N Magazine June Issue

N Bestselling Author

DENNIS LEHANE From Mystic River to Shutter Island

The Washington Observer

EVAN THOMAS

The Medical Marijuana Debate

POT OF GOLD? The Curious Case of

DR. LEPORE The Multiple Personalities of

97.7 ACK-FM

Nantucket Magazine June 2013

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¸4(905,»: (+=0*, 65 7(05; ¸4(905,»: (+=0*, 65 7(05; :,3,*;065 >(: *90;0*(3 ;6 4@ 7961,*;»: :<**,:: ;6 4@ 7961,*;»: :<**,:: ¹ — Bob Cirillo, Local Painter

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Anyone who thinks paint is just paint hasn’t spent time at Marine Home Center. When experienced painter and floor refinisher, Bob Cirillo took on the renovation of a late 1800s Nantucket home, he needed more than just materials — he needed professional advice. Marine’s paint department is the only Benjamin Moore dealer on Nantucket and they have helped Bob Cirillo provide exceptional results for his clients.

marinehomecenter.com - 134 Orange Street, Nantucket - (508) 228-0900

8 JEFF ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

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W A T E R J E W E L S GALLERY

Editor & Publisher Bruce A. Percelay Managing Editor Robert Cocuzzo Art Director Paulette Chevalier Head Photographers Nathan Coe Kit Noble Operations Consultant Adrian Wilkins Contributors Pam Belluck Kate Coe John Doyle Vanessa Emery Holly Finigan Scott Kearnan Andrea Hutchins Ryder Ziebarth Marie-Claire Rochat Ben Simons Photographers Meghan Brosnan Zofia Crosby Ashleigh Faye Brian Sager Joshua Simpson Advertising Director Fifi Greenberg Advertising Sales Audrey Wagner Publisher N. LLC Chairman: Bruce A. Percelay

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Nantucket Times 17 North Beach Street Nantucket, MA 02554 508-228-1515

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ŠCopyright 2011 Nantucket Times. Nantucket Times (N Magazine) is published seven times annually from April through December. Reproduction of any part of this publication is prohibited without written permission from the publisher. Editorial submissions may be sent to Editor, Nantucket Times, 17 North Beach Street, Nantucket, MA 02554.

We are not responsible for unsolicited editorial or graphic material. Office (508) 228-1515 or fax (508) 228-8012.

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14 Centre Street Nantucket, MA 02554 508 228 0825 14 St Albans Grove London W8 5BP 44 207 368 6367

Turning the Page to

SUMMER Editor & Publisher

Nantucket has become an island of festivals.

From daffodils, to wine, to film, to gardens and even yoga, you would think Nantucket would have it covered. But last year’s edition of the highly-acclaimed Nantucket Book Festival proved that there is still room for more events on Nantucket, especially ones that enlighten us.

N Magazine is proud to be the Book Festival’s local media sponsor and brings you some of its highlights in this June issue.

It has been over a month and a half since the marathon bombings in Boston. However, the memory is still vivid in all of our minds and has been particularly impactful for those who call Boston home. Our cover features bestselling author and Book Festival luminary Dennis Lehane, whose Boston-based novels Shutter Island, Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone have been made into some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster films. As a native of Dorchester, Lehane shares his unabashed pride in being a Bostonian, sentiments which he echoed in an article he wrote for The New York Times. In this issue, we’ve reprinted Lehane’s New York Times piece entitled, “Messing With the Wrong City,” which captures the remarkable spirit demonstrated by this strong city.

Beyond books, we go on to cover stories about music and dance. We feature a story about Nantucket-native Graham Dickson and his band Crystal Fighters, which is gaining international prominence. We also learn some steps from summer resident Walter Schalk, who built a tremendously successful dance school that once held classes on Nantucket.

N Magazine enjoys uncovering curious pieces of Nantucket history and we hope you find the story of the island’s former harness horseracing scene to be surprising and fascinating. Another interesting twist on life on Nantucket is learning more about the already amazing Dr. Tim Lepore, who was the subject of Pam Belluck’s bestselling book, Island Practice. Exclusively for N Magazine, Belluck takes us into Dr. Lepore’s extraordinary antique gun collection.

Learning about people, places and things is what makes the Book Festival a perfect event on an island where there is a never-ending source of history, ideas and thoughts. We hope you take advantage of what the Book Festival has to offer while you enjoy the warmth of June.

Sincerely, N magazine

Bruce A. Percelay Editor & Publisher

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2013 34 POT OF GOLD?

With seventy percent of the island voting in favor of marijuana dispensaries opening on Nantucket, many wonder how this potent symbol of the sixties counterculture will hit the island.

40 THE CURIOUS CASE OF DR. LEPORE

New York Times columnist and author of the bestseller Island Practice, Pam Belluck, shares another interesting side of Cottage Hospital surgeon Dr. Lepore.

45 MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES

Take a look at the faces behind Nantucket’s ‘True Island Radio’ 97.7 ACK-FM.

51 THE PRIDE OF DORCHESTER

Book Festival headliner Dennis Lehane talks about growing up in Boston, writing bestselling novels, and being Hollywood’s flavor of the decade.

57 BASS, BOOKS & BUSINESS

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When Joe Andrasko boarded a charter fishing boat nearly a decade ago as a first mate, he never thought it would lead him into a life of entrepreneurship.

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28 CRYSTAL CLEAR

Nantucket native Graham Dickson tours the world with his folksy rock band Crystal Fighters.

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64 ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

N photographer Nathan Coe captures equestrian fashion on Nantucket.

76 LORD OF THE DANCE

Longtime summer resident Walter Schalk built a dance empire in Connecticut one graceful step at a time.

84 WASHINGTON OBSERVER

A conversation with Book Festival luminary and award-winning journalist Evan Thomas.

THE POWER OF BOOKS

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Book Festival luminary William Schwalbe shares the story of how a book club brought him closer to his terminally ill mother.

101 AUTHORS BEHIND BARS The Nantucket Book Festival brings back its ‘Authors in Bars’ event this June,offering the perfect chance to meet authors like Jack Sussek, Wyn Cooper and Rosie Schaap.

107 NANTUCKET’S OLDEST SPECTATOR SPORT

Imagine two horses racing down a dusty straightaway with two jockeys riding behind them in chariots and you’ve got history’s most exciting spectator sport on Nantucket.

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Boston-based author and Nantucket Book Festival luminary Dennis Lehane appears on this issue’s cover with a photograph by Ashleigh Faye.

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GUESTCONTRIBUTORS PAM BELLUCK Pam Belluck is a staff writer for The New York Times and author of Island Practice, a non-fiction tale about Dr. Timothy Lepore and the community he treats as a jack-of-all-trades physician on Nantucket. At The New York Times, Belluck served for a decade as a national bureau chief, and has covered major news stories, reported from places as diverse as Colombia and South Korea, and written about subjects ranging from cattle rustling to embryo adoption. She is currently a health and science writer, also contributing to the Science Times podcast. For this Book Festival issue of N Magazine, Belluck revisits the story of Dr. Lepore in “The Curious Case of Dr. Lepore” (page 40).

MEGHAN BROSNAN A Nantucket native, Meghan Brosnan specializes in portrait, concert, and event photography. After moving to Chicago in 2008, she began documenting the city’s vibrant music scene for online publications like Paste, Spin Magazine, and Consequence of Sound. Brosnan has photographed an array of music and film festivals and has worked with clients all over the country. Brosnan holds a BFA from Emerson College and is currently based in Colorado. For this Book Festival issue of N Magazine, Brosnan traveled to California to photograph Nantucketnative Graham Dickson and his band Crystal Fighters (page 28).

SCOTT KEARNAN Scott Kearnan is a Boston-based writer with a strong focus on New England travel, arts and entertainment, and has interviewed stars from Steven Tyler to Lady Gaga. A Boston College graduate, Kearnan is the former editorial director of STUFF magazine and is currently the contributing lifestyle editor at Boston Spirit, an upscale magazine for New England’s LGBT community, as well as a regular columnist on Boston.com. For this June Issue, Kearnan profiled Nantucket-native Graham Dickson for the

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story “Globetrotting Band” (page 28).

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PHOTO DAVID BEYDA STUDIO NYC

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NBUZZ THE MID-ISLAND SHUFFLE The Chicken Box, Pi Pizzeria and Pazzo have some new neighbors moving in mid-island. After years serving hearty breakfast, the Hen House has flown the coop for good. Nesting in its place is Island Kitchen, a restaurant owned and operated by Chef Patrick Ridge, formerly of the Languedoc, and Marshall Thompson of Jetties. Meanwhile, right next door, the Bamboo Supper Club has been purchased by a Boston investor. At press time, local architects were working on a redesign of the Bamboo’s interior. Depending on what goes into the old Bamboo, mid-island could become an even tastier dining destination on Nantucket.

SANDY SURGES

RENTAL MARKET In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the Nantucket

N MAGAZINE TAKES

TOP HONORS For the second year in a row, N Magazine has

rental market is getting a boost from visitors who

been awarded PINE’s Pinnacle Award, “acknowl-

typically vacation on the Jersey Shore and Long

edging and honoring superb craftsmanship in the

Island. One source indicated that renters’ budgets

creation, design, and production of top quality

have also seemed to have increased, and rentals this

print media.” The award came in recognition of N’s 10th

year were booked much further in advance. If the

Anniversary Issue. Later at the PINE Industry Awards gala, more than

rental market is any indication of the summer to come,

240 industry executives voted N Magazine the People’s Choice.

local businesses may stand to have banner years.

SHAKE, RATTLE & ROLL The roads of Downtown Nantucket had a bumpy start this spring when the Department of Public Works

began excavation as part of a ten-year plan to replace the island’s sewer and water systems. Designated as Phase IIB, the most recent roadwork removed over 6,000 feet of old clay and cast iron sewer pipes and replaced them with PVC and cement-lined iron pipes. The project began in late January and is scheduled to run till Memorial Day. The final paving of the streets, however, won’t begin till the fall, leaving motorists with an extra bumpy ride into town this summer. Buckle up!

