 Hello Worcester Vermont. Let's try it again. Hello, hello, Worcester Vermont. Well, my name is Chad Hollister. I live up on Hampshire Hill Road, and the beautiful thing about this very first Worcester Arts Fest is so does everybody else. And as I was walking around, I was talking to Freedom. We actually didn't get to finish our conversation, but I was my beautiful wife, Katie O'Rourke, who also is right here that helped on our crew of team members. She sees it in advance. I do not. Now, as we were here yesterday starting to set up, I started to get so excited. And here it is. This is incredible. Everybody is from Worcester, Vermont. And I'm so excited. Yes! And I am so excited to meet every single one of you. Late gig last night, sorry. And so please feel free to wander around, meet the artists. You're going to meet musicians. You're going to meet poets. You're going to meet authors today. And just relish in our beautiful community of Worcester, Vermont. So thank you, thank you. This is our very first inaugural Worcester Arts Fest. And the idea came by a handsome gentleman that lives up on the Gould Hill there. I first met him and his lovely wife when they were selling blueberries. And that was our first introduction to this gentleman from western Kentucky. Don't mess that up, by the way. I know they spent some time in Texas, but he is Kentucky. But for about 40 years they've lived here. So I'm going to introduce to you, I got this call from a gentleman, David Book. And he said, I'm thinking about bringing these Worcester artists together. Because there's so many talented, I'm not doing his accent any justice, sorry. And I think there's so much talent here. Why don't we bring them all together for an arts fest? What do you think? And I said, yes. I think that's a great idea. And then he said, well, secondly, would you like to help? I said, yes. So everybody that David asked, I'm pretty sure said yes. And our committee will talk about all of them today. But I'd like to introduce to you to kick off this very first Worcester Arts Fest. He is a wonderful human. He is an author. He is a historian. He is a storyteller. He is an educator. Please welcome. He doesn't like this title, but I'm going to say the brainchild of the Worcester Arts Fest. Mr. David Book! This is, wow, this is incredible. It really is. And I am very, very happy and grateful for your presence. And for all those that will follow later on today, I'm sure. And for so many people, so many efforts. I've got to mention their names. Here are all the names of the steering committee. All of them are here, I'm sure. Except for one or two who have students in games today that are important to them. And indeed, we're glad that they have participated. Anyway, so here they are. And let me read the names. Let's give them a big hand after I've read them all. Julia Hewitt, Kaitlyn Hawanski, Alan Gilbert, Deb Bogard, Neha Shulka, Chad Hollister, Mike Close, and Katie O'Rourke. Probably the most exciting thing that I have done since I moved to Worcester 37 years ago is to write this book, The Cow that Tried to Swallow the Potato. And, you know, when we began our historical society back in 2004, there was really no history of this little town. And a number of us, especially Doug Hull, felt that we ought to have one. And I said to myself, no way. This little town doesn't have that much history. Long story short, after four or five years of research, 350 pages about Worcester, Vermont, with another volume hopefully on the way within the next few years, you never know. Especially if you tell us some of the stories that you have hidden away. So this is one of six books, actually, that I have written. And I write niche books. When I see a need for a book, I work my way into writing it. So my most recent book is a book that I'm sure you will search for quickly after I read a couple of excerpts here. It was in view of the 75th anniversary of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, in Cameron County, Texas. Yes. And an excellent book, really. It was very good. Because Julia Hewitt had a hand in it. But it's my joy to read just a couple of excerpts from this book. Because I think most of you have it, but if you don't, I just happen to have a few extra copies available in the writer's tent. So this book is anecdotal, basically. I love local history. I've been involved in local history for years and years. I developed a curriculum on local history at Cabot School where I taught for a number of years. And so this book really reflects the soul, if you would, of Worcester, Vermont. So just a few excerpts real quickly. And Chad is going to give me a signal when I'm near the end. You all know Tom Lang, right? Most of you know where he lives down here right across from Balsam. That house is probably the oldest house in the village. It was built by the Hutchinson family back in the 1820s. Elias Hutchinson