The Fabulous 413

Today has a little bit of everything, including solidarity for all as we combine our powers outside in theater. The Teaspoon Brigade is an all ages interactive performance teaching us all that we have something to bring to the betterment of our communities, and we’ll talk with one of the folx involved Jayme Timpson Winell, about what you'll engage with at Park Hill Orchard in Easthampton for two performances on Sat. Oct 24th. We’ll also get a little spooky for this week’s Live Music Friday with Dr. Gasp, who’ll bring his seasonally-tinged folx and Americana to the stage of City Space in Easthampton tonight, Oct 23rd, and learn more about how creepiness crept into his songwriting. MGM and the City of Springfield made headlines this week over a dispute regarding renovations, a sale of their downtown casino, and changes to their agreement over the years. We sit with MGM Springfield COO Louis Theros for an exclusive conversation about the dispute and the move to arbitration. Plus if you’re looking for scintillating conversation on a wide array of topics with luminaries and experts from all over the globe, then Field Lenox is for you, and we’ll speak with organizers Lizzy Aspenlieder and Hunter Runette about the importance of the community gathering to think deeply together all weekend long.

This weekend sees the return of Fab Passion Fashion Week New England to Springfield bringing 12 designers and curators from all over the globe for two days of connection, expression and community. It’s the 4th year for Richie Richardson’s vision of incorporating the city and its people into the world of haute couture and we speak with him and two of the folx being highlighted: Charlene Naylor of Charlene's Boutique and Miranda Askie of Miranda Askie Designs, about getting runway ready. In Easthampton a passion side project have become the focus of an exhibit at 50 Arrow Gallery. Gourdfolk Fest may have started as a small thank you for Brett Kelly’s pin-buying patrons, but has grown into an annual ritual. And now over 100 of those artworks are flooding that space. We explore his work and the organically growing exhibit with the artist and gallery owner Jason Montgomery. And congressman Jim McGovern takes on several listener questions in his chat with us today, in addition to addressing our shifting loyalties in the russia/ukraine conflict, the very real question of retaliation after the mid-terms, threats and intimidation to current representatives, and much more.

The Springfield Symphony Orchestra begins its 26-27 season this weekend, and with it a search for a new Music director, a position that’s laid empty for a number of years. Their second candidate takes the podium for this concert: Maestra Deanna Tham. We learn about her perspective while SSO President Heather Caisse Roberts expounds on the important local connections of orchestras. Plus we let you know how you can meet both of them in person tonight, Oct 21st! There’s also the legacy of the American experiment, and the ways that has influenced ideas of freedom and democracy on a global scale. Clark University professor Ousmane Power-Greene has just returned from discussing American history at a conference in Italy, so we talk about that reach, and some of the ways we are academically reaching folx on our own shores and showing them the important place humanities have in our daily life, for which he’s even recently won an award. And since language will always have impact, word nerd Emily Brewster wants us to sound as hip as possible, so it’s time to check in with what’s up and coming in hot phrase-ery in their slang dictionary.

This weekend Umass will host it’s first public Game Jam. Picking up where Hampshire’s Game Jam left off this event seeks to bring folx from the community AND the 5 colleges together to make new games for both the computer and tabletop worlds over the course of a quick 48 hrs. We speak with Umass Game Dev Club president Pash Laad about adopting the event, and the appeal of getting folx to play together. We’ll also head to the city formerly known as a town where one grocery store is on the verge of an upgrade. The Franklin Community Co-op has been feeding downtown Greenfield for nearly 5 decades, and has outgrown its previous location. As the process of evolving the former Wilson’s department store into their new home begins, we meet Brand and Membership Experience Coordinator Caitlin von Schmidt to hear more about the opportunities this shift will allow them to make for the member owners and greater community. And tonight in Holyoke at De La Luz Soundstage, the Blind Boys of Alabama return to Western Mass. This tour and in honor of the 50th anniversary of Grammy award winning album “Songs in the Key of Life” they’ll be performing a wide array of Stevie wonder compositions. We’ll speak with members Ricky McKinnie and J.W. Smith about their connections to the work and what you might see on stage tonight. (And you can play previous games made for the global jams HERE)

Alice Sees Ghosts is a new novel from author Daisy Rockwell, who uses her knowledge of history of the Berkshires to craft a story of family, lost loves, and incredible connection. We speak about the span of the book’s scope as it travels from the states to India and back with spirits in tow, and her emergence into language under the large shadow of her very famous grandfather. We’ll also learn how to create narrative illustrations of our own. This weekend begins a two part workshop on Comics making with local artist Gary Smith who’s worked in major comic’s markers and his own studio in Greenfield. We’ll speak with him as well as Rick Colson of Human Art Is who are hosting the event in Northampton. And Kainaat Studios and Five College Astronomer Mr Universe Salman Hameed didn’t have a chance to see many new movies while we were ostensibly on break, but gets into some of the things Japan might see in their research voyage to the moons of Mars.