FOR SALE:INQUIRER AND MIRROR Once again, The Inquirer and Mirror is up for sale. Founded in 1821, The Inquirer and Mirror has passed hands over the years, first to Ottaway Community Newspapers in 1990, and then to Rupert Murdoch’s News N magazine

Corp. enterprise in 2007. Murdoch acquired The Inquirer and Mirror as part of his purchase of Dow Jones & Co.,

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which publishes The Wall Street Journal. Apparently News Corp.’s interest in The Inquirer and Mirror and its associated group of community newspapers, known as the Dow Jones Local Media Group, was not part of Murdoch’s long-term vision. The paper is now being marketed to the highest bidder by a New York investment bank, Waller Capital. Some argue that newspapers are yesterday’s news, but we’ll just have to wait and see how the future of the island’s oldest newspaper unfolds.

CHANGING CHANNELS on Nantucket

There’s been a lot of static surrounding Nantucket’s local television stations lately, with at least one channel not returning to its regularly scheduled programming. The 228 will no longer be coming to you live from the Dreamland on Channel 22. Instead, it will now function as a production house, with upcoming projects including mini-documentaries on the Wauwinet as well as on the history of the ‘Sconset Water Commission. In other news, GENO TV is revamping its online presence while continuing to broadcast on channel 99. And celebrating its first anniversary, NCTV Channel 18 is going strong, having tripled its staff and upgraded its office. Stay tuned for more on this story.

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NEW APP ON THE MENU

Nantucket is slowly entering the digital

BUIDING ON THE RISE One only needs to drive around Nantucket to see that construction

age with Internet apps designed to navi-

has increased this year compared to years past. At press time, the

gate the island. Last summer, Anderson

Nantucket Building Department reported having issued 498 building

Publishing introduced the “Nantucket”

permits, an astounding twenty percent increase compared to

app, providing information on every-

last year. With some of those jobsites facing a June 15th

thing from restaurants and nightlife to

deadline on exterior construction, the race is on to build to the finish.

tide charts and ferry schedules. This summer, there is a new app to choose from on the island: Nantucket 360. While providing similar features and functions as Anderson’s app, 360 will offer a social networking component that will allow users to share, rate, and bookmark their favorite places and activities on Nantucket.

“360” launches early June.

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NEW BREWIN TOWN The Hub on Main Street revealed an impressive remodel earlier this spring and

is now offering gourmet coffee, smoothies, bagels and other small baked goods.

The Hub still boasts one of the island’s most extensive newspaper and magazine selections, giving you something to read with your cup of morning joe.

GOING LONG ON

SHORT FILMS

Look out Film Festival, there’s a new show in town and they’re keeping it short and sweet.

Premiering at the Nantucket Arts Festival in October, the Nantucket Shorts Film Festival will

by John Shea, the festival will include guest juror Casey Neistat, who became an overnight success in 2012 with his short film “Make it Count.” Winners of the Nantucket Shorts Film Festival will be presented statuettes made by Nantucket artist Matty Oates.

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show locally made movies, ranging from five to seven minutes long, at the Dreamland. Hosted

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NSPIRE

Messing with the

WRONG

CITY WRITTEN BY DENNIS LEHANE

Boston-based author Dennis Lehane appears on this Juneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cover of N Magazine celebrating the Nantucket Book Festival. Around the time Lehane was selected for the cover, Boston suffered the tragic attack at the Boston Marathon.

The following day, Lehane wrote this opinion piece for

THE COMMUNITY WILL EULOGIZE THE DEAD AND PROVIDE CARE AND SOLACE FOR THE INJURED. AND, NO,

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my creative fuel, for two reasons. 1) Because

ing space. Two different friends texted me the

busing crisis in 1974, I drove with my parents

that night was my ur-experience, if you will,

identical message yesterday: They messed with

and brother through South Boston on our

with rage. I’d seen anger, of course, and I’d

the wrong city. This wasn’t a macho sentiment. It

way to Dorchester, where we lived. On West

seen violence, too, but rage — beyond reason,

wasn’t “Bring it on” or a similarly insipid bit of

Broadway we got stuck in bumper-to-bumper

beyond intellect, beyond conciliation— was

posturing. The point wasn’t how we were going

traffic and crawled for a mile through one of

a different beast. 2) When I speak of my love

to mass in the coffee shops of the South End to

the more frightening mass gatherings I’ve ever

for this city, it will be understood that the love

figure out how to retaliate. Law enforcement will

witnessed. Effigies of Judge Arthur Garrity

does not come filtered through a soft-focus

take care of that, thank you. No, what a Bosto-

and Senator Edward Kennedy and Mayor

lens. I’m fully aware of the sins that litter the

nian means when he or she says “They messed

Kevin White were hung from street lamps

Hub’s rearview.

with the wrong city” is “You don’t think this

hen I was 9 years old, at the height of the

changes anything, do you?”

and set afire. The flames were reflected in the But I do love this city. I love its atrocious ac-

through them at the faces of a mob so incensed

cent, its inferiority complex in terms of New

Trust me, we won’t be giving up any civil

it was medieval. Reason was not popular on

York, its nut-job drivers, the insane logic of its

liberties to keep ourselves safe because of this.

West Broadway that night. Nor was compas-

street system. I get a perverse pleasure every

We won’t cancel next year’s marathon. We

sion or a desire to debate our differences with

time I take the T in the winter and the air-

won’t drive to New Hampshire and stockpile

nuance or a respect for complexity. In the

conditioning is on in the subway car, or when

weapons. When the authorities find the weak

place of civil discourse, rage ruled. I bring this

I take it in the summer and the heat is blasting.

and terminally maladjusted culprit or culprits,

up now, in the wake of a terrorist attack on the

Bostonians don’t love easy things, they love

we’ll roll our eyes at whatever backward ideol-

city where I was born and from which I draw

hard things — blizzards, the bleachers in Fen-

ogy they embrace and move on with our lives.

way Park, a good brawl over a contested park-

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windows of my father’s Chevy, and I looked

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I can remember being. My daughter asked if the

without a second thought for their own safety,

bad men were like the bad woman who hit her

the primary desire of the terrorists — to paralyze

explosions to drop my tax return off at the post

on the head with a suitcase last time we were on

a populace with fear — was already thwarted.

office. By this time I knew what had happened;

a plane and then didn’t apologize. I assured her

the whole city did. Beacon Street was splattered

the bad men were worse, and my daughter asked

half-hour after the attacks, I crossed the marathon route two miles west of the

with enough crushed Gatorade cups to

faith, be arrested, jailed and forgotten.

give it the appearance of a poppy field. A

Whatever hate movement they belong to

lot of hugging was going on. People stared at their phones even though cell service

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was down. I passed a homeless woman on

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The little man or men who did this will, I have

…WHAT WE’LL CLING TIGHTEST TO IS WHAT THE CITY WAS BUILT ON—

will ultimately go the way of the anarchist assassination movements of the early 20th century or the Symbionese Libera-

a bench. She asked, “Them demons been

tion Army of the 1970s. Those killed and

caught yet?” I said I didn’t know. She said,

maimed, starting with 8-year-old Martin

“They will, they will.” A few blocks later,

Richard of my neighborhood, Dorchester,

I came upon a young woman in runner’s

and his injured sister and mother, will be

clothing sitting on a lawn, weeping. I

remembered. The community will eulo-

asked her if she was all right. She nodded.

gize the dead and provide care and solace

I asked if I could get her anything or do

for the injured. And, no, we’ll never

anything for her, and she shook her head.

forget. But what we’ll cling tightest to is if they would hit her on the head when she was

what the city was built on — resilience, respect

I went home and tried to explain to my 4-year-

on the street. I promised her they wouldn’t, but

and an adoration for civility and intellect.

old daughter that the reason Mommy and Daddy

really, what do I know? The bad men — stran-

were upset was because bad people had done

gers — wait to hit us on the head. Or remove our

Boston took a punch on Monday — two of them,

some bad things. I’m not used to feeling so

limbs. Or shake our conviction that the world

actually — that left it staggering for a bit. Flesh

limited when it comes to expressing myself,

should be a place where people live free of fear.

proved vulnerable, as flesh is wont to do, but the

but trying to explain an act of mass murder to a 4-year-old rendered me as close to speechless as

spirit merely trembled before recasting itself into When the civilian bystanders to the attack ran toward the first blast to give aid to the victims,

something stronger than any bomb or rage.

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NSPIRE

GLOBETROTTING

BAND WRITTEN BY SCOTT KEARNAN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MEGHAN BROSNAN

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT FOR NANTUCKET NATIVE GRAHAM DICKSON AND HIS FOLKSY, ROCK AND ROLL BAND, CRYSTAL FIGHTERS. The breakout band Crystal Fighters is a tough act to categorize, but the song “Plage” off their debut album is probably the best sample of their sound. French for “beach,” “Plage’s” jaunty melody and ebullient ukulele echo the influence of world music while the song’s catchy, spirited lyrics are the kind you could imagine singing around a bonfire. By the time the song is over, you can almost taste the ocean air in your lungs and feel the toasty sand between your toes. Which makes perfect sense, as the beach is never far from the mind of Graham Dickson, the Crystal Fighters’ founding member.

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BORN ON NANTUCKET, Dickson now travels the globe with the band, performing at concerts and festivals from Brussels to Berlin, San Diego to San Francisco. Yet no matter where he travels, Dickson always keeps his island home close to heart. “It was such a beautiful place to grow up,” he says. “It’s the kind of place where you didn’t have to lock your doors. There was such a sense of safety, and a sense of freedom that came from that.” This freedom included plenty of time spent outdoors, learning to surf off Nantucket beaches, and immersing himself in music. He was playing piano by the age of five and then went on to learn the drums and guitar.

While he certainly inherited creativity from his mother, local artist MJ Levy-Dickson, the 29-yearold’s musical tastes came largely from his father, who introduced him to improvisational and theatrical rock and rollers like Frank Zappa. He also exposed Dickson to dub reggae, a drum and bassheavy subgenre that springs from Jamaica, where the elder Dickson once lived. “Throughout my childhood, my father always made sure I listened to many different styles of music,” he explains today.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was giving me extensive instruction.” And when it came to music,

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Dickson was a stellar student.

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BY THE TIME THE SONG IS OVER, YOU CAN ALMOST TASTE THE OCEAN AIR IN YOUR LUNGS AND FEEL THE TOASTY SAND BETWEEN YOUR TOES.

