The Fabulous 413

We’re talking with folx creating connections in their fields. Sometimes literally as we venture out to see how the berries are doing at Dickinson Farm . We’re at the height of Strawberry season and on the verge of Blueberry season, both of which you can venture into the fields and pick for yourself at their Granby location . 3rd generation farmer Nate LaFlamme shows us the lay of their multi gener...

Today, we are getting a very intimate tour of an institution with someone who has seen the move of its evolution to the point where an exhibit was just created to cover the 5 decades of his tenure with them.  Norton Owen began as a student at the festival, but now fills a position that was made for him: Preservationist, a title he gets to add to that of curator, archivist, dancer and more that he’...

We're headed to the screen to meet the young local Black W. Mass. creatives putting their work on it.  We speak with the creator, producer, and writer of The Matumbilas, an animated series about a young Tanzanian family and their experiences in the US. Zulfiqar Manzi now finds the story that was inspired by his own experiences in Springfield on two African Based platforms, Kweli TV and AfroWatch ,...

Including a brand new Pride celebration this weekend as Lee prepares to put on its very first Pride events EVER. Although nestled within Berkshire Pride, the southern Berkshires town is putting on its own festivities this Saturday June 14th and we speak with Leah Docktor about the full day of activity, the importance of towns beginning their own Pride traditions We also have live music THURSDAY wi...

We're celebrating Juneteenth everywhere all the times and with tons of family. We check out two of the celebrations happening in the area in Holyoke and Amherst.  In Paper city, Genuine Culture is teaming up with the Wistariahurst Museum to create a celebration of the holiday for all on June 19th, and we’ll hear from Mother son team Theresa Cooper-Gordon and Damany Gordon of Genuine Culture and Me...

Today we herald poignant performances.  Which includes an upcoming series of summer performances at Hampshire College. Silverthorne Theater Company is on the verge of opening the first of its two productions for the summer in Amherst, after a major shift in the structure of their season,  and we’ll speak with company members Ezekiel Baskin, Gina Kaufman, and Mayte Sarmiento about their two upcomin...

Today is a family affair.  We speak with director, writer, producer Llewellyn Smith of Blue Spark Collaborative , who has been making documentary films of all lengths and topics for over four decades. From Eyes on the Prize , to Poisoned Water , to Race: The Power of an Illusion , to his producing role in the PBS series American Experience, the filmmaker is no stranger to the platform that Public...

Today, we have two tales of community celebration alike in virtue, where we’ll head deep into the Hilltowns, and get out on the river A celebration of the once incredibly plentiful anadromous fish of the Connecticut River who are currently fighting their way upstream to spawn in northern waters. The inaugural Shad Fest happens this Sunday so we head to Holyoke to witness the fish elevator and hear...

Today we deal with matters of great importance. Like the true nature of Hadley’s asparagus supremacy. We know that Hadley grass used to get shipped to the Queen of England, but how different is it from the spears grown in other western mass locales, or even other spots across the globe? To get ready for our very own Asparagus Festival happening at the Hadley Commons this weekend, we bring grass fr...

 We’re exploring all the colors of the rainbow, cause it’s PRIDE MONTH, ya’ll.  The Queer Joy Chorus recently became the Queer Joy Collaborative and is celebrating its first year in their new incarnation. This Sunday they’ll throw the first ever Queer Joy Fun Fair with activities, singing, food, and more at Smith Voc, and we’ll chat with Mara Levi and Micki McInnis about the shift. And in the Berk...

Today we're talking about sweet things.  Even when we’re talking about hard things to watch. This Saturday, The Triplex Cinema shows a special screening of the Oscar winning 1984 film The Killing Fields, which details the experiences of two journalists in Cambodia in 1975 at the beginning of the Khmer Rouge uprising. We chat with one of the stars of that movie who’ll be on hand at the theater for...

Today we’ll give you two opportunities to engage yourself and enact or acknowledge the changes you’d like to see in the area and the world, and each is in its second year of operating.  One of those is the upcoming Equity in the 413: Western Massachusetts Racial Equity Summit , which seeks to re-align efforts to advance racial equity across the region. We’ll talk with Community Foundation CEO Mega...

