Chronogram September 2023

Rhinebeck | Hudson | Hopewell Junction | Tannersville | Red Hook | Pleasant Valley | High Falls

DEPARTMENTS

HOME

22 Stone Heritage

Two antiques collectors grapple with a complicated legacy at their centuries-old stone house in Wawarsing.

HEALTH & WELLNESS

32 Space Is the Place: Nature and Health

FOOD

& DRINK

12 Restaurant Profile: Bimi’s Canteen

14

16 Sips & Bites

Recent openings include Ollie’s Slice Shop in Kingston, Ravish Liquors in Coxsackie, Beans Cat Cafe in New Paltz, The Print House in Flesichmanns, and La Barbirria in Beacon.

SUNY Sullivan is rolling out a new program to help students discover the power of placemaking in their communities.

HIGH SOCIETY

36 Joint Effort

The first of its kind Cannabis Growers’ Showcase opened in New Paltz on August 10. Legal weed is now for sale locally.

COMMUNITY PAGES

38 Hudson: Maintaining the Mix

With its history of booms and busts, Hudson is a microcosm of America, having undergone countless transitions.

49 Hudson Portraits by David McIntyre

Shanan Magee, owner of the Park Theater in Hudson.

Photo by David McIntyre COMMUNITY PAGES, PAGE 38

6 On the Cover Richard Bosman’s painting Beach

8 Esteemed Reader Jason Stern on Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.” 11 Editor’s Note Brian K. Mahoney collects photographs.

Ellen Wagget and Christopher Landy have opened a restaurant in Chatham next to their beloved cheese shop.

Restaurant Profile: Universal Cafe & Bar Red Hook natives Leslie Carr-Avalos and her sister Julia Carr have returned home to bring farm-to-table small plates to the historic Central House in Germantown.

Founded over 152 years ago by hard-working people desiring a strong, local financial institution, our commitment to help the community achieve its financial goals has never been stronger.

Founded over 152 years ago by hard-working people desiring a strong, local financial institution, our commitment to help the community achieve its financial goals has never been stronger. We provide the technology and capabilities

ARTS

54 Author Profile: Sophie Strand

Robert Burke Warren profiles author Sophie Strand, whose debut novel, The Madonna Secret, presents Mary Magdalene’s story in a vividly revitalized narrative.

57 Book Reviews

Short reviews of The Bones of the Story by Carol Goodman; Far From New York State by Matthew Johnson; Through the Ruins edited by Fawz Kabra; Finding the Place Where Everything Lives by Andy Kalan; and The Cook and the Rabbi by Susan Simon and Zoe B. Zak.

57 Music

Album reviews of Wronger by Tommy Stinson’s Cowboys in the Campfire; Going Up in the World: Apocalypse 1982-83 by Apocalypse; and August Dreams by Richard Carr/Caleb Burhans/Clarice Jensen. Plus listening recommendations from singer-songwriter Holly Miranda.

58 Poetry

Poems by Nechama Anolik, Greg Baffuto, David Capallero, Esther Cohen, Cheryl J. Fish, Frances Greenhut, Patrick Hammer, Jr., Anna Keville Joyce, David Lukas, Karen Savino, Wilson R. M. Taylor, and Mike Vashen.

Edited by Phillip X Levine.

60 Arts Profile: John Kahn

Peter Aaron talks with John Kahn—artist, architectural and theatrical set designer, street performer—about his 45-year career and upcoming retrospective in Saugerties.

GUIDE

62 The Kaatsbaan Fall Festival returns this month in Tivoli.

64 As music venues around the region have shuttered in recent years, Tubby’s celebrates its five-year anniversary.

65 A star-studded cast performs “Tongues” and “Savage/ Love” at the Woodstock Playhouse this month.

66 Hollywood may be on strike, but the Woodstock Film Festival returns for its 23rd year of independent film.

69 Live Music: In the Pines Festival, Squeeze/Psychedelic Furs, Ex Hex, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and more

71 The Short List: “Penelope” at HVSF, Al Franken, Art Walk Kingston, Welcome to Night Vale live, and more.

72 Art exhibits: Shows from across the region, including “Purple Haze: Art and Drugs Across the Americas” at the Samuel Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz.

HOROSCOPES

76 Critical Conditions and Finding Coherence

Cory Nakasue reveals what the stars have in store for us.

PARTING SHOT

80 Walking on Broken Glass

The fractured photographs of Seth David Rubin are featured in the “Here Now” exhibit at the Kleinert/James Art Center.

Roderick George's "The Missing Fruit" will be performed at the Kaatsbaan Fall Festival in Tivoli.

GUIDE, PAGE 62

Son of Neptune THE PAINTINGS OF RICHARD BOSMAN

Esopus-based artist Richard Bosman’s Beach playfully contrasts the joy of summertime at the coast with the primordial terror of a great white shark leaping out of the ocean at the heels of a running figure. Is the passerby fleeing the scene or has the shark totally surprised them? It’s hard to tell, but it’s at once lighthearted and dire, especially given recent shark attacks on the Eastern Seaboard this summer.

Having spent his teenage years in Perth, Australia, swimming in sharkinfested sea and surf, Bosman could not help but be influenced by the hidden dangers lurking under the waves. “I was oblivious of the danger from sharks,” Bosman says. “Ignorance is bliss! It was only after seeing Jaws and Sharknado that I became fearful of the unseen terror lurking below the surface. After all, we’re swimming in their natural element. The conceit of the painting is that the shark is land bound and out of its element and not the other way around.”

Born in Madras, India (now Chennai), he also spent time in Egypt as a child. “I have been to every continent except Antarctica,” he says. His mother is Australian and his Dutch father worked as a sea captain, so the ocean has always loomed large for him. “The sea has often been the subject of my paintings,” Bosman says. “I endured multiple long sea voyages as a child and crossed the equator a number of times, which makes me an official son of Neptune. Since antiquity sea monsters have been depicted in art. There’s something profoundly unsettling about an unseen monster hidden below the surface of the sea.”

After attending the Byam Shaw School of Art in London from 1964 to 1969, Bosman settled in New York City. He attended the New School until 1971, later studying at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

In late `60s-early `70s, Bosman lived near Chinatown in Manhattan and absorbed Chinese comic art. “It was not as stylized as today’s manga

but had a storyboard quality. Seventies art was very abstract, and nihilistic. Pop art was a departure from the dogma of minimal abstract art and included a social and political aspect that I found exciting,” he explains.

Bosman’s style is often both comic and comical, a trait not often found in contemporary art. “Why shouldn’t art be humorous as well as serious? Some of Goya’s early work is humorous,” he says.

As a global citizen, Bosman also brings an outsider’s perspective to his portrayals of the American experience. Violence in real life and in cinema has affected his work. “I could see things a local might not see. There were many shootings and muggings in New York City at the end of the 1960s, which was quite shocking to me,” he says.

Typical in his work since the `80s is an emphasis on figurative art, which allowed him to touch upon social, political, and cultural issues.

“It was very freeing and opened up a whole new set of possibilities. I have always loved making prints which force the image to be reduced to its essence,” he says.

Regarding what he’s trying to communicate, Bosman says, “I think artists would often rather not know until after the fact. Otherwise, you can’t really do anything creative. It’s kind of a self-discovery.”

Beach is featured in “Summer Disaster Show” at the Private Public Gallery in Hudson, which also contains works by Melora Kuhn, Mark Swanson, James Casabere, Heide Fasnacht, and others. The exhibit is up through September 10.

When asked about his legacy, Bosman is somewhat ambivalent. “I don’t have a role in that,” he says. “I might be understood for five minutes and then forgotten. One just does what they do, and it’ll have relevance or it won’t. All you can do is live in the present, if you’re lucky.”

@bosman_richard

—Mike Cobb

Beach

Richard Bosman, oil on canvas, 76” x 108”, 2021-22

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian K. Mahoney brian.mahoney@chronogram.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR David C. Perry david.perry@chronogram.com

DIGITAL EDITOR Marie Doyon marie.doyon@chronogram.com

ARTS EDITOR Peter Aaron music@chronogram.com

HOME EDITOR Mary Angeles Armstrong home@chronogram.com

POETRY EDITOR Phillip X Levine poetry@chronogram.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Anne Pyburn Craig apcraig@chronogram.com

contributors

Winona Barton-Ballentine, Mike Cobb, Dan Epstein, Melissa Esposito, James Keepnews, David McIntyre, Cory Nakasue, Jeremy Schwartz, Sparrow, Jamie Stathis, Robert Burke Warren

PUBLISHING

FOUNDERS Jason Stern, Amara Projansky

PUBLISHER & CEO Amara Projansky amara.projansky@chronogram.com

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Jan Dewey jan.dewey@chronogram.com

BOARD CHAIR David Dell

sales manager

Andrea Fliakos andrea.fliakos@chronogram.com

media specialists

Kaitlyn LeLay kaitlyn.lelay@chronogram.com

Kelin Long-Gaye kelin.long-gaye@chronogram.com

Kris Schneider kris.schneider@chronogram.com Sam Brody sam.brody@chronogram.com

ad operations

Jared Winslow jared.winslow@chronogram.com

marketing

MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER

Margot Isaacs margot.isaacs@chronogram.com

SPONSORED CONTENT EDITOR

Ashleigh Lovelace ashleigh.lovelace@chronogram.com

administration

FINANCE MANAGER

Nicole Clanahan accounting@chronogram.com; (845) 334-8600

production

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Kerry Tinger kerry.tinger@chronogram.com; (845) 334-8600x108

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Kate Brodowska kate.brodowska@chronogram.com

interns

Lily Anninger, Sophie Frank, Nola Storms office

45 Pine Grove Avenue, Suite 303, Kingston, NY 12401 • (845) 334-8600

mission

Founded in 1993, Chronogram magazine offers a colorful and nuanced chronicle of life in the Hudson Valley, inviting readers into the arts, culture, and spirit of this place.

All contents © Chronogram Media 2023. ChronogramMedia.com

FISHER CENTER FALL 2023

20TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON BREAKING GROUND

FISHER CENTER LAB

SEPTEMBER 21 –

OCTOBER 1

ULYSSES: ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE FISHER CENTER LAB COMMISSION/ WORLD PREMIERE

FISHER CENTER PRESENTS

SEPTEMBER 9

OCTOBER 12–14

OCTOBER 21

BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER AT THE MONTGOMERY PLACE CAMPUS NEIL GAIMAN: THE BARD LECTURES MAYA LIN STUDIO GROUNDBREAKING AND CONCERT WITH MS. LISA FISCHER & GRAND BATON AND THE ORCHESTRA NOW

THE ORCHESTRA NOW

2023–24 SEASON SEPTEMBER 2023 – MAY 2024

BARD CONSERVATORY ORCHESTRA

SEPTEMBER 23, 24

OCTOBER 28, 29

A SYMPHONIC NIGHT AT THE MOVIES SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN PERFORMED LIVE BY THE BARD CONSERVATORY ORCHESTRA FAMILY WEEKEND CONCERT: UNCOMMON CONNECTIONS

US-CHINA MUSIC INSTITUTE

OCTOBER 6

CHINA NOW MUSIC FESTIVAL: GENERATIONAL CROSSINGS

BARD COLLEGE COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA

NOVEMBER 20

FALL CONCERT

WEDDINGS

22 Rock City Rd, Woodstock, NY | 845 679 7624 | colonywoodstock.com

esteemed reader

by Jason Stern

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past; turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame; confounds the saint with the rogue; shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why then do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present there will be power not confident but agent.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

“This stone, it rocks,” I heard my friend say as I looked up at the gray cliff with a halo of green lichen. Thinking his statement was a play on words, I looked back to see what he meant. He was sitting on a sofa-sized boulder of Shawangunk Conglomerate. The megalith gently rocked in a delicate balance atop other boulders in the talus field.

“This is my church,” he said. “I’ve been coming here for decades, my entire life.”

The man had come to climb these cliffs for so long he knew the character of each spot beneath the cliff. The rock face’s features—roofs, dihedrals, aretes, and cracks—formed a wizened and sculptural design that looked like a mashup of a gothic cathedral replete with flying buttresses and gargoyles.

Though the man had visited this place, an hour’s walk from any road, a thousand times, he was not bored but rather emanated contentment. This was his sanctuary.