However, it wasn’t until studying at Edinburgh University that Dickson met musician Gilbert Vierich. Vierich introduced Dickson to his longtime friend Sebastian Pringle, who was producing music in London, and Crystal Fighters was born.

The band’s sound still needed some fine-tuning.

After experimenting with various styles, the three discovered folk melodies from the Basque countryside of northern Spain. Around that time, friend and singer Laure Stockley, who would eventually join the band, shared with them an unfinished opera manuscript that she had recovered from the home of her reclusive late grandfather.

“It was a book he had handwritten on his deathbed,” explains Dickson. “It was kind of crazy, full of these insane yet incredible writings.” Crystal Fighters extrapolated the mad, existential musings to create the lyrics and melodies on their debut album Star of Love.

With their famously energetic and artsy shows, Crystal Fighters has been catching fire with a certain breed of fans and music critics. They’re drawn to the music because it is exotic and euphoric, funky and punky, and stems from a group that would be equally at home playing Burning Man, a warehouse rave or Woodstock. And with their star rising, Crystal Fighters has certainly had a chance to tour the world, playing everything from music festivals in Spain to clubs in Chicago, bringing their global sound everywhere from Japan to the Azores. They’ll be logging even more miles now that they’re touring to support their new album, Cave Rave. Ironically, despite all the band’s globetrotting, Dickson says Nantucket is Local audiences will just have to wait and see when this Nantucket native will bring his music back to where it all started.

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one place they haven’t yet had a chance to play.

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NVESTIGATE

POT of

GOLD? WRITTEN BY VANESSA EMERY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN MOHR

Last month, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released dispensary-permitting guidelines, bringing Nantucket one step closer to offering medicinal marijuana to local patients. Many wonder if legalizing this potent symbol of the American counterculture will spark a new island economy or just leave Nantucket dazed and confused.

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“Marijuana provided a sense of euphoria without the physical addiction.”

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— John, island native

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S

eventy-five percent of island voters

such studies, the laws seem to be lagging

supported the medical marijuana bill

behind the science, and the science is lagging

in last November’s election allowing qualified

behind people’s anecdotes of the beneficial

patients to possess up to a sixty-day supply of

use of medical marijuana.

cannabis without criminal or civil penalties. In order to secure this medical marijuana a doctor

Of course, not all members of the medical

must recommend patients to the state-run

community are so high on marijuana as

patient registry where qualifying conditions

medicine. “I wasn’t impressed with mari-

falls under a tightly regulated system

include cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis

juana in the sixties and seventies, and I’m

where only qualifying patients are

C, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis

not impressed with it now,” says Nantucket

informed of dispensary locations. The regulations

and other debilitating conditions. Many islanders

doctor George Butterworth. Although Dr.

that govern medical marijuana on Nantucket will

are looking to have a marijuana dispensary not

Butterworth says that “Marijuana is probably

determine how it gets used or abused.

as a Colorado-style head shop, but as a source

less of a burden on society than tobacco and

of plant-based medicine.

alcohol,” he is not convinced that anecdotes

The differences between California and Vermont

like John’s are enough to prove marijuana’s

are generally representative of the differences

medical legitimacy.

between East Coast and West Coast medical

One such supporter is John, an island native

He argues that

marijuana laws: The East

and thirty-year-old carpenter who spoke under a pseudonym to remain anonymous. In 2003, John contracted a bacterial staff infection in his left hip and was

“I wasn’t impressed with marijuana in the sixties and seventies, and I’m not impressed with it now,” — George Butterworth

prescribed antibiotics and pain

Coast is much more conservative. The Vermont and Massachusetts laws only make marijuana available to patients with debilitating conditions. By contrast,

medications. “I was nauseous

California casts a much wider net, including

all the time due to the antibiotics,” he says. “I

patients with arthritis, migraine, chronic

didn’t feel like eating, and food was essential to my recovery.” John started using marijuana

pain and epilepsy on their list of qualifying con-

to increase his appetite and ease his nausea.

ditions. Perhaps most significantly, Vermont

He was also prescribed Percocet and Oxy-

only allows dispensaries to distribute

codone for his pain. The doctor warned him

two ounces of marijuana per patient

that he could become physically addicted to

per month. In California, legal limits vary by

these drugs and would need to wean himself

county, but it is not uncommon to obtain four

off of them. Daily marijuana use helped John

although most medicines are derived from

transition off the opiates. “Marijuana provided

plants, prescribing a whole plant is not

a sense of euphoria without the physical

typically accepted amongst Western medical

One need only look to the sky over the years to

addiction,” he says.

doctors in the twenty-first century. Aspirin,

see how Nantucket has dealt with marijuana in

quinine, morphine and digoxin are just a few

the past. For years, blacked-out surveillance hel-

At least one study shows evidence of the

examples of important drugs synthesized from

icopters have been deployed over the island in

benefit of marijuana in combination with

isolated plant compounds. Marijuana may

collaboration with the state and federal police to

opioid painkillers. The American Society for

be radical within the medical establishment

spot any illegal crops being grown. Last August,

Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics

not because it is an illegal drug, but because

the police confiscated many marijuana plants

published a study in 2011 that found that

it is a whole plant. Despite his professional

and arrests have since been made for small

vaporized marijuana enhanced the pain

opinion, Dr. Butterworth says if a patient on

possession. With community dialogues and the

relieving effects of opioids allowing patients

chemotherapy thinks marijuana will help ease

proper regulations in place, perhaps medical

to take lower doses of addictive painkillers

his or her pain, he would be happy to write a

marijuana can reach its potential as a healing plant

and decreasing their side effects. In spite of

prescription.

while shedding its reputation as a dangerous,

ounces in a single day.

addictive substance. As founding father and hemp It is yet to be seen how medical marijuana

est service which can be rendered to any country

opens, but states like California and

is to add a useful plant to its culture.” We’ll just

Vermont offer valuable clues.

have to wait for the smoke to clear to see if this

Medical marijuana in California is a regulatory nightmare, whereas in Vermont it

proves true on Nantucket.

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will affect the island once a dispensary

farmer, Thomas Jefferson, once said, “The great-

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“Getting to the top can be a challenge.

It should not be one once you’re there.”

“After working with some of the most successful families in the world, we have seen certain systematic patterns emerge. Creation of wealth and its preservation across time and generations demand distinct perspectives and approaches, some of which are easy to see but many of which are simply not apparent. Issues not in full view during the climb to the summit can arise and become as challenging as those overcome while climbing to the peak.”

— Chris Geczy, Ph.D. Partner of GKFO, LLC

GKFO, LLC was founded as a private family office and asset management firm by Christopher Geczy, Ph.D., Stephen Kitching and a team of skilled professionals trained in multi-generational wealth management.

Along with his work at GKFO, Dr. Geczy is Academic Director of the Wharton Wealth Management Institute and Adjunct Associate Professor of Finance at The Wharton School.

If it is time for you to take money management to a higher level, contact us for references and

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a description of our services.

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For further information email: info@gkfo.net or call us at 888-797-4090.

Redefining Wealth Management

The

CURIOUS

CASE of

DR. LEPORE WRITTEN BY PAM BELLUCK

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIT NOBLE

UP THE HILL FROM NANTUCKET’S HOSPITAL, the epicenter of saving lives on the island, sits a house with a startlingly voluminous collection of implements invented to kill.

Guns — some 200 rifles, pistols, shotguns — are stashed in a basement safe and vault, a locked upstairs cabinet, and even a locked wooden box labeled “dog toys” in the kitchen. More surprisingly, the house belongs to a man who handles a vast portfolio of the island’s healthcare needs: Timothy J. Lepore, surgeon, family doctor, hospital medical director, tick disease expert, school physician, medical examiner, informal psychologist, and occasional unofficial veterinarian.

It’s not the only way that Lepore, 68, the subject of my book, Island Practice, is a colorful, contrarian anomaly. In a world of corporatized health care, where doctors’ time with patients is logged in “relative value units,” Lepore is a never-say-no physician who accepts payment in oatmeal raisin cookies, lets patients bring themselves, or their animals, to his home at all hours, and makes house calls, even to a hermit squatting illegally in swampland whose house is a “twigloo” made of vines. Lepore

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stole hospital supplies to treat a horse with suspected cyanide poisoning in

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the middle of a field. He commissioned a pot-smoking patient to illegally bake marijuana cookies for cancer sufferers. And he’s subjected himself to threats by being perhaps the only doctor between here and Boston to perform abortions, though he is ideologically against them.

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Dr. Timothy Lepore with his red-tailed hawk, Ajax, which he uses to hunt on Nantucket.

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B

ut in Massachusetts, bluest of blue

A gun hobby like Lepore’s can seem even more

with these things and expect them to under-

states, being a gun fanatic and National

jarring now, in the shadow of the terrifying

stand the difference. Glamorize thug life and

Rifle Association member is in its own category.

massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six educa-

not the real things of life.”

Lepore not only listens to Rush Limbaugh but

tors in Newtown, Connecticut, the mass shoot-

plays Limbaugh for his dogs. He protects his

ings in Aurora, Colorado, and Tucson, Arizona,

Lepore knows that his gun passion strikes

guns with tear gas on a tripwire, once acciden-

and other frightening cases of gun violence.

some as contradictory and offensive. But to

tally teargassing the island fire chief in the face.

Lepore is repulsed and shaken by these events.

him, they represent some of the same values

His doctor’s office is decorated with a pistol, pic-

After Newtown, he emailed me: “There is no

that drew him to Nantucket 30 years ago: his-

tures of muskets, and posters of ammunition. His

explanation for the horror of the shooting.”

tory, ingenuity, independence. Nathaniel Philbrick, the author and Nantucketer, also thinks

exam rooms are named Colt, Winchester, Smith & Wesson; the bathroom is named P-Shooter.

