Looks like another excellent, busy week in the NWEN area. If you have any NWEN-related events, activities, etc. you’d like to let us know about, please do!

• Monday - 10:00am: Storytime at Barnes & Noble at Libbie Place; 8:00pm: 21st Annual Weinstein-Rosenthal Lecture at UR
• Tuesday - 10:30am: Computer basics for seniors at West End Library; 4:00pm: UR hosts Domestic Violence Month programming; 6:30pm: PURE Belly Dancing
• Thursday - 10:00am: Infant to PreK at Barnes & Noble, Libbie Place; 4:30pm: UR hosts panel discussion titled “Fifty Years Later: The Legacies of Little Rock”
• Saturday- 9:00am: Richmond City Town Hall Meeting; 11:00: Brunswick Stew Festival

Well, this isn’t the Near West End….But, The Byrd House Market in Oregon Hill, is the closest farmers market to the Near West End. I haven’t been there yet, so maybe I shouldn’t be suggesting it….but I have heard such great things!

Now that the official CSA Sprout Organic Shares are done for the season, we get to go and pick out our own veggie and this week, I’m thinking I’ll stop by the Byrd House Market instead of the 17th Street Farmer’s market to collect them. Victory Farms, which raises the food for Sprout always has the best greens and veggies. Last week we ate arugula, broccoli rabe, butternut squash, and Swiss chard. I also have my eye on the apples and locally grown sweet potatoes at Mica Hill Farm. Don’t ask me why I’m trying to figure out why I need 40 pounds of them….for a steal of a deal at $25.

Plus they have stories, kids activities and more. And, if you wait until October 30th to go to to the Byrd House Market they will have the PURE Richmond Belly dance Troupe performing at 6:30. I love belly dancers, and my kids do too. There is something mesmerizing about watching them and hearing the clang of their metal decorations. Plus their goal is to bring peace, healing and goodwill to the community — can’t argue with that!

There’s a lot going on this week in the NWEN area including lots of Halloween activities on Saturday:

• Monday & Tuesday - Richmond Regional Summit on Preventing Infant Deaths at the Downtown Marriott
• Monday - Storytime at Barnes & Noble
• Tuesday - Computer Basics for Seniors at the West End Library
• Thursday - Storytime for PreK & Infants at Barnes & Noble
• Friday - Henrico County Surplus Sale
• Saturday - UR’s Trick or Treat Street, Boo at the Barn at Maymont and Mary Munford’s Spooky Saturday

Amy-Jill Levine, a leading scholar in the Jewish-Christian relationship and elimination of anti-Jewish, sexist and homophobic thought, returns to the University of Richmond Oct. 29 to give the 21st Annual Weinstein-Rosenthal Lecture on “Hearing the Parables through Jewish Ears: The Good Samaritan, The Unfortunate Lawyer and The Jewish Teacher.”

A self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt,” Levine is professor of New Testament studies and director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality at Vanderbilt University’s divinity school and graduate department of religion.

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A scavenger hunt, an obstacle course and moonbounces are just a few of the activities planned for the annual “Trick-or-Treat Street” Halloween event at University of Richmond Oct. 27, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Other attractions include a haunted house, dunk tank with UR students, petting zoo, straw maze, clowns, magicians, games and a costume contest. Sponsored by the university’s fraternities and sororities, the event is held on Fraternity Row across from the Robins Center off of College Road.

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The Third Practice (3P) Electroacoustic Music Festival comes to the University of Richmond Friday and Saturday. The mixed media and music festival features music for instruments, laptops, computers, video, stereo and more. This year, the theme is world music in all its forms. The Community Idea Station Blog has a soundclip on the festival and its Indonesian virtual puppeteer that are part of the festival. Concerts are free and open to the public. Performance times are Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 20th at 11 a.m., 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Here are a few snippets discovered today of happenings around the Near West End Community:

Henrico Henrico County is hiring a design firm to develop a master plan for the newly acquired Tuckahoe Park. The Board of Supervisors agreed last week to pay $89,460 to EDAW Inc. to develop a plan for the 65-acre property, which is the longtime home of Tuckahoe Little League. Henrico bought the property, which includes 25 acres of undeveloped land, earlier this year for $6.5 million. [via]

UR performance on radio today A selection from the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet’s recent performance at the University of Richmond’s Modlin Center is scheduled to be featured on today’s “Performance Today,” which airs from 9 to 11 a.m. on WCVE-Radio (88.9 FM).

The quintet’s selection, recorded during its Oct. 1 performance here, should air near the beginning of the second hour of American Public Media’s morning show.

The program is also available for listening on the Web at www.performancetoday.org for seven days from the date of broadcast. [via]

Reminder: No school on Friday (parent teacher conferences).

Kid Art Orders Due Thursday. October 18.

Spooky Saturday is October 27; Need Help Promoting
There is a fun, color Spooky Saturday poster that is being used to promote the event to the community. The posters are in the front hallway on the PTA table. Please consider taking a few and asking local vendors that you do business with if they will consider putting one in their window or bulletin board. Thanks so much!

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The Barksdale Theater is now offering discount last mintute tickets 15 to 90 minutes before the show. The best part: they are only $15, less than half of the regular price. Right now they are showing
“Member of the Wedding” at Willow Lawn and “Deathtrap” at Hanover Tavern.
[via]

When I first came across this article, I did a double-take, wondering how the Barksdale Theater could support 365 days of plays. Then I discovered that it’s really an international festival of more than 300 vastly different plays and performances connecting communities and theaters.

That’s exactly what Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks had in mind when she embarked on an unprecedented creative mission to write a play a day, every day, for a year. The result: “365 Days/365 Plays,” an innovative theatrical concept that turns an everyday stage production into a national relay race of 52 weeks of sequential performances presented in seven-day blocks.

[via]

“365 Days/365 Plays” opens at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 22 at Barksdale Theater. Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $5.