was one of the men who lived in that house. He had business in Montpelier on September the 19th, 1833. Notice had been given in the city that blasting would take place on the ledges behind the first state house. Since construction of a new state house required the ledges be removed. Ample Warning was given to seek safety, but 33-year-old Hutchinson apparently was either unaware or disregarded the warning, trusting to his own skill to keep out of harm's way. The explosion took place and sent fragments of rock flying in all directions. He saw one coming directly towards him and started to run, keeping it in view, but he had not gone far before it struck him with such force as to knock him to the ground. Those who saw him fall hastened to his assistance, conveyed him to a house nearby, and it once summoned medical aid, but all efforts for his relief were unavailing and he expired in great agony a few hours after receiving the fatal injury. And that is from a newspaper article. This document is printed in its entirety in the appendices. He's widow, Eunice, appealed to the state legislature for some relief a few months later, and after considerable squabbling among legislators, I can't believe they would do that. Where's Averham? Hey, tell us that's not true. She was granted an unspecified sum. Mr. Hutchinson may have been the only person to lose his life at the state house, although many Vermont citizens have surely been injured there. I love little cuts like that. Sometimes I get carried away. And here is a little anecdote about a man whose name is not disclosed, but who is a resident, drives the Worcester stage, I know that immediately identifies him for you, caused abundant amusement in County Court Friday afternoon. He fell asleep in his seat and did justice to his 250 or more pounds by using his snoring apparatus to its limit. He fell asleep in his seat and carried on like you would not believe. Finally, the nasal exuberations he emitted took precedence over all the other proceedings. The sheriffs wrapped on their desks for order in the court, but the sleeper slept on and only gained in strength and volume in his efforts. Finally, the scene became so embarrassing to the neighbors of the snore that they punched him in the ribs until he awoke, thus brought the concert to a close. Okay, let's go to two more real quick. I love this story. This happened up on the hill, up on the handshore hill, Chad. So this was a story about the Howison cabin. The windows in the house had been, this is in 1922. The windows in the house had been boarded up for the winter months, and the very first night the family went there to spend a weekend in the spring. The very first night they went there, one of the Hampshire Hill inhabitants who I was told had just gotten out of Windsor prison decided he would break into the house. I haven't any idea what he was going to do. And this is from the words of Thelma Howison Healy, who experienced this experience in 1922. So anyway, that night I woke up and my mother had her lamp out on the end of a big wood stove, and she talked low to me, babes, you keep quiet and don't you make a move. Don't talk and you stay where you are. I was in bed and I knew something was wrong and I did exactly what my mother told me to do. My brother had gotten up in the meantime and I heard my mother tell him to stay quiet and stay still and she would take care of it. In the meantime I heard the screech sound of a board being pulled off the north window in the parlor facing the mountain. Then my mother shot out over the top of the window using the little revolver she had. The shot went right over his head. I can remember to this day the sound of his feet as he ran across the front lawn where the stone ledges run under our house and I could hear this hollow sound from his footsteps on the ledge as he ran off down the road. My mother immediately got dressed and in a couple of hours in inbroke daylight and we had breakfast, then she said to my brother and myself, we're going to track that man who ran down the road. So my brother, my mother, and myself, the three of us, looking pretty forlorn went down the road and tracked him right across the bridge by the school house and up a little hill to his house and found him sitting out on his front porch rocking back and forth in a straight chair. My mother asked him if he'd enjoyed his evening and he muttered a reply of some sort and then she said to him, now mister, I'm going to show you that I can shoot and hit my target if I want to. So she shot at these pails that were hanging on the side of his barn. I think there were five and she hit each one with a ping sound. Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. I just stood there. Then I remember her saying, now mister, you can see I can hit my target if I want to. Don't ever let me see you around my house again or you will get the same treatment as the pails. We never did see him again around our house, either. That really happened. Worcester women are tough. One last little anecdote here. And this is one of my favorites. Brad's center, a well-known character who's still living around here. I think he's in Montpellier now. He actually gave us our first sign that's still out there on the road a number of years ago. He had a friend by the name of Ferd Fedora. And they were town scallywags. They were some characters. One evening he writes, Ferd and I were bored. We decided to run through town yelling a dirty word. The problem was we honestly didn't know any dirty words. After being sent to the store for a package with a plain brown wrapper and finding out it wasn't a box of cookies, we were told not to mention that word to anyone. So we derived, Kotex would be a perfect word to lay on our town. In our high-pitched pre-... Yeah, our early voices. We yelled Kotex while running down Main Street. After a couple of attempts and no responses, we gave up. Come over to the writer's tent if you want to talk a little more, and we've got some extra books over there. Thank you, Chad. Have a wonderful afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. This is ridiculous articles. What was... ordinary normal... Okay. Here's one more. A non-core performance. Harry Dodge. Harry Dodge? How many know Harry Dodge? New Harry Dodge. Good. Harry Dodge was born in 1909. Reardon Gould Hill. While in high school at U32, his grandson, Christopher Dodge, recorded a number of his grandfather's interesting stories. If you know Gould Hill, you will appreciate this tale. It was a nice March afternoon. My father had just gone to work. He had said earlier that he wanted to get rid of that old pug, a one-horse sleigh that was sitting in the back of our home. My brother and I decided to take the pug for a small ride. We got dressed and dragged the pug to the top of the nearby field and took off the shafts, the part of the sleigh that connects the sleigh to the horse. We started to slide down the hill. Remember, this is on top of Gould Hill, near Dugerot. If we had planned our trip correctly, we would cross the property of many of our neighbors. We wanted to end up in the lowlands by the north branch of the Winooski River. We had gone about one-half mile when we came upon a stone wall fence. The wall was covered with a few feet of snow. This was between the road we wanted to cross and us. Needless to say, we could not stop the sleigh so we had no choice but to jump the stone wall. I told my brother to duck his head and I did the same. We crossed the wall and took off into the air like a bird. We touched down with a crash and kept going. We heard a ping noise and my brother asked me, what's that? I replied, that was the top strand of the Richardson's barbed wire fence. We kept going and heard the noise again and I knew that we had made it into the lad's fence. By this time we were on level ground and headed for another stone fence. Again, we hit and landed 10 feet up in a tree. The seat went over our heads and into another tree. We landed with the sleigh on the ground. That same minute the seat landed in front of us on the ground and split into many pieces. Luckily, we were not hurt. We got out of the mess and I said to my brother, no problem in getting rid of that sled. We went home and stoked the fire. Thank you. Thank you so much, David. How about a hand for Mr. David Buck, aptly titled David Buck. You get that? Is it right? So I want to just put a huge thanks out that I did not do in the beginning. We'll be doing it all day, but to our sponsors because with an event like this, you got to have some money. And the beautiful thing about this as well is that each artist, often pretty much all the time when there is an arts fest, you need to pay for your booth. And then you hope that you make money to make back what you paid. At this arts fest, because of the grants that we received, each artist is receiving an honorarium. He's actually getting paid to come and sell their art. That's cool. So the reason that that is, is because of our sponsors, Ben and Jerry's, Community Bank, National Life Group, the Washington Electric Co-op, Wyndham Foundation, the Worcester Historical Society, and the Vermont Arts Council. Could we give them a big round of applause, please? Yeah, thank you. So we appreciate their support. And also, as I was driving home, I was driving somewhere and I looked and I saw these signs that were just, you know, meet the artist, see your friends. The 10th of June, it starts and ends Worcester Arts Fest. And I just, we all giggled because we had no idea who did it. None of us had done it that were on the board. We were like, oh, that was, you know, that, no, that was, but it was Mike Meninger did these signs. We just want to say thanks to Mike because we had no idea. But that was, it was just so genius and