In Amherst, a musical union of cultures and landscapes is found in musician Sunny Jain’s project, “Wild Wild East.” It is an exploration that blends ideas of expansion, cowboy mythos, the immigrant experience, and ritual and is a mesmerizing shift from his work in the brass focused “Red Baraat.” We speak with the percussionist and composer about the pilgrimage into a more progressive sound.
We also head northwest where two family farms have merged into a year-round market feeding its community. Hager's Farm Market has made itself into a one-stop-shop for produce, dairy, ready made meals, maple, ice cream and more. We speak with Sherry and Chip Hager about becoming an indispensable resource for the hilltowns, the impact of SNAP and HIP cuts, and their recovery from a devastating fire.
And Word Nerd Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster, our dictionary right here in Springfield, looks to the east for a question we posed about the origins of the word “orient” and its many iterations, which evolves into a look at the opposite direction, in the occident, as well.
