This is what democracy looks like.

How so? Well it’s in mutual aid and there’s a local organization that’s been helping the folx of the community through too many programs to list here. And that organization is about to experience a change in leadership. Community Action Pioneer Valley has thrived under the for the past 14 years under the guidance of Clare Higgins who’ll step down this month. We’ll talk with the outgoing leader, as well as the person who’ll soon be at the helm, Lev Ben Ezra.

It’s also in the ways we come together to care for the planet. And although that’s not the way you’d usually think about a festival, that’s exactly at the core of the mission for the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival, which since its inception has sought to wrap community and information in a package of fun activities and music with as small a carbon footprint as possible. We head to Orange to talk with the organizers about the ongoings of this weekend and check in with Stephen Taranto of CISA about how this event might be the perfect endcap to their Farming and Climate Change Week

And in language it’s the meshing of language that happens post crusades as Word Nerd Emily Brewster helps us explore words in English with Arabic origins.

Today there's books, and ideas, and great music to accompany both. 

In Lenox, 16 authors will gather to have live real conversations on a wide range of topics in order to encourage more healthy discourse. The Writers, Ideas, and Thinkers Festival, or WIT as we colloquially call it, starts this Thursday, and we’ll speak with The Author Guild’s director of programming Bernard Schwartz about the folx that will speak truth to possibility in the Berkshires. 

We’ll also hang out with one of our favorite Children’s authors and musicians. Mister G has a new book out, and is celebrating with a new song and a book release party at the Eric Carle Museum. We’ll ask the Latin Grammy winner about the inspiration for Baby Ballena, and about more parties your littles can enjoy a little later in the season. 

And in Downtown Northampton, an institution returns bringing music to permeate all manners of venues. The Northampton Jazz Festival is in full swing this weekend, and we’ll talk with President of the organization Ruth Griggs about the sounds that this year’s line up will bring throughout the city. 

We’re covering the full breadth of the bay state and a pinch of the sky.  

Mass Humanities has begun to honor those with particularly interesting and important stories to tell about and to Massachusetts, and their second honoree might be best known for Shipping up to Boston. Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys will receive the honor and we talk with the man himself as well as Brian Boyles of Mass Humanities about the award and the event you can attend where he'll receive it, and the legacy of the band in music and solidarity

We also head up to Williamstown where a beloved movie theater is about to get a facelift. Images Cinema is about to shift its programming around in order to begin construction on their theater’s meiosis, where their 120 seat theater will become 70 and 19 seat theaters. We chat with director Dan Hudson about the change, and the partners they’ll utilize to continue showing movies and more to the north Berkshires during construction. 

And Mr. Universe, Kainaat Studios' Salman Hameed, looks up to the sky and sees that Chris Cornell may have had the right of it, and that people should stop being so mean to the James Webb Space Telescope, because it is very hard to break space, unlike what click-bait headlines would suggest.

We are in the North County of the Berkshires as we say goodbye to summer, and hello to Fresh Grass.

This Friday, Saturday and Sunday The FreshGrass Music Festival at Mass MoCA in North Adams will feature grassroots music from a swath of diverse genres. And today on the show we’ll hear music from Juno Award, Americana Music Award, and Steve Martin Banjo Prize winner Allison DeGroot, whose new FreshGrass music commission pairs her extraordinary picking with the percussive dance of Nic Gareiss

And we’ll hear more music from Grammy Award-Winning Composer, Cellist and Vocalist and Silk Road Ensemble member Mike Block who'll tell us about his new commission, The Frank Lloyd Wright Cello Concerto, and give us a preview of the work with his trio, rounded out by Zachariah Hickman on Bass, Joe K. Walsh on Mandolin, and fellow silk road ensemble member Kevork Mourad on live animated visuals.  

Plus we’ll give you a glimpse into what else FreshGrass has in store this weekend and explore the new Fresh Grass institute’s home base, Studio 9 at Porches with the FreshGrass Foundation’s director of programming, Ollie Chanoff, Director of the FreshGrass Institute Sue Killam and Addie MacDonald General Manager of Events at Mass MoCA. 

Today is jam packed, with theater, books, and government. 

One of those things is not like the others, but accidentally ties them together, as Congressman Jim McGovern explores the fallout of free speech in this country as censors come for Jimmy Kimmel,  the UN’s recent declaration of Israeli actions as Genocide, and much more. 

There’s a book fair this weekend in Northampton that’ll encourage you to engage more with the first amendment. The 2nd Read & Resist Book Fair happens Sept 20th, with authors, activists, workshops and more. We'll chat with organizer Hannah Moushabeck of Interlink Publishing about what this new year brings. 

Then a theater collaboration that seeks to meld continents, folklores, people and place into a work of restoration. We'll speak with creator Ebony Noelle Mitchell of Jupiter Performance Studio about again, the watercarriers: Ceremonies from in the name of the m/other tree which opens at Double Edge Theater tomorrow. 

Plus at Adams Theater they’re hybridizing a fundraiser with what they do best, providing space for innovative approaches to performance, founder Yina Moore, Cellist Coleman Itzkoff, and Choreographer Or Schraiber talk about The Cello Player and showing love for small theaters. 