kind. And we were just trying to raise awareness that this thing is happening in everybody's backyard. So anyway, wonderful. So, Avram, are you set? Okay. So you recognize his name, certainly he is a legislator. I've met Avram and supported him throughout the years as he has spoken for us in the legislature. And a very kind human that cares about community. And so it's a, I've seen him in, at gigs in Morrisville. I've seen him just hanging out at the dump wanting to talk to people. Who does that? Who wants to spend more time at the dump? Well, Avram does to be able to get to the community. I think it's beautiful. So please welcome to the stage to sing and bring you some stories of the songs Avram Pat. So, I am going to sing a couple of Yiddish songs. Yiddish is the language spoken by most of the Jews who lived in Eastern Europe and who were the source of the largest by far immigration of Jewish people to this country starting in the late 1900s and the early part of the 20th century. And it's my first language. I grew up speaking Yiddish. I didn't start learning English. I'm told till I was in kindergarten. And kids that age really don't know that they're even learning another language. But we spoke Yiddish at home. So it's my mama lush and my mother tongue. And the, I didn't want to say before I start into what I'm going to do that this morning when I was pulling clothes out of a drawer to get dressed there was a drawer with t-shirts in it. And usually I just take the next t-shirt that's in line. The next t-shirt I'm not going to open it up because it has some holes in it now. But the next t-shirt in line which I decided to wear was a t-shirt. A great t-shirt that says in big white letters Worcester. And we moved to Worcester in the late 1989. And I believe at the next town meeting the first town meeting that I went to the Worcester Historical Society was selling these t-shirts. And this one is still more or less in one piece and I decided to, I decided, yes, I'll wear that. I'm not going to open my shirt right now because it really has a bunch of holes in it. But someone wants to see it later if you can. So over time I've been one of the only people speaking Yiddish in the state of Vermont although when I first moved to Vermont in 1970 I discovered that there were in fact in some communities in Vermont people that went back a few generations that spoke Yiddish including in Barry, in Rutland, in Burlington, maybe a few other places. But those people are gone. And so there's very few of us now that do speak Yiddish. I've made a point of trying to stand up and do Yiddish things at different places including in the legislature where we have a devotional every day when the house starts. And I've sung actually both of the songs that I'm going to sing today. And also in a different venue given a short talk on the incredible devastating power of Yiddish curses. They're not like curses that you know that are two word curses, one of which is an obscene word. They're not, they're worse than that. So I'm going to do these two songs. The second song is one that I will ask for your help to sing. This one is an uplifting song about hope for a better world. The words are by a beloved Yiddish poet named Avram Reisen. He wrote poems for people of all ages. A number of his things were set to music. So I'll give you my translation first. I'm going to sing this now you'll leave the new song. No matter how distant the time of love and of peace is, it will arrive whether sooner or later. That time is not a dream. I hear the song of love and joy, of mighty voices singing and every note of the song announces the sun has risen. The fragrance filled with hope, good cheer and striving in the air you hear a voice calling to spirit, power and life. No matter how distant the time of love and of peace is, it will arrive whether sooner or later. That time is not a dream. I hear the song of love and joy, of mighty voices singing and every note of the song announces the sun has risen. And every note of the song announces the sun has risen. The fragrance filled with hope, good cheer and striving in the air you hear a voice calling to spirit, power and life. No matter how distant the time of love and of peace is, it will arrive whether sooner or later. That time is not a dream. No matter how distant the time of love and joy. No matter how distant the time of love and joy. No matter how distant the time of love and joy. That is another time. Wow, that's a lot! I'm going to do something different, though. This is a song that I would ask you to help me sing with one word. To do that, No, that's a fact. That's a first. It's one syllable, two letters. All right. Okay. Oi. Okay. So, oi. Oi can is a, it can be said as just as an exclamation. Oi! You can repeat it a few times to just sort of let it sink in. Or you can add a second word, oi vei. Vei means pain and when you say oi vei, that's