High-Priced Movies
To the editor:
I was elated to see the recent email from the Provincetown Film Society with the roster of some of the most delightful movies of our time announced for Friday evening outdoor showings this summer.
I imagined the neighborhood finally exhaling and gathering together safely in the yard at the former home of Mary Heaton Vorse, a true believer in equity and community. But I had to gasp in “sticker shock” when I realized the price of admission was $100 a ticket. Heaton Vorse, who welcomed the neighborhood to her yard for free for decades, would think this is disgraceful.
If the screenings are fund-raisers, why not make the admission price “pay what you can”? A “pay it forward” to the town? I understand everyone needs to make up for their financial losses, but this is boggling.
The East End, once the bohemia of artists, journalists, and “old salts,” has turned into Rodeo Drive. I see Eddie Ritter’s initials carved in the cement in the sidewalk by the house every single day, and I think, whatever happened to Provincetown?
Myra Slotnick
Provincetown
The Developer Not Mentioned
To the editor:
In no way do I dispute your listing of the three entities that “have built and managed” affordable housing in Christine Legere’s thorough, well-written article “Who Builds Affordable Housing Here?” [May 27, front page]. I suggest, however, that you might have mentioned those who attempted to be active short of actually securing one of the projects.
I wouldn’t include developers who just “nosed around” a project to determine whether to file an application, but I would have included the Stratford Capital Group, the applicant for the T-Time location, with whom the Eastham Zoning Board of Appeals had to suffer (I was then a member). Stratford had also been the other entity responding to the RFP relating to the project awarded to Pennrose.
Stephen L. Wasby
Eastham
Read My Eclipse
To the editor:
As an eclipse junkie, allow me to offer a few minor corrections to Justin Samaha’s “By the Otherworldly Light of a Partial Eclipse” [May 27, page B8].
There are between two and five solar eclipses a year, not just one every 18 months, e.g., five in 1935 and in 2206. Eighteen months is the average time between total solar eclipses.
It’s a bit semantic, but there aren’t really three “types” of solar eclipses, as an annular eclipse is just a special kind of partial eclipse. (There are also what are called “hybrid” eclipses, which shift from annular to total and back, like the one coming to Indonesia in 2023.)
Whether you see totality depends not only on how far the Moon is, but also the Sun, which is 3 million miles closer in early January than in early July every year.
A great example of a partial eclipse not quite making the grade was the total eclipse of March 7, 1970 — it was only 99.95-percent total on Cape Cod proper (the tip of Chatham), which means it was still unsafe to look at it with the naked eye there, but there were more than two full minutes of totality on Nantucket.
And a total eclipse is far more otherworldly than even a 99.95-percent partial; it’s much different. If you’re in the right place, a total solar eclipse will get so dark for a few minutes that some planets and stars will come out, even though it’s daytime, and animals (like the gulls on Nantucket in 1970) are wildly confused.
If you’re interested, consider northern Vermont or New Hampshire on April 8, 2024, only the second total solar eclipse in the continental U.S. in 45 years.
Jay Vivian
Truro
Justin Samaha responds: Thank you for writing. In the first case, my mistake. In the second and third, these were less an oversight than a difficult choice. Astronomy is often more complex than I have space to fully explore. When I leave something out, I try to ensure that what I do present is faithful enough to the subject for the general reader. But “faithful enough” is a subjective assessment. In any case, I’m thrilled to have a reader who loves astronomy as much as I do.
Aid for the Garden
To the editor:
A hearty shout out to R.W. Townsend and Sons for their generous donation of two truckloads of wood chips to the Wellfleet Community Garden. This allowed us to spruce up the garden and will greatly aid in our weed control.
Members of the Wellfleet Community Garden will pay this forward by continuing our produce donations to the Wellfleet Food Pantry and the Council on Aging.
Jim Cornell
Wellfleet