“I’ve put up hundreds of new rock-climbs here, sometimes four or five in a day. None of them are documented,” he explained. “I love launching up a rock face, not knowing what I will find, and following a path that no one has taken before.”

The encounter led me back to Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” an essay that blew my mind as a teenager, particularly a line hidden in the middle of a paragraph deep in the text: “Inasmuch as the soul is present there will be power not confident but agent.”

What, practically, does Emerson mean by the soul? How can this soul be present? How does the soul become? What is this power arising from its presence that does not evoke confidence, but agency? And finally, why does the world hate the fact of its arising?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but something deep in my chest is called to inquire. I wish to know the life which avails. And to know before I am dead.

Emerson’s language suggests a praxis, a mode of striving that sacrifices the desire for success and fear of failure, that leaves off the need to prove anything to anybody and frees attention to fully engage with this perpetual moment of transition; a mode that eschews “repose.” Emerson seems to suggest that in this engagement the soul is invoked, and once present, becomes more deeply and fully itself.

This summer I’ve been rising at sunrise and walking barefoot along a mountain path. Sensing the rich texture of the stones, leaves, and earth underfoot I notice awareness expanding. I look up and see the trees glistening with the night’s rain, hear the birds and bugs rhythmic morning songs, thoughts settle down and I feel myself as a cell in a larger body.

The sound of rushing water grows louder as I approach a stream that pours down from a mountain lake and funnels into a narrow chasm of rock. Shedding clothes on the bank, I enter the water of the rushing artery all at once. I shiver and feel the chill and softness of the water on my skin. After some deep breaths, I submerge into the quiet depth. Once established below the water I relax completely and let the elemental quality of the water flow through my body and mind.

The simple reality of the elements serve as a polar attractor for deeper contact. I am invited to set aside everything I know about how things are and be touched by the qualities of rock, stream, breath, and flame.

If I accept the invitation to engage, and respond not passively, but with vigilant attention, I catch a glimpse of contact between my soul and the world. I see how readily this contact is interrupted by thoughts, desires, reactions. Nevertheless, I know it is the aim to which I must ceaselessly dart, an aim that springs from the inchoate wish rising like a vapor from deep within my breast.

A Woodstock wedding that’s uniquely yours. The Colony exudes the ambiance of a bygone era, offering your wedding a casual elegance unlike anywhere else.

KATIE ANELLO KATIE ANELLO

“Family comes first at Minard’s Family Farm. The heart and care of farming is the perfect blend of family, strong roots, and hard work. The most beautiful gift we can give to your family starts from the ground up, and we pride ourselves on the joy we bring to your family from the fruits of our labor.”

In the late ’90s, I traveled to Europe for the first time. There was no real purpose to the trip— does a 27-year-old need a reason for such a thing?—but I had arranged a series of meet-ups with friends so that I didn’t wander around lonely and homesick for three weeks wondering why I came in the first place. There’s only so many museums I can visit (though the Book of Kells is top-notch), smoky cafes I can sit in writing in my journal (the Dutch do make a fine cup of coffee, however), and tube stations I can obstruct traffic in while parsing a street map (the English seem to take pride in not helping bewildered Americans) before my mood darkens considerably. Know thyself, as the dude said.

I spent a week in London with my pal Marcus, who showed me the beauty and horror of English day drinking, the merciless national sport there. I then traveled on to Amsterdam, where I met my friend Karl, then a fellow at the Levy Institute at Bard College, who was in town for an economics conference. We spent a week biking across the Netherlands in nearly nonstop rain—turns out September is the rainy season in Friesland— before reaching Copenhagen, where we hung out in the anarchist district and Karl ate too many space cakes, and then we flew home.

But before any of that happened, I spent a week in Ireland. I was the first Mahoney to return to the Emerald Isle since my grandfather, Patrick O’Mahony, stepped off the boat at Ellis Island in 1925. I was in contact with my relations in the home county of Cork—many had visited us in New York—and had a fine time as they graciously and gregariously showed me around the ancestral turf. It was the sort of voyage of genealogical discovery and Celtic sentimentality that Aer Lingus has built a robust business around, ferrying second- and third-generation Irish-Americans across the Atlantic to commune with the ghosts of their forbears.

One particularly poignant encounter was with my great aunt Kathleen, my grandfather’s last surviving sibling, who was then in her 80s. At her modest suburban home in Bantry Bay, she made me lunch—poached flounder and boiled potatoes served with brown bread and these adorable balls of butter that I watched her form with two wooden paddles. After lunch (eaten in the kitchen), we sat down at the dining room table (reserved for special occasions) and Kathleen brought out boxes of old photographs. We spent several hours sifting through them.

She pointed out family members, now long dead, at parties, on steamships, at weddings, smoking outside the pub, posing outside a church after someone’s First Communion. Kathleen wrote captions on the backs of black-and-white photos curling up at the corners, identifying everyone she could remember. Everyone dressed in suits and hats and dresses and high-heeled shoes, even in the most casual situations: doublebreasted breakfasts and kitten-heeled dishwashing

by Brian K. Mahoney editor’s

Face Time

the Ancestral Mahoney Estate in Queens for an estate sale. And by “prepared,” I mean we had to decide if we wanted any of this shit. If we didn’t take it, the estate agent would sell it—all the thousands of things my family had accumulated over the 75 years we had been living in the house. Vases. Books. A baby grand piano. A collection of hatchets. Enough tools to outfit a fledgling contractor. A decorative trumpet. Half-filled bottles of booze (which sold). Neckties. A blowup canoe, still in the box. Furniture both antique and pressboard. Three Cuisinarts. Comic books. Pots and pans.

And more. So much more. More like the scrapbook my great grandmother kept of her European vacation in 1957 at the age of 73. More like my mother’s recipe book. More like a footlocker full of my grandmother’s press clippings from when she was a radio and TV show host in the ’40s and ’50s. Nancy—no one called my grandmother anything but Nancy—got a lot of fan mail for her show, “Woman of Tomorrow,” which was a hit with housewives, as they were then called, as the letters attest. Nancy died when I was 10, before my sister was born and before my brothers got to know her. The footlocker now sits in the back of my attic like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (Nancy died on Friday, June 5, 1981. Raiders was released one week later. Coincidence?!?)

and throwing the ball to the dog in the backyard in pressed trousers and brogues.

These were my sixth and seventh cousins and whatnot, but they were her grandparents and aunts and uncles and parents—a long parade of dead relations who surely meant something to her, but whose existence would likely yield diminishing emotional returns down the generations.

Many of the photos contained people Kathleen couldn’t identify, and she set them aside in a separate pile. After a while she got up and fetched a wastepaper basket and threw the pictures away.

When I asked why, Kathleen replied: “I’m the last of my generation. If I don’t know who these people are, then nobody does.” She said this matter-offactly, without a note of sadness or bitterness. The people in these photos were now forgotten—to Kathleen and to our family history. Throwing away the photos was just a task she was saving someone else from after she died, a tidying up.

I was thinking of my visit with Kathleen 25 years ago recently as my siblings and I prepared

Standing amidst all of the family detritus, my brother and sister and I were a tad overwhelmed. All this stuff we didn’t want, all these objects imbued with meaning if only because they surrounded us as children. A family’s things all up for sale. If I owned a bigger house I would have stuffed it to the gills with the china cabinet and the piano, if only to stave off the terrible feeling of finality.

We left behind the La-Z-Boy chairs and the wall-mounted antique mirror the size of small movie screen but we couldn’t leave the photos. Over several decades our mother had mounted a salon-style installation of family photos on the walls along the stairs between the second and third floor. We grabbed a lot of them but not all of them—some were duplicates of photos we already had, some were of people none of us knew. And who wants photos of strangers? One photo I did take was of a chunky toddler and his mother and his Binky the Boy Bear. Someday this photo will matter to no one, but for now it means everything to me.

The Cheese Is Not Alone BIMI’S CANTEEN AND BAR

By Melissa Esposito Photos by Christian Harder

Afarmer, a Michelin-starred chef, and a fireman walk into a bar. There’s no punchline; this was part of an actual scene during the opening week at Chatham’s new dining hot spot, Bimi’s Canteen and Bar. And it’s the exact type of community commingling the owners were hoping for when they opened in early June.

“We’re a Hudson Valley restaurant,” says Ellen Waggett, who runs Bimi’s with her husband, Christopher Landy. “By that I mean we serve food with locally sourced ingredients, as much as possible, to the eclectic community we’re in—from first responders, to business owners, to local celebrities.”

The pair have owned Bimi’s Cheese Shop, which is next door, for the last decade. There, they sell cheese sourced from both global and local purveyors, along with counter-service sandwiches, espresso, and more.

The idea to open a restaurant began as a suggestion from the building’s landlord. For self-proclaimed opportunists Landy and Waggett, it doesn’t take much more than a bright idea and a brainstorm to get momentum going on new projects. “We both have entrepreneurial spirits,” Landy says. “So when the space became available, our landlord suggested we expand. And when opportunities are presented, we tend to jump on them.”

Landy and Waggett began renovating the storefront in January 2020—so, you know what happened next. “The journey was hard, with a lot of delays between COVID and supply chain issues,” Waggett says. On top of that, both the owners each have their own careers. Landy is an Emmy-award winning lighting designer who has done work for MTV,

NBC, Oprah, and other top names in showbiz, and Waggett has been at NBC for 15 years as a production designer, working on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and many other shows. “We create experiences for a living, so of course that’s something we’d bring to our businesses,” she says. And with a show-must-go-on mentality, they designed distinctive atmospheres in the streetside Canteen and downstairs bar.

Rustic brick, warm lighting, and wood tones create an inviting vibe at the Canteen; that warmth extends to the bar, which has more of a speakeasy feel. “When we opened the cheese store, it was important to us to make it friendly and unintimidating—cheese isn’t a fancy experience, it’s a delicious experience,” Waggett says. “So we wanted the same feeling at the Canteen: fresh, elegant, delicious food in a welcoming atmosphere that you can enjoy whether it’s your birthday or just a Monday.”

They brought on Chef Josh Kelly, a Chatham native with a profound appreciation of fresh, local food, who’s worked as a culinary director and executive chef at establishments in New York and Colorado Springs. Beverage Director Andrey Matseyev, formerly of New York City’s Restaurant Daniel and Cafe Boulud in the Berkshires, manages the bar, where you’ll find creative cocktails and a curated selection of wines.

The restaurant officially opened in June with a limited menu that includes three mainstays: macaroni gratin with candied tomatoes, bacon lardons, and cheese; a bouillabaisse in a rich saffron-tomato broth; and a burger made with Grimaldi Farms beef plus broiled raclette, shallot jam, and heirloom tomato.

“So far, we’ve sold out every night. The three standards will stay, but the menu will eventually expand,” Waggett explains. “We’ll also have some basic categories—listed as The Steak, The Pork, The Fish, and so on—that aren’t set, to give our chef the opportunity to change with the seasons, the week, or based on what’s available at farms or markets.”

Meet the farmer/purveyor/maker events are on the horizon, as is private event booking. And of course, the duo are already planning their next ven ture: a gelato shop one door over, also under the Bimi umbrella.

“Bimi’s is named after my mother; it was her grandmommy name,” Waggett says. She explains that Bimi was an international attorney, so the family traveled often. “Her favorite thing to do was find markets wherever she traveled and buy local cheese and wine to bring home to enjoy with friends. Years ago, I found a letter she wrote when I was five, in response to me asking if cheese only came from France. She said she’d find all the places with good cheese for me. I didn’t remember the note, but we had already ended up naming the shop after her, so it was fitting.”

“She was pretty incredible and touched so many people’s lives,” Landy adds. “And through the shop and Canteen, she still can.”

Bimi’s Cheese Shop is open daily, and the Canteen and Bar is open Thursday through Monday from 5 to 10pm. Reservations are highly encouraged and can be made online through Resy. @bimiscanteen.

Beverage Director Andrey Matseyev mixing a drink behind the bar.

Opposite: Bimi’s Canteen’s is the restaurant extension of beloved Bimi’s Cheese Shop, which has been in business for a decade.

Sister Act

UNIVERSAL CAFE & BAR IN GERMANTOWN

By Melissa Esposito

After decades spent apart on opposite sides of the country, two sisters have reconnected with their Hudson Valley roots to run an inn and restaurant in Germantown.

