Abby / 24 Thursday Bridge / 24 September 8, 2011 Movies / 24 Page 23 R Sudoku / 24

The Exergame Fitness Arcade is one of the new Out & features of the Meriden YMCA. Visitors to this Saturday’s open house will get a sneak peek, About and the ribbon cutting will take place Sept. 21. Photo courtesy of Today Joan Goodman, Meriden YMCA Sunflower maze — Lyman Orchards, at 33 Reeds Gap Road in Middlefield, opens its fifth annual Sunflower maze in the shape of a butterfly. Proceeds from admission will be go to the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. For information, call (860) 349-1793. North Haven Fair — The annual fair on Route 5 in North Haven will offer rides, food, entertainment and more daily through Sunday. Hours are 5 to 10 p.m. today, 3 to 11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. For information, visit www.northhaven-fair.com. Auction and dinner — The Meriden Boys and Girls Club will host its annual auction and dinner at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington beginning at 5 p.m. Tickets include dinner and open bar. For information, call (203) 235- 8185. Fast facts Friday What: Meriden YMCA fall Farmers market — A farmers market takes open house. place from 3 to 6 p.m. Fridays in the grassy When: Saturday, Sept. 10, field next to 1003 S. Main St. in Southington. from 9 a.m. to noon. Each week features a different artist, Where: 110 W. Main St., entertainer or civic organization. Meriden Square dance — Durham Cogin-Chuggers and Admission: Free. Cheshire Cats Square Dance Club will merge More info: with a kick-off dance from 8 to 10:30 p.m. Friday at the Brewster School on Tuttle Road www.meridenymca.org. in Durham. Admission will be charged. For information, call (203) 272-7463 or (860) 349- 8084. Paint party — The XL Center, at 1 Civic Center Plaza in Hartford, will host Dayglow, a one-of- Meriden Y shows off fitness arcade a-kind experience that fuses high-energy music, art, dance and paint into one show. The show runs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For information and tickets call By Stephanie A. O’Connell “We like to partner with the day, kids are very much into video ing classes and onsite day care this (860) 249-6333. Record-Journal staff community and welcome them games and computers.” fall. Folk festival — Edgerton Park, at Whitney into the center,” she said. “We have Thearcadehasawhitespace People who visit the open house Avenue and Cliff Street in New Haven, is the MERIDEN — At the Meriden so many new things here that we wall with a variety of games that will also learn about the first an- site of the Connecticut Folk Festival and YMCA’s annual open house this want people to come and check keep kids moving as they follow nual Healthy Body, Brain and Busi- Green Expo running Friday through Sunday. weekend, patrons will get a first them out. Our main focus is to ed- lights that change all over the ness Competition, to be held a The event features live folk music and eco- look at some state-of-the-art tech- ucate everyone on what we have to board. Brain bikes equipped with week later, on Sept. 17. The compe- friendly educational programs and activities. nology not yet available to the offer and how it can help them to Xbox systems let kids pedal faster tition will involve 10 local busi- For information, visit www.ctfolk.com. public. maintain healthy lifestyles.” or slower to control the speed of nesses in a race of physical and Singles dance — Connecticut ConTacts will The Exergame Fitness Arcade, The Exergame Fitness Arcade, the video game character on the mental endurance. sponsor a singles’ dance party from 8 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Friday at il Monticello, 577 S. featuring cutting-edge equipment which was installed last week, was screen. DanceDanceRevolution “This idea came about through Broad St., Meriden. Admission includes a to entice young children to stay funded by donations from the pads are available for play and our meetings with the chamber. dinner buffet. For information, call (203) 468- active, will be open for the first Napier Foundation, a private stepper-type fitness equipment We are going to have 10 teams of 1144. time on Saturday from 9 a.m. to donor and the Y Strong Kids Cam- features games that require con- four participate in five activities Pearl Harbor anniversary — World War II noon. paign. The arcade is part of the stant movement. using their muscles and brains. veterans are invited to attend and participate The facility has an open house YMCA’s focus on fighting child- “We started a program earlier in The winners will get a trophy and in a three-day commemoration of the 70th each year to let people see all the hood obesity. the year to help battle childhood bragging rights as the healthiest anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl YMCA has to offer and the latest “We noticed that is was difficult obesity and with the Exergame we business in Meriden,” said Good- Harbor. Events begin Friday at the additions, such as massage ther- to get elementary school-aged feel we have the latest and best man. Waterbury-Oxford Airport with the arrival of apy, the new yoga studio and new children to engage in regular phys- technology available that no one in Proceeds will benefit the Meri- three World War II combat aircraft between instructors. The YMCA has a ical activity, like using the fitness the area has,” Goodman said. den YMCA’s Strong Kids Cam- 12:30 and 1 p.m. World War II veterans and longstanding policy of opening its center,” said Carrie Marquardt, Besides the new yoga center at paign. air crew members are invited to attend doors to the community, said Joan YMCA fitness director. “We were the YMCA’s art