Mardi Gras (also known by the more solemn name of Shrove Tuesday) is Feb. 12 this year, followed by Ash Wednesday on Feb. 13. These two dates signal the start of the season of Lent.According to the website www.sharefaith.com, “The name Shrove Tuesday is derived from the word ‘shrive,’ which means to confess and receive absolution. The name denotes a period of cleansing …”For many Christians, especially historically, Lent was a time of fasting. To prepare for it, the larders were emptied of perishable foods such as eggs, butter and milk. In England, it became a tradition to eat pancakes on the last day before the fast began, because they used up so many of those low-shelflife foods. Here in the Northwest Corner, Shrove Tuesday is observed with pancakes, sausages and the playing of board games at Trinity Church in Lime Rock. The Rev. Heidi Truax explained why some churches, such as Trinity, and some Christians will observe Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and Lent while others might not. “After the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century in Europe,” she said, “most non-Roman Catholic Christians did not want to celebrate the feasts of the Roman Church, which they considered to be unbiblical. So, generally, many of the Protestant denominations have steered clear of holy days such as Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and other traditions which are not literally found in scripture. Jesus did not eat pancakes nor mark the sign of the cross on his own or any other foreheads (that we know of). Jesus did, however, celebrate all the traditional Jewish holy days of his time.“The Episcopal Church, along with its mother, the Church of England, has always tried to walk the ‘via media’ or middle road, between the Protestant and Roman Catholic faith and traditions, and so has continued with many traditions that we believe to be biblically justified. “For example, throughout Hebrew scripture (the scripture that Jesus read and taught) people who are mourning or repenting sit in sackcloth and ashes. In many religious traditions it is customary to have a time of reflection and self-examination or self-denial during the year. So, we believe that God tells us, through scripture, tradition and reason, that taking time to repent, and renew is important. “Symbolically we have ashes placed on our foreheads as a symbol of that repentance. Shrove Tuesday is the day to prepare for the important season of Lent, and after 40 days, our celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord.”People find unique ways to observe Lent, though the goal is the same, Truax said: “Lent is a time of reflection and self-examination. We take time to consider all the things that individually and corporately we have done wrong in the past year. Many of us go in for an ‘annual housecleaning’ in the form of private confession to a priest or trusted advisor during this time. “It is an opportunity to simplify our lives, and focus on those things that really matter. Often times we give up things that clutter our lives in order to focus on the things that we identify as life-giving. So, we may give up chocolate or dessert, or alcohol or caffeine, but it’s also just as good to consider giving up some time-sapping activity that may prevent us from getting back to the basic things we value.”At Trinity, on Feb. 12, “we will be having pancakes and sausages, and playing board games. We will have a small bonfire in which the palms from the previous Palm Sunday will be burned to become the ashes for the next day, Ash Wednesday.”Everyone is welcome. The evening begins at 6 p.m.The UCC in Cornwall will hold its second annual Pancake Supper on the same night. Everyone in the community is invited for pancakes, sausages, applesauce and maple syrup, (with eggs for those who do not eat wheat). There will be jazz music playing and beads and all ages can make masks. It will be in the Parish House at 8 Bolton Hill Road, from 5 to 7pm. Donations will go toward a church work trip to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.For a more secular celebration of the flapjack, head for the nearest International House of Pancakes (there is one in Orange, Conn.), for National Pancake Day on Feb. 5. You can get a free stack of buttermilk pancakes anytime between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.; you will also be asked to make a donation, if you choose, to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital (you can also opt to donate to a local charity).
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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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