Today we explore stars of screen, stage, page, and mutual aid. 

On the page, we’re taking one from the Shelburne Falls Welcome Committee, who are co-hosting a benefit for immigrant rights this weekend with the  FCCPR Rapid Response Network. "It Can’t Happen Here: A Benefit for Immigrant Rights" is an event that will bring together activists, poets, musicians, storytellers, and even immigration lawyers to raise funds to help their efforts. We speak with committee member Lynn Benander and poet Martin Espada who’ll be a part of the lineup to learn more about it and their ongoing work to lend aid to those striving to become Americans. 

And just down the road in Ashfield, birthplace of Cecil B DeMille, a celebration of western mass on proverbial celluloid happens this weekend. The 15th Ashfield Film Festival happens this weekend, highlighting the filmmaking endeavors of our neighbors in short and feature length films. We speak with organizer Christopher Seward and one of the stars of this year’s feature film June Millington about the appeal of moviemaking in the hilltowns. 

And Word Nerd Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster, takes us on perhaps our nerdiest venture yet, where we question the validity of prepositional positions as we get to where we’re going, and see how that’s changed as we’ve arrived over the centuries.

We’re helping our neighbors today in their passion, and in their hungers, and their survival.

For survival we head to Mohawk Regional School where tomorrow the Mary Lyon Association is hosting a Resource Fair to connect community members with local resources and services, including SNAP/HIP, fuel assistance, literacy programs, senior services, and much more. And we’ll chat with CEO Kristen Baker about the 30+ nonprofits and other festivities that will be at the event. 

We’ll also learn about a place in the Berkshires where an intrepid group of young theater makers have made a space for others to make more new theater. The Barn at Lee was created under the mantra “We need artists and artists need space” envisioning an environment in which artists would be nurtured in a residency setting and given the time and space to explore new ideas or develop those already in motion. And we’ll hear about that space from founders Julianna Mitchell and Misha Brooks, and the creator of their current work Even Cowboys Get the Blues, Ankita Sharma.

Plus we get a visit from Riley Gilroy of Go Fresh Mobile Market on one of his rare days off, and hear about the constantly shifting landscape of mobile markets at a time where they are really needed, and his market’s place between the farmers, the people, HIP and SNAP and more. 

Schools are a hot topic for this year's election cycle.And in Franklin County, there’s a big shift that may be on the horizon. Faced with a declining school-aged population, 6 towns are seeking to create a sustainable educational future by merging into one regional district. We’ll speak with Six Town Regionalization Planning Board members Greg Snedeker, Deb Potee, and Deb Loomer as well as Gill Moderator and parent Isaac Bingham about the 5 year study that encouraged this change and where you can learn more about this possibility before voting on the issue this coming November. 

And the Big E is now in full swing just across the river from the NEPM Studios, and there’s a great small scale introduction to the festival by littles for littles. Ashley, Jesse, and Dylan Kelleher are the authors of The Big E Picture Book which details some of the fun things you can get up to and we’ll talk with the trio about their own connections to the Eastern States Exposition. 

Plus last week, NASA made an announcement about findings on Mars. Are they proof of extraterrestrial life, or getting our hopes up just to be dashed once again? We sit with Mr. Universe, Kainaat Studios' Salman Hameed, to explore the details and possibilities. 

We conclude our week of chatting with the 4 potential Mayors for Northampton who’ll be on the preliminary ballot this coming Tuesday. Jillian Duclos is pivoting from her role at the Downtown Northampton Association to seek the seat of leadership for the city of Northampton. The only renter of the 4 candidates shares with us her perspective on the place of small businesses in the future of the city,how the housing fits into that picture, and about providing space for community voices and needs. 

We’ll also check in with our friends on the other side of the state Jim Braude and Margery Eagan from BPR who’ll bring their 617 show in extended form to our 413 studios next week just in time for the Big E, and they’ll let you know how you can help them have an even better time west of Worcester. . 

And the wine thunderdome takes a small reset in the basement of its origins, and while we pit two pinot noirs against each other at State Street Fruit Store, Deli, Wine & Spirits, our tie-breaker and mayoral journey companion Nirvani Williams helps us to explore the whys of wine tasting and building a palette. 

Today we sit in the backyard of our third candidate seeking the position of mayor in Northampton as we spend this week conversing with all 4 of the folx on the preliminary ballot this coming Sept 16th. Dan Breindel has worn many hats in his career, but it’s the unanswered questions of himself and his neighbors that put him on his current path. We’ll hear about the choice to seek the mayoral seat instead of one on the council, and the disconnect he sees between the needs of the people, and the progress of the city. 

We’ll also meet new homes, friends, and family in a new novel from beloved local author Jeanne Birdsall. The Library of Unruly Treasures is a bit of a departure from her well known Penderwick series, and we chat with the author, and a certain someone who also hosts this show about how this story came about and how you can celebrate its release with both of them this Sunday, Sept 14th at Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity. 

And Congressman Jim McGovern’s week has been quite busy dealing with the sudden fallout around Charlie Kirk, new rhetoric calling democrats “terrorists”, the situation regarding drones over Poland, Israel assassinating Hamas leaders in Qatar, and more