I wrote a business story last week about an aviation adventure company in Connecticut that offers civilians the chance to fly in a military aircraft. Guest pilots dressed in military flight suits, helmets and parachutes (just incase!) even get a chance to steer the aircraft. No flight experience necessary.

So, of course, I had to give it a try.

Check out this video clip of me in the cockpit of a military jet.

In July, WTNH meteorologist Gil Simmons invited me on Good Morning Connecticut to talk about reasons to visit Stratford, Connecticut. Here’s a clip from the show that morning, which was broadcast from a public green near the town hall as part of a special “On the Green with Gil” series.

After reading my story about Connecticut’s mystery mansion, Jim Watkins invited me on New York’s Pix11 to talk about the reclusive life and death of heiress Huguette Clark. Here’s a clip from the segment.

As a student at New Canaan High School, Arax-Rae Van Buren’s senior superlative was “biggest gossip.”

“I’ve always been a talker,” said the 24-year-old New Canaan-bred blogger, now a resident of Westport. “When blogs became a platform two years ago, I played around with the idea.”

In 2008, Van Buren launched Kiss and Type, a fashion and beauty blog cast in the flavor of a Dear Diary entry.

“Kiss and Type is a play on `kiss and tell,’” Van Buren said. “It’s a metaphor for me experiencing something and wanting to share it with someone else.”

From the hue of her weekly coat of nail polish to her bi-monthly payday clothing and accessory splurges, Van Buren shares down to the detail — and she’s developed an international audience that’s all ears.

Kiss and Type attracts about 30,000 visitors each month, according to Van Buren. Its readers represent all 50 states and more than 150 different countries, she said.

Van Buren’s voluminous following is no lucky strike. Kiss and Type’s popularity is indicative of a trend of New Canaan bloggers who have cultivated loyal audiences for the noise of their daily routines, thoughts and discoveries. Whether blogging about housing market trends or, in Van Buren’s case, discount Burberry trench coats, there is a band of locals whose online doings have made the must-read lists of scores of Internet surfers.

A laptop case, dirty martini mixes and a career at a yet-to-launch beauty editorial Web site are among a long list of perks 24-year-old New Canaan-bred blogger Arax-Rae Van Buren has raked in since she launched Kiss and Type two years ago.

Van Buren said she posted periodically from Kiss and Type’s launch until traffic began to pick up in 2009. Then she began to post on a daily basis.

“It got to the point where my readers started to demand the kind of content they wanted,” she said.

Though flattered by Kiss and Type’s success, Van Buren notes that having a few big-shot friends in the PR world helped boost her blog from unknown to online hotspot in a year.

Van Buren exercises her new-found digital voice by maintaining her ground in the online dialogue on fashion, products and beauty; branding herself and garnering slews of freebees and invites. In the last year, Van Buren was granted access to conferences, wine tastings and exclusive events at locales like the Vineyard Vines showroom on Nantucket.

Van Buren keeps a “swag bag” in her bedroom — a tote full of free products she said she receives in the mail “all the time.” Public relations agencies send her free products like laptop cases, DVDs, iPod speakers, beauty and hair care products and complimentary vouchers for dinner and drinks at various restaurants.

“I’m an avid dirty martini drinker,” Van Buren said. “PR companies send me mixes with the hopes I will use the mix and blog about it.”

Kiss and Type’s popularity has brought Van Buren an array of perks, but there’s one she says is stand-out. Van Buren recently secured a job offer at a New York City-based beauty editorial site expected to launch in March.

“I went into an interview and the woman basically knew that I was qualified for the job before she asked me any questions because she had read my blog,” Van Buren said. “If you brand yourself personally, [the blog] is going to become your resume.”

In the works is a blog re-launch of Kiss and Type. Van Buren said she wants to professionalize the blog’s format and move out of Blogger, Kiss and Type’s current host.

“I’m just really happy and flattered to have my voice carry some weight,” Van Buren said. “I’m not an expert on anything; I’m just saying what every other 20-something girl is thinking. All I can do is share my experiences and it’s great that people are listening and coming back. … If I can monetize this and make this my life, I’ll be the luckiest girl in the world as far as I’m concerned.”

While Van Buren launched her penchant to confide in the masses into a go-to read for fashionistas, fellow blogger Will Symon has also achieved blogosphere success by doing nothing of the sort.

Symon’s success is derived from his love of New Canaan coupled with his ability to write his beloved locale while maintaining an air of anonymity.