Leslie Carr-Avalos and her sister Julia Carr grew up together in Red Hook but their paths diverged as adults: Julia headed to the city while Leslie jetted to San Francisco. There, Leslie became a line cook at American-style restaurant Universal Cafe before purchasing the business just two years later. She ran the cafe for nearly two decades, closing in 2021.

“The closure was a result of the pandemic, but I think that time gave some of us clarity about what we really want in life, and how to move forward in getting to that next phase,” Leslie says. For her, that included being closer to her sister and family back home. But she hadn’t given up on the idea of running a restaurant.

The two sisters saw an opportunity to purchase one of the most well-known and historic buildings in Germantown: the Central House. In previous lives, the building served as a brothel, speakeasy, stage coach house, and multiple restaurants. In its last iteration, it was set up as an inn with restaurant space.

“The building is from 1876 and the owner we bought it from was running it as a B&B,” Leslie explains. “We visited one day and fell in love with space, thinking it might be something we could take on and reinvent together.” They bought it in October 2022 and started renovating right away.

The pair kept the name Central House, but upgraded the hotel’s six bedrooms, common areas, cozy lounge spots, bar, and dining room with decor they describe as “eclectic, whimsical, and modern.” Designer Eduardo Rodriguez matched bold statements like a black-and-white buffaloplaid ceiling in the breakfast room with toneddown elements like white country cabinetry and rattan furniture. Subtle whimsy continues by the bar where you’ll find a large gold-framed portrait hanging upside-down near traditional-style lamps illuminating organically shaped pottery.

The space allowed for a renewed version of Leslie’s former restaurant concept, now dubbed Universal Cafe & Bar. “It’s a beautiful, fresh, fun new space,” says Julia. “Plus, Central House wasn’t open to the public before, so now the restaurant provides a place both for visitors and locals to gather.”

Open since March, the eatery focuses on small plates that add a fine dining twist to New American bites. “The menu changes often because we want to stay seasonal and as locally sourced as possible,” Leslie says. Ingredients are mainly sourced from nearby farms and purveyors, including Kinderhook Farm, Northwind Farms, Montgomery Place, and the sisters’ own gardens.

The menu is divided by three sections: snacks, sharing, and desserts. Popular options include a spicy fried chicken sandwich with buttermilk dressing and a fresh cabbage slaw ($18), chicken liver parfait with grilled bread and cherry-shallot jam ($15), and a smashed cucumber salad with radishes, sumac, mint, and feta-labneh ($16).

Desserts are made in-house and will change seasonally, as well; currently you can find items like a peach-blueberry crisp with French vanilla ice cream ($15) or chocolate pot de creme ($12).

The bar features 10 beers on tap including local favorites like Mill House Brewing, Vosburgh Brewing, and Sloop Brewing Co. Or, opt for a seasonal cocktail; bar manager Tom Turck, formerly of shuttered Mexican hotspot Modern Taco, elevates spirits with housemade syrups and fruit purees. This season features inventive options like Grilled Pineapple Mezcal Sour with habanero syrup, lime, and chili oil; or Flor de Soul with chamomile-infused vodka, sherry, Meyer lemon, honey, and egg white (all cocktails $16).

The nearly 150-year-old building also boasts an elegant-yet-contemporary event space that can accommodate about 100 guests. White marble tables paired with black Shaker-style seating stand out against light gray board-and-batten walls adorned with contemporary art.

“We’re part of a really vibrant community, so we like being creative and elegant, but in a way that’s warm and welcoming,” Leslie says.

“It’s exciting to own a beautiful property and be able to host people from all over,” Julie adds. “And we both live nearby—we’re finally together after so many years apart, welcoming people to gather in a space that’s become like a second home for us. It’s really a dream.”

Central House reservations can be made online, and Universal Cafe & Bar is open Thursday through Sunday from 4 to 10 pm, serving food from 5 to 9pm. 220 Main Street, Germantown. @universalcafe_ny.

Red Hook natives Julia Carr and Leslie Carr-Avalos returned to the region recently to run the Central House in Germantown, a six-room hotel with Universal Cafe & Bar, a New American restaurant. Menu items include a cheese board as well as a spicy fried chicken sandwich with buttermilk dressing.

sips & bites

Ollie’s Slice Shop

580 Broadway, Kingston

In the former Tony’s Pizzeria in Kingston, the owners of Ollie’s Pizza in High Falls opened a slice shop and a provisions market in neighboring storefronts in early August. A sit-down wine bar/bistro, dubbed Eliza, will follow later this month. A shared commissary, responsible for everything from dough production to whole animal butchery, drives a vertically integrated business model that will supply all the restaurants. At Ollie’s Slice Shop, order by the customizable slice ($3.50-$5) or get a 20-inch pie to go ($23-$28). Garlic knots, a meatball parm hero, and a couple of salads round out the shortbut-sweet menu. Fletcher & Lu market is stocked with a rotating selection of products made in-house that might range from sausages and burger patties to bone broth, brisket, and pate. Eliza will be chef Chris Bradley’s American take on the European neighborhood bistro, with an emphasis on small plates that can be mixed and matched to meet any occasion or appetite. @ollies.slice.shop

Ravish Liquors

47 South River Street, Coxsackie

“Antiques in the front. Party in the back.” Like the triumphant return of the mullet, Sara Miller’s genre-defying Coxsackie storefront shoehorns two disparate concepts into one 1870s firehouse, steps away from the Hudson River. Up front, UnQuiet displays the former Saveur editor’s aesthetic and zeal for oddities with a curated selection of furniture, art, and decor. In the back, Ravish Liquors, “a speakeasy with a Southern accent,” is a small, cozy space with dark wallpaper and a rotating menu of small Dixie-inflected bites, from rotel dip ($5) to the crawfish etouffee ($18) and succotash salad ($12). There’s also liquor, wine, sake, beer, and live music most Saturdays.  @ravishliquors

Beans Cat Cafe, New Paltz

11 Church Street, New Paltz

After nearly three years in Beacon and close to 500 cat adoptions, Beans Cat Cafe opened a second location in New Paltz in mid-July. Just in time for the new semester, the New Paltz spot blends classic cafe offerings with cat therapy, all with the goal of finding homes for as many kitties as possible. In the cat room, visitors can reserve time to play with foster cats provided by the Hudson Valley Animal Rescue and Sanctuary. On the cafe side, customers can order all classic espresso drinks plus fun seasonal specials, freshly squeezed lemonade, and sweet treats from Highland-based Mad Batters Pastries. Beans Cat Cafe is the perfect place to unwind and recharge with some cat therapy and coffee.

@beanscatcafe

The Print House, Fleischmanns

1070 Main Street, Fleischmanns

When the room isn’t filled with the sounds of live music, records spin on the turntable at the Print House, a new vinyl bar in the Delaware County village of Fleischmanns. After a 25-year career in television and film, Joe Devito has returned to his lifelong passions of music and food with this new venture. The menu offers flavors of DeVito’s childhood like his Grandma’s classic meatballs ($12) served in a cast iron skillet, as well as fresh flatbreads ($12-$18), and locally sourced options like the farm-fresh cheeseboard. Located in a circa-1905 print shop with tall tin ceilings and crowned molding, the restored space offers a cozy spot to hear music and catch up with friends over craft cocktails.

@printhouseny

La Barbirria, Beacon

389 Main Street, Beacon

Step into La Barbirria, the buzzy new Mexican spot on Beacon’s Main Street. Quesadillas and burritos are notably absent from the menu, which is divided into four groupings: entrees, appetizers, street tacos, and soups and salads. The tacos are all $5 and under apiece and are served with corn tortillas that are hand-pressed daily in-house. Proteins include blackened salmon with chipotle sauce, marinated pork with pineapple, and chili shrimp. Entrees like the carne adobada (pork) and arrachera (steak) showcase the birria method of slow-cooking meat. The menu also includes aguachile, a dish akin to ceviche that offers a choice of shrimp ($16) or scallops ($21) marinated in a lime with a cucumber, jalapeno, and cilantro broth. For drinks, habanero and jalapeno margaritas and Mexican beers are the specialties, plus refreshing, non-alcoholic aguas frescas like cucumber-lime and hibiscus flower.

Labarbirria.com

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Apizza!

121 Main Street, New Paltz, (845) 419-2744, Coalovenpizza.org

One would be forgiven for thinking that the menu at New Paltz’s Apizza! would be limited to just the perfectly crispy-bottomed, coal-fired pies that have made the restaurant a local mainstay since its 2021 opening. While Adam Monteverde—the pizzaiolo who once helmed the oven at the Grimaldi’s outpost in the very same space on Main Street—does turn out dozens of pizzas each day alongside his partner Lauren Mias, Apizza’s seasonally rotating dinner menu is actually home to a quiet red sauce renaissance.

A Woodstock native and Culinary Institute graduate, Monteverde worked in high-end kitchens across the country, including a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco, before returning home to the Hudson Valley to open Mexican Kitchen in New Paltz in 2015. With the opening of Apizza!, Monteverde is paying homage to the homey Italian dishes he grew up eating around his family table, but with a refined spin.

In addition to lovable menu mainstays like the baked clams oreganata, arancini, meatballs, and house Caesar salad, the list of weekly rotating specials features elevated takes on rustic regional Italian dishes like polenta with local mushrooms, chickpeas with fresh trofie pasta and prosciutto, and roasted shrimp salmoriglio, a classic Southern Italian sauce of lemon juice and garlic.

Local ingredients define the direction of the menu, with produce from Story Farm in Catskill making an appearance in several dishes each week. And whether it’s the pizzas, entrees, or the Italian bread, olive loaves, ciabatta, and focaccia that are baked fresh daily, few dishes don’t pass through the impressive coal-fired brick oven at the center of the restaurant. The distinctive texture and flavor is a large part of what has made other coal-oven pizzerias, including Grimaldi’s and Lombardi’s in New York City and Frank Pepe’s and Sally’s Apizza in New Haven, so popular.

When it comes to dessert, Apizza! specializes in old-fashioned desserts and pastries like lemon olive oil cake, flourless chocolate vistorta served with vanilla bean gelato, a variety of old-fashioned cookies, and more—all made from scratch in-house. There’s also a house cocktail on offer daily and wines by the carafe. Medium-bodied, Central Italian classics like Montepulciano and volcanic Sicilian varieties like Etna Rosso and Etna Bianco anchor the list and pair well with a diversity of dishes, while a few expertly curated natural wines are always available to lend a bit of fun flair to any meal.

Peekamoose Restaurant

8373 State Route 28, Big Indian, NY, (845) 254-6500

peekamooserestaurant.com

Pioneers of the farm-to-table movement, The Peekamoose Restaurant’s menu changes daily with the seasonal bounty, reflecting the close relationships that the Mills have established with local farmers. Chef Devin Mills grew up in the Catskills and spent his formative years working for some of the top eateries in Manhattan. Nightly bonfires, imaginative cocktails, and locally sourced farmhouse cuisine make this spot a must-visit. Peekamoose is celebrating their 20th year of being a Catskills destination.

Kingston Wine Co.

65 Broadway, Kingston, NY, (845) 340-9463, kingstonwine.com

An “indie” wine shop, carrying a bespoke collection of unique bottles–located in the beautiful and walkable Rondout waterfront district of Kingston. The store carries an array of meticulously curated options, hand-picked by a knowledgeable staff happy to guide casual enthusiasts and experts alike. Specializing across small-scale, natural, local, and otherwise independentleaning wine producers. Offers local and nationwide delivery, as well as in-store shopping.

Angie’s Bake Shop & Cafe

116 Main Street, Cold Spring, Angiebakeshop.com

During the pandemic, Angie Speranza turned to baking as a comforting and delicious way to bring a smile to her friends’ and neighbors’ faces. Within just a few months, requests for orders of her sweet treats had encouraged the former film and TV exec and her partner and IT exec Ken Zuidema to begin searching for a spot near their Carmel home to open their own bakery.

In 2022, Angie’s Bake Shop & Cafe opened on Main Street in Cold Spring with a small, lovingly curated menu of baked goods, sandwiches, salads, and drinks. Baked fresh each morning, Angie’s masterful spins on indulgent classics have quickly become the talk of the town. From jumbo streusel-topped muffins to best-selling giant cookies, blueberry soft scones, and the crazy-popular lemon pound squares, there’s something for everyone to sink their sweet tooth into— plus loaves of sourdough, challah, focaccia, and more to take home.