really an expression of misery, of miserableness. And so, this is actually a children's song. I am told that it was the first song that I ever sang as a very young child. And what it means, roughly translated, is oi, my little head hurts. Oi! My little head hurts. And my little head, a little apple is turning around and around. Oi, my head hurts. Why a little apple? Because in Yiddish, a little head is a kepala and a little apple is an epala. And that's the logic of this song. Oi, my little foot hurts. Oi, my little foot hurts. And my little foot, a little nut, a little misala is turning around and around. Oi, my foot hurts. Oi, my stomach hurts. Oi, my stomach hurts. And my little stomach, a little drum is turning around and around and around. Oi, my stomach hurts. Okay, so in order for you to help me sing, I'm just going to ask you to sing the word oi when it comes around in this song. In order to do that, I want you to start thinking about things that are really upsetting to you right now. Making you miserable. Okay, I want you to just keep it to yourself. Just think about things that are really a problem in your own life. Maybe it's your health, maybe it's your job, maybe it's your family, maybe it's your neighbor's dog. I want you to be thinking about things in your own personal life that are making you miserable. And attach that to the word oi. And then let's take it up a notch and I want you to think about everything that's wrong in the world. Whether it's political, whether it's in Montpelier, whether it's in Congress, whether it's Donald Trump, or climate change, or whatever is really worrying you. I want you to add that and layer it on top of everything that you're thinking about that's wrong in your own life and your own surroundings. I want you to think about that and put that into your oi. Okay, so every time the word comes around in the song, I'm just going to raise my hand like this and give me your best oi. So let's practice, okay? One, two, three. Oi! Okay, that was pretty good. But we need to add one other characteristic and that is in Yiddish the word is kechts. I want you to like squeeze it out of you, you know, from here and up and out, okay? Oi! Okay, that's right. So try it one more time. Okay, we got it. So here we go. The song is going to start with an oi and you give me your best oi every time I raise my finger in the air. Ready? Oi! Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the day. My hand for Mr. Avram Pat. Songs and the stories behind them. Beautiful. So we're going to have a little, it's pretty awesome here. We are running a head of schedule and let me tell you, if you look at your program, please be sure to get one there. There are friends circulating around with them and in a little bit, we will have Werner John playing some Native American style flutes. So that will be happening at one o'clock in just a few minutes. So we'll have some music here and come on back to hear Werner John and please visit our wonderful artists and hear the stories behind what they do. Great to have you. Happy Worcester Arts Fest, everybody. Music coming soon. Thanks. They keep it going here and Werner John has been living in the Worcester area for about the past six years, but for 35 years has been a self-employed entrepreneur and certainly welcome you to visit his amazing tent over there. Many of the flutes that you see over there were made by him in Worcester, Vermont. And he's going to be playing some Native American style flute today and giving you some of the stories behind them. And so please welcome to the Worcester Arts Fest stage Werner John. So these are my flutes. They're made of cedar and other softwoods so that I don't even need a lathe. I can do it in a very small space. Program going here at the Worcester Arts Fest, the very first annual. Well, we're not going to say annual. I think we might do it every couple years is the honest answer. These festivals are a lot of work. I've been a part of many festivals, but I've never helped plan one. I don't know how many I'll do continue planning, but there I honor the people that do them because there's so many, so many helpers that made this, made this day happen. And of course this day cannot happen without our artists and our musicians. My name is Chad Hollister. I am a full time touring musician, much like many of the fathers, mothers and siblings of Worcester, Vermont. We realized as I Katie and I moved here with a six month old Riley Odelia who's graduating next week from high school that being a musician was was pretty normal here in town. So it's great. Now next up we have the Purple House Trio and we have we have Rowan right here on the fiddle. We have Tenzo on the cajon. And we have Meila. No, wait a minute. You're not Meila. No, of course, this is the amazing Michael Close. Meila is not feeling well. So Michael is gladly filling in. And when you hear them, you'll