Though Blog New Canaan is written with personal touches — during last week’s big snowstorm, Symon and his sons packed a “monster-sized snowman”– the blog is truly a tell-all of the town and not of the blogger who lives in the town.

Symon, who is in his 40s, began the hyper-local news blog two years ago. Blog New Canaan began as an experiment in blogging, social networking and Internet marketing, he said; it became a virtual coffee shop for conversation about town news and events.

Symon, who has called New Canaan home for the last six years, has a full-time job at an investment firm in New York City. Blog New Canaan is a part-time project that he describes as an “after-hours hobby.”

“I get nothing out of it beyond the pleasure of helping others,” Symon said. “The ad revenue from the blog might pay for a coffee once in a blue moon.”

Blog New Canaan attracts an average of 30 visitors each day, Symon said. His readers are not surprisingly largely comprised of New Canaan residents, he said.

“Based on their comments and e-mails, the readers appreciate detailed information and advice about upcoming important events in town, versus overwhelming them with a multitude of tiny niche events,” he said.

Symon said his most popular posts are about major town events such as Family Fourth or the Memorial Day Parade. Posts about events sponsored by local charities earn very few clicks, he said.

“My favorite blog posts involve polls because you get to see the real pulse of the town,” Symon said. “Often I am surprised about how New Canaan residents feel about a certain event for issue.”

In August 2008, Symon asked his readers to weigh in on the location of the New Canaan Farmers’ Market near the town library. In his post, Symon said that he and his family love the market — his wife visits weekly in summer to collect locally grown produce and pies from its outdoor stands. Symon wasn’t interested in finding out whether or not the market is popular among residents — he wanted to know if it had become “too popular.”

In his blog post, Symon wrote: “The parking lot at the farmers’ market is overflowing. People are parking on many of the side streets and weekend traffic is becoming very congested in this part of town. Moreover, this could lead to a potentially dangerous accident [like] a child darting out into traffic … .”

Symon asked his readers: Should the town move the market to a new location?

Symon said he was surprised that the answer “no” earned 12 votes, while “yes” only earned four votes. Of the 16 voters, 75 percent considered the market location to be ideal.

“I thought more people would want it to move to a spot with more parking and where accidents were less likely to occur, but people said `No,’” Symon said.

Symon has used polling to tap into popular opinion on a range of topics, including the best pizza in New Canaan (Vicolo Pizza & Trattoria), best restaurant in New Canaan (a tie between Gates Restaurant & Bar and Ching’s Table) and approaches to problems arising from deer herds in town (the town should curb the deer population hire professional hunters).

Symon said his pet blogging project has developed his knowledge of the quirks and character of New Canaan. He’s even developed a few virtual acquaintances into real-world friendships.

“As a hobby, blogging is useful, but as a business model, I’m not sure how it could be sustainable,” Symon said. “I don’t know how blogging as a business could really work.”

Denise Gannalo, 58, might have the answer. Gannalo uses blogging strictly as an agent for business. Though she doesn’t make an income from the blog, it’s a career tool she describes as essential to staying current and establishing credibility.

From her New Canaan home, the William Raveis sales vice president blogs about the state of the real estate market — its triumphs, its falls and its properties. Gannalo has been selling New Canaan real estate for 27 years; she’s been blogging about it for more than two.

“I’ve seen the business change from how it used to be before computers to how it is now with online business,” Gannalo said. “You have to have the best and the most current information and statistics and this blogging is a tremendous vehicle for that. It’s a good place to get your voice heard.”

Denise Gannalo has been selling New Canaan real estate for 27 years; she's been blogging about it for two.

Gannalo began blogging in November 2007 when her daughter, a 30-year-old IBM employee, suggested that she create a real estate blog as a tool to dominate the conversation on the local housing market.

“People were certainly blogging then, but it’s much more prolific now,” Gannalo said.

Gannalo said that Bill Raveis, founder of William Raveis Real Estate, warned her in 2007 of the responsibility tied to her decision to launch the blog, aptly named New Canaan Real Estate.

“He said, `Oh, [blogging is] such a commitment — do you know what you’re getting into?’” Gannalo said. “Now he set up a [blog] template for new agents to use.”

Gannalo attributes her blog’s success to a recipe of commitment, consistency and her insider’s perch over the market.