Craving a savory start to the day? The wildly popular stuffed Southern biscuit with bacon, egg, and cheese (or sans bacon for any veggie-minded folks) is sure to satisfy. By 11am, Ken’s sandwich wizardry is on full display. The hearty, crowd-pleasing offerings include house-made roast beef with fresh horseradish sauce on a crunchy demi baguette, turkey and brie, a caprese with sundried tomato pesto, and the “Cavado”—a vegan caprese with sliced avocado. Seasonal salads showcasing late summer and fall produce are sure to refresh, while soups and from-scratch hot cocoa make cozying up at the cafe a treat.

Maeve’s Place

5569 Route 28, Phoenicia, NY, (845) 688-0299, Maevesplace.com

The inspiration for Maeve’s Place is founder Iva Walsh’s daughter. After Maeve, who has Down Syndrome, graduated from high school, Iva decided to open a coffee shop where Maeve and others with intellectual and developmental disabilities could learn valuable work and social skills.

Originally opened in the Pine Hill Arms, Maeve’s Place moved to a larger home in Phoenicia Plaza in 2020. On offer is a full menu of coffee and espresso drinks—from the mega-popular nitro cold brew to inventive lattes and icy frappes—and a robust, rotating menu of made-to-order breakfast and lunch items.

Start your day with a bagel with lox, pearl sugar waffles with nutella, or eggs benedict. Pop in at lunch to enjoy lighter fare like the acai bowl, ahi tuna salad, or falafel bowl, or go full-on indulgent with the mac and cheese or short rib banh mi. You’ll also find an ethereal array of sweets in the bakery case from the shop’s Culinary Institute-trained pastry chef, and on Fridays and Sundays, Maeve is at the smoothie station whipping up the freshest blends.

With cozy indoor seating and a sunny outdoor deck, there’s ample room to stay a while and savor your favorite coffee or a tasty meal with friends and family. And don’t forget to browse the gourmet items sourced from local Catskills and imported European purveyors. Pre-made picnic baskets, Maeve’s Place private label pickles, preserves, vinegars, and oils, and Maeve’s Pretty Face, a selection of handcrafted skincare products developed by Maeve, make great gifts.

MISTO

(845) 750-1939, misto-eats.com

Lauded chef Wilson Costa and his wife Nadia, launched MISTO in 2020 to keep fresh, delicious food rolling into neighbor’s homes. Now find them catering events or popping up everywhere in the Hudson Valley. MISTO is an homage to their mixed cultures Brazilian and Ukrainian, and the food is inspired heaven. They superbly grill lamb, chicken and porchetta on a wood-fired custom spit, even regular burgers shine. Their baked goods are often gluten free and divine, and veggies spring from gardens. Search! misto-eats.com

Tabla

6033 Main Street, Tannersville, NY, (518) 589-4008, tablacatskills.com

Tabla, a new Mediterranean restaurant on Main Street in Tannersville opened November of 2021 and quickly became a local favorite. Their team created a menu that emphasizes Mediterranean regional fare and friends and family coming together through the lens of the Catskills’ local and seasonal ingredients. The standouts are the pasta program specials and the mezzes meant to be shared. Pair that with their thoughtful but unfussy wine list and superb craft cocktails served by their attentive wait staff and it is the place to gather for any occasion.

Charlotte’s

4258 Route 44, Millbrook, NY, (845) 677-5888, charlottesny.com

Originally a c.1830’s church, now an established restaurant in the Millbrook Hunt Country serving all your favorites. In winter, relax by one of the wood burning fireplaces and enjoy a bottle from the award-winning cellar. In the summer, enjoy a Mango Margarita in the outdoor garden. Perfect for a dinner for two or a family reunion. Event rooms available.

Casita

1111 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, Casitaberkshires.com

The seed for Justin and Mariah Forstmann’s new restaurant, Casita, was planted when they parked Chingón Taco Truck in the courtyard at MASS MoCA in North Adams in 2020. After the pandemic shuttered the restaurants where the couple had been working in Portland, Oregon, the Connecticut natives landed back on the East Coast to plan their next move.

With Justin’s 10-plus years working as a chef in Mexican restaurants and Mariah’s experience in front-of-house, the couple fixed up a food truck and hit the road for a northeast brewery tour. That’s when Bright Ideas Brewing at MASS MoCA came calling, and Chingón’s reputation for some of the best tacos in the Berkshires took off.

This summer, the Forstmanns opened the doors to Casita—a colorful 70-seat dining room with a full bar and patio located in the museum’s Building 11. At lunch, the Forstmanns are still serving up fan-favorites like tacos with achiotemarinated chicken, fried avocado, and carnitas and their hamburguesa (a double smash patty with pickled jalapenos and chipotle mayonesa).

At night, the menu takes an ambitious turn into more complex regional Mexican preparations. Late summer’s seafood dishes with Yucatan influences like ceviche, aguachile, and grilled tamarind prawns keep things bright, while autumn promises an exploration of time-intensive moles inspired by Puebla and Oaxaca. A commitment to sourcing from Berkshires farmers and suppliers runs through every dish, with specialty ingredients like purple tomatillos, epazote, and hoja santa grown in collaboration with 328North and Full Well Farm.

Rachel Hoffman Photography

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Roger Ross and Eric Bongartz’s stone house is steeped in regional history. Once known as the “old fort,” the oldest part of the structure dates from the 1680s and was successively added onto through the Revolutionary War. “We have artifacts dug from the property,” says Ross, an antique collector and dealer, as well as a realtor. The pieces collected include bags of white sculpted clay pipes, glass, pottery, and strap hinges. “There’s even a silver shoe buckle I found last year.”

Every corner of Roger Ross’s three-acre Wawarsing property is rich with history, and Ross is devoted to unearthing as much of it as he can. “ This house shows the good, the bad, and the truly ugly of America’s story,” explains Ross, who shares the home with his life partner, Eric Bongartz. The two have spent the last 15 years researching, honoring, and living in the 300-year-old Dutch Colonial farmhouse at the property ’s center.

Once part of a larger Lenape settlement, the land was burned by militiamen in 1663 and a few years later became the center of one of the region’s first Colonialera farms. Now known as the “Depuy-Dewitt House,” after the prominent families who built and enlarged the home over the centuries, the four-bedroom’s legacy is in the hands of Ross and Bongartz. “We have to tell the story in the best way we know how and not sugarcoat it,” says Ross. “Ultimately, I believe I’m a steward.”

Two antiques collectors grapple with history in Wawarsing

By Mary Angeles Armstrong

Photos by Winona Barton-Ballentine

Time in a Bottle

The first thing Ross noticed about the property that would one day be his home was that it sat slightly askew. “ Most of the homes that I grew up with were perfectly squared and perfectly measured,” recalls Ross, who is a native of nearby Liberty. “ But this home was set at an angle.” The 3,000-square-foot structure—part fir and chestnut farmhouse, part stone fortress made from local rock—was built by French Huguenot refugees, descendants of the king ’s guards at Fontainebleau. They sought refuge from religious persecution in the fledgling British colony.

Punctuating the home’s stone walls were intermittent eyebrow and gabled windows with substantial shutters. “I could tell the shutters were built for protection. Not the rinky-dinky things they put on modern houses for show,” explains Ross. Mature tulip trees reached across the surrounding gardens 250 years into the past. “ They had the largest canopy I’d ever seen in the region,” says Ross. “It was like a botanical garden. The home, all of it, just stopped me in my tracks.”

Ross was still a kid when he first encountered the property—passing by regularly on trips to visit his sister in Albany—but he had already begun collecting the antique bottles he found around his hometown. He was developing an eye as well as a deep appreciation for history; and

maybe he sensed a kinship with the property ’s history. Like the home’s original builders, Ross’s mother—a resistance fighter in World War II—also left France behind for the new world. Ross’s father came from Sullivan County and his paternal family has roots steeped in the region. On one of those trips he told his parents, “Someday I want a house like that,” he explains. “And they told me that if I worked hard, I could have anything I wanted.”

Ross did work hard: First parlaying his fascination with antique bottles into a small business, selling them to neighbors and local shop owners. Those local shop owners educated him on the pieces he found and nurtured his love for history and antiques. “ I was just a kid but my community really allowed me to flourish,” he explains. “ I’ll always be grateful to those shopkeepers and neighbors. They were my first teachers and they helped me find my path.”

After high school Ross eventually made his way to New York City, where he worked as an executive recruiter in a talent acquisition company for 30 years. He kept collecting antiques, as well as buying and selling historic furniture, documents, and art on the side. Over time he amassed a robust collection, and a detailed knowledge of the pieces he found. Ross met Bongartz, who worked for an interior design firm, in Manhattan, and together they decided to return to Ulster County.

The home’s living room was built in 1716 and now is home to much of Ross’s antique collection. A collection 18th-century watercolor and oil paintings depicting scenes of the European countryside and village life hang on the walls. On either side of the mantel are shadowboxes filled with French family heirlooms, including surgical scissors inherited from Ross’s grandmother, the chief nurse at Pitie Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, and writing instruments from his Parisian great-grandparents.

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The primary bedroom includes the original floorboards insulated with jute and hemp rope. At the foot of the bed is Rachel Dewitt’s 1775 dowry chest which was passed along by the home’s previous owner. In the course of researching the home, Ross uncovered the records of five enslaved residents who lived and worked on the property during the 18th century. Ross purchased the portrait about 10 years ago in Stone Ridge; signed on the back is the inscription “A. Short.” “I loved the painting the moment I saw it,” explains Ross.

“Our home has a mixed history and I’ve made it her room. Every night I pay my respects, and thank her and all the other people who came before me, for the opportunity to steward this home.”

Set in Stone

The couple initially began looking for a house where Ross could also accommodate his mother, who still lived in Liberty. “I’d lived in very modern houses up to that point and I wanted to go in a different direction,” says Ross. He began looking for stone homes in the area and eventually came across the Wawarsing property. “It looked very familiar,” he explains. “ Then I realized it was the home I’d driven by all those years before.” Ross went to meet the owner, Rosemary McBride, whose family had cared for the house for the previous 50 years. The two hit it off instantly, and realized they were likeminded about preserving the legacy property. “ We hit it off almost instantly,” he explains. “I felt something was almost surreal when I walked into the house. It really felt meant to be.” He bought the restored home soon after and the couple moved in while his mother visited on weekends. Ross began investigating the structure’s history and coming to terms with the past. Dating from the 1680s, the oldest part of the home was built by Nicholas Depuy and now contains the kitchen and dining room, all dominated by a giant stone hearth. The primary bedroom—which was originally

a garret for storing food—is above. Built at an angle to maximize southeastern exposure, the few windows in the two-to-three-foot thick stone walls fill the space with sunlight. “ The original builders really knew how to build and position a house,” explains Ross. “ We’ve been through both Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. This house stayed dry when neighbors were flooded.”

In 1716 the Depuy grandchildren added additional living areas to the end of the structure with another large bedroom on the second floor. The original 22-inch wood floorboards and wood ceiling beams stretch throughout the first-floor living areas. An additional office space and third bedroom upstairs were added in 1783 when the property passed into the Dewitt family through marriage. McBride left Ross with some of the home’s historic furniture and Ross has added some of his own antique furniture and art. He also framed and hung historical documents passed along by the McBrides. In one of the guest bedrooms, a carved chest was owned by Rachel Dewitt—the aunt of the New York governor DeWitt Clinton—a memento of the time when the Dewitt family lived in the house.

In the kitchen, a collection of antique copper pots hangs above a portrait of Italian bakers from the early 20th century. Both the photo subjects and the 150-year-old pot makers are anonymous. However, Ross has always had a deep respect and fascination with handcrafted works. “There is a piece of each individual in everything I pick up, touch and look at,” he explains. “Many people live on in their artistry. I feel we have a duty to learn our local history. “

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Closer to History

In front of the house a plaque marks the spot where a 1781 Revolutionary War battle ended. After a protracted local battle between the colonists and the British and Native American soldiers, colonist settlers fled the burning town of Wawarsing and gathered in the stone house, called “the old fort.” The plaque states that a 16-year-old settler shot the native chief from the second-floor window, ending the battle. The plaque, and the history it described, disturbed Ross from the beginning of his time in the house. In the course of his research, he’s uncovered other unsettling facts. “I found records that show there were five enslaved people living here in the 1700s,” says Ross. “It ’s hard to wrap my mind around it. “

The facts of the home’s history upset him, but then he dedicated himself to telling the home’s true story as he learned it. “I asked my historian friends, what should I do with the plaque?” He explains, at first wanting to remove it. “But at least it’s the beginning of telling the story of the area. I hope people research the story from there. I won’t take down the plaque: I think I have to live with that history.”