He understands the mounting anti-gun senti-

guns allow Lepore to connect with a segment

“Guns: I never met one I didn’t like,” Lepore

ment, and he favors stricter screening of gun

of the population that he thinks most doctors

muses. “They’ve all got panache.”

buyers. He’s less convinced about tightening

would not otherwise have interaction with.

gun laws in other ways, saying that some Lepore takes his guns hunting or to the police

places with “loose gun control,” like Vermont,

Lepore is not much for railing about self-

shooting range as often as he can. And “if I can’t

have had “no real issue,” while what he calls

defense or the Second Amendment. He’s not

go out shooting for a variety of reasons —

Chicago’s “draconian gun laws” have not

an expert marksman, and he’s a lackluster

social, political,” he says, he’ll fire air rifles at

prevented a steady loss of life. He also faults

hunter. But he loves to shoot, and he loves

a mattress affixed to a basement wall. He even

video games as “unneeded stimulus for ado-

the stories behind his guns. Pepperbox re-

made a “potato gun” out of PVC pipe, a long

lescents who cannot tell real from video,” and

volvers from the California Gold Rush. Civil

whitetube resembling a rocket launcher that can

movies in which we never see the aftermath

War–era single-shot-action Ballard rifles. An

fire anything from russets to Idahos.

of real shootings. “We desensitize our youth

M1 Garand, the first semiautomatic rifle to

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become regular army equipment.

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There’s a Browning Superposed shotgun called an Over/Under, a 1920’s German “Bolo” Mauser semiautomatic pistol, and several Russian Mosin-Nagant sniper rifles. Lepore has a Smith & Wesson double-action revolver that belonged to his maternal grandfather, a Greek man who disapproved of his daughter dating Lepore’s Italian father. Had he lived until the wedding, “this was the gun that my grandfather would have used to pop my father,” Lepore believes.

And Lepore still has his first gun, a Marlin .22 lever action Model 39A that his father gave him when he was 16. Lepore’s father was disinterested in weapons but Lepore loved them all, starting with BB guns he used to shoot flies and then pigeons from the roof of their house in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and branching out to a bow and arrow he used to hunt frogs in a swamp. Now, he carves bows and arrows, and prehistoric spear-throwers called atlatls.

But he can never have too many guns. Amid crazily-piled stacks of books and such oddities as didgeridoos, Lepore grabs a Winchester Model 97 shotgun, pumps it, and says “You hear this, you best be behaving yourself.” Caressing a rifle with a rear sight known as a tang sight, he grins. “I am a [sucker] for tang sights.” Hoisting another, he boasts, “I could shoot a dinosaur with this thing. You don’t see any dinosaurs on this island, do you? I’d like to think I can take some credit for that.”

He loves refurbishing guns, scrounging up obscure parts. And he makes bullets, melting lead and other metals, something he used to do in the hospital near the emergency room. Occasionally he’ll still bring guns into the hospital, if he’s hunting or shooting when a medical emergency occurs. It’s illegal to leave them in his car.

Despite Lepore’s goofy bravado, he isn’t reckless with guns. In fact, he believes shooting guns takes such care and precision that it’s the only activity that requires as much concentration as performing surgery, “controlling where you want to hit, doing it right, and doing it repeatedly.” Lepore says shooting helps keep him from constantly rethinking his last surgical operation, second-guessing whether he did everything he could have for his patients. And when he hunts, he doesn’t have to try to “fix anything I’ve shot,” he says. In that realm, it’s okay for him to let a living thing die. “If I’m shooting, I’m not thinking about operating,” Lepore says. “Shootfor that period of time. The stress, when I’m shooting—that all falls away.”

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ing, I’ll tell you, it sort of wipes the slate clean

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NDEPTH THE

MULITPLE PERSONALITIES PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATHAN COE

OF 97.7 ACK-FM

WRITTEN BY JOHN DOYLE

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LAST MEMORIAL DAY AN OBSCURE LOCAL RADIO STATION PLAYED NEIL DIAMOND’S “SWEET CAROLINE” FOR TWENTY-FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS ON NANTUCKET, thus marking the beginning of 97.7 ACK-FM. A year later, ACK-FM dominates the island’s airwaves with an eclectic playlist and an entertaining lineup of local disc jockeys. The creation of radio tycoon Jeff Shapiro and his parents Robert and Lois, ACK-FM has become a soapbox for the Nantucket community, spreading word about everything from missing pets to emergency storm information. Now transmitting online, the station can be heard worldwide, and its audience continues to grow. In celebration of their first anniversary of being on the air, we take a look at some of the faces behind ACK-FM with disc jockeys DC, Sandy, Melissa and Kate.

DC: Let’s start with the basic essentials for a radio station. The running joke still is that when we started we had a stapler with no staples, we had a white board with no markers, and we had just three hundred songs in our playlist. The first five or six days you were hearing the same song probably once every six hours. So we’ve built that up to almost fifteen hundred songs that we can now flip in and out. From David Bowie to Dave Matthews, Grateful Dead to Grace Potter, we play it all. When I first came on air from the city, I was used to giving traffic reports, you know, “I-95 is backed up because of a five-car pile up,” or something like that. I never thought I’d be giving a traffic report about a whale in the harbor with boats being backed up.

There have been a lot of firsts for me with this radio station.

SANDY: The station literally started from the ground up: The studio is in a basement on Old South Road.

I might complain about it in the morning because I don’t see the sun when it comes up, but what’s beautiful is that it creates a really safe, unintimidating place for guests to come.

The guests want to speak, they want the community to get to know them, but they might also be really nervous. Our studio is cavernous, and guests can almost forget that people are listening. They are able to open up one-on-one with the DJ on the

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air. It’s a conversation. We’re not

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trying to be NPR. I’m not trying to be Terry Gross. I am just curious. That’s what I like to have come across in the morning with the morning guests: “Tell me what’s going on? What do you bring to the community?”

KATE: I’ve worked for big, huge radio companies and everyone sits around and talks about who they think their audience is, and nobody really knows the individuals they’re talking about.

We’re in this amazing position where we know our audience personally.

We know they are smart and that makes us up our game.

I don’t want to be a big radio yahoo. I want to be a real person on the radio. So when I’m asked, “Are you different behind the mike than from your normal self?” really the only difference is that I am watching my language. I swear like a sailor in real life. I am deeply grateful for how this station has just been embraced by the island. The response has just been so generous and so positive.

MELISSA: Nantucket is such a creative environment and our local music reflects that. I’ve had more than a dozen local bands on my local music show at this point. People are just so into the local music scene here; they love it. And the bands themselves are just amazing. We’ve got everything from country and kind of blue grass sound, up to the gypsy bands and pop. It’s amazing the range out here. As for ACK-FM, Nantucket needed its own voice, and I think this definitely filled the slot.

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NBOOKFEST

DORCHESTER THE PRIDE OF

CONVERSATIONS WITH LITERARY HEAVYWEIGHT DENNIS LEHANE INTERVIEW BY ROBERT COCUZZO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASHLEIGH FAYE

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With Oscar-winning actors playing his characters in blockbuster films directed by the likes of Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese, Dennis Lehane’s literary success is not just found between the covers of his books. And yet, when talking to this bestselling author, Lehane seems just like a regular guy from Boston who can tell and wicked good story. “I grew up working class,” he says during our conversation, “I grew up the son of a union man. I grew up in a very Northern European, ethnic, blue-collar, solidly democratic, East Coast neighborhood. That’s what I write about. That’s what I understand.” Indeed, Lehane captures the voices of so many Bostonians in his novels, reflecting an intimacy with the city that only a writer born and bred in Dorchester can impart on the page. This June, Lehane brings this voice to the island as a featured speaker at the Nantucket Book Festival.

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N MAGAZINE: Many of your characters echo your Boston roots. What does this local dialect

N MAGAZINE: Is “writing what you know” one of the

provide your stories with?

elements of great fiction?

LEHANE: Bostonians have a very distinct voice. If you travel around the country, you realize how

LEHANE: I think “writing what you know” has been

rare that is: this voice of a place. New York has it, Boston has it, parts of the south have it, but in so

misinterpreted. It doesn’t necessarily mean that if

many places everybody sounds like everybody else. It’s not just in the dropping the ‘R’s. It’s a way

you’re from a plumbing family, you write about plumb-

of looking at the world that is just very different than most people. That gives me a lot of rich

ers. Or if you are from South Dakota, you write about

territory when I write, and capturing that voice isn’t terribly hard because I grew up all around it.

South Dakota. It means write how you understand the world. I grew up working class. I grew up the son of a

N MAGAZINE: Your plots often touch upon social issues such as racism, gang violence, child abuse, and drugs: Are you making a social commentary between the lines, or are those elements just adding texture to the piece?

LEHANE: It just happens organically. I think I have always been, for lack of a better term, a “social writer.” I’ve been a writer of social issues certainly. It’s not something I plan. I start writing about something and that just begins to flower out of the sort of kernel that I start with. I don’t have to shoehorn my social agenda into a book.

N MAGAZINE: You provide a portal to your readers into worlds that, especially for our Nantucket audience, can seem extreme or foreign. Do you think it’s important that people read books to get a sense of the other world that’s out there?

LEHANE: I don’t believe in the writer that scolds. I don’t think it’s my job to serve you the medicine that’s good for you. I think that it’s good for all people to be aware of the rest of the world. One of the big problems we have in this country is this sort of major disconnect between us and them— them being whoever, whatever that list is. So is it good that people read books about people who are not like them? Yes, it’s great. Is that why I write those books? No, I write what I

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know. I write what I’m interested in.

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union man. I grew up in kind of a very Northern Euro-

“I grew up working class. I grew up the son of a union man. I grew up in kind of a very Northern European, ethnic, blue-collar, solidly democratic, East Coast neighborhoods. That’s what I write about. That’s what I understand.”

pean, ethnic, blue-collar, solidly democratic,

is nothing if not a 1930’s Warner Brothers

East Coast neighborhood. That’s what I write

crime melodrama. You can see the plot of

about. That’s what I understand. But I don’t

Gone Baby Gone on “Law and Order” any day

necessarily write about being the son of

of the week. So I don’t think it’s my stories or

a guy who worked for Sears, Roebuck for

my plots that are grabbing people. I think the

thirty-five years, which is what I am. That’s

only part I take any credit for is that actors

when we get into autobiography.

seem to like to play my parts. I seem to write parts that actors really like to play.

N MAGAZINE: Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, and Ben Affleck have made your

N MAGAZINE: What involvement do you

books into blockbuster films. Hollywood

have, if any, when your books are being made

actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean

into movies? Did Clint Eastwood call you up

Penn have played your characters. How did

during the filming of Mystic River and ask

your involvement with the film industry come

what your intentions were with this scene and

about?

that character?