center, at 14-16 W. without charge. The aircraft exhibit continues Goodman, membership and mar- looking for an angle to interest Main St., the Y has added youth [email protected] from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. keting director. these kids in staying active. Nowa- wrestling and volleyball, songwrit- (203) 317-2235 Admission will be charged for the public. Slavic concert — The Kitka Slavic Ensemble will perform a free concert of Eastern European music at 8 p.m. Friday in Battell Chapel, 300 College St., New Haven. For information, call (203) 432-5062. Saturday Fall festival — The annual Cheshire Fall Festival and Marketplace will take place on Saturday at Bartlem Park on Route 10 in Cheshire. The craft show will open at 10 a.m. and the main event will begin at 11 a.m. Fireworks will start at about 8:30 p.m. Festival attractions will include business and community booths, a food court, farmers market, hot dog eating contest, arts and craft show, classic car show, YMCA Kids Zone, entertainment by local musicians and the Kiwanis carnival. The band Eight to the Bar will perform on the main stage from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday. The rain date is Sunday. Farmers market — The Meriden Farmers Market takes place from 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays until Oct. 29 at the Meriden Hub site between Pratt and State streets. Marc Anthony — The Mohegan Sun Arena welcomes Marc Anthony at 8 p.m. Saturday. For information, call (888) 226-7711. “So We Never Forget”— American Legion Post 45, at 835 Hanover Road in Meriden, will host “So We Never Forget” to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Gates open at 7 a.m. Names of the victims will be read at 8 a.m., followed by a invocation and color guard salute. For more information, call Lady Gaga Ke$ha Nicki Minaj Katy Perry (203) 642-4622. Gardeners market — Wallingford Center Inc. sponsors a gardeners market from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays until Sept. 17 at the Railroad Ladies of pop win with wacky, weird tactics Station Green, corner of Route 5 and 150, Wallingford. Plants, flowers, produce, home crafts, baked goods and other items are By Mesfin Fekadu noteworthy was that Gaga wasn’t Cyndi Lauper to Annie Lennox to a necklace of her fans’ teeth. She featured. Associated Press Contra dances — Contra dances take place the only oddity who graced the Grace Jones. wears her disheveled look with from 8 to 11 p.m. the first and third Saturdays stage. In one corner there was “All three are emblematic of the pride: At last year’s VMAs, Minaj of each month at the Branford Community NEW YORK — Whether it’s be- Katy Perry, sporting pink hair and millennial generation, who are sported a fitted dress and pink House, 46 Church St., Branford. A beginners ing encased in an egg or wearing a giant yellow cube on top of her constantly remixing and reshaping wig, Perry also sported a sexy lesson will be offered at 7:30 p.m. No slabs of meat, there’s never a ques- head. And then there was Nicki their identities,” said MTV presi- dress with pink and purple high- partners are necessary. For information, call tion of whether Lady Gaga will Minaj, who wore a colorful surgi- dent Stephen Friedman of Perry, lights in her hair — Ke$ha rocked (203) 915-8259. make a spectacle of herself at an cal mask, a rainbow-colored wig, a Gaga and Minaj. a trash bag. awards show — the question is mini-tutu made out of cubic de- “It used to be all about the jocks “People are like, ‘Oh, maybe you Sunday just what kind. signs, with an attached string of and the beautiful women, and now should tone the homeless thing Uproar Festival — The Comcast Theater, at 61 So when the MTV Video Music stuffed toys. the nerd is the new jock,” Fried- down?’ It’s just not going to hap- Savitt Way in Hartford, will present Avenged Awards came around this year, It wasn’t too long ago pop’s top man continued. “The currency is pen,” Ke$ha said from Council Sevenfold, Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet Gaga didn’t disappoint. Though ladies were likely to try to out-sex about being smart and funny and Bluffs, Iowa, where she performed for My Valentine, Escape the Fate and more she dressed somewhat conserva- each other, from plunging neck- different and I think that’s what her “Get $leazy Tour.” “I like look- as a part of the 2011 Uproar Festival on tively in short black hair, a dingy lines to gyrating stage perform- they’re playing into — (it) is how ing homeless sometimes. I like Sunday. Tickets are still available. The show white t-shirt, a black blazer and ances. can they be different than what looking like a drunken grandma begins at 2 p.m. For more information, call pants, it was whom she embodied But Gaga, Minaj and Perry are you can expect the day before.” sometimes. I like looking like a (860) 548-7370. that made headlines — a man, part of a group of contemporary Ke$ha, who was absent from tribal warrior from the future Science center — The Connecticut Science whom she called Jo Calderone. pop stars who are finding success this year’s VMAs, has also rebelled sometimes and I’m not going to Center, at 250 Columbus Blvd. in Hartford, is The temporary gender switch by defying the conventional defi- against the norm. She burst on the stop playing with my style for any- offering free admission on Sunday from 10 marked yet another act in Gaga’s nition of sexiness with oddball tac- scene with her sideshow style body.” a.m.-5 p.m. For information, call (8600 724- strange pop odyssey. tics and wacky outfits, recalling singing about brushing her teeth 3623. But what made the VMAs so pop stars from the past, from with Jack Daniels; she now wears Please see Wacky / 24