Ross and Bongartz, with their dog Sadie. Besides their love of restoring and sharing old houses, the two share a passion for antiques.

A historic photo of the home before the dormers were added is stored in the Library of Congress. “This house as many of the stone houses in our area had enslaved people and a very mixed history with the native people in the area,” says Ross. “Some of the history is very sad, some beautiful, some negative, and some positive. But as much as possible today it’s all acknowledged.”

Space Is the Place

CONNECTING HEALTH AND NATURE

By Jaime Stathis

This fall, SUNY Sullivan is offering a new course— Creating and Activating Public Spaces—as part of the Catskill Hospitality Institute. This class is offered through the Humanities department, so it’s open to everyone, even if they’re not enrolled in a hospitalityfocused certificate or degree program. SUNY Sullivan’s Hospitality and Tourism program has historically been more culinary-focused, but Justine Hoskin—the director for the past year—is adding new energy to the program with an increased focus on relationship building.

“You have the opportunity to change the trajectory of somebody’s day through hospitality,” Hoskin says. “Maybe a guest had a hell of a month at work, and they’re coming to you to rest,” she says. “You have the opportunity to smile and convey hospitality, and if you can remember that they like a bourbon before bed and maybe a cookie, you’re keeping a lost art alive.”

Hoskin’s refreshed program empowers students as individuals to think creatively in their approach to service so they can operate outside the proverbial rulebook. That might look like making someone’s day with a perfect cup of coffee fixed the way they like it, sending a handwritten thank-you note, or remembering a family’s preferences when they return to your resort every summer for a week-long stay. “Anybody on campus can benefit from these skills,” Hoskin says. “And if you start with a hospitality degree, you can go anywhere with it.”

A Natural Partnership

The new public spaces course is a collaboration between SUNY Sullivan and Sullivan 180. “We should be connecting the dots with others who believe in a healthier lifestyle,” Hoskin says about the natural partnership with Sullivan 180, a nonprofit “dedicated to building a healthy community through people, places, and policy; with an intentional focus on prevention and empowering a healthier generation.”

Sullivan County’s natural beauty has attracted people since the Lenni-Lenape settled here. Still, despite all of the clean air, beauty, and outdoor opportunities, the county ranks poorly for health outcomes and high for challenges like childhood obesity and overdose. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings places Sullivan County at number 61 out of 62 New York counties, just above the Bronx. Delaware County is number 46, Ulster County is number 24, Duchess County is number 17, Columbia County is number 16, and Greene County is number 50, to name a few nearby counties for perspective.

The public space course will focus on health and wellness and how public spaces benefit the community’s residents and tourists. “Parks and public space are experiencing a reinvigorated urgency since the pandemic,” says Shannon Cilento, Sullivan 180’s Community Development and Communications Manager who will teach the course. “Parks and public space have always been special,” Cilento says, “but we now see the value of meeting in person instead of on the phone or Zoom—maybe taking a walk while we chat— and we now know how dangerous social isolation is and how important it is for our mental health to have access to nature, fresh air, and each other.”

Sullivan 180 was formed by the Gerry Foundation in 2016 and runs programs such as the Beautification Program to improve the aesthetics of public spaces through planting foliage, removing trash, and fostering a sense of ownership and pride of place for residents through working together to beautify public spaces. Another Sullivan 180 program is the Catskill Edible Garden Project, which highlights gardens as both producers of nutritious food and gathering places.

Big Changes Take Time

Cilento points out that the Sullivan 180 logo is a turtle. “The reason our logo is a turtle is because of the tortoise and the hare fable,” Cilento says. “These are generational things that we’re trying to address, and they will take time.” Sullivan 180 is in it for the long haul and is committed to improving residents’ health outcomes. Cilento is bringing many of these same ideologies to the public spaces course.

“The curriculum is really fun,” Cilento says. “I think it’s very well rounded because it’s not just about the elements of the physical design—the lighting, the seating, etc.—but it’s about how those pieces influence the community.” Cilento will encourage students to think broadly about how lighting, for example, is essential when creating inviting places. Parks need benches and areas for people to sit and gather in nature, but it’s also essential that they feel safe there, and lighting could be the crucial detail that makes or breaks an outdoor space.

“A goal of the course is to create students who recognize the power of being a citizen and the power of their voice to be able to articulate and impact change,” Cilento says. The course will be open to any student— from first-year students to adults doing continuing education—and there’s no prerequisite. “Because it’s

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“We hope the students will all stay in Sullivan County,” Cilento says, laughing, “but the truth is they’re going to be citizens of a community wherever they go, and as community members, they’ll have the opportunity to impact change and give feedback to help make changes.” Cilento will cultivate awareness in the students as community members and teach them how to notice what a park might need as far as upgrades, how to make uninviting spaces more appealing, and how to rally around a vacant lot as the community imagines its reinvigorated future together.

Engaging the Senses

The public spaces course will meet once a week, on Fridays, for three hours, so there will be time for lectures and field trips. As they discover the power of placemaking—the design and management of public spaces to inspire people and center public spaces at the heart of communities— Cilento will lead them through the practicalities of how to create welcoming public spaces.

“I like to encourage people to use their five senses when evaluating a place because those are things that you can’t absorb from a textbook and only get through experiencing it in real life,” Cilento says. “Are there sounds? Do you hear nature? Do you hear people interacting? Do you hear people engaging in sports—a basketball bouncing? Do you smell great things coming from a food truck? Are there flowers blooming?”

Ac

As students assess a place with their senses, Cilento will ask them to sit and witness it. She’ll ask them if they see people interacting with the space, talking to each other, playing games, reading, or maybe just walking through with their dogs. “There’s so much that you can gain about a place being there physically, so there’s going to be a big field trip component,” Cilento says. “We have some places we want them to see in the community firsthand.”

Historical Sites Reimagined

September

&

One place Cilento’s students will visit is Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which, like Sullivan 180, was founded and sponsored by the Gerry Foundation. Cilento loves Bethel Woods as an example for the students because it’s a historic site that was successfully reimagined for the present while mindfully honoring the history of the place. “It’s such a phenomenal example of a space that so many tourists come to,” Cilento says. “They invest money into the community, stay at hotels and Airbnbs, go to restaurants, and of course, they come for concerts.”

Bethel Woods has a section of woods known during the original 1969 Woodstock Festival as the Bindy Bazaar. There were vendors in there— people making and selling art, camping—and the museum at Bethel Woods has partnered with archaeological and hospitality experts to identify exactly where the trails were and recreate them so people can walk through and experience through interpretive programming what it was like.

“Their senior curator, Neal Hitch, is phenomenal,” Cilento says. “He wants the museum to be a living thing that’s continually giving people new, multidimensional experiences,” she explains. “I want to get the students out there to see the potential of historical sites to be something people can interact with in the present day and create their own memories and histories there.”

Public spaces are generally public parks and facilities, main streets, and places anyone can visit without a fee. One way to gain access to sites with a fee is to use the passes offered by libraries. Library passes are usually limited to residents of that town, but it’s worth looking into what local libraries offers.

For example, the East Fishkill Library offers passes to the Museum of Natural History and Dia:Beacon and the Rosendale Library provides passes to Mohonk Preserve and Storm King Art Center. Columbia County’s Hudson Area Library offers passes to MASS MoCA, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Albany Institute of History & Art. Both the Highland and Liberty public libraries have Bethel Woods passes for residents of those towns.

Whatever your interests, there’s a public space for you to enjoy. And you should; your health depends on it!

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PleaseConsumeResponsibly. Thisproductmaycauseimpairmentandmaybehabitforming.Foruseonlybyadults21yearsofageorolder.Keepoutofthereachofchildren.Thisproducthasnotbeenanalyzedorapprovedby theFoodandDrugAdministration(FDA).Thisislimitedinformationonthesideeffectsofusingthisproduct,andtheremaybeassociatedhealthrisks.Marijuanausedduringpregnancyandbreast-feedingmay posepotential harms.Itis againstthelawtodriveoroperatemachinerywhenundertheinfluenceofthisproduct.KEEPTHISPRODUCTAWAYFROMCHILDREN.Theremaybehealthrisksassociatedwithconsumptionofthisproduct. Marijuana canimpairconcentration,coordination,andjudgment.TheeffectsofEdiblesmaybedelayedbytwohoursormore.Incaseofaccidentalingestion,contactpoisoncontrolhotline1-800-222-1222or9-1-1.This product maybeillegaloutsideofMA.

Joint Effort

CANNABIS GROWERS’ SHOWCASE OPENS IN NEW PALTZ

From afar, the group of canopy tents in the municipal parking lot behind the Department of Public Works building in downtown New Paltz look like the beverage vendors at a music festival, or maybe even an especially large enclave of roadside barbacoa vendors. Orange barricades surround the tents. A security guard stands at a gap between the barricade, the entrance, to check IDs and hand out menus in the municipal parking lot at 25 Plattekill Avenue, while Bob Marley plays out a speaker that’s propped up on a fence. The future finally arrived in New York on Thursday, August 10, in the form of a farmers’ market/recreational marijuana dispensary hybrid: the New Paltz Cannabis Growers’ Showcase.

The event is to be the first of many—two others will soon launch in Copake and New Hampton—aimed at relieving a massive surplus

Text and photos by Nolan Thornton

among cannabis growers in New York. There is an estimated 300,000-pound surplus of cannabis biomass (including THC and CBD products) in the state because of the slow pace of the adult-use dispensary rollout—the state projected that 70 would be open by now, currently only 22 are open for business.

“This is a way to stop the bleeding,” says Jason Minard, counsel for Hepworth Farms, and an organizer of another growers’ showcase event that will take place in November. “The farmer takes all the risk,” says Minard. Growers like the three in the New Paltz Cannabis Growers’ Showcase—High Falls Canna, Oak Queen Farms, and Empire Farm 1830—make the large initial investment that the entire industry relies on, but that also relies on a market to sell their product after the harvest.

Rick Weissman and Tricia Horst, the founders

of High Falls Canna (and High Falls Hemp, their CBD business) and the organizers of the New Paltz Cannabis Growers’ Showcase, still have 85 percent of their crop left from last season, which is about 2,000 pounds. They are able to sell their products to six dispensaries in the state, but it’s still not nearly enough. This event, which will run Thursday through Saturday (4pm-8pm, and 1pm8pm on Saturday), offers growers the chance to sell their product directly to the customers. The showcase will operate weekly for the remainder of the year—or until a retail marijuana store opens in New Paltz.

Weissman mentioned that in a typical dispensary, a budtender would sell their product like a bartender in a bar, with no particular motive to sell a particular product. With the Growers’ Showcase, Weissman, Horst and their team can communicate directly with their customer base.

“It’s grassroots,” said Weissman. “Look around,” Weissman said, pointing to all the customers talking to his team under the tents on an August day. “This is what you want!” As per the regulations of the Grower’s Showcase, the three growers have partnered with Legacy Dispensers, an Albany-based dispensary delivery service, because growers cannot sell directly to consumers. All transactions must be done through a licensed dispensary. The customer first picks out a product with an employee of Empire or High Falls or 1830, then walks to the Legacy Dispensers tent for purchase.

I spoke to a 64-year-old customer waiting in line, a veteran, who had been arrested at 17 for buying marijuana on the black market. What was essentially an outdoor dispensary was going on in broad-daylight, in sight of the old courthouse. I talked for a while to the veteran, who lived in the area, and another customer who was from New

Jersey. Both men spoke about driving to dispensaries in different cities in the Tri-State area in search of better deals and products. The man from New Jersey mentioned the number of dispensaries in his state (30) compared to New York (22).

The showcase had every item one might expect to find in a dispensary, meaning, all the typical pre-rolls and edibles, and then the stuff not everyone’s heard about yet. Cannabis water, in this case. An employee informed customers that there were only five ingredients in the drink. The marriage of the market and dispensary was complete. It made the whole affair feel like a very convincing fit with the charming, artisanal vibe of New Paltz. It’s such a charming set-up in fact that one wonders if it could stay. Like outdoor dining in the streets of Manhattan, a farmers market for marijuana seems like a compelling enough idea to outlast the crisis that led to its conception.