LEHANE: My first book was optioned I think

LEHANE: If Clint Eastwood calls me and asks

two months after it was published, so that

me, then I tell him. I don’t call him and I don’t

was my first experience with Hollywood. Then

ask to. Ben Affleck has been working on Live

I had options arise a couple more times, and

by Night for quite some time now, and I have

then I had Mystic River. Mystic River became

N MAGAZINE: So what’s in the soup?

Ben’s phone number, I have his email, and I

such a big deal that I became the flavor of the

LEHANE: Beats me.

have not contacted him once. When he needs to contact me, he contacts me. Otherwise

month, and stayed there for quite some time. I N MAGAZINE: So you don’t think there are

I’m just an intrusion. I think having been an

Hollywood sees that, “Oh, wow, they’ve made

certain elements to your books that lend

artist now for twenty-seven years one of the

three critically successful movies, and two

themselves seamlessly to the silver screen?

things I’m really respectful of is the creative

extremely financially successful movies out of

LEHANE: The only thing I can honestly see,

process. I don’t have a right to tell you how to

his books,” well then Hollywood, they come

and I’m not being falsely modest, I think I

do your process. I should just stay the hell out

running. They don’t understand what you’re

write very serviceable plots. They work. But

of your way until you need me. That’s the way

putting in the soup, they just know they like

are they original? I don’t think terribly. I don’t

it’s worked now for three films, and I’ve been

the soup.

think they’re terribly fresh. I think Mystic River

consulted on all three films.

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had Shutter Island and Gone Baby Gone. Once

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“Once Hollywood sees that, ‘Oh, wow, they’ve made three critically successful movies, and two extremely financially successful movies out of his books,’ well then Hollywood, they come running.”

N MAGAZINE: You’ve recently written for the hit television series “The Wire” and “Boardwalk Empire.” Does screenwriting offer you a different outlet than working on a novel?

LEHANE: Yes, it’s totally different. As Donald Westlake one famously said, “A novelist is god. A screenwriter is god’s tailor.” Working on a script is just different. You use different parts of your brain. It’s very barebones. There’s no obsession. To put it in perspective, a really tough thing for me has always been what I call “painting a room,” which is describing a scene. That to me is like pulling teeth. Somebody walks into a room and then I have to describe the room for you. That to me is one of the most difficult parts of writing novels. You don’t have to do that in a script. You don’t have to worry about it. You just say “interior room.” That, in and of itself, just cut my writing time by fifty percent.

N MAGAZINE: Can you tell me about the projects you are working on right now?

LEHANE: I’m a writer-producer on “Boardwalk Empire” this season, the HBO TV show. I’m doing rewrites on a script that is going into production right now by Fox Searchlight called “Animal Rescue.” I’m working on the next book, a continuation of the Hoffman family saga, which began on The Given Day. And then I’m actually

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working on another pass of a pilot script for a Patrick and Angie TV show.

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N MAGAZINE: Busy, busy. Well it will be nice to take a break on Nantucket for the Book Festival.

LEHANE: Yeah, I love Nantucket. I haven’t been to Nantucket I think in ten years, but it’s a lovely place. It’s gorgeous.

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BASS, B BOOKS & BUSINESS WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO

A young man’s journey from fisherman to educator to entrepreneur

In June of 2004, Joe Andrasko was living a young man’s fantasy

enough to follow through.” Andrasko began tutoring the boy later that

on Nantucket. The twenty-one-year-old had just graduated from

week. At the end of the summer, when he was too bashful to charge

Bowdoin College and was spending his summer working as a

the family for his tutoring services, they handed him a check. “It was

striker aboard Captain Tom’s Charters in Madaket. By day,

more money than I had ever made in my life,” Andrasko says. He

Andrasko was fishing for stripers off the west end of the island;

brought the check directly to the bank and started a business called

by night, he was out trolling Nantucket’s watering holes for a

The Nantucket Learning Group.

was, ‘Joe, what do you do during the winter?’” he says with a

What began as a one-man operation in 2004 is today a successful

likable twang in his voice. “I’d tell them I was a teacher back at

organization with fifteen teachers on Nantucket and Martha’s Vine-

my alma mater, Delbarton, and 80 percent of them would say, ‘I

yard. The Nantucket Learning Group tutors children from kindergarten

have a kid that could really use a tutor.’” However, after a long

through twelfth grade, teaching them everything from ABCs to SATs.

day on the water, the last thing Joe Andrasko wanted to do was

“Getting the business off the ground was a challenge to me,” Andrasko

sit down and teach Spanish or SAT prep.

says, “it was uncharted territory for a young guy, particularly a Spanish teacher from a private school in New Jersey.

That was until Captain Tom’s wife, Bambi

But that process of figuring out how to chart

Mleczko, walked into the mates’ quarters

that course really sparked my interest in all

one evening and insisted that he tutor

things business.” So while continuing to grow

their client’s son. “Bambi is affectionately

the Learning Group, Andrasko gradually

known as ‘Top Dog’ among the Captain

shifted gears from educator to entrepreneur,

Tom’s team,” says Andrasko, “so when

eventually going back to school for an MBA at

she asks for a favor, a good striker is smart

the University of Virginia.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOE ANDRASKO

good time. “The question every client would ask me on the boat

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I

n 2008, Andrasko was presented with a unique business proposition by his friends, Chris Ryan and Bryan McCoy. The two consultants had just returned from volunteer work in Africa, and told Andrasko that there were investment opportunities there that could also bring about some social good to that

part of the world. Their idea was to invest in agribusinesses in sub-Saharan Africa, and although they could raise the necessary capital, they had never started a business before and wanted Andrasko’s help. “I clearly remember telling them it was a great idea, but that it would never work. Luckily they were convincing,” he says.

In the fall of 2008, Andrasko boarded a plane and moved his life to Swaziland as a partner of Sustainable Development Capital, which he founded with McCoy and Ryan. “If you drive from Johannesburg and through southern Africa, you’ll drive through miles and miles of wonderful, fertile, unused fields,” Andrasko says. “The challenge in that part of the world has always been a lack of capital and a lack of management expertise for agribusinesses.

And we’ve always said if we can find the appropriate entrepreneurs and bring the capital and lend some of that management expertise, there’s a great opportunity to create jobs in an economical, for-profit capacity.” In 2009, Andrasko and his partners proved this strategy when purchasing a farm out of bankruptcy in Swaziland. Within eight months, the Sdemane Farm rebounded, employing one hundred local workers and exporting over three tons of

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high-quality vegetables per week.

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Bringing an American business strategy to sub-Saharan Africa

$600,000 in revenue, a significant sum for that region in the

was not without some unique obstacles. Andrasko recalls an

world, particularly a farm. On the social front, the farm employs

uneasy moment when he and his partners were seeking to rent

hundreds of local workers, providing them cream-of-the-crop

additional land from a tribal chief in Swaziland. When his

wages and benefits. Specifically, Andrasko and his partners

associates went off to assess the land, Andrasko was left alone

provide pre-school and transportation for the farm workers’

with the chief to

families and are currently

make small talk.

developing an HIV and

“He turned to me and said, ‘So Joe, tell me, how many wives do

“You don’t need to raise a million dollars or hire twenty employees to get started.

You just need the courage to find that first client or make the first sale.”

AIDS awareness program there. “We were able to ply our business trade in a way that would

you have?’ Here I

hopefully be profitable

am in Swaziland,

in the long-term for our

it’s a rainy day, I’m standing in the middle of an overgrown field

investors, but was also incredibly impactful on the ground in

with a chief who expects me to impress him with the number of

Africa,” Andrasko says.

wives I have. And I thought I was going to upset the chief by telling him I wasn’t married.” The chief went on to extol the

At the age of thirty, with two businesses to his credit, Joe

virtues of having multiple wives. “When I did get married,” he

Andrasko continues to fish for the next opportunity. “My advice

says, “I sent the chief some wedding pictures, and he’s been

to entrepreneurs is don’t be afraid to fail,” he says. “I really

supportive of my wife and my marriage ever since.”

believe entrepreneurship is all about taking the initial plunge.

Today, Sdemane Farm continues to thrive, exporting upwards

employees to get started. You just need the courage to find that

of five tons of vegetables per week to high-end retailers in

first client or make the first sale. From there, a good balance of

South Africa and Western Europe. The company grosses around

hard work and humility is a great recipe for success.”

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You don’t need to raise a million dollars or hire twenty

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FOGGYSHEET

Nantucket Daffodil Festival and Picnic

nantucket

Michael & Christina Smith

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Marjan Shirzad & Al Luderer

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Selectman Tobias Glidden

Mark, Vivian, Ava & Zofia Crosby

Elizabeth and Victor Haley, Elizabeth & Steve Sandblom

Peter Mugford & Robert Noe

David McDougal & Kelsey Johnston

Jade Sperlinga & Anna Pavlov

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Paul Dutra, Donna Toth & Jaime Lewis

Edward Lauren & AflACK

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All the

pretty horses PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATHAN COE

VINTAGE DRESS: CURRENT VINTAGE VINTAGE EMBELLISHED BELT: CURRENT VINTAGE

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STYLING BY KATE COE & ARIANNE BERGER

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NSTYLE

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GOWN: BY REBECCA TAYLOR: MILLY & GRACE

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VINTAGE DRESS: CURRENT VINTAGE VINTAGE EMBELLISHED BELT: CURRENT VINTAGE

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VINTAGE CROCHET SWEATER: CURRENT VINTAGE JEANS: BY AGAVE DENIM: THE LOVELY TOP: BY MES DEMOISELLES: ERICA WILSON

JEWELERY VINTAGE CZECH GLASS NECKLACE: CURRENT VINTAGE VINTAGE RHINESTONE CHAINS: BY DIANE COTTON: THE LOVELY RHINESTONE & ROPE CUFF: BY AMBRE BABZOE: THE LOVELY PEARL BANGLES: MODELS OWN MILLY & GRACE 2 WASHINGTON STREET 508-901-5051

THE LOVELY 11 WASHINGTON STREET 508-228-4788

CURRENT VINTAGE 4 EASY STREET 508-228-5073

ERICA WILSON 25 MAIN STREET 508-228-9881

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AAN Spring Sweep Event

FOGGYSHEET nantucket

Craig Beni, Ben Champoux, Bert Turner & Bruce Beni

Cecil Barron Jensen & Garth Grimmer

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Eric Savesky, Ann Fitzgerald & Carolyn Durand

Lucy Cobb, Melissa Morrissett & Peter Greenhalgh

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Tobias Glidden & Russell Wieland

James Scheurell & Tim Ehrenberg

Nantucket Daffodil Festival and Picnic

Chris Psilakis

Olivia and Genevieve

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Robin Khoury & Amanda Rapp

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LORD of THE DANCE WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIT NOBLE

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How summer resident Walter Schalk built an empire one step at a time

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alter Schalk comes from an era when a man’s ability to dance made him the most eligible bachelor in the room. It was a time when he could strut up to a couple in a club, ask the husband’s permission to dance with his wife, then cue the band and dazzle the whole room with his moves. He looked straight out of the Rat Pack, impeccably dressed with a showman’s smile and perfect hair. But Walter Schalk wasn’t all about wooing women with his moves—he went on to build a dance empire one step at a time.