“I see what’s happening on the front lines before the buyers or the sellers,” she said. “I blog about the good and bad. It’s very real — all from my perspective. That makes what I have to say valuable.”

New Canaan Real Estate attracts between 50 and 100 viewers each month, she said.

In the last 28 months, Gannalo said she has bulked her blog with 250 posts. She said she spends about two hours creating about two posts each week.

“I’ve gotten excellent comments from my clients and even from people I don’t know who are curious about the market,” Gannalo said.

She added, “It’s all about commitment. You have to go into [blogging] prepared to make the commitment. It seems most blogs last for about six months, but if you’re committed you can really make a difference with your audience.”

When Keane Angle, 25, began blogging about three years ago, he was about as uncommitted as bloggers come. The New Canaan High School graduate simultaneously launched two blogs when he decided to enter the blogosphere, and abandoned them both about six months later.

Since his start in 2007, Angle has launched seven different blogs on topics ranging from green architecture to viral online content.

Angle, a Web designer, marks the four-month life of his now defunct blog Appify as his shortest-lived venture in the blogosphere. On the other end of the spectrum, his blog The Interactivist has been going strong for two years.

Keane Angle, 25, has launched seven different blogs on topics ranging from green architecture to viral online content.

As a digital strategist, Angle is tasked with creating digital marketing campaigns that meet client objectives. The fact that he sees results marketing his own blog using social media tactics, Angle said, gives him a field for practice.

“Anyone can start a blog,” Angle said. “It’s great for credibility. I’m not just talking the talk, I’m walking the walk.”

Read more about New Canaan 2.0 in the New Canaan News

“It’s like shopping for men; you pick out exactly what you want.”

A friend persuaded New Canaanite Brittany Whaley, 22, to join Match.com with this slogan, comparing the online dating service to a clickable Barbie and Ken catalogue.

Whaley consented and joined the singles site looking for choices, but found it contrived.

“It feels a little like you’re selling yourself,” she said.

Whaley met three Fairfield County men through Match, but most of those dates didn’t go so well — like the double date she said embarrassingly ended with both gents vying for the attentions of the other gal.

Then there was “the nervous wreck” who tried to loosen himself up with a few too many helpings of booze.

“By the end of the night, he couldn’t even stand up,” Whaley recalls. “I wound up carrying my date home.”

While Match has left her looking far from Lady Luck, Whaley said it was a string of equally subpar real-world romantic encounters that originally turned her to cyberspace.

“In New Canaan, it’s definitely slim pickings,” she said. “Especially for singles in their 20s, there are a lot of familiar faces in town. A lot of the people who are from New Canaan have moved back here because of the job market situation, so it’s kind of like a high school reunion. In a way it’s kind of nice, but really all it means is that, in terms of dating, we’re all back to square one.”

Residents and outsiders alike often characterize New Canaan as a bedroom community of middle-aged couples and families. It’s a popular perception rooted in fact. Nearly 73 percent of New Canaan men over the age of 15 are married, compared to the national average of about 57 percent, according to United States Census statistics. The same study states that 64 percent of New Canaan females over the age of 15 are married, compared to the national average of about 52 percent. The study also marks the median age of New Canaan residents at about 40, compared to the national average of about 35. For young, unattached New Canaanites looking for romance, the numbers are stacked against them.

“It requires a certain level of confidence and knowing what you want to date here,” said New Canaan newcomer Marin Brown. “The men here are either married and 41 [years old] or 41 and single.”

Brown, 25, moved to New Canaan from Virginia in 2007. Last year, like Whaley, she joined Match.com.

“You have no idea how many people in New Canaan are on Match.com,” she said, adding, “I’ll go on a date one night one week and the guy I’m dating two months later, he’ll know him.”

For many of the born and bred New Canaanites, the dating scene is saturated with contenders too familiar for flirtation.

“In terms of meeting fresh, new faces, it’s hard here,” said 24-year-old New Canaan High School graduate Tyler Moss. “For a single male, it’s hard because a lot of the girls keep to themselves here. It’s like they’re on a hell-bent mission for shopping and don’t have the time to lift their head up even.”

New Canaanite Emily Hoffenberg, 23, said she’s simply not interested in dating men in town.

“I’m under the perception that I know them all already and there’s nothing else here,” she said.

According to Hoffenberg, the town lacks a “hot spot” for nightlife and socialization, which she said also contributes to staleness of the local dating scene.

