By Susan Granger

After a two-year hiatus, Pixar Animation (“The Incredibles,” “Wall-E,” “Toy Story”) is back with “Inside Out,” an incredibly creative, complex idea: how our emotions affect our behavior.

The concept revolves around five instinctive emotions that propel us: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader), and Anger (Lewis Black). Headquartered in the mind’s vast Control Center, these emotions transfer experiences to vast memory banks.

When happy 11-year-old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is forced to move from her idyllic Minnesota home to an old Victorian house in San Francisco, she has trouble adjusting. The three stabilities in her life - family, friendship and hockey - are shaken to the core.

While ebullient Joy dominated Riley’s consciousness for many years, keeping wistful Sadness on the sidelines, now both Joy and Sadness are sucked from the Control Center and plunged into the countless, kaleidoscopic channels of her brain. That happens when Riley realizes she no longer has friends she can rely on and loses confidence in her ability to play hockey.

Duvian Montoya, a founding member of the Westport Artists Collective at the Westport Arts Center, puts the finishing touches today on a a painting of rowers on the Saugatuck River on the construction fence on around the Bedford Square development project. He and other artists will be on hand on Saturday for the “Paint the Town” project in which the public is invited to paint self-portraits on the portion of the fence along Church Lane. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Helen Klisser During for WestportNow.com

Artist Duvian Montoya draws an outline of David Waldman today on a construction fence around the Bedford Square development in Westport’s downtown. The portraits will be completed on Saturday during the “Paint the Town” event in which the public is invited to help paint the fence. Waldman is a partner in Bedford Square Associates, which is converting the former YMCA Building into a retail, office, and residential complex. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Helen Klisser During for WestportNow.com

The 2014 film “The Good Lie” about the “lost boys” of Sudan is scheduled to be shown Wednesday, June 24 at 6:30 p.m. at the Westport Woman’s Club, 44 Imperial Ave.

The free screening is being presented in partnership with TEAM (Together Effectively Achieving Multiculturalism) Westport and the Westport Library. A talk by the film’s screenwriter Margaret Nagle will follow.

The movie starring Reese Witherspoon tells the true story of five Sudanese children orphaned by a massacre of their village during the second Sudanese civil war, said Harold Bailey, TEAM Westport chairman.

After an arduous trek, they reach safety in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, and years later the four surviving youths finally are selected for resettlement in the United States.

The Westport Board of Selectmen today approved a sculpture gift to the town from the estate of Susan Rabinowitz Malloy, artist, art patron, and philanthropist who died on April 14. (See WestportNow April 14, 2015) The 1991 artwork, “The Couple (Adam & Eve)” by William King (1925-2015), has a preliminary value of $45,000 to $65,000, the board was told. The man is 12-feet tall, the woman, 10-feet.  Westporter Ann Sheffer, Malloy’s niece, pictured with the work, said pending final acceptance approval by the Representative Town Meeting, it will be moved to Earthplace, The Nature Discovery Center, where it will be on loan. The move will probably take place this summer, she said. Malloy served on the board of Earthplace. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

By James Lomuscio

Acting as the Traffic Authority, Westport’s Board of Selectmen today unanimously approved the closing of Church Lane Saturday, giving a green light to the scheduled “Paint the Town” event.

Matthew Mandell (l), of the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce, and Helen Klisser During (2nd l), of the Westport Arts Center, tell Board of Selectmen members today about Saturday’s “Paint the Town” effort. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Professional artists and townspeople are set to paint selfies and local scenes on the blue-washed construction fence enveloping the north side of Church Lane and serving as a barrier to the Bedford Square project under construction.

Saturday’s scheduled event, with a rain date of June 27, was orchestrated by the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce (WWCC), the Westport Arts Center (WAC), the Westport Downtown Merchants Association, and Westporter David Waldman, principal of Bedford Square Associates.

“This is another example of what makes Westport special,” said Second Selectman Avi Kaner. “Only in Westport would a construction site turn into art.”

A showcased work: “Tiger Lily” by Alexandra McMahon, 16.  Digital drawing, 16x20. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

The Westport Arts Center’s (WAC) Teen Advisory Council will launch its inaugural event Art Slam!, a one-night gallery party featuring art by 12 local teens, Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.  The event is free and open to the public.

Local musicians will perform as part of the event, and The Cheese Truck and the Granola Bar restaurant will provide refreshments, WAC officials said.

Westport Family Counseling, the event’s sponsor, will also be on hand to lead an art therapy activity for all attendees.

Formed in January 2015, WAC’s Teen Advisory Council is made up of area teens who serve as arts ambassadors, planning and implementing programs for their peers at WAC.

The newest recipients of an historical plaque from the Westport Historical Society (WHS) are the owners of the 1827-built house at 230 North Ave, near Easton Road. Lou Gagliano (l) and Caren Calish Gagliano purchased the house from Caren’s mother, Ilene Calish, in 1983. The plaque was presented by Bob Weingarten, WHS house plaque historian. Caren said her parents purchased the house in 1963. “I spent every Christmas Day in this house since 1963 and never wanted it to belong to anyone but the Gagliano or Calish family,” she said. “However, the house is now for sale. We plan to move to the Washington, D.C. area.” Caren was a member of the Board of Education from 1991 to 1999.  Lou was the initial chairman of the now disbanded Westport Downtown 2020 Committee, which has been succeeded by the Westport Downtown Steering Committee. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

By James Lomuscio

When Westporter Jane Green’s first novel titled “Straight Talking,” debuted in 1996, she was 27, single and living in London. The Sex and the City-styled, across-the-pond novel about a woman looking for “Mr. Maybe” put her at the forefront of a new genre dubbed “chick lit, really important in fiction,” she says.

Jane Green (at the Westport Library today): ‘“chick lit” is now “commercial women’s fiction.”  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Today, 16 novels later and married with children, she eschews any “chick lit” label on her later and current work, preferring to call it commercial women’s fiction. As her adult perspective has changed over the years, so has her writing, Green says.

“I’m 47 years old, and I defy anyone to call me a chick, and I think what it’s evolved into is women’s fiction,” said the best selling author, native Brit. “A lot of my readers are in their 40s and 50s, so chick lit does not apply.

“They’re about real women, real lives and emotional honesty,” Green added about plots choreographing the human condition of characters such as suburban moms.  “I haven’t written a sex scene, an explicit sex scene, in over 15 years.”