Today, at eighty-years-old, Walter Schalk is no longer so light on his feet. Gout has seized his left leg and he labors, sometimes with a cane, as he walks through his massive estate in Wilton, Connecticut. “You know, I’ve only just started feeling old in the last two months,” he says.

“Time just went by so fast. Been having a lot of fun.”

Schalk’s claim to fame is a dance school that he started nearly sixty years ago. At the height of its success, the school had upwards of 2,400 students. That number has since dipped to close to 1,200, a change he attributes to girls playing more sports, and, although he doesn’t admit this directly, perhaps to boys not thinking dance is so hip anymore.

Nevertheless, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the whole state of Connecticut who

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doesn’t know the name Walter Schalk. To date, he estimates that 150,000 students have

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passed through his school, many going on to dance professionally. “Take a look here,” he says, digging out a business card from his wallet. “This is one of my most recent success stories.” On the back of the glossy card is a girl performing some kind of leap. “Today, she’s a Rockette,” he says proudly.

Schalk leads us down to his personal dance studio on the

estate “Wally’s World,” and even from the inside, this description

ground floor. Light pours in through floor-to-ceiling win-

rings true. A giant white marlin is mounted over the fireplace, and

dows and reflects off mirrors and the hardwood floor.

Schalk notes that the record-breaking trophy was caught off the

The studio looks out on an opulent man-made pond, com-

coast of Nantucket, on light tackle no less. On a folding table in

plete with a fountain and a floating dock with a pergola.

the center of the room is a pile of black and white photos, and he

When I asked for directions earlier in the day, Schalk’s

walks over and begins flipping through them casually.

assistant told me, “The place sticks out like a sore thumb, you can’t miss it.” The town’s people have come to call the

“I haven’t seen these in, well, I don’t even know how long,” he mutters to himself. “Here’s me on the Ed Sullivan Show. You can see Ed right there with his hands on his hips. And here’s me with my dance partner in competition. Look how skinny I was.”

The photos hark back to a golden era in dance: not so much bellbottoms and John Travolta, but tuxedos and Gene Kelly. Schalk performed on Saturday evening television specials in his teens, often opening for acts like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Looking back in time through the photos, I can almost hear the ice clinking in Dean Martin’s scotch glass, the muffled clapping of Ed Sullivan’s audience, and the unshakably cool timbre of Frank Sinatra serenading the crowd.

Schalk was the son of two hardworking German immigrants. His father was a skilled tool and die maker who was short on words, and even shorter on compliments. At the age of nine, Schalk started taking dance classes with his friends under the direction of a World War II veteran. As the story goes, the veteran was an aspiring dancer, until the war left him partially crippled and dashed his dreams of ever becoming the next Fred Astaire. So instead, he molded Schalk and the other students into a formidable dance troupe, eventually making them regulars on national television.

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D

espite this early taste of fame and fortune, Schalk considered dance just a hobby, and took a job in advertising out of high school. His career in letterpress printing was off and running when

President Truman announced America’s military intervention in Korea, eventually leading

Schalk to enlist. Except, as fate would have it, his tour of duty was not spent in Korea, but in Germany. A gifted soccer player, Schalk was sent to Europe to play on the US Infantry’s German-American Friendship team, a public relations outfit promoting reconciliation after World War II. So it was that in the early fifties, a young Walter Schalk was stationed in post-Nazi Germany, meeting relatives for the first time and scoring goals for the Stars and Stripes.

“What do you want me to do, a pirouette?” Schalk jokes, when the photographer asks him to strike a dance pose for the camera. With his bum leg, he looks completely lacking in grace. Even walking seems labored and very awkward.

“How ‘bout I dance with a partner? That might be better,” he suggests.

“Charlie! Charlie! Send out Kelly.” A svelte dancer dressed in black enters from stage left, one of Schalk’s top instructors. “Ok hon, let’s show these guys how to dance.” The dancer slips into Schalk’s arms and he dips her with the panache of a prizefighter, one hand under the small of her back, the other clasping hers high overhead. Their legs, arms and shoulders move perfectly in sync, as if the dancer was Schalk’s shadow just before noon. In two steps, this eighty-year-old man becomes the smoothest thing on earth.

Of course, he’s had lots of practice, not just in competition, but also in the field. When Schalk returned from the war, he danced in clubs and bars, making women swoon and men envy him. Soon his buddies from work took notice and asked him to teach

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them how to dance.

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Then he taught their wives to dance.

Then he taught their children to dance, and the Walter Schalk School of Dance was born. The school spread across Connecticut, and even made its way on to Nantucket, where today Schalk owns two homes and a boat, Let’s Dance II. “I came to Nantucket when they opened the boat basin. What was that? 1967 or ‘68?” he says. “I lived on my boat right there on Straight Wharf.” Schalk has since purchased two homes on the Miacomet Golf Course, and spends June to September on the island. Back in his early days on Nantucket, he renovated the ‘Sconset Casino and held summer dance classes there, and his students often performed in front of the gazebo on Straight Wharf accompanied by a live band. “But then I realized I was working during my vacation,” he says. “So I closed the school after six or seven seasons.” Today, Schalk spends his summer days fishing and playing golf in his backyard. And on some nights, if the mood strikes him right and if the band is playing on key, Walter Schalk will dance. So if a man with perfect hair and a showman’s smile asks you to dance, let him lead. It will be a night you won’t soon forget.

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The Washington

OBSERVER INTERVIEW BY BRUCE A. PERCELAY

A CONVERSATION WITH AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST EVAN THOMAS

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Among the many luminaries speaking at this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nantucket Book Festival is bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and longtime Washington commentator Evan Thomas.

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NBOOKFEST

Evan Thomas

A

s former Editor at Large and lead writer at Newsweek, Evan Thomas famously brought readers into the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the

2004 presidential election, the primary campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and behind the scenes of the White House in the wake of the September 11th attacks. His reporting earned Newsweek several awards, including two National Magazine Awards. The author of eight historical books, Thomasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most recent work, Ikeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bluff, explores the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower in the emerging nuclear age. N Magazine reached out to Evan Thomas to see what lessons we can learn from President Eisenhower, as well as to hear what this prolific N magazine

writer has to say about the future of the printed word.

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N MAGAZINE: In Ike’s Bluff, you seem to have an affinity for

N MAGAZINE: Eisenhower coined the term the “military-industrial

Eisenhower and his moderate approach to government and politics.

complex,” which referred to the incestuous relationship between

What would today’s Republicans say if Eisenhower were in office?

the military and industries that supplied the military. Given how

EVAN THOMAS: They wouldn’t know what to say. Ike is far more

questionable our incursion in Iraq was, could it be that absent

moderate than the GOP today. But he won two presidential landslides and

of any proven threat, the motivation was economic?

averaged a 65 percent approval rating. Maybe a lesson there for Republicans?

EVAN THOMAS: I do not think Eisenhower would have ordered the invasion of Iraq. If he had, I am sure he would have demanded overwhelming force during the occupation. Ike would not have wished to spend hundreds of billions on small wars that drag on and on. As president he avoided war and cut the defense budget by 20 percent.

N MAGAZINE: One of Nantucket’s longtime summer residents and favorite sons is Secretary of State John Kerry. He appears to have hit the ground running. How do you think he is performing in his new role?

EVAN THOMAS: Senator Kerry has been training his whole life for this job. He has the talent and experience to be a great secretary of state.

The key, of course, is good judgment. We won’t know the quality of his judgment until it is really tested in a crisis.

Ike would have loved Nantucket.

Especially if he played golf there!

— Evan Thomas

N MAGAZINE: Being a general seemed to have tempered Eisenhower’s willingness to cause mass casualties in war. How valuable is it in today’s world for a politician to have a military background?

EVAN THOMAS: It is not essential for politicians to have military backgrounds. Most don’t. But it’s also true that people who have not served in war are sometimes tempted to compensate—and to rush into conflicts best avoided.

N MAGAZINE: In many ways, life was easier in Eisenhower’s time because we knew who the enemy was. The recent Boston Marathon bombers demonstrated how the enemy next door can be just as dangerous as a government-sponsored incursion. How would Eisenhower have dealt with the vagaries of today’s enemy threat?

EVAN THOMAS: Eisenhower would not have overreacted to public panic. As president, he worked behind the scenes to bring down Senator Joe McCarthy, the Red baiter who saw communists under every bed in the early 1950s. But he would have demanded a vigorous response from

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intelligence services. Eisenhower relied (possibly over-relied) on the

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CIA during his time in office and gave pretty much free rein to J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. On the other hand, he was respectful of the Constitution and the power of the federal courts to protect individual rights.

Evan Thomas on “Inside the Media” in Washington D.C. (Photo by Bruce Guthrie)

N MAGAZINE: The Republican Party seems to be in danger of work-

N MAGAZINE: You worked as an editor and writer at Newsweek, a

ing itself into extinction by virtue of the demographic shift in America.

magazine that has since gone out of print and moved online as “The

Do you see the party repositioning itself to better appeal to minorities

Daily Beast.” What do you think the future is for printed magazines?

who will soon compose the majority of American voters?

Are magazines unique from newspapers? Will they defy media trends?

EVAN THOMAS: It is interesting to see the Republican Party, or rather

Or do you think we will all be reading everything on a tablet pretty

some Republicans, come around to favor immigration reform. They

soon?

know the GOP must win Hispanic voters in greater numbers.