New Canaanite Michael McClure, 23, illustrates the problem with an adage: “There’s a joke in New Canaan that when guys from New Canaan go to college, it’s always a let-down because the girls are so good looking here. … So they still are [good looking] and many of them are still here and some are still single. … The problem is that we all know each other so well and you can’t escape your past from the person you were in high school. Everyone pigeon holes one another.”

He added, “Proportionally speaking, there aren’t a lot of young people or single people [in New Canaan]. … The concentration isn’t high, but there are enough young people to fill Tequila Mockingbird or Gates Restaurant & Bar. In college, if you went to a `Wednesday-night college,’ you knew to go out on Wednesday night because that was the big night when everyone went out and you didn’t go out on the other nights. The same principle applies here; the only problem is, we don’t know when to go where.”

McClure believes he has a solution.

Last October, McClure launched a social media initiative aimed at organizing and bolstering the social lives of Connecticut’s 20-somethings. Aptly named Connecticut Social, the viral campaign to get young professionals off their couches and onto the bar stools of local taprooms reaches about 370 members through Facebook, Twitter, the blogosphere and good, old-fashioned word-of-mouth.

Still in its infancy, Connecticut Social primarily targets Fairfield County residents, but McClure is working to grow its reach. Connecticut Social sponsors a weekly bar night at Tequila Mockingbird on Thursdays and services its members with online daily drink special listings for an array of bars in New Canaan, Darien, Greenwich, Stamford and Norwalk.

“Our goal is to get 10 percent of our members out to every event,” McClure said, adding, “Everyone saying `I never go out because there’s nothing to do,’ is the reason why there’s nothing to do and it’s probably the reason why singles aren’t meeting new people.”

While Connecticut Social isn’t a match-making or singles-only service, McClure said many of its members have gone on dates with singles they met at the events. In fact, McClure said he went on a couple of dates with a woman he met at a Tequila Mockingbird event.

Still, speed dating may become a component of Connecticut Social in the future. McClure said a Norwalk-based dating service called Fringles recently approached him to partner on speed-dating events. McClure turned them down.

“While people are still getting to know us, I want to stay away from that,” McClure said. “I don’t want people to associate us solely with speed dating. Once we get more exposure, we might want to add that to [all the other] events we do.”

*Single in New Canaan was originally printed in the New Canaan News

Remember when a Martha’s Vineyard vacationer would place a telephone call for directions to the Capawock movie theater? Or, she might dig a fold-up map, colored with snaking, crisscrossed lines, from the glove compartment, and with her pointer finger, trace a route from her location to her destination. These navigation tactics, though still used today, have largely been antiquated by global positioning systems—tiny devices that consult earth-orbiting satellites to display the common traveler’s location on a roadmap and direct her next move.

The modern Island visitor has a GPS system clamped to her rearview mirror. Tucked in her pocket is a sleek smartphone equipped with a mapping system that differentiates routes by car, foot and public transportation. Physically, she maneuvers her vehicle, but her GPS takes hold of the wheel in every other sense

The instantaneity of the Internet and the genius of the gadgets that harness its power did not breed the Vineyard newbie to fear nor think twice before traversing unfamiliar land. With a bit of two-thumb typing, she can summon the Island’s roads, climate and topography to a playing card-sized screen in her palm.

The Vineyard vacationer wants—and expects—to be where she’s going before the third ring of a landline telephone call for directions from point A to point B.

Of course, GPS devices have never been unerring. But they are accurate enough to have earned millions of users. Yet on the Vineyard, more often than not, one of these mapping systems in particular is notorious among locals and out-of-towners alike for plotting flawed routes based on faulty roadmaps.

Google, a web-based information organization company best known for its search engine, is also home of Google Maps. This free mapping service catalogues geographical information from around the globe to provide users with roadmaps and route planners. Google Maps is bookmarked in the browsers and loaded onto the smartphones of millions as their go-to navigation system. It can chart a runner’s early morning jog, direct a party guest through a neighborhood of cookie cutter homes and, especially on the Vineyard, it can get you lost.

“Everything’s wrong. It’s awful,” says Edgartown resident Ellie Bassett. “I love Google in other ways, but their maps are just not right here.”

Ms. Bassett manages the rentals of four homes on the Island. In the summer, these homes are divvyed into weeklong rentals. Google Maps, she says, misspells street names and misdirect her vacation renters—often into private neighborhoods nowhere near the rental home.

