Summer’s almost over as far as institutional calendars go, and it seems like our normally stubborn climate is going right along with them this year: a very un-summery chill has laced the nighttime air of late, and a smattering of leaves around town has even begun to change colors. In mid-August!
New Haveners don’t have to give in so easily. There are still outdoor summer traditions to enjoy, like a concert and a certain pro tennis tournament. You just might want to bring a sweater.
Monday, August 18
Ever eaten a quince? If not, this could be your chance. It’s the last installment of the Beecher Park Summer Concert Series & Hi-Fi Pie Fest outside the Mitchell Library (37 Harrison St, New Haven), where entrants in the pie contest, with slices available for purchase, have to be made with apples, pears and/or quinces. The soundtrack’s provided by the minimalist local indie band José Oyola and the Astronauts, and savory food comes courtesy of the Szabo’s Seafood food truck, set to sling New England-y fare in the library parking lot. Free to attend.
Tuesday, August 19
Yesterday, today and tomorrow, see things in black and white. These are “Noir Nights” at the Miller Library in Hamden (2901 Dixwell Ave; 203-287-2680), showing three films adapted from works by the genre-pioneering writer James M. Cain. Monday’s is Double Indemnity (1944); tonight’s is Mildred Pierce (1945); and Wednesday’s is The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). 7 p.m. Free.
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Wednesday, August 20
The Connecticut Open women’s tennis tournament at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale (45 Yale Ave, New Haven; pictured above during last year’s tourney) is in full swing by now, pushing ahead to the finals on Saturday. Along the way, attendees tonight and tomorrow night are getting special treats after official play is complete: two “men’s legends events.” First up, this evening, local tennis hero James Blake faces Jim Courier, two-time winner of both the French Open and the Australian Open, who once upon a time took on the likes of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Boris Becker. Tomorrow, Blake contends with the powerful serves of Andy Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and former top-ranked player in the world who retired in August 2012, almost a year to the day before Blake did. The first of the two exhibition matches happens during the tournament’s seventh session, when single tickets range between $23 and $94; the second happens during the ninth, when tickets range from $28 to $103.
Thursday, August 21
Dan Deacon is the kind of artist that fickle new-music trendsetters can love into perpetuity: he interests them with his envelope-pushing electronica and effects-riddled vocals, yet he never seems to get the breakout stardom they’re supposed to herald for him. So it is that Deacon has yet to become mainstream seven years after his first acclaimed release, though his current tour with household name Arcade Fire might be changing that. In-between performing at Bowls and Amphitheatres and Centers, he and his crew have made time for an intimate show tonight at all-ages venue The Space (295 Treadwell St, Hamden; 203-288-6400), courtesy of the local bookers at Manic Productions. Opening the $15 show is Burlington, CT-based “fuzz pop” band Furnsss, leading into New Haven-based “dirty soul” group Fake Babies, which deploys sometimes-very-clean electronic beats and sounds beneath soulful vocals.
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Friday, August 22
As an influx of new brains arrives at Yale today—this being the day wide-eyed freshmen begin moving into their dorms—hang out with Yale’s oldest brains at the Cushing Center, located within the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library (333 Cedar St, New Haven). The center is offering two guided tours of “more than 400 specimen jars of patients’ brains and tumors” which, together with “surgical illustrations, personal diaries, black and white patient photographs, memorabilia as well as historical anatomical and medical materials,” represent the life’s work of neurosurgery pioneer Dr. Harvey Cushing, who died in 1939. Tours start at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.; when arriving, meet at the entrance to the library. Free.
Saturday, August 23
The Westville Community Nursery School (34 Harrison St, New Haven; 203-387-6660) is moving soon, and it’s seizing the opportunity to sell some of its accumulated children’s stuff, from “gently used toys” to games to pint-sized musical instruments. The tag sale happens today at the school from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and it even offers a piggybacking option, wherein $20 lets you sell your own similar wares from a dedicated table.
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (170 Whitney Ave, New Haven; (203) 432-8987) is hosting a rare free admission day. Called “Summer’s Last Roar,” we’re also nearing the last roar for the Peabody’s temporary exhibit Tiny Titans, which showcases “over 150 eggs, embryos, hatchlings and nests from both dinosaurs and modern-day birds” through August 31.
Sunday, August 24
You know what else roars? Fires, like the one that tore through the Pardee-Morris House (325 Lighthouse Rd, New Haven). That blaze was set by redcoats during a midsummer Revolutionary War raid in 1779; now it’s the New Haven Museum that keeps the fire burning. An eventful summer season of education and recreation at the house concludes today with a last round of touring and lazing about the grounds between noon and 4 p.m. Free.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