EVAN THOMAS: I think we’ll be reading on tablets pretty soon, just because the economics favor online, over the printed word. But I hope

N MAGAZINE: In many

not—I still think magazines and books offer something the virtual

ways Nantucket resembles

world cannot. They’re easier to browse and skim and to selectively re-

America in the fifties.

read. They can be companions as well as mere possessions.

Would Eisenhower have N MAGAZINE: You’ve written eight books. How do book festivals like

EVAN THOMAS:

the one we have on Nantucket bolster support for the printed word?

Ike would have loved

EVAN THOMAS: I am extremely thankful for the Nantucket Book

Nantucket. Especially if

Festival—and all book fairs. They remind us that there really are people

he played golf there!

who love to read and even listen to authors! I think there’s a lot of economic uncertainty in publishing. But one fact shines through: People are reading more, not less.

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felt at home on Nantucket?

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FOGGYSHEET

The 10th Annual Ms. Mantucket Competition

nantucket

Brian Glowacki & Margie Malone

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Hostess Margie Malone and the 2013 Ms Mantucket competitors

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Ms Mantucket 2008 Nick Duarte

Event Organizers: Debbie Dilworth, Donna Hamel & Kathy Maxwell

Ms Mantucket 2012 Michael Grossman

PHOTOS BY BRIAN SAGER

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Ms Mantucket 2009 Bill Puder, Kim Puder, Ms Mantucket 2010 Joe Townsend

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so simple with Andrea Hutchins

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s

Buy a fabulous roll of good quality decoupage paper or designer wall paper in a daring design, and roll with it!

s

Decoupage glue, such as Mod Podge

s

Sharp scissors

s

Small foam paintbrush

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATHAN COE

N magazine

TOOLS & MATERIALS:

NDESIGN Why not try judging a book by its cover? Think back to childhood arts and crafts, and decoupage a book. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy and can dramatically transform the look of your bookshelves.

2 1 3

STEP 1 Place paper blank side up, then position the opened book in the middle. Cut paper to size, leaving approximately three inches on all sides.

STEP 2 Tightly wrap the book, folding the paper inside both covers, and then cut the paper down at each side of the spine. Fold these strips underneath the paper to create a clean edge at the spine.

STEP 3 At the inside corners of the book, fold the paper as you would a gift by cutting or folding triangles.

4 STEP 4 Paint the cover evenly with glue and smooth the paper on, avoiding bubbles and creases. Continue gluing and smoothing all surfaces.

STEP 5 Allow the book to dry thoroughly. If you prefer a lacquertype finish, apply more glue to the outside surfaces.

5 N magazine

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NBOOKFEST

The

POWER of

BOOKS WRITTEN BY RYDER ZIEBARTH

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSHUA SIMPSON

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New York Times bestselling author and Nantucket Book Festival luminary William Schwalbe shares the story of how books brought comfort to his terminally ill mother.

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“When you read a good book it changes you and

“Mom was such a practical woman, with an

becomes a part of your life,” says author William

incredible work ethic,” Schwalbe says during lunch

Schwalbe, “and it doesn’t just end when you close

at a café near his home in the West Village. “She

the cover. It lives on in your own life in so many

would always frame things in terms of ‘what can

different ways.” This rings especially true when con-

I do’ instead of ‘what can’t I do,’ even when she

sidering William Schwalbe’s most recent bestseller,

was very ill.” Mary Anne worked as an admissions

The End of Your Life Book Club, a poignant mem-

director at Harvard and Radcliffe, and helped found

oir about reaching out to his terminally ill mother

the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and

through books. Sharing and reading books became

Children and the UK branch of the International

a natural way for Schwalbe and his mother, Mary

Rescue Committee. During the last two years of

Anne, to process her grim prognosis of pancreatic

her life, she campaigned and fundraised to build a

cancer in 2007. At first, books were just something

research library and cultural center in Afghanistan.

to talk about during Mary Anne’s chemotherapy

When Mary Anne passed away, Schwalbe wanted

sessions. Then they went further, purposely choosing

his mother’s generous spirit to live on, and the best

books they always wanted to read or ones they had

way he knew how to do that was to put it between

longed to re-read someday. The Schwalbe book club

book covers. The resulting memoir is not only a

tightened their mother-son bond, and bolstered their

tribute to a life well lived, but an authentic missive

spirits through the long days leading to the end of

of love and courage for all families.

Mary Anne’s life.

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W

hen asked what kind of a review his mother would have given his

book, Schwalbe looks over the tops of his round, wire-rimmed

glasses and with a shy smile answers: “I hope she would be pleased

with the results of my story, which is not just about the end of her life, but celebrates how she lived her life. The book highlights so many of the causes she cared about, and I think that might have been enough for her, really.” He then adds with a laugh, “And because she was my mother, she usually loved what I did...She was a wonderful cheerleader and enthusiast, always helping people to connect and to better themselves and their lives.”

Although Schwalbe has only been to Nantucket once as a young teen, he can’t wait to return this June as a featured author at the Nantucket Book Festival.

A graduate of Yale, Schwalbe’s first job in the literary world was in publishing, initially serving as editor-in-chief of William Morrow and then Hyperion Publishing. He eventually left book publishing to found Cookstr.com, an online resource that aggregates and organizes cooking recipes.

The End of Your Life Book Club is Schwalbe’s second book, and quickly became a New York Times Best Seller that’s won wide praise. “I don’t want people to assume I’m only talking about death just because of the title and the subject.

I like to talk about life,” Schwalbe says, when asked what he wants the Nantucket audience to know about him before he steps to the podium in June. “I’d like to get the message across that we should do things now to connect with our loved ones: Write a letter to your spouse, your children, start a book club with your grandchildren.” And perhaps there could be no better opportunity to take William Schwalbe’s advice than at the Nantucket N magazine

Book Festival where the power of books

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will be observed and the literary life celebrated.

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The Mad Hat Luncheon

FOGGYSHEET nantucket

Yve Shevalier & June Lindsay

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Winners: Peggy, Margot Montgomery, Sandy Taylor, Yve Shevalier & Eva

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Judgesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Table- Peter Boynton, Mark Norris, Daniel Bartlett & Robert Sarkisian

Jennifer Ahlborn & Debora Klingsporn

Mark Norris

Edna Butner, Nancy Sodaberg, Debbe Nicolson, Bobie Giles & Mary Kay Condon

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Elly MacVicar & Sandy Taylor

Jean Fleming, Stephany Hunter & Margot Montgomery

99 PHOTOS BY BRIAN SAGER

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NBOOKFEST

BEHIND

AUTHORS

ON THE EVENING OF JUNE 22ND, NANTUCKET’S OWN NANCY THAYER, ELIN HILDERBRAND AND NATHANIEL PHILBRICK WILL JOIN FELLOW WRITERS WYN COOPER, KITTY PILGRIM, JACK SUSSEK AND OTHERS FOR THE NANTUCKET BOOK FESTIVAL’S “AUTHORS IN BARS” EVENT.

BARS WRITTEN BY RYDER ZIEBARTH

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSHUA SIMPSON

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New York Times cocktail columnist and Nantucket Book Festival featured author Rosie Schaap tending bar at “South” in Brooklyn, New York.

HOSTED AT SOME OF THE ISLAND’S

favorite watering holes, the authors will be discussing books and maybe even pouring a few pints. Topping off this event’s literary lineup is New York Times cocktail columnist and Drinking with Men author Rosie Schaap. A luminary at this year’s festival, Rosie Schaap will be reading from her bestselling memoir and sharing some of the N magazine

many lessons she’s learned from her life behind

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bars. Perhaps there could be no better aperitif for the “Authors in Bars” than getting to know this part-time bartender and full-time writer.

“I had a feeling this would be a thorny

Drinking with Men was originally written as a

Beyond books, Schaap writes for The New

book to write,” Schaap says of her memoir,

collection of essays, beginning with the story

York Times, contributes to National Public

Drinking with Men. “I sometimes have the

of how at the age of fifteen, Schaap accidently

Radio and bartends one day a week at a

same response to my ‘Drink’ column in The

stumbled into the bar car of the Metro North

mom-and-pop tavern in Brooklyn. These

New York Times. People have ideas about

New Haven commuter train. The book goes on

days, she admits that her time in bars is

women being lonely or sad, who regularly

to span two decades of bellying up to bars from

much less frequent. “At the age of forty-

hang out in bars.” But Schaap’s book is not

New York to Canada and back again. In each

two, I can’t drink as much as I used to,”

about addiction, twelve-step programs or a

establishment, Schaap became more aware of

she laughs, “but it is important to me that

higher power as the title might suggest. Yes,

bar culture, particularly a woman’s place in it. “It

I know the bars are still there when I need

there are many eyebrow-raising tales told

is much less about the liquor and more about the

some company.” Thankfully, there will be

in this straightforward, irreverent book, but

regular friendship, the ritual of returning, and the

no shortage of company at the second an-

it is much more a story about like-minded

autonomy I found among fellow drinkers, par-

nual Nantucket Book Festival, where many

people discovering solace and companion-

ticularly the men,” she says. In the end, Schaap

readers and writers will be drinking up a rare

ship in a place where, like on “Cheers!”,

realizes that her life in bars is “about adapting

literary experience.

everybody knows your name.

and enjoying people’s company, not only on one’s own terms, but on others’.”