understand why I say gladly. And it's just great to have the Landis Maranello family here today. They're playing fiddle tunes and by the Landis Maranello siblings. So please give a warm Worcester Arts Fest welcome to the Purple House Trio. For the Purple House Trio. My special guest Michael Close and thanks to Rowan on the fiddle and Tenzo on the cajon. Boy, it just continues to amaze me and amaze me and amaze me even more. Upcoming we're just going to take a little breather here. But within just a couple of minutes we're going to get Joe Hoensky up here who is going to be performing on the ood. Do you know what an ood is? Well, you're about to learn. It's an amazing stringed instrument that has a beautiful, beautiful tone to it. So we're going to do that. You can see happening out there brewing. You can see some young Irish dancers out there that are going to, they are coming from the Garrett School of Irish Dance and be accompanied by amazing musicians one more time. So all kinds of wonderful things coming up here. Alan Gilbert are amazing local authors coming. Sarah Bell is coming. Michael Close is going to do some stuff as well. Let's see, let me just check here. I think there are a few more minutes. Rick I believe is still in the town hall recording some stories and poems if anybody is interested in doing that. But more music to come. Stay here, right here at the Worcester Arts Fest. Food, art, music, beautiful. Thanks for being here. Alright folks. So I was learning a little bit about the ood. The ood is a Middle Eastern instrument. Joe was schooling me a little bit on it. And this one has eleven strings, two, four, six, eight, ten. And then the low string is just a single string. So you think about guitars like say the mandolin that has eight strings, two strings each whereas the sixth string guitar just has one string. So it's a very specific instrument. And it also is a very quiet instrument. So we're going to do our best to mic it up. But during Joe's set if you can just really try and listen in. And we'll, Josh here. By the way, this is Josh Kneebling from MSR Sound on the sound today. I have a hand for Josh. So without further ado, Mr. Joe Hoenske on the ood. Mr. Joe Hoenske on the traditional ood. Come on out. What a specific sound that is. Just takes you over to another place. Thank you so much, Joe. So we've got some amazing Irish dance and music coming. And we're going to get that to Alan and get our stage ready. Make sure that they're not going to fly off of it. And stay tuned because it's going to be really exciting. Amazing things. And then I see Alan right here. Amazing author who's going to be reading. And just so you know, Rick Egren, our local poet, is in town hall right behind us. And if you have a story, that dog definitely has a story. If you have a story or a poem that you would like to record, Rick is doing that. So if you have that, go and visit him. And if for some reason you don't get to do it today, we'll find a time for you somehow. Okay, thanks. More music to come here at the first annual Worcester Arts Fest. Thank you. Without further ado, we're going to continue the Worcester Arts Fest program as it were. And it's really fun to see some familiar faces in this band. My bodyguard, Dan over there, he protects me wherever I go. Hire him at the Barry Opera House. No way he hires me. No way, I don't know what we do. But we have the band one more time. And the Garrett School of Irish Dance. I'd like to introduce Garaleesa to let you know a little bit about her crew. And then off we go to Ireland. You're going to show you a collection of dances and tunes from different parts of Ireland and different parts of Irish dancing history. So you'll see some really contemporary dances and you'll see some really old dances and everything in between, old style, new style. So sometimes we might introduce them and sometimes we might just do them for you. We have had a couple of last minute changes to our roster. So we're just going to be rolling with it. And we're really excited to show you a lot of different things today. So thank you all so much for being here. And I'm going to bring out my dancers for their first dance. The footwork with the music. So this is a set dance, which means that these steps were designed to go with this particular tune. This is a tune by the name of Maggie Pickens. And the dance also goes by the name Maggie Pickens. So we're going to show you just a few steps and give you some of that tune as well. Based on the dance called Rakes of Malo, which is a very traditional Kayley dance. And a monthly Kayley classification changes a bit. And we're taking the summer off. But if you're interested, you can check out our website or our Facebook page. As far as potentially there might be a one more time Facebook page coming soon. Who knows? But the Garrett School of Irish Dance will publicize if you're ever