Today we have something lost, something gained, and something re-imagined.  At the Shea Theater this weekend, a kaiju classic is getting a sonic overhaul as Cinemastorm presents an extra special screening of Noriaki Yuasa’s “Gamera vs. Guiron,” accompanied by a live soundtrack by local composer Galen Huckins and live foley by Jonathan Greber of Skywalker Sound . We talk with each of them, as well...

May is often when we think about the growing things.  Including our youth, as they are our future, as they dance into new horizons in the School for Contemporary Thought ’s first narrative work: Wonderland . We speak with the director, Jen Polins, about the company members blooming into the plotlines in their pre-professional company The Hatchery,  and the importance of inspiring young dancers to...

We’re exploring emphasis.  In Amherst, we return to an exhibit, “ Sowing History, Reaping Justice ,” where students of the Slavery North Initiative have spent a semester developing picture books for younger audiences to learn about slavery. We talk to student authors Emmanuel Nkuranga, River Riddle and Georgia Brabec as well as professors Charmaine Nelson of UMass and Raphael Rogers of Clark Unive...

Franklin County is taking the spotlight.  Because that’s where Tumble Science Podcast for Kids is making its home these days. Tomorrow night is their Joke-ha-thon , raising funds for their next season of fun things about the world to littles everywhere. We chat with hosts Lindsay Patterson and Marshall Escamilla about what makes a good dad joke and how even they are feeling the sting of the NSF cu...

 Last month on April 13, we inaugurated our own holiday, 413 Day.  Today on The Fabulous 413, we take you back to play a science quiz with our friends from Tumble Science Podcast for Kids, Lindsay Patterson and Marshall Escamilla. Plus, we had great music at our western Mass. celebration, so we revisit some live selections from The Fawns and Silvie’s Okay. Speaking of live music, the MiFA Victory...

Today there is an over abundance of talent.  We welcome back wine friend and sommelier Ken Washburn, general manager of the Leverett Village Co-Op , to the Tina Turner Memorial Wine Thunderdome with two extra fragrant choices as we pit Vouvray against Beaujolais.  We also celebrate Ciarra Fragale 's brand new album, "Get What You Want," for Live Music Friday, hear about her upcoming tour and how s...

Amherst is perhaps the most densely concentrated locale of academia in western Mass., and today we give you a glimpse of how the wealth of knowledge is shared with the wider community. Amherst A Better Chance ( ABC ) is part of a national initiative to help Black, Latine, Indigenous and Asian students in underserved school districts achieve their dreams. Started in the late sixties, it’s been brin...

Say the name, say the name, because word on the common is that this weekend is a time of celebration.  In Amherst, many Indigenous and First Nation peoples from the northeast and across the continent will gather for the 5th annual Odenong Powwow in song, dance, food, craft and more. Founder, organizer and multi-disciplinary artist Justin Beatty joins us to talk about sustaining the event, the nuan...

We’re honoring the area’s abolitionist past with those who carry its spirit into the future.  Since 1992, the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee has been supporting folx in the spirit of its namesake, and for twenty of those years has given to enterprising students from Hampshire and Hampden Counties who push their work toward a more just and liberated society. We meet Jameicia Estes, scholarship...

We're running the gamut of niche academia today.  It's the 100th anniversary of the Scripps National Spelling Bee , and it's just our luck that Jazz à la Mode host and local dictionary editor Peter Sokolowski is one of the judges for the event. We speak with him about the nature of spelling bees, how he got involved in the event, the interesting origins of the word "spell" and more.  And, Mr. Univ...

Have you ever looked at large architecture and wondered just how much space is being actually used, or how you could take advantage of that space?  Today, we speak to Michael Townsend , a member of Tape Art art collective, who answered both of those questions with resounding yeses. We learn about “Secret Mall Apartment ," a documentary about the 4-year-long inhabitable art project in a most unlike...

We have to lift you up after the tumult of yesterday’s conversation, and we do it with music since our favorite time of year is swiftly approaching.  June 20-22, the Green River Festival will descend on the Franklin County Fairgrounds, bringing over 40 bands, local vendors and our community together (with hopefully better weather than last year). For the second year, John Sanders of DSP Shows is a...

Basically since January 21st, we’ve been hearing about federal cuts to agencies its supported and run for decades, and seeing the carnage to programming, businesses, and federal departments themselves as the dominoes continue to fall. From the USDA to the NSF, from Health to the Humanities, greater infrastructure to academics, the Library of Congress to the NEA, it seems like no industry is immune...