Harvard Book Store Warehouse Weekends (with food trucks!)

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

Hey guys, Harvard Book Store is opening its warehouse over on Park St in Somerville (next to Conway Park) for the next few weekends from 10 AM to 6 PM.

They've done semi-annual warehouse sales before, but this is a somewhat-different setup. Each weekend has a theme. Last weekend was local literary magazines and so forth. This weekend is local food, and they'll have food trucks and chefs and stuff.

This weekend, 9/21 and 9/22 is local flavors, with food trucks
9/28 and 9/29 is local innovation, with sci-fi and science stuff
10/5 and 10/6 is local craft, with workshops, zines, craft, and comics.

More details here.

Somerville News renamed to Somerville Times. Who are the new owners?

[ron_newman]

Today, The Somerville News renamed itself The Somerville Times. An editorial briefly alludes to "new ownership" but provides no details. Anyone know more? ETA: Thanks to a little digging by sd210, we now know that the new owner is Ross Blouin of 87 Curtis Street. Anyone know more about him?

The masthead of the hardcopy PDF (page 2) says the publisher is now "Somerset Valley Publishing Inc.", but this means nothing to me. (The previous publisher was "Prospect Hill Publishing".) The street address is still 699 Broadway in Ball Square, which is still shared with Norton Realty.

ArtBeat shoe vendor

[scorchus.livejournal.com]

I bought some slippery type shoes for my daughter at ArtBeat. They are awesome, and I want more, and I totally threw out the package that said who made them. The vendor was towards Grove Street and sold matching kid & adult shoes. Does anyone remember who she might be?

Big Union Square music festival October 13? Same day as HONK Parade and Harvard Sq Oktoberfest?

[ron_newman]

This story is a bit hard to piece together, but apparently Mayor Curtatone and House of Blues and RadioBDC (Boston.com's internet "radio" station) are planning to hold a large free outdoor music event in Union Square on Sunday, October 13. It's not entirely clear whether the event will close all of Union Square to traffic, or just take over the parking lot and plaza. An earlier proposal would have charged $25 for tickets, which seems like a Really Bad Idea when taking over public city streets.

The Somerville Arts Council and Union Square Main Streets don't appear to be involved at all -- at least, I don't see the event on either organization's website.

Links:
Organizers: Free concert would draw 3000 to Somerville's Union Square (Wicked Local/Somerville Journal)

Somerville licensing board member: Rock and roll is noise pollution (Wicked Local Somerville blog)

Licensing Commission agenda for 9/16 - see item #4

I'm not usually one to complain about having too many festivals, but I wonder if it's really a good idea to hold this on the same day as the HONK Parade and Harvard Square Oktoberfest. With Davis, Porter, Harvard, and Union squares all closed at the same time, I wouldn't want to be in an MBTA bus or a car anywhere in Cambridge or Somerville that day.