The large Longshore lap pool was supposed to open around Memorial Day. An issue with the filter delayed that date.
The goal was to have it fixed by Monday, June 24, when pool hours expanded and lessons began.
Bingo! It’s back in action — and getting plenty of use, by grateful swimmers. (hat tip: Brandon Malin)
Longshore pool. (File photo/Pamela Einarsen)
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Leslye Headland is headed to Broadway.
The 1999 Staples High School graduate — who has earned kudos as a playwright, screenwriter and director, with hits like the play and film “Bachelorette,” the movie “Sleeping With Other People” the Netflix comedy “Russian Doll” and the Disney+ series “The Acolyte” — has written “Cult of Love.”
It begins previews November 20, and opens at the Helen Hayes Theater on December 12.
Her Broadway debut is her final work in a series called “Seven Deadly Plays.” Inspired by the 7 deadly sins, this one is about pride. It was first staged in Los Angeles in 2018.
“Cult of Love” focuses on 4 adult children of one family and their partners, coming home for a contentious holiday gathering. (Hat tip: Tommy Greenwald)
Leslye Headland
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Just hours after her birth 9 weeks prematurely in June of 2022, Shea Greenfield’s heart stopped beating.
Doctors saved her life. But she was diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome. Her heart’s electrical system takes longer than usual to recharge between beats. She is at risk of fainting, seizures, cardiac arrest and sudden death.
There is no cure for the condition. And Shea’s condition is one of the most severe her doctors have ever seen.
Shea’s parents, Mark and Kira, had moved to Westport a year earlier. In addition to educating themselves about LQTS, they began raising funds for the Mayo Clinic, where Dr. Michael Ackerman’s team does cutting-edge research.
Last year, the Greenfields organized a fundraiser. Despite a last-minute venue change from outdoors, due to Canadian wildfires — “Shake it for Shea” raised $290,000 for Dr. Ackerman’s lab.
That was just the start. This year’s event — held earlier this month at the FTC Warehouse — was eye-popping. It brought in over $440,000.
“The community came out in such a special way again,” the Greenfields say.
“We had over 500 people. It was magical!”
Plans are already underway for next year. Can you say “half a million”?
Shaking it up, at the “Shake it for Shea” fundraiser. (Photo/Fred Marcus Photography)
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Westport poet laureate Jessica McEntee is going national.
Her second poetry chapbook, “Frida Kahlo Wakes Up to Find Diego Rivera in the Mood and Other Poems,” will ship in mid-October.
A blurb says: “This book brims with restless women: Frida Kahlo, Penelope, a lover, mother, daughter, neighbor, insomniac, consumer, adulteress — and each voice ‘magics the glass into mirror.’
“Studded with details that feel intimate yet alien, taking us places that range from a polar bear enclosure to ‘A Deathbed Confession,’ these are poems of uncanny sensuousness.”
Click here for more information.
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Pianist David Morgan is a local treasure — and a national one.
He has performed and recorded with Wynton Marsalis and Wes Anderson. He’s written music for CBS Sports, Discovery, A&E, MTV, and TV shows. He also produces recordings for artists in his own studio.
Morgan is well known here as a member of the Fairfield County-based jazz group Portal.
He joins bassist Jason Clotter, Tyger MacNeal and saxophonist Greg “The Jazz Rabbi” for tomorrow’s Jazz at the Post (Thursday, June 27, shows at 7:30 and 8:45 p.m.; dinner service at 7; VFW Joseph J. Clinton Post 399; $20 music cover, $15 veterans and students).
The series’ season finale includes a presentation of the Micky Golomb Memorial Scholarship to Jack Wood.
Reservations are strongly recommended: JazzatthePost@gmail.com.
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“06880 … Naturally” features all kinds of gorgeous creatures.
It’s not often they’re framed so beautifully as this one at Burying Hill Beach, though:
(Photo/Wendy Levy)
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And finally … Happy World Refrigeration Day!
(Don’t be cold. Here’s a hot tip: One click supports “06880.” Thank you!)
The Stones are responsible for global warming ‼️
Ya heard it here first 🤣
Longshore Pool: Sadly that was NOT the case for Longshore Pool on 6/25…maybe on 6/24, but definitely not on 6/25 (filtration system not working). I was very excited to get into the adult lap lane yesterday morning to find there were no lane lines and very murky water (sand just sitting at the bottom and leaves and such floating atop). My thoughts were “we can do better”. Hopefully they turned it around again come 6/26!?
still closed today. we were just down there.
Spent a many summers at the Longshore pool in the Wonder Years. It had a diving board back then and the kids dominated it but for an adult swim for ten minutes every hour. It was also a salt water pool which was a rarity then and seemingly strange since the Sound was twenty feet away. But from the photo, it appears Westport wants to produce the next Katie Ledecky and no more cannon balls. Bah!
Scooter, it was salt water because in those early days it was fed by Long Island Sound.
My source of the history of Longshore comes from a former gate guard at Burying Hill beach who caddied for Babe Ruth back in the day. He remembers being allowed to swim on Mondays and the pool was so full of chlorine that his eyes burned like hell. When the town bought it in the spring of 1960, they converted it, which I found “strange” because why not just swim in the Sound? I guess because it was mostly rocks getting into, at least, as was Compo.