interested. Or you can come find me after and I'll write your email down if you're interested. Alright, so here comes Rakes of Malo. These hard shoes have actual, the Irish equivalent of a tap shoe. But tap shoes have metal. Hard shoes these days are made of fiberglass actually. The tips and heels are fiberglass. And they make designs to be percussive. So the steps that you're about to see are treble jig steps. So the very first number we did was a jig, but we danced it in soft shoes. And now we're doing a jig. So musically it's the same type of tune. But we're going to be doing it in hard shoes. So the steps we'll be doing are pretty traditional. They're old. And there you'll see some hard shoe dancing that's a little bit more contemporary. So this is a treble jig featuring some two of our dancers who have just learned hard shoe for the first time this year. So we're going to, this dance is a little bit of a performance and a little bit of a demonstration of one of the strategies that we teach percussive dancing. Because it's so important that you're learning the rhythms while you're learning the footwork and what your body needs to do. And so we often do a call and response strategy like you might need when you're learning music. And so you'll see some pieces of that in this dance as well. So here's the treble jig for you. The arts festival for having us. We're really thrilled to be here. Thank you so much. Some more time in the Garrett School of Irish Dance. Wow, that was incredible. Thank you so much. Everybody welcome to the very first Worcester Arts Fest here in Worcester, Vermont featuring Worcester artists. Sometimes we headed a little bit outside, especially with our friend Elizabeth that has introduced so many Worcesterites to the art of Irish dance. It was wonderful to have this crew here today. So as we continue to move on, I just want to put a huge thanks out because he has arrived. Julia Hewitt, one of the members of our team, has let me know that the gentleman that created the beautiful signs to make sure that everybody knew right up until today that the arts festival is happening. Mike Menenger is here. Where are you, Mike? Where are you, buddy? Yeah, thank you, Mike. We were talking about how we were trying to figure out who the heck did it in our crew and it was none of us. It was you. So thank you for your creativity and adding to our arts fest and helping folks know to come on down. So yes, ladies and gentlemen, David Book off the road with Van Halen. Come on. Artists in Worcester then are here today. Get the word out. This is not a gimmicky thing. This is the real Worcester right here. We want to expand our outreach in years to come. There are a couple of people, for example, that I know who are not here because of their health and I just want to recognize them even though they're not here. I want to let you know that we know that Sylvia Wooster and that Newell Shownia are known artists here in Worcester and are in poor health. So we send out a tribute to them. And thank all of you for coming. This has so far been absolutely spectacular, I think. Good job. Good job. That's David Book of the band Foo Fighters. Just keeps changing. That was one of my favorite things. I'm a Dave Grohl fanatic and I was listening to an interview with Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. They're a drummer that passed away this past year and it's a huge loss to the rock and roll world. He was saying, they were doing this interview. He said, tell them about the Saturday Night Live thing with Christopher Walken. And he said, okay, all right. So Christopher Walken was hosting. No, they were the band. And Christopher Walken was hosting. And he came to Dave. He said, so Dave, he said, so what is the emphasis on? Is it Foo or the Fighters? And Dave said, you know, thinking to himself, he said, there's not really an emphasis on anything. It's just, you know, but if you had to put emphasis on it, it would be on Fighters. So Christopher Walken comes up on the stage, ladies and gentlemen, Foo Fighters. And they just bust it out. Obviously, I think this is much funnier than anybody else ever will. My wife, Katie, has had to listen to me say this over and over again. Foo Fighters. Anywho, more cowbell? Anybody? More cowbell. Yeah. So we have an amazing local author, Alan Gilbert, coming up just in a couple minutes. So stay tuned and more music and poetry and authors coming your way to the very first Worcester Arts Fest. Thanks again. I want to underline just what you're going to be hearing a lot today. Our sponsors today that made this whole gig possible, we were able to pay our artists and we also encourage you to buy their art as well. Is Ben and Jerry's Community Bank, National Life Group, the Washington Electric Co-op, Wyndham Foundation, the Worcester Historical Society, and the Vermont Arts Council. Stay tuned here. Welcome. Thank you.