Type 290 West Tisbury Road in Edgartown, the address of Morning Glory Farm, into Google Maps as the destination from a starting location at any point west of Holly Bear Lane, a residential road sprouting from Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road. On a quest for a carton of blueberries from the farm stand, the newbie Vineyarder would find herself off-course with a right-hand turn onto Holly Bear Lane. From here, Google Maps instructs her to continue on to Pennywise Path. Before she even enters the miniature roundabout at the end of Holly Bear, the Island newbie would see that all she can “continue on” to is a thickly wooded forest or a second spin around the neighborhood cul-de-sac.

View Holly Bear Lane, Edgartown, MA in a larger map

Morning Glory Farm assistant manager Aria Nevin says that in July—just before peak season—the farm receives two to four phone calls for directions each week.

“They’re usually not related to problems with direction systems,” she says, adding, “I’ve had a few cases where people say, ‘My directions told me to go down Meetinghouse Road.’ And that’s all pot holes and dirt.”

When the traveler finds herself on a dead-end path to nowhere, her journey is disquieted. With a bit more investigating, she would find that Yahoo Maps, MapQuest and many GPS devices would have correctly routed her trip to the farm. Why doesn’t Google?

All across the Vineyard are ancient ways—narrow dirt paths that wind across meadows, inside forests and between private property plots. They are roads—though not officially—long ago hashed out and used as shortcuts by Vineyarders of generations past.

“Rules and regulations involving roads are very lax,” says Edgartown Planning Board assistant Georgiana Greenough. “People used to ride horse and carriages over trails they made, calling them roads. The cow paths were once roads. But they aren’t now.”

Maintained by neither towns nor associations, these time-honored passages are neither public nor private. Some still lure traffic and others—like the roadway Google indicates lies just beyond Holly Bear Lane—are buried beneath green and beige brush.

“It’s an Ancient Way, which is a special way, and the town preserves it, but it’s not a standard public road,” Ms. Greenough says. “A long time ago, people may have been driving down it, but [now] it’s blocked off with rocks.”

“I don’t know how Google is getting its information,” she adds. “They should be talking to the towns.”

Google Maps formulates driving directions using algorithms based on geographical data collected by a third-party provider. Tele Atlas is Google’s provider for digital maps of the United States.

Tele Atlas composes its maps from a range of tens of thousands of sources including mapping vehicles, public safety officials and its own community of users. Anyone can report a road change or mapping error by visiting http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com. A Tele Atlas spokesperson, Erin Delaney, said in an e-mail message that community input is especially helpful in rural landscapes like the Vineyard because information regarding road changes is less frequently available.

“The company gathers and validates changes and updates its maps every day,” she said. “Typically, Tele Atlas partners [like Google Maps] currently integrate these updates within their maps four times a year.”

Sean Carlson, manager of global communications and public affairs at Google, said in an e-mail message that Google updates its maps “as new data is made available.”

But when the data, long-existing or newly updated, fails to differentiate ancient ways from proper roads, excess traffic leaks onto trails unfit for conventional travel.

Plug 509 State Road in Vineyard Haven, the address of The Black Dog Bakery and Café, into the Google Maps destination box from many locations in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs, and the route will send the Island vacationer along Head of the Pond Road in Oak Bluffs. The route then directs her to continue on to Stoney Hill Road, which is an ancient way that does, in fact, eventually lead to The Black Dog Bakery on State Road.

The zoning map of Oak Bluffs recognizes Head of the Pond Road, which turns into Stoney Hill Road across the Tisbury border, only up to a certain point. The road stops where an ancient way begins, eventually feeding into State Road.

Because this ancient way is less than twenty feet wide, Oak Bluffs Zoning Administrator Adam Wilson says, it is not a proper road. “A road has to be wide enough so that two emergency vehicles can pass each other,” he says. “You can’t live off an ancient way because there is no way an ambulance could get to you if your house catches on fire.” It may be the shortest route from point A to point B, but it is neither the safest nor the easiest course—the Vineyard newbie retreats before even attempting to drive her Camry down the haphazard passage.

Katy Drahos, manager of the State Road branch of The Black Dog Bakery, says that despite Google’s muddled routing, most customers find the shop without a problem. The colossal hunter green train and dining car banked in front of the bakery, she says, is a landmark most people don’t miss. “Just being on a main road has helped us a lot. I can see if we were a little bit more tucked away, it might be a problem.”