I talked to the veteran as he was walking out

of the showcase, and he immediately expressed buyer’s remorse over the sativa he had bought. He rattled off a few better deals he could have gotten. Shake from another dispensary in NY, some deal from a dispensary in Massachusetts, and of course, the old fashioned way: illegally. I said, “But it was a historic purchase, right?” “Definitely,” he said.

But there’s really still no getting around it. The dispensaries that want to open and actually break ground, not just set up tents, have a lot going against them. Going to New York City, anyone would assume that there are hundreds of adult-use dispensaries open in the state. That’s part of the problem: it’s much faster to exploit the gray area of the times and operate illegally with products bought illegally from other legal states than to follow protocol and live in limbo. At least for now, the New Paltz Cannabis Growers’ Showcase and events like it are jolting the NY adult-use world back into action.

High Falls Canna organized the first-of-its-kind Cannabis Growers’ Showcase in New Paltz, where marijuana sales kicked off on August 10.

Maintaining the Mix Hudson

By Patrick Grego Photos by David McIntyre

With its long history of booms and busts, Hudson is a microcosm of America. Hudson, like the country at large, has undergone countless transitions. What was indigenous land became a whaling center, then a manufacturing hub, and later a haven for gambling and prostitution. Today, the city in miniature is a vibrant tapestry of urban revival, celebrity sightings, community fridges, regenerative farming, the projects of a mysterious billionaire, art galleries, immigration, and tourism. Hudson is a city with an affordable housing crisis, in which there is no shortage of expensive ceramics, radicchio salads, chunky knit bath towels, and plans for the construction of boutique hotels (there are four in the works). Yet for the almost 6,000 residents who call Hudson home, it is just that, a home; a place where the frequency of belonging cuts through all other noise.

“Our residents are really the soul of this city,” says Kamal Johnson, a native Hudsonian and the city’s first Black mayor. “Affordable housing is our number one platform item,” he says. Through the appointment of a full-time housing director, alongside the planned construction of municipal affordable housing developments—some 90 units are currently in development—solving the housing crisis, Mayor Johnson says, is something, “we’re going to make sure is going to happen.”

Common Council President Tom DiPietro mirrors the mayor’s optimism. “We’re doing everything you can possibly do in a small municipality to create affordable housing,” he says.

“If there’s any nemesis to our agenda, it’s absentee landlords.” The primary absentee landlord in Hudson is the mysterious Galvan Foundation. A February 2022 property count numbered their Hudson portfolio at 86 properties, many of them unoccupied. Most recently, they acquired the former Helsinki Hudson, a popular music venue that closed during the pandemic. Founded by the billionaire developer Eric Galloway, and his late partner Henry van Amerigan, the Galvan Foundation has contributed some improvements to the city, such as a library and the planned construction of several affordable housing units. The slow pace of development and lack of transparency, however, has left many residents feeling uneasy and ignored.

Serria McGriff grew up in Hudson, where she then raised her two children. “It’s good for the community to come together,” she says, watching her now teenaged daughters get ready to participate in the Sankofa Black Arts and Cultural Festival and Parade as members of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, which together with Operation Unite is one of nearly 25 community-based cultural programs in the city. “I have seen a change in the community. I feel like they are trying to push us out, instead of trying to come together to see what the community really needs. Everybody sees the new businesses and all that we can bring for people outside of Hudson, but really what’s in the community for us that really live here?” she asks.

But McGriff, too, is optimistic, a trait seemingly found in

Amani O+ performing at Park Theater in August.

Opposite top: Dog Farm owner Kara Gilmore with Gabby Monkash and assorted canines.

Opposite bottom: Outside The Maker Hotel on Warren Street.

many Hudsonians. “I think we need to come together as a community for the people that live here,” she says, “so that we don’t feel left out. If we all come together, for everyone, whether we live here or not, I think we can have harmony.”

A harmonious Hudson is something Jill Dearman, astrologer, author, and a professor at NYU, believes is written in the stars. Using April 22, 1785, the date of the City of Hudson’s incorporation as its birthdate, Dearman produced an astral chart for the city. “Hudson has its Sun in Taurus and moon in Leo, both ruled by Venus. Venus is the planet of love and art, and it generally chooses a peaceful path over one of conflict,” she says.

“What I find most intriguing is the placement of Hudson’s Saturn, Pluto, and North Node. They are all in the progressive sign of Aquarius. Aquarius is concerned with community and the collective good. It is the sign that shakes up the status quo and embraces rather than fears the future.”

A Walk Down Warren Street

Owned and operated by Charlotta Janssen and Shannon Greer, who moved from Brooklyn to Hudson in 2011, the Hudson Milliner Art Salon on Warren Street is a creative and collaborative art space featuring art, performance, and the intersection of the two. “People are still making a ton of art in Hudson,” Greer says. “And people are still coming here to buy art.”

Since 2017 the couple’s art salon regularly features exploratory, edgy, and political work, as well as an event space for both private and community gatherings such as lectures, performances, photo shoots, dinner parties, and jiu jitsu. Reflecting on gentrification in Hudson over the last decade, Janssen says, “I think there’s a narrative that we must look at more closely. To me there’s a huge difference between comunifiers and commodifiers. A commodifier asks, ‘How little do I have to put in, and how much can I get out of you? How much can I pump up the prices without giving anything back?’ Comunifiers bring something and give back to the community, they become a part of the community, there’s a reciprocity.”

“It’s a constant challenge, but artists need to be challenged,” says Janssen. “Art is not about standing still, it’s about moving forward. But I think as the cost of living rises and rises, there’s a problem with being able to take risks” she says.

Further up Warren Street, French-American artist and designer Marine Penvern, who moved to Hudson in 2018, continues taking risks at her namesake Atelier Penvern. “There is an influx of people with no conscience,” Penvern says. “But I feel like we are living harmoniously together. People complain about everything, it doesn’t help. Instead, they should make a change.”

Her paintings of prominent local figures were recently on display at Hudson Hall, and her Warren Street storefront

Shaina Loew-Banayan, chef/ owner of Cafe Mutton, which has been named to the list of the best places to eat in the country by the New York Times and Bon Appetit

Opposite top: Jonathan Osofsky, creative director of Kasuri, outside the boutique's new space in the former Etsy office on Columbia Street.

Opposite bottom: Hudson Film Festival founders Sonia Marcela Freeman, Sarah Peters, and John Maybee introduce the first film of the inaugural fstival at Hudson Hall in August.

sells everything she makes, including latex condom purses, paintings, and silk kaftans. “I am here, I love culture, I bring culture here. This is why people are coming here, because there is culture. We must be nurtured by our city, because if the city nurtures us, people will come, because people come for culture. If there is no culture here, what are those people going to do? Keep buying properties, talk about the properties they’re buying, and buy candles and shit?”

Hudson Farmers’ Market

Perhaps one of the strongest community pillars in Hudson is the farmers’ market. Now in its 26th year of operation, the Hudson Farmers’ Market is located centrally in Hudson’s municipal parking lot on Columbia Street. Together with live music, cute dogs, and Al Roker sightings, about 40 vendors sell their own goods, everything from local fresh produce, bread, wine, meats, and more. The market is year-round, outdoors from April to November, and during winter months, in the Elks Lodge on Harry Howard Avenue.

“Everyone is warm and friendly here” says Monica Jerminario, the market's administrator, who has lived in Hudson for 14 years and has managed the Hudson market with her husband for over three. “I have a wild spirit, and I don’t want to be chained to a store,” she says. “The strength of the vendor community is not something you get if you’re isolated in a storefront. We’re all this interconnected web of businesses trying to keep each other thriving.”

Sue Decker, a vendor from Blue Star Farm, has been selling fresh produce at the market for 14 years. “It’s a fantastic market” she says, “There’s a great community with super loyal customers, we love being here and we’re here to serve the entire community.”

Rich Volo, aka Trixie, who runs the popular blog Trixie’s List, moved to Hudson in 2006. He sells his baked goods at the market. “Hudson changed a lot,” he says. “Every new wave of people that moves up here changes it. Everything changes. It’s constant, just like everywhere else.”

Wandering Off Warren

Through all the strange changes, commitment to craftsmanship remains central to Hudson’s creative core. “Good craftsmanship is very important to us, we want to create beers that you want to return to again and again,” says Bob Wise, one of four cofounders of Return Brewing. The brewery, now in its second year of operation, opened a tasting house on State Street in May. Together with Upper Depot and Union Street Brewing, it’s one of three breweries to open doors in Hudson in just the last year.“We’ve only gotten support. We’re friends with the other breweries,” says Wise. “It’s an amazing community with a great mix of locals who come in frequently and people from out of town, so it’s a good mix of people.”

Return Brewing has brought life back to what was once a desolate corner of town. “We’re happy to see that more people are moving off Warren Street and recognizing that there’s other stuff in Hudson, off the beaten track, if you will.”

From top: Astrologer Jill Dearman produced an astral chart for Hudson which concluded that the city "generally chooses a peaceful path over one of conflict."

Photographer Shannon Greer and artist Charlotta Janssen run Hudson Milliner Art Salon on Warren Street. Katiushka Melo, owner of Culture Cream, a probiotic ice cream shop on Warren Street.

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In 2014, Layla Kalin, a local businesswoman turned farmer started Kasuri, a boutique clothing store. Shortly thereafter she met Jonathan Osofsky, who became Kasuri’s creative director. Together they turned Kasuri into what it is today. “We are a post-avant-garde fashion boutique and a space where we cultivate queer community and community across all the divisive lines that exist here in Hudson,” says Osofsky.

After a catastrophic flood at their previous location on Warren Street, Kasuri, which sells clothing by designers such as Yohji Yamamoto, Bernhard Willhelm, and Vivienne Westwood, moved into the 6,000-square-foot warehouse, a former Etsy office, on Columbia Street in October. “There’s no reason for us to be in this space if we can’t use it to build something in the community that’s meaningful, and not about commerce,” Osofsky says. “I have many friends in Hudson from different communities that have told me about their experience in different boutiques and even asked what they were doing there. I want Kasuri to not be like that at all.”

In the expansive new space, Kasuri aims to build queer community through programs such as the newly formed Queer Ass Film Club, monthly queer figure drawing, readings, and celebrations of art. “We’re trying to do as much as we can in a kind of DIY way,” he says. “Not to make more money, but to make more things happen.”

The most recent addition to Kasuri is the Backroom, a

queer bookstore operated by Nathan Rapport. After his Los Angeles-based Dream Brother Gallery, which highlighted working queer artists, fell victim to the pandemic, opening the Backroom was a natural progression for Rapport, who turned much of his former gallery’s art into a printed publication. “There isn’t even a queer bar in town, so having a physical space like this is important,” Rapport says.

A short walk up Columbia Street, Time & Space Limited (TSL), a community art space rooted in experimental theater, celebrates its 50th anniversary. “We hold a belief in art as having the potential to change lives and add to a community by standing for real things,” says Linda Mussman, who operates TSL with Claudia Bruce, her wife and collaborator.

“We’ve spent 50 years creating a cultural space. In the next century, there won’t be many spaces like this, because now, it’s all about real estate. It’s very difficult to be creative in a city like Hudson. It’s a tremendous sadness,” says Mussman.

“When Claudia and I first moved here 30 years ago, we hoped there would be a much more vibrant artistic community, based on sweat equity, cheap real estate, and creative energy. That is always the thing that people chase. So now that that chase is at an end, Hudson is at a crossroads,” says Mussman. What is it going to be? Is it going to be a destination for tourists, just a pass through, or can it support a vibrant community by investing in the people who can make this creative place continue?”

Hudson is a buregoning beer tourism destination, with four breweries, three of which opened in the past year. Pictured above, the folks making all that beer possible.

From left: Monty Bopp (Upper Depot Brewing Co.), Ryan Fields (Hudson Brewing Co.), Will Thibeault (Hudson Brewing Co.), Tony Ferretti (Hudson Brewing Co.), Kaitlin Armocida (Hudson Brewing Co.), Aaron Mass (Upper Depot Brewing Co.), J. D. Linderman (Return Brewing), Keir Hamilton (Union Street Brewing Co.), Bob Wise (Return Brewing), Jack Liakas (Return Brewing).

