the upcoming performance at 62 Center this weekend. 

And our weekly chat with Jim McGovern sees the congressman exploring Maine, and navigating his recent impromptu visit to a detention center in Plymouth, the local connections to the ongoing federal problems and shortfalls of SNAP, and answering listener questions on legislative AI Slop, presidential runs and more.

We hear how a Franklin County community and farm is collaborating with a community and farm across the border in the 802.The Kibilio Community and Farm in Leyden, MA is rooted in Black and Queer land sovereignty.  And the Susu Community’s Afro-Indigenous farm and healing sanctuary in Newfame, Vermont draws its inspiration from Black Womanism. This Saturday the communities team up to celebrate Audre Lorde’s teachings on self-care as political warfare, and the transformative wisdom of our bodies, through the healing power of vibration and sound. We’ll hear more from Kibilio’s David Ragland and Susu’s Amber Arnorld.

Starting tomorrow, the Great Barrington Public Theater will reinterpret a late 19th century work of horror through the lens of the pandemic with the premiere of the play Yellow Wallpaper 2.0 2020. We’ll meet the director of the show Judy Braha and Playwright, Jennifer Maisel. 

And our interim summertime Word Nerd, Merriam-Webster and NEPM’s own Peter Sokolowski, examines when and how all the poetry got scrapped from the dictionary and how dictionary-ese was born right here in Springfield

In the hilltowns a community center along the side of Rt 9 has been a collective off and on for a little over 120 years, although these days you can get much more than dairy at their location. We head to Cummington to explore the Old Creamery Co-Op, or colloquially, the Cummington Creamery, who are providing a surprising amount of local service in their storefront. We speak with general manager Lloyd Miller and marketing and membership coordinator Jesse Messero about the legacy of the location, its full circle returning to being a cooperative, and the important resource it remains for folx in the hidden hills

And speaking of those hidden hills, a former teacher is hoping to represent them in congress. We speak with the first of our primary candidates, Jeromie Whalen, who seeks the 1st congressional seat, and hear more about how this campaign is going, how the community is responding, the importance of education to the position and much much more. Plus we’ll learn what got him interested in pursuing the seat in the first place. 

We’ve now had legal cannabis in Massachusetts for a decade, but what changes has that had on the Bay State and other states who’ve changed their stance on marijuana. This is the subject of a new study by the Parabola Center which asked folx in places that have legalized weed for at least 5 years, the results are very interesting, and we chat with one of the authors and researchers of "I Like Not Having to Go Behind the Dumpster at Taco Bell", Dr. Faith English, about what they found. 

In Chester, the 2026 season for the town’s theater company is coming to a close, and inviting questions about our own interactions in it’s final production. Dear Alien starts with the author of an advice column, but delves into a number of other topics, and we’ll speak with playwright Liz Duffy Adams and director  (And co-artistic director at Chester Theater itself) Michelle Ong Hendrick about this new work and the way it makes us look at connections we make with each other and the world. 

And speaking of this world, Mr. Universe, Kainaat Studios and Consortium Astronomer Salman Hameed, is extra excited about a new super earth that’s been found to have an atmosphere. We’ll learn why this is an important detail amongst the many other super earths that have been found, and how it relates to the idea that we may not be alone out here in the cosmos. 

The northern and southern Berkshires are coming together to take advantage of the future of sound both in listening technology and composition. Tonight, August 14th at Studio 9 in North Adams, five fellows from the Tanglewood Music Center will show works they’ve been developing to take advantage of the Meyer Sound Constellation System the venue has installed. We’ll speak with one of those fellows, Elise Arancio, as well as Faculty member Todd Reynolds about this innovative program and what Elise, Diallo Banks, Omer Barash, Tianci Lu, Joseph (Sehyeok) Park have created for it.

This Tuesday August 18th, the local music scene will once again come together to raise funds for Northampton arts programs. Transformance 36 takes place at look park under the theme “Moonage Daydream” and we’ll learn more about the much beloved event as we hear one of the many ensembles in the lineup: Edy Savage and Adrien Poser-Davey as Sun Kil Moon. 

And the Wine Thunderdome visits the amazing pair of women at the helm of Tip Top Wine Shop in Easthampton, Lauren Clarke and Miranda Brown, to pit northern hemisphere against southern with two food ready expressions of Chenin Blanc.

Note: We mistakenly refer to TMC Faculty member Todd Reynolds as Todd Roberts early in the program, this is corrected in the later segments.