Vineyard Autumn Session 2011

Trad in Edgartown! My second annual Vineyard Autumn Session, held at Plantingfield Way. Great-Granny Shurtleff would be pleased.

Living Color

Autumn Beach

I do wish I had more time to mess around with this blog (soon, I hope). For today, I turn these pages over to my favorite guest-blogger, my late and great mother, with a photo from the archives, South Beach, circa 1987.

Autumn Beach                by Alison Boylston Piazza

This is the best time, the quiet and good time,

The searching-for-sea-glass and gathering-wood time.

On clean swept sand, an occasional trace

Of sandpiper's footprints, as fragile as lace.

Limpid blue water and tranquil blue sky,

Stillness pierced only by seagull's shrill cry -

This is the best time, this golden fall,

This is the very best season of all.

September 11 Wanderings

I'm so busy taking pictures for work, along with my myriad other responsibilities, that I don't get enough time to photograph just for the fun of it. Yesterday, realizing that the days of the magical evening light are numbered - for this season, anyway - I grabbed the camera and went out for a brief foray, starting along my usual Main Street/harbor route, and ending up at Bend in the Road, where, along with finding an almost-full moon rising, I happened upon Joanne Scott and family who were celebrating her son Ben Stafford's Saturday wedding with a clambake. The family graciously welcomed me into their circle, smack between the rising moon over Chappy and the gloriously setting sun beyond the waters of Sengekontacket; a fine way to end the day and the weekend - basking in God's glory and surrounded by good cheer.


My first subjects of the evening were this father and daughter, so adorable that their presence on the bench outside of Edgartown Delicatessen fairly begged for a photo. Having never met my own father, I do have a fondness for fathers and daughters.





I met Mike and Catherine down at Memorial Wharf while they were trying to negotiate getting a photo of themselves. Since I happened to be standing nearby with my gi-mongous, professional-looking camera, they figured (correctly) that I might be a good person to ask for assistance. At first they simply wanted me to snap a quick shot with their Lumix (nice camera!), right next to the chain link fence at the ferry ramp (yuck!), but I suggested we look for a better background, which we found upstairs on the observation deck. I happened to notice that Catherine was wearing an engagement ring, and when I said, "Oh, you're engaged," they said, "Yes, we're here to get married, next Saturday." Mike and Catherine also posed for a couple of shots with my camera.


Same Beautiful Old Church of Whaling Days, different light.


The seed-heads on the beach grass tell us it's September.


Almost full moon, Bend in the Road.
And lest anyone think I have overlooked today's date, I offer this David Wilcox composition:

Captain Alexander Weeks

Boylston house, circa 1950


I recently found the Gazette clipping to which I have referred in previous posts regarding the moving of my Main Street house from Ocean Heights, which I share here (from a 1948 edition of The Vineyard Gazette -  printed, I assume, as a centenary item):

May Snowstorm That Took an Unkind Turn

The cold May storm, a proverbial part of the Vineyard spring, took an especially unkind turn about a century ago, on May 26th, the date being recalled because it coincided with moving day for an old house which found a haven on Main Street, Edgartown.


The house, then owned by Capt. Alexander Weeks, once stood at Ocean Heights, but yielding to that irresistible urge which seemed to overtake both houses and their owners in the olden days, it was decreed that it should become a town dweller. Propelled by forty yoke of oxen and a large force of men, the house made its slow and stately way over the sandy roads until it reached its present site, on the corner of Green Lane, where it is now the home Mrs. Herbert M. Boylston.


"The usual barrel of New England liquid refreshments as was the custom in those halcyon days," the Gazette recalled wistfully a quarter of a century ago, "flowed freely and when spirits rose to the point that when the new location was reached it was decided to hold a dance then and there. A fiddler was procured, fair ladies recruited, and the evening passed all too swiftly, the home-going guests finding to their surprise that a heavy snow had fallen while they were celebrating and that many of the weary and hungry oxen had dispersed, leading to a chilly chase on the night of the great snow, before the beasts were stabled their masters housed."

I love this story. I love it that this old home's first day of existence at its present location was celebrated with dancing and fiddle music, and that the fiddling that is now taking place here is creating a succinct and wonderful connection to the house's 200 year history.

More information about Captain Alexander Palmer Weeks, from my mother's file, includes the facts that he was born on May 18, 1804 and died on August 29 or 30, 1856, lost at sea in a hurricane, and that in 1835 Captain Weeks was skipper of the ship Leader whose home port was New Bedford. I have also learned - from the National Maritime Digital Library (link) - that Leader, a whaling bark,  with Captain Weeks listed as its master, departed New Bedford for the Pacific Ocean in May of 1835, and returned in April of 1838, reporting 480 sperm, and 138 whale.  Leader is listed as having been built in 1815 in Fairhaven, and that she broke up in 1851.

I've always assumed that the house was moved from the vicinity of what is now Weeks Lane.




Present-day fiddlers at the former Captain Alexander Weeks house.

Hurricane Irene, Edgartown, Massachusetts

Hurricane Irene, Edgartown, Massachusetts from Sara Piazza on Vimeo.

Okay, I think we are officially calling Irene a tropical storm at this point.

And yes, better safe than sorry, but I think Irene was way over-hyped. And what about all that Code Red business - I think I'm smart enough to find emergency info if needed; no need to pipe this stuff into my home.

Here's some footage from today, my first attempt at cutting and pasting and adding (royalty-free) music; enjoying this "snow day" in August, a rare Sunday at home. It's a bit long, and could be tweaked and nudged here and there, but I think I'm at least getting the hang of the tools and the process (and repeat after me, "Sara is not going to get into movie-making...").

Waiting for Irene

My apologies - I have fallen behind in posting to Edgartown News. It's been an extremely busy summer.

Here's a little clip from today. Stay safe, and see you on the other side.


Hurricane Irene, -24 Hours from Sara Piazza on Vimeo.
South Beach, Edgartown; waiting for Irene. The little kids playing at wave's edge are part of the reason I don't go to this beach very often - people have no concept of the power of the ocean and it makes me crazy watching these kids on the verge of potentially being snatched away at any moment. We were not allowed here as children - islanders just didn't come here - and now, on any given summer's day, there are upwards of 20,000 people on this beach.

Ironically, I am a surfer - but not at this beach; too many rip tides and too much undertow. I expect the surf up-island will be excellent in the aftermath of Irene. I'll give it a few days to calm down, though (not like my younger years - oh, the things I'm glad my mother never knew).

But I'm very excited - this is my first attempt at recording and importing and syncing my own audio, something I've been wanting to learn how to do for a while, now made possible with my new, and most awesome, H4N Zoom - fantastic! For starters, the G12 is a great little video camera, but the in-camera audio from this clip is totally wind-blown. What a joy to have such a clean audio track. The roaring sound in this video is literally the surge of the ocean. The H4N will be great for music videos, for syncing with the 5D.

While working on this little project (little? ha - try hours! downloading and learning new software - what is wrong with me that I always have to be doing things I know absolutely nothing about?), I was remembering being in this same room as a thirteen year-old - can you believe, almost fifty years ago - and making primitive two-track recordings with two tape recorders - you know, recording onto one, then playing it while recording onto the second one; playing guitar and singing harmony with myself. Same room, many years later, with awesome equipment. My interests haven't changed that much over the years, I guess. And yes, I'm a gadget freak.

Anyway, it's midnight, and there's not much going on outside as far as I can see and hear. Stay tuned.