Google Maps is not a botched mapping system. In many of the most difficult cities to navigate, Google has its roads, and even the shape of the buildings that line them, recorded accurately. The Vineyard newbie can only follow so many routes and drive so far until she reaches the sea. Long-term disorientation is not a risk on an 87-square mile island. Despite its slip-ups, GPS technology has modernized and simplified travel tremendously. Driving with a Google Maps-loaded smartphone as her chauffeur, the modern vacationer needn’t graze the passing landscape for landmarks. But on the Vineyard, perhaps she should.

Huddled with a crew of strong-armed ladies ages 18 to 88 amping up before the skillet throw, I felt like a pony in a meadow of stallions. Not all the skillet throw competitors were buff, but they had an air of aggression and hardiness that I lacked. I became conscious of my twiggy biceps, which measure an eight-inch circumference when relaxed—and eight inches when flexed, too.

I was up against a clan of belles who used “Killer” as a middle name, a woman by the name of Tomahawk and a fierce-looking lady called Wanda Woman. Wanda didn’t exactly ease my apprehensions when she told me she had dented two skillets during off-season practice. She was big, but bigger yet was her confidence. Wanda was only an “S” on her chest short of convincing the crowd that she could conjure superhuman strength.

Now there's a serious skillet tosser

Ballet experience helpful, not required

“There’s a lot of momentum in that pan,” Billie Jean Sullivan of Fairfield Conn. told me after judges disqualified her second toss because she treaded past the orange no-step line. She was a fledgling skillet chucker with a real name just like me, but unlike me, she had been practicing—and even still, she faltered.

“It takes you with it,” she continued. “When you’re up there focusing on everything else, it’s hard not to go with it. A late release, and you get it on top of the head.”

Ouch. I imagined myself as the only contestant to ever give herself a concussion in the history of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Show and Fair skillet toss.

“Anger at your husband helps,” were Ms. Sullivan’s final words of wisdom to me. I tried to picture someone loathsome enough to trigger a gust of adrenaline through my system—the kind that enables weakling preteens to lift hulking vehicles off the bodies of accident victims—but the only spark I felt was a weakening jitter from my mid-afternoon iced coffee.

When the announcer called my name on deck, I was a bit apprehensive. I didn’t want to look like a fool. But then I remembered that the skillet throw was bred out of boredom for leisure, not rivalry.

American women traveling in caravans during westward expansion would toss skillets to pass the time while the men hunted, according to fair hall manager Kathy Lobb. Agricultural fairs across the country have since carried the traditional sport intact into the present as a fun activity for women of all ages and strengths.

When I took my turn, I decided to forget about the competition and have fun. I didn’t have a plan or a thought-out technique; I simply gripped the skillet, mimicked the posture of the ladies who tossed before me, wound up and flung the pan forward like a lopsided bowling ball. My best score of two tosses was 26 feet, which is good considering I was only aiming to crack 10 feet.

The skillet throw, I learned, is a sport that truly doesn’t require Herculean strength. In fact, it wasn’t the ladies with bulging arms who fared the best on Sunday. A little muscle helps, of course, but the women who threw the farthest tosses (upwards of 40 feet) had sturdy stances, unfaltering focus and well-timed releases.

A rough-and-tough stage name to boost self-confidence and quiet competitors doesn’t hurt, either. Next year I think I’ll enter as Brittany “kills it with a skillet” Lyte.

My wind-up

My release

The Wall Street Journal published a cover story on August 29 painting a not-so-fair-and-balanced picture of the Vineyard Gazette and its role in the said “newspaper war” between the weekly and its competitor The Martha’s Vineyard Times. The article features a photo of the cover layout of the August 25 Tuesday edition of the Gazette. A story titled Please Excuse Us While We Have a Calf, and Other Wonders of the Annual Fair, positioned at the bottom left-hand corner of the spread, was written by me.

I suppose you could say this is my debut feature in The Wall Street Journal. Er, sort of.

Ghostface Killah, Method Man and Redman were on Martha’s Vineyard for a scant 12 hours on August 1 – long enough to deliver classic early 1990s hip-hop to a sell out crowd at music house Nectar’s, but not for the kind of relaxation that Ghostface had in mind. Click below to hear his take on the pressures of the road and what he would do to unwind on the island:

Ghostface Killah on his R&R formula
Ghostface Killah on the crowd

An excerpt from Things Insular, a blog by the Vineyard Gazette