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The Great Room at Norfolk Library filled to capacity for the Haystack Festival.
Jennifer Almquist
Just after noon on Sunday, Oct. 6, attendees of Norfolk Foundation’s Haystack Festival spilled out of the red Shingle Style Norfolk Library into brilliant October sunshine, emerging from the final book talk of the weekend (excepting an event for young readers later in the day). The talk, which was a conversation between horse experts journalist Sarah Maslin Nir and author David Chaffetz, was rife with equine puns and startling facts. The tongue-in-cheek use of the word “cavalier” brought laughs from the engaged audience, while Nir disclosed that horses eat for a full 16 hours a day.
The talk brought levity and humor to the festival’s conclusion, while also diving into the serious history of the relationship between society and horses. Chaffetz explained horses were fundamental in the formation of large empires: “We don’t see empires until horses became fundamental to the political state.” Nir elaborated that the “wild” horses in North America are not native, but feral horses descended from animals brought by Spanish imperialists. “No tea grows in England,” she explained, “it is the result of empire – and so are horses.”
Other talks included a conversation about the history of ballet between writers and dance critics Marina Harss and Mindy Aloff, a discussion between bestselling authors Michael Korda and Simon Winchester on wisdom and memory, and a heady chat about the intersection between academic ideas and the public sphere between public academics William Egginton and Samuel Moyn.
Festival Director Michael Selleck said that while he doesn’t curate for theme when selecting the speakers, a certain atmosphere tends to manifest. While last year the tone skewed political, he said, “this year things were more philosophical.”
Exemplifying the philosophical streak in the festival was a conversation between naturalist and writer Noah Charney and Great Mountain Forest executive director Mike Zarfos. Charney advocated for a philosophy of nature that “shouldn’t take species as good or bad.” He encouraged the audience to get out into their own yards and “learn the plants and critters” while remaining open to imaginative and novel understandings of ecology. He urged the crowd to follow a naturalist principle of “being out there, getting muddy and wet, and eating plants.”
Selleck was very pleased with the turnout this year, with few seats left empty and an audience that he said was “very engaged”. And why throw a festival like this one in Norfolk? “Norfolk is a cultural center,” he said, and he wants to “bring a literary element back to the cultural heart of Norfolk.”
Brooklyn and New York based writer Gillian Bagley gave the Brendan Gill Lecture on Friday night. The lecture is an annual talk given in memorial of Brendan Gill, a celebrated New Yorker writer who lived in Bronxville, N.Y. and Norfolk.
Appropriately, it was a family affair. Bagley is Gill’s granddaughter, and she was introduced by her cousin Anne Gill, another granddaughter of the writer. As she took the podium, Bagley fondly recalled spending summers with her grandfather in Norfork as a child – during one such stay, the two co-authored a book called “The Monster of Haystack Mountain.”
Beyond recalling memories, Bagley also presented and read from her new novel Negative Space, and reflected on how Gill influenced her own writing. She read a passage in which Gill said he sought to instill within his paragraphs “a weight and a shape no greater than a cloud of blue butterflies.” She said she strives to imbue her own fiction with this sense of “precise contours and the weight of something real,” informing her practice of “constant whittling” that defines the pared-down style of her prose.
This writing process doesn’t produce long novels, and she offered several jokes about her predilection for brevity that drew hearty laughter from the crowd. Several readers had told her they had finished the book in one sitting, she said, adding that, “I suspect it wasn’t that they couldn’t put it down, but that they didn’t have to.”
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Project SAGE's solemn vigil
Oct 09, 2024
"The Red Sand Project" is intended to draw attention to often overlooked domestic violence issues in the Northwest Corner.
Natalia Zukerman
To mark the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Project SAGE held its annual community vigil on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at Community Field in Lakeville. Project SAGE is a community-focused organization dedicated to supporting, advocating, guiding and educating victims of relationship violence through a range of services and outreach programs.
A large group of people gathered quietly in the center of the field where they were handed packets of red sand. Red Sand Project, created by artist and activist Molly Gochman, is a participatory artwork that uses sidewalk interventions and earthwork installations to encourage people to reflect, connect, and take action against the vulnerabilities that contribute to human trafficking, modern slavery, and exploitation.
“We pour sand into sidewalk cracks to draw attention to issues we often overlook, like intimate partner violence, exploitation, and sexual assault in our own communities,” explained Kristen Pratt, operations manager at the Red Sand Project. “So, as you’re pouring the sand into the cracks, think about what vulnerabilities might be present all around you in your own community. How can we open our eyes and deepen our awareness a bit more? How can we remember the ones we are honoring tonight as we go forward?” Pratt instructed.
After filling the sidewalk cracks around the park with sand, the group reconvened to hear opening remarks from Project SAGE’s executive director, Kristen van Ginhoven. “Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us in honoring those who lost their lives to domestic violence in Connecticut in 2023,” said van Ginhoven. She went on to explain that Project SAGE is part of a larger coalition of eighteen sister agencies across Connecticut (known as Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence or CCADV) all of whom are dedicated to creating social change and ending interpersonal relationship violence for all.
Virginia Gold, Project SAGE’s director of client services also spoke. “We are gathered tonight to remember 26 lives that ended this year in Connecticut. Each individual was the victim of someone who decided to use the power of brute force to silence their voice forever,” said Gold. She went on to offer a hopeful reflection of resilience.
The group then lit battery operated candles and walked along Main Street, “as a visible, collective symbol,” said Gold. “The lights we carry honor both the lives that have been lost as well as all of us who still work and hope for change,” she added. Slowly and contemplatively, the group processed to Project SAGE’s office on Porter Street where a poem was shared in English and Spanish before the names of the 26 victims of Domestic Violence were read aloud. After each name was read aloud, names of victims aged 2 to 83, the group was instructed to respond in unison: “We remember their name.”
The list of names was followed by a moment of silence after which, Pastor John Nelson, who serves on the Board of Directors of Project SAGE, offered closing remarks. “In the silence we hold, we remember the pain and loss. We remember those who have borne the injury of violence in their bodies and in their spirits. But we remember also our commitment that no one will be left alone. We remember our determination to demand an end to violence. We remember our resolve that violence will not define us.” Inviting the group gathered to stay for refreshments and reflections, Pastor Nelson offered, “We can move forward from silence to community, to the resolute practice of compassion, even to the celebration that we will share, so that tomorrow we may return invigorated to continue the good struggle for justice, for healing, and for hope.”
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