I went up to the Eastern States Exposition, or the Big E, for the first time last month. The Big E is a conglomeration of the New England states’ state fairs, with all of the attractions and trappings of such events. I enjoy fair visits.I remember many trips as a child to the Michigan State Fair. State fairs typically display and promote agricultural produce and farm animals. The Michigan State Fairgrounds were located at 8 Mile and Woodward: the staples of rural farm life simply seemed out of place in the decaying (even back then) urban setting of Detroit. Sadly, the Michigan State Fair, started in 1849 and claimed to be the oldest state fair in the country, lost its state funding in 2009 and attracted only 200,000 visitors (attendance peaked at 1.2 million in 1966 — interestingly, the year before the 1967 race riots in Detroit). The fair was not held in the following two years, and was resurrected in a different suburban location this year. I am not aware how successful the new event was.While stationed in Germany in the early 1990s, all of the German towns, big and small, had their annual volksfests. Munich’s Oktoberfest is the world’s largest fair, drawing 6 million visitors over its 16 days of celebration. Those visitors drink nearly 10 million liters of beer. For a few years, I contributed to that total (and, with some Army buddies, spent a few nights sleeping on benches in the bahnhof train station). Those Germans could drink a whole heck of a lot of beer — no way could us lightweight Americans keep pace. I didn’t even try, so I can at least remember my Oktoberfest days!So much of a fair visit involves food. Most of it isn’t very healthy. The German festivals had plenty of brats, ham hocks, sausages, cheeses, potato pancakes, and pretzels (and did I mention the beer?). Many German towns also had winter festivals, and the food at those events also included waffles and gluhwien, a hot, spicy wine drink that warmed you all over.With true German volksfests now an ocean and continent away, I was introduced several years ago to an incredible replica volksfest in northern Ohio, the annual German American Friendship Festival (held the weekend before Labor Day weekend in suburban Toledo). The atmosphere, beer, wine, food, music and dancing was wonderfully reminiscent of my time in Germany. Now living here, Ohio might as well be Germany with regard to distance, so I haven’t returned to Toledo for a couple years. Great time and highly recommended, though, if you ever have the opportunity to visit.So, with all those fair memories and gastronomic anticipation, we headed north to Springfield. As a Big E rookie, I simply followed the directions recommended by the Big E’s web site: over to I-91 north to Massachusetts Route 5. The traffic was atrocious on Route 5 — we sat pretty much motionless for nearly two hours in traffic lined for miles. I sent an email from my Blackberry to the fair organizers complaining about the lack of traffic control. The response I received basically said don’t come on the weekend because it’s less crowded during the week. I’ll take a different path next year.Once we made it through the gates (parking at an off-site lot), the fair atmosphere was everything that I enjoy: the people, the smells of food and animals, the music, the various hawkers, the overall “buzz.” We ate lobster rolls, chili cheese fries, gyros and fried dough. We could have eaten worse — we steered clear of the fried cheesecake, fried Twinkies, funnel cakes, and fried whoopee pies. They probably would have tasted good, though!I was a little disappointed in the farm animals. Not being familiar with the fair schedule, I didn’t realize that many animals are only at the fair for a short time. We got to see plenty of cows and a few horses, but didn’t see many of the smaller animals: pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits. I’ll look more closely at the schedule for next year.The huge vendor halls were interesting, mainly because of the variety of goods and people. I found a tie vendor and bought new Halloween and Christmas ties. I had been looking all over for those specialty ties!Fairs are fun, but can be expensive for families (but isn’t everything these days?). I look forward to exploring other area fairs next year. If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Dale Martin is the town manager of Winchester.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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