Guide to Columbia County

At first glance, Columbia County is all farmland and quiet villages bounded by the Berkshires and Catskill Mountains. Thanks in part to Hudson’s magnetic energy, the rest of the county has continued to blossom in recent years—offering visitors everything from world-class performing arts and historic museums to lovingly restored accommodations, farm-to-table experiences, and craft beverage destinations.

Clermont State Historic Site

1 Clermont Avenue, Germantown, NY, (518) 537-4240 parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/clermont, friendsofclermont.org

Nestled on the banks of the Hudson River and former home to indigenous communities, enslaved people, Palatines, and generations of the Livingston family, Clermont welcomes visitors with its sweeping vistas and intriguing, often untold stories. With gentle walking trails, panoramic views of the river and mountains, meticulously restored gardens, and tours of the 250-yearold historic mansion, there is something for everyone in this 500-acre park. Connect with nature on a guided Bird Walk or enjoy the sweet scent of autumn with Forest Bathing. Take a journey into the realm of the unknown with Legends by Candlelight Halloween Ghost Encounters. To plan your fall adventure and learn more about upcoming events visit friendsofclermont.org

Roe Jan Brewing Company

32 Anthony Street, Hillsdale, NY, (518) 303-8080

roejanbrewing.com

Drink in history! Our brewpub is housed in an award-winning, lovingly restored mercantile building that dates to 1850. We offer a rotating lineup of our own craft beer served with hearty pub fare, plus live music every weekend. The beautiful dining room features an open kitchen and an octagonal bar surrounding an antique grain hopper. Two covered outdoor areas are supported with cedar beams and surrounded by hops (dogs are always welcome in our outdoor spaces). It’s the perfect place to relax with friends, family, and a cold pint! See our menu and schedule of events at roejanbrewing.com.

Clarion Concerts in Columbia County clarionconcerts.org

A musical treasure in the Hudson Valley and Berkshires for over 65 years. Presenting classical music old and new: world music, commissioned music and education programs. Join us for our Fall season. The Verona Quartet performs on Saturday, September 9 at 7pm, at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains. Featuring string quartets of Mendelssohn, Bartók, Beethoven, The New York Times says “outstanding...full of temperament.” Tickets are available at thestissingcenter.org. On Sunday, October 15th, at 3pm, enjoy chamber music and songs of Beethoven, Marx, Fisher, Schumann performed by Young Concert Artists on Tour, Stars of Tomorrow. St. James Place, Great Barrington. Tickets available at saintjamesplace.net.

Mettabee Farm & Arts

551 Harlemville Road, Hillsdale, NY, mettabeefarm.com

Supporting community wellness through organic farming and the arts, Mettabee Farm & Arts hosts classes, personal and group retreats, camps, seasonal festivals, concerts, performances, dances, weddings, birthdays and other celebrations, a community garden, a “giving garden,” a flock of Shetland Sheep, bees, a small store of locally made products (yarn, honey, maple syrup, candles...), and is a lovely place to go for walks. For more information and to get on the mailing list, please write us at: info@mettabeefarm.com.

The Blue Spruce Inn and Suites

3093 Route 9, Valatie, NY (518) 758-9711

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September Gallery

4 Hudson Street, 3rd Floor Kinderhook, NY

septembergallery.com

SEPTEMBER is a 2,000 sq ft contemporary art gallery based in the newly renovated historic Knitting Mill. Our mission is to prioritize exceptional artists who have not been historically centered because of their gender and/or race. Since our founding in 2016, we have enthusiastically exhibited local, national and international artists.

Peter Aaron/OTTO

community pages

Hudson Pop-Up Portraits by David McIntyre

On August 6, Chronogram held a community portrait shoot at the Time and Space Limited in Hudson. Thanks to Linda Mussmann and Claudia Bruce for hosting us and for Claudia's cheerleading and Linda's curation. Thanks as well to Elena Mosley, director of Operation Unite NY, for helping to curate photographs of families from her ongoing documentary project Black and Brown Families of Hudson.

Join us for the September issue launch party at Hudson Brewing Co., 99 3rd Street, on Thursday, September 7 from 5 to 7:30pm.

Linda Mussmann and Claudia Bruce, codirectors of Time and Space Limited; Charlotte Stickles, movement artist.

Top row: David Olivencia, theater manager; Jane Ehrlich, founder of Open Studio Hudson; Diane Townsend and Judah Catalan, artists; Alexandre Petraglia, Hudson Business Coalition.

Middle row: Armen Donelian, musician at Hudson Jazzworks; Devonte Noble, Lebron Noble, Sarah Hinds, and Ke’Marah Hinds; Laura Summer, director at Lightforms Art Center.

Bottom row: R. Brandon Waithe, Debbie Waithe, Dakota White, Gloria Stewart, Shaquila White, Denver White, and Rodney Waithe; Leonardo Sideri, artist and designer.

OPPOSITE PAGE

Top row: Evan Eitapence, Time and Space Limited; Agnes Pace, Columbia Memorial Hospital; Kevin Prince, creator of New Directors Film Festival; Mordechai Alvow, founder of Yarok plant-based beauty.

Middle row: Sondra Loring, educator; Jonah Bokaer, founder of The Hudson Eye; Nkoula Badila, founder of Grow Black Hudson; Pamela Michelle Jackson Badila, coordinator of the Hudson Clubhouse; Ntangou Badila, multidisciplinary artist.

Bottom row: Tony Calderone and Carolyn Palmieri, Hudson Roastery; Kim Bach, owner of Verdigris Tea & Chocolate with Pekoe; Merry DePhillips, volunteer and Maria Manhattan, artist; William Hughes, retired; Chiarra Hughes-Mba, artist and fashion designer; Ugochukwu Mba, environmental engineer.

Inset: Ngounga Badila, fitness trainer.

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Providing fine art services for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region

Providing fine art services for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region

Providing fine art services for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region

Providing fine art services for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region

Providing fine art services for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region

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Sondra Loring

Matthew Remski

Ashni

Shyam Raganathan Kavitha Rao

Kelly Kamm

Top row: Linda Friedner, Penguin Random House and Seth Rogovoy, writer; Nargis Bahar, mother and housewife; Fariha Chowdhury, and Tuhfatul Chowdhury, 2023 Hudson High graduate; Michael Simpson and Ellen D'Arcy Simpson, artists.

Middle row: Richard Gillette, interior designer; Seth Lachterman, UTM healthcare; Susan Eisner Eley, art dealer at Susan Eley Fine Art; Liz Lorenz, Susan Eley Fine Art; Walter Sudol, Second Ward Foundation.

Bottom row: Gregory Mosley, family man; Elena Mosley, executive director of Operation Unite NY, and Tristan Mosley; Monty Bopp, co-founder and operations manager at the Upper Depot Brewing Co.; Alicia Salvatore, data analyst, Jenaya Salvatore, community service aide at CCDSS, and Jacqueline Salvatore, executive assistant.

Sophie Strand’s Secret

By Robert Burke Warren

by Harper Cowan

Writer Sophie Strand’s vigilant blue eyes scan a soon-to-beabandoned, spartan apartment in Kingston’s Rondout. Seated cross-legged in cutoffs on the hardwood floor, she says, “This is my monk cell. I’ve led a pretty ascetic life here.”

The 29-year-old Strand has put the solitude to good use. In her five years in the Rondout, she’s gone from ghostwriting to producing a staggering amount of original work, all while sharpening social media skills to get that work to a growing, global fanbase. This readership enthusiastically responds to Strand’s distinctive intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology; folks of all stripes routinely engage with the author via the internet, mostly with love.

Strand’s most recent offering, the reason for our meeting, is her astonishing debut novel The Madonna Secret (Bear & Company), a sensual, epic retelling of the Jesus story, relayed through his beloved, Miriam/Mary of Bethany, AKA Mary Magdalene. Even before last month’s packed Golden Notebooksponsored release party at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, The Madonna Secret had gone into a second printing on preorders alone.

In addition to authoring books, Woodstock-raised Strand is a mesmerizing speaker, possessed of a burnished alto that seems either from the pre-industrial past or a post-apocalyptic future. This voice distinguishes her live events, as well as audiobook versions of The Madonna Secret, her acclaimed essay collection The Flowering Wand (Bear & Company, 2021), and dozens of podcast appearances in which hosts are audibly enraptured and/or hypnotized by Strand’s extemporizing. Her prodigious output also includes writing workshops conducted via laptop, and powerful (and occasionally hilarious) posts shared through social media and/or by subscription to her Substack Make Me Good Soil

Songwriter-performer-author Amanda Palmer became a Strand fan when Palmer was living in New Zealand, alone with her young son. Someone sent a link. “I felt immediately comforted by the rare combination of compassion and urgency of her words,” Palmer says. On Palmer’s return to Woodstock, the two became close friends, and occasional collaborators. “When I first encountered Sophie’s writing I assumed—from the sound of her writing voice—that she was a woman in her seventies. Her understanding of the world carried the tone of a fully formed crone. I was so shocked to find out she wasn’t even 30. Her literary star is beyond the ascendant; I’m just wondering when she’ll be too busy and famous to return my calls.”

The Substack, the workshops, and the books—including a memoir-inprogress—have enabled a move from that Rondout monk cell to a Bearsville house featuring acreage, elbow room, and the wildlife from which Strand has drawn sustenance since childhood. Going forward, smart money says that natural sustenance will come in handy.

Untying the Knot

Things weren’t always so intense. Strand’s life path shifted significantly during a pivotal trip to Jerusalem to visit relatives in 2010, when she was 16. While walking with her aunt on the road Jesus reportedly traveled to be crucified—the Via Dolorosa—Strand got very, very sick, with no immediately discernible cause. It did not pass.

“I thought I was going to die,” she says. “I was vomiting blood, becoming irrevocably ill, stepping off of youth into decrepitude without any legibility.”

She made it back home, but continued to struggle with her health. Diagnoses eventually came, but Strand now asserts they were inaccurate, and accepts a chronic connective tissue disability, about which she writes and speaks robustly, challenging our culture’s reductive, binary perception of wellness as “sick” or “not sick.”

After years of illness, and an undergraduate degree in Creative Writing at Bard College, Strand’s health took a downturn. She scuttled plans for grad school, and, in 2016, moved back in with her parents in Woodstock. “I was having a lot of neurological symptoms,” she says. “I thought: What if I lose my cognitive abilities within the year? If I only had a year left, what’s the one thing I’d write? It was really easy to answer. I’d write the story of Mary Magdalene. I’d been fascinated by Magdalene lore since I was a child, and obsessed with the crucifixion as tragedy, not a miracle. I’ve often thought the intensity of my physical experience in Jerusalem had created some kind of knot in me that could only be figured out by writing this book.”

It took two years to write the story she’d been wanting to read her whole life. She took another year to revise and rewrite, excising hundreds of pages to get the manuscript down to about 600 pages. Getting published took a couple years more.

The Madonna Secret emerges as a work of formidable imagination and rigorous research. Strand delves deep into Second Temple Period Palestine: the Biblical characters like Lazarus and Martha, the overbearing Roman Empire entwined with the Jewish communities, the oral and written traditions of the indigenous people, and, crucially, the varying degrees of oppression under which the women lived.

Mystifying Scope

One of The Madonna Secret’s many surprises is the lush terrain, now mostly desert. Of the region circa 30 CE, Strand says, “It was more like Provence.” The book gives us verdant hills, food growing in the fields and gardens, animals coexisting with humans, all in rich detail. Against this backdrop, narrator Mary of Bethany, illiterate daughter of a wealthy rabbi, shares her childhood discovery of her intimidating powers, and her tempestuous young womanhood. By the time she meets charismatic, troublemaking, and similarly gifted Yeshua/Jesus, we are fully ensconced in a vibrant landscape. You can almost smell it. Along the way, we accompany Mary in both hardscrabble, earthy conditions, and unforgettably vivid, revelatory dreams and visions, some of which prophesy the co-opting and perverting of Yeshua’s nature-based teachings by rapacious empire.

Looking back, Strand is amazed, even mystified at the scope of her work. “The last couple times I read it,” she says, “I don’t remember how I wrote it, how I figured it out. I can’t even recall what it was like to make it. It feels utterly defamiliarized to me.”

