Halloween nightlife — Jack-o-lanterns and comedy — #berkshireweekend

‘Look at the butterfly!’
‘Actually that one’s a cow …’

I have to wonder what kind of shapeshifter is visiting the Naumkeag Pumpkin Show tonight. Families are talking on the garden path, and the only living creature I can hear is answering in a low, guttural ‘baaa,’ from the sheep grazing in the fields.

But we’re surrounded by creatures made of fire. They’re carved into pumpkins — a kingfisher, a luna moth — and they’re resting in the trees like magic lanterns.

Around sunset the garden transforms into a harvest festival in the golden hour. Later on you can catch the light show in the dark. But right now it’s quiet, and I can imagine a will o’ the wisp changing shape like a flame, or Queen Mab riding on a milkweed seed on the wind.

The sun sets over Naumkeag at the annual pumpkin show.
Photo by Kate Abbott

The sun sets over Naumkeag at the annual pumpkin show.

Events coming up …

Find more art and performance, outdoors and food in the BTW events calendar.

From the Stone Hill Center terrace, visitors look down into the lighted windows of the Williamstown Art Conservation Center at dusk.
May 13 2024 @ 5:00 pm
This year's Lenett Fellows, Ricardo Mercado Ruiz and Destini Ross (Williams College M.A. Class of 2024), present the work they have produced during their fellowship.
A Baltimore Oriole looks out from a slender branch. Creative Commons courtesy photo.
May 14 2024 @ 8:00 am
Mass Audubon will explore Edith Wharton's historic home, including its woods, wetlands, and meadows, to find birds by sight and sound.
Visitors sit in the sun by the reflecting pool designed by Tadao Ando at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown.
May 14 2024 @ 11:00 am
The Clark invites visitors to look contemplatively as a way to engage with works of art from the museum’s collection.

By the Way Berkshires is a digital magazine exploring creative life and community — art and performance, food and the outdoors — and I’m writing it for you, with local voices, because I’ve gotten to know this rich part of the world as a writer and journalist, and I want to share it with you.

If you’d like to see the website grow, you can join me for a few dollars a month, enough for a cup of coffee and a cider doughnut. Members get access to extra stories and multimedia, itineraries a bookmark tool. Let me know what you're looking for, and we’ll explore together.

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