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ROSIE’S

RECIPES FOR INTOXICATING

SUMMER READING Begin with Last Night’s Fun

by Irish poet and novelist Ciaran Carson, for a rich taste of the old country and Gaelic music and culture Then pore through Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel or the otherworldly flavors of dark supernatural spirits Add a dash of Wordsworth’s poem “Tintern Abbey” for some earthy notes Then cleanse your palate with Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins, a light-hearted story that takes a big bite out of the topic of overeating Shake it up with some of William Blake’s The Marriage Between Heaven and Hell for that handcrafted mystique Garnish with Chaucer’s “The Parliament of Fowles” for that poetic touch of Chaucer’s signature rhyming royal stanzas

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Serve warm on the beach

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NHA

S

Nantucket’s historic

pectator sport CONTRIBUTED BY THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

N

o one is likely to confuse Nantucket with Churchill Downs. After all, this was an island built by whalers, not jockeys. Just the idea of horse racing on

Nantucket can seem like a long shot. But no one ever told that to Rupert Warren, who in 1934 was considered one of the island’s best harness horse racers. In fact, Warren set a track record on the last race to ever be run at the old Fairgrounds, which later inspired him to paint his house on Old South Road the conspicuous colors of his racing silks: gold and green. While Nantucket still has a strong equestrian community today, it’s furlongs away from the exhilarating sport that galloped through the island in the late nineteenth century.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

Sulky racing at the Fairgrounds Racetrack, early 1900s

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Competitive harness racing on the island was a product of the Nantucket Agricultural Society, founded in 1856. Each year from 1856 to 1934 the society sponsored a fair and offered monetary premiums for the best livestock, fruits, vegetables and fancy articles. Horses were a highlight of the fair, with cash premiums offered for the best family horses, walking horses, and draught horses. Gentlemen and ladies would demonstrate their equestrian skill out on the Agricultural Society’s track where “the track was open to all, and numbers availed themselves of the opportunity to try the speed of their steeds.” Soon thereafter in 1866, harness racing became the annual fair’s favorite event, held at the Fairgrounds south of town.

Introduced to the island by “two gentlemen from abroad,” a small, two-wheeled vehicle called a sulky was harnessed to a horse for a mile-long dash around an oval course. The goal of the early races at the Fairgrounds track was to complete the course in less than three minutes. False starts, spills and other incidents kept fans on their toes as they cheered for the local horses often competing against off-island N magazine

racers. One racing fan reminisced about the early races in the Inquirer and Mirror

108

in 1938: “…If the race was decided in the home stretch the uproar would be fairly deafening. The whip would come into play. Trotters lifted feet to incredible heights and pacers seemed to slink nearer the ground in the final spurt.”

As the island put more and more distance

In 1981, Ralph Marble sold the Miacomet

between its agricultural past and the mod-

Raceway and surrounding area to Three M

ern age, the Nantucket Agricultural Society

Realty Trust. Although new owners allowed

disbanded. In 1934, the last race was held

racing to continue as long as the land was

at the Fairgrounds, and the property was

undeveloped, after eighteen seasons the sport

sold. A love of harness racing brought

of harness racing on Nantucket ended. Soon,

the sport back to the island in 1965. The

a new residential neighborhood popped up

recently formed Miacomet Raceway Asso-

group won fourteen ribbons, two trophies

where the trotters and pacers once delighted

ciation held its first race at the new quarter-

and three first-place money prizes. Members

the crowds. Today, when walking around what

mile racetrack, which was created at the

of the Bay State Trotters Association who

used to be the old race grounds, it’s hard to im-

end of Somerset Lane by avid pony racer

raced at Orchard

Gilbert “Gibby” Burchell and raceway

Downs recipro-

grounds owner Ralph Marble. Hundreds

cated and traveled

of people attended the weekly races at

to Nantucket each

Miacomet to see fast and furious half-mile

summer to compete

harness races run by standardbreds, a breed

against the island

of horse generally fifteen to sixteen hands

horses. Beginning

in height (less than sixty-four inches from

in 1967, Miacomet

the ground to the horse’s withers.)

Raceway sponsored an annual two-day

Nantucket harness racers competed off-

Miacomet Fair

island beginning in 1968, when six drivers

with horse races, a

took their horses and sulkies to Orchard

dog show and an

Downs Raceway in Lakeville, Massa-

antique car parade.

chusetts, beginning an annual tradition of

More and more events were added every

agine horses trotting neck and neck to a photo

“Nantucket Day” at the track. In a field

year, including a demolition derby in 1978. A

finish. But if you listen real close, you might

that totaled sixty entrants, the Nantucket

separate race weekend was devoted to harness

just catch the faint clapping of the crowds and

racing against off-island

the hooves of ponies past.

competitors, but the number of local harness racing enthusiasts dwindled as land prices soared.

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NUPTIALS Featured Wedding

B&G: BEVERLY HALL AND DAVID BILLINGS HAIR: THOM KOON OF HAIR CONCERN DRESS: PEACHTREES FLOWERS: SHEILA DAUME CAKE: PAM GODDARD

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PHOTOGRAPHY: ZOFIA & CO. PHOTOGRAPHY

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NSCENE NANTUCKET BLACKBOOK PRESENTS

WRITTEN BY HOLLY FINIGAN

HOW DO YOU MAKE THE MOST OF THE NANTUCKET BOOK FESTIVAL WHILE LOOKING YOUR BEST, HITTING THE HOTSPOTS AND MEETING ALL THOSE BIG-NAME WRITERS? THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS WHAT THE N SCENE IS FOR.

NANTUCKET BOOK FEST MUST-SEES 1. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: Enjoy the opening night event with guest speaker Dennis Lehane at the Unitarian Church.

2. LADIES WHO BRUNCH: Enjoy the mornings with your favorite authors. The White Elephant on Sunday with Alice Hoffman is a must!

3. AUTHORS IN BARS: Shake hands with your favorite writers and buy ‘em a drink! Ventuno and The Brotherhood of Thieves will be the spots after 9pm on Saturday night!

4. STAR GAZING: Looking to get off the cobblestone path Saturday night? Head over to the Maria Mitchell Planetarium and go stargazing with your author entourage.

5. WRAP PARTY: Enjoy a Sunday Funday at Cisco Brewery as the Book Fest toasts the weekend with Grey Lady beer and a pig roast

by Annye’s Whole Foods’ Chef Chris Morris!

DINING DIARY Now this really feels like I ripped a page out of my own private dining diary, but for the love of Book Fest, I’m going to give you my three favorite sneaky bars on Nantucket.

1. Oran Mor, upstairs bar. An inviting U-shaped bar where you can relax and dine with delicious local-sought food, prepared in various unique and creative ways. Make sure to save room for a savory dessert!

2. Brant Point Grill, outside bar. This hidden gem has one of the best views of the harbor and is an ideal place to enjoy a leisurely glass of wine as you discuss the day’s events or the night’s festivities.

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3. Pi Pizzeria bar. This is, by far, one of my favorite bars on all of

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Nantucket. Sometimes, during the summer, when town is a bit too crazy, it’s nice to go mid-island and sit at Pi’s comfortable twelve-seat bar.

FASHION FOREWORD As owner of the fabulously feminine boutique Milly & Grace, Emily Ott Hollister seamlessly combines “timeless” and “trendy” with her cool early summer collections. Here, she offers four outfits boasting the island’s latest trends.

1. FLORAL PRINTS: Floral prints are in bloom this season and Milly & Grace has many different prints to pick from! Ali Ro Dress ($355)

2. BLACK & WHITE: Black and white is a classic trend that will never go out of style.

Rebecca Taylor Polka Dot Dress ($350)

4. CLASSIC NANTUCKET: For an effortless Nantucket look, choose blues and grays, and take the island by storm with this versatile look from Joie. Joie shorts in blue ($138), soft Joie top in dark grey ($64) Joie jacket in cloud blue ($258)

3. POP OF COLOR: Nothing brightens up a room like a pop of color. If you invest in your wardrobe this season, put your green in the color green. It always pays off. Joie Dress in green ($338) Rebecca Taylor denim jacket ($295) Coral necklace ($30)

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Nantucket Daffodil Festival and Picnic

FOGGYSHEET nantucket

Parade driving up Main St

Eleanor Riley, Eden Gudonis & Tamara Greenman

Janet Forest, Taylor Cullen, Christy Kickham, Frank Hanlon, Lara Hanson & Beth Moyer

Brian & Fisher Sullivan

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Katie Kaizer, Joseph Minella & Kathleen Minihan

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Lindsay Feller & Bob Feller

Phoebe Fuller and Duncan

Zofia Crosby & Tim Ehrenberg

Abby Slotnick

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Robert Sarkisian

117 PHOTOS BY BRIAN SAGER

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76 Main Street 63 ACK Eye 50 Addison Craig 14 Angel Frazier 106 Anne Becker Design 44 Atlantic Landscaping 62 Bartlett’s Ocean View Farm 32 Bodega 100 Brant Point Grill 15 Cape Air/Nantucket Airlines 118 Cold Noses/Geronimo’s 56 Crosby Yacht Yard, Inc 88 Cru 56 Current Vintage 44 Daily & Schuster Lifestyle Management 62 Daily Construction 117 Dreamland 105 Dujardin Design 9 Easy Street 99 Emeritus 118 Epernay 56 First Republic Bank 3 Frame Center 91 GKFO 38 Glyn’s Marine 83 Great Point Properties 6, 39 Grey Lady Marine 62 Heidi Weddendorf 115 Hepburn 84 Island Properties 91 J. Pepper Frazier Co. 4, 32 Jessica Hicks 48 John’s Island RE 89 Jordan William Raveis RE 17 Judy Chace 48 Justin Quinn 73 Kathleen Hay Design 5 KMS Designs 82 Land Rover Cape Cod 12 Letarte Swimwear 106 Marine Home Center 8 Maury People - Brian Sullivan 49 Maury People - Craig Hawkins 119 Maury People - Gary Winn 2, 10 Nantucket Boating Club 115 Nantucket Book Festival 97 Nantucket Book Partners 48 Nantucket Conservation Foundation 117 Nantucket Cottage Hospital 74 Nantucket Gourmet 105 Nantucket Historical Assoc.

115 Nantucket Hotel Club 11 Nantucket Insurance Agency 55 Nantucket Learning Group 7 Nantucket Marine 89 Nantucket Media Systems 82 Nantucket Preservation Trust 44 Nantucket Restaurant Week 114 Nantucket Sewing & Design 100 Nantucket Tents 105 Nantucket Windmill Auto 106 Nantucket Yoga Festival 32 Nobby Clothes Shop 44 Oceanside Pools 32 PlaneSense 33 Quidley & Co 88 Robert J. Miller 105 Runaway Bride Nantucket 106 Sail Loft 75 Seaman Schepps 27 Sentient Jet 21 Shreve, Crump & Low 19 Time & Place 49, 83 Tonkin of Nantucket 50 Topper’s at the Wauwinet 15 Victoria Greenhood 89 Vineyard Vines 120 Water Jewels 14 Wilmington Trust 13 Woodmeister Master Builders 73 Zero Main 88