The conjuring aspect of the process still fills her with awe. “There’s always a trinitarian quality to writing,” she says. “You show up, the story shows up, then this third element arrives that is totally unpredictable. Your characters interrupt you, they change shape. You throw your DNA in there, but it expresses in a way you don’t expect.”

A debut novel intricately weaves history and imagination, presenting Mary Magdalene’s story in a vividly revitalized narrative.

Photo

Strand’s parents had well-prepared her for the ups and downs of a writer’s life, especially one focused on such things as Magdalene lore, and other indelible stories that shape religion and spiritual thought. Her father, erstwhile Buddhist monk and writer Clark Strand (Waking Up to the Dark: The Black Madonna’s Gospel for An Age of Extinction and Collapse) and mother, teacher and writer Perdita Finn (Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World) had raised their child in a household in which preschooler Strand was invited to join her interfaith scholar dad and a retinue of rabbis, monks, nuns, and environmentalists, all talking around the dinner table about Bible stories in nontraditional ways.

“It was a real generosity that he let me interrupt and ask questions,” Strand says. “There was a cuteness and preciousness about it, but everyone respected me and engaged me. It gave me a feeling of intellectual confidence that young girls don’t get.”

Among the many passages in The Madonna Secret that feel particularly lived are the scenes in which curious spitfire Mary insists on being part of similar dinner conversations with her high-status rabbi father. He eventually relents, but never teaches Mary to read.

The ecosystem in which all of The Madonna Secret transpires is itself a character, a facet Strand also lays at the feet of her folks: “My parents taught me that the environment and animals were more important than anything. The world is alive differently than me and so I had to be curious, ask lots of questions, be super respectful, and not take for granted that I understood anything. I was really lucky.”

That boundless curiosity about the natural world is also a hallmark of Strand’s Mary of Bethany, as is a rage to live and love in harmony with everything not made by human hands. Her Magdalene’s desires and wonder breathe new, fecund vitality into an ancient, yet persistent story. The Madonna Secret teems with valiant struggle for freedom, exhilarating risk-taking, unfathomable loss, undeniable eros, and ultimately, love beyond life, undimmed by time.

The Bones of the Story

Carol Goodman

HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS, 2023, $18.99

25 years after the disappearance of a student and a creative writing professor at the Briarwood College, faculty, donors, and alumni assemble to honor the victims at a vacant, storm-ridden campus. A group of former classmates duke out their rivalries and pick apart old writing projects, only stopping when an alumna dies in a similar manner to a previously written story, with another alumnus to follow. Carol Goodman, two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award winner, Vassar College alumni, and current SUNY New Paltz creative writing professor pens a nail-biting, locked-room, whodunnit mystery full of secrets, lies, and cat-and-mouse vibes.

Far from New York State

Matthew Johnson

NEW YORK QUARTERLY PRESS, 2023, $18.95

New Rochelle native Matthew Johnson’s second book of poetry paints a playful jigsaw of life in rural communities upstate, suburban living in the lower Hudson Valley, and the metropolitan landscapes of New York City. He carves out an image of New York through the stories and lives of historical figures, professional athletes, musicians, and family members, acquainting readers with influential New York figures like Washington Irving, Paul Robeson, and the ‘86 Mets, all while giving readers a glimpse into his own life.

Through the Ruins:

Talks on Human Rights and the Arts

Edited by Fawz Kabra CHRA AND NATUS BOOKS, 2023, $20.95

This inaugural publication from the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College is a collection of public talks, supporting OSUN’s goal to be an artist-led center that researches and supports art and activist practices locally and globally. Featured speakers, including Faustin Linyekula, Ashmina Ranjit, and Mark Sealy embody a range of modern practices that meld human rights and the arts. The text consists of introductions by an assortment of scholars, followed by Q&As with live international audiences, and collective works by multidisciplinary designer and typographer Will Brady to help guide readers through the rich history, theory, and personal stories surrounding the speeches.

Finding the Place Where Everything Lives

Andy Kalan BOYLE & DALTON, 2023, $16.99

“We got married too young. And now we’re stuck in what was failed from the start, with the severity of our mess revealed.” Hudson Valley native Andy Kalan pens a gritty, unfeigned portrayal of marriage in his debut novel, Finding the Place Where Everything Lives Newlywed couple Daniel and Claire Morrow struggle through married life, financial woes, and living in New York City, forced to leave behind the romanticized ideas they once had, finally revealing the rocky foundation of their marriage and questions about who they really are, both together and apart.

The Cook and the Rabbi

Susan Simon and Zoe B. Zak

COUNTRYMAN PRESS, 2023, $30

A cookbook that is more than a cookbook—Susan Simon (the cook) and Zoe B. Zak (the rabbi) wrote this as a testament to the resilience of the Jewish people and their traditions, in the hope that the Jewish holidays can mean more than candles and matzah. The seasonal kosher recipes that they pass along can be an accompaniment to the meaning resulting from celebrating with a shared purpose; from Selichot to Rosh Hashanah, there is a food for every holiday, to be paired with its own history and interpretation. Temple Israel of Catskill will host the book’s launch party on September 10 at 2pm.

—Nola Storms

sound check Holly Miranda

Each month here we visit with a member of the community to find out what music they’ve been digging.

Tommy Stinson’s Cowboys in the Campfire Wronger (Done to Death Records)

Considering that he’s spent the bulk of his four-decade-plus career playing with two of the most legendarily fractious and chaos-driven bands in rock history, the name of Tommy Stinson’s latest musical project seems to imply that the former Replacements/Guns N’ Roses bassist has finally ditched the drama and self-destructiveness for a simpler, more grounded existence. But while the current Hudson resident does indeed bust out his acoustic guitar (and even the occasional ukulele) on Wronger, the 10-song debut from his duo with guitarist and longtime collaborator Chip Roberts hardly sounds like the work of a couple of trail-weary cowpokes trading ballads under a desert moon.

For every thoughtfully strummed meditation like “Hey Man,” “Karma’s Bitch,” and “Dream,” there are raucous tracks like the rowdy rockabilly singalong “We Ain’t” and the Highway 61-esque raver “That’s It,” as well as gorgeously atmospheric numbers like “Schemes” and “Souls,” which seemingly blend about six different types of American music into cinematic pop not unlike the kind Chris Isaak used to make. Stinson’s scrappy vocals are in fine form here, but Roberts’s nimble and multihued playing gives the album plenty of character as well. Whether he’s detuning his guitar in the middle of “Here We Go Again” to reach some impossibly low notes, impeccably layering 12-string and steel guitars on “Schemes,” or coming on like a cross between Don Rich and Billy Zoom (whose X bandmate John Doe contributes bass and backing vocals to a few tracks on the album) on “That’s It,” Roberts consistently makes Wronger that much righter.

—Dan Epstein

Apocalypse Going Up in the World: Apocalypse 1982-83

(Cherry Red Records)

This year I have had the privilege of shifting my focus from being in the spotlight to someone that shines the spotlight on others’ talents, and it has been equally, if not more, fulfilling.

In Spring of 2023, Grace Coates of Gracie and Rachel and I started “Golly Presents” shows in her backyard and have now moved them to a new venue in Woodstock, Graveside Variety, that we helped to open with Amanda Palmer, Karen Feldstein, and Liz Grammaticas. So I’ve been able to discover a lot of new local incredible talent through these shows, like Jenna Nichols, Margo Ross, Rose Stoller, and Paul Moody, just to name a few. I also run a small record label with Amb. Parsley called Eye Knee Records that we started in 2020 and I have been producing a record for a new artist out of Portland, Oregon, named Lisa G that I am really loving and excited about. I’ve also been fortunate enough to catch Indigo Sparke now twice, and her LP Hysteria has been on repeat in my little cabin; it’s a gorgeous record. I’ve been loving Maya Hawke’s record Moss, who is also local and has graced the stages of GSV at one of our “Party around a piano with Lance Horne” shows. Christian Lee Hudson, who is not local but just a brilliant songwriter, has been blasting in my car as of late. Amanda Palmer and I recorded a cover of his song “Lose This Number” for her Patreon last month after seeing him sing it. I’m gearing up to hit the road for a couple weeks with the Righteous Babes, which is a super group assembled by Ani DiFranco of acts on her label of the same name. It consists of Gracie and Rachel, Jocelyn Mackenzie, and yours truly. There is too much talent in this area, get out and support live music, and especially if you’re streaming their records online, show up and buy some merch. Every little bit helps!

Singer-songwriter Holly Miranda lives in Bearsville. Her newest album is 2023’s Virtual Funeral. EyeKneeRecords. com, GravesideVariety.com, GollyPresents.com, TheRighteousBabes.Com.

Apocalypse, a five-piece group from South London, formed in the musical ferment of post-punk England in 1979. With their punchy, horn-driven sound and striving lyrics, the band slotted in with musical contemporaries such as the revered Jam, Redskins, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners. The local angle here is band cofounder and current Kingston resident Tony Fletcher, on guitar and keyboards. Fletcher has since gone on to international renown as a prolific music writer and currently hosts multiple podcasts. The leadoff track, “Teddy,” was produced by Paul Weller and originally released as single on Fletcher’s Jamming! Records label in 1982. The song features a driving ska beat, soul-inspired vocals, and cool synthesizer punctuation. Fans of English power pop will find much to enjoy. And the spirit of this short-lived band lives on: Fletcher and guitar and vocalist Tony Page have released excellent music this year as the Dear Boys.

Jeremy Schwartz

Richard Carr/Caleb Burhans/Clarice Jensen August Dreams

(Independent)

Before they disappear into illegibility, Richard Carr’s liner notes to August Dreams begin: “The music included herein is the result of adventurous risk taking.” Listening to the lush, placid, quiescent harmonies on this new recording, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. While the results may not be exactly perilous, Rosendale-based violinistpianist Carr, violinist-violist Burhans, and cellist Jensen have created sumptuous, stately pieces which draw upon improvisation, effects processing and multi-track recording. The works are rich with sonority on tracks like “Satellite” and reserved pizzicato/piano rhythmic interplay on the aptly named “Kindness.” Tracks are further enhanced by occasional uncredited percussion as on “Deep in the Seventh” and thoughtful basslines contributed by Carr’s son Ben AKA the celebrated producer Carrtoons. These brief string-drenched reveries make for calming listening during an overheated spell on the planet.

—James Keepnews

Abandoned Island Fort

This morning you complained I wouldn’t buy you flowers. Just one more day until we leave—why bother? You climb the ramparts overlooking hollowed cliffs. Last fall you visited our college town: a new fence, fresh pine, divided our houses. You were my neighbor when we met— you went abroad a few months later; in the side yard dandelions yellowed and burst. This morning I wouldn’t buy you flowers. Sunset splits the strait.

On the mainland at the edge of sight, scattered homes pinprick the dark—I pluck a handful of forget-me-nots between the stones.

—Wilson R. M. Taylor

Festering Macaroon

Knocking at the banjo, kicking at the door. Oh, it’s the Honeypots darling, better start dredging the well. They see a field of test tube babies, they see a parking lot of cows. I’ll tell them it can’t be possible. No amount of pancakes, baby, can fit into the Woolworth Building because ice cream has no bones.

Marjorie’s sitting on the banjo now, blowing out some notes. Frederick’s in the outhouse, dearie, making lots of pasta. He’s vacuuming up the profits and writing notes to Liberace. Along the way ain’t no use in hangin’ ‘round when bacon’s absconded with egg on its dirty face.

Grand-dad’s pacemaker blew a fuse and now his legs are gone. Do you know of any upholsterer? No one here is thin. I’d like more ice cream with my mushrooms, but the Honeypots have put the kibosh on any further celebrations. A festering macaroon has been found.

—Patrick Hammer, Jr.

Lay Your Home to Rest

Home

I’m sorry I didn’t knock on the bathroom door to let you know I was back from my run but you were singing Brandi Carlile with abandon, the steam pouring out was so warm on my face, raw from a February headwind that blew both ways along the river where no step felt closer to spring, and your voice made me forget that I ever left at all.

some times, even the most worn-out places will surprise you; a pigeon will crowd your space and call out your secret name as it flies; a city grate opens itself up under your feet, a reminder that this city is hollow, that it has veins that seethe blood just like you. it has been said that if a city ages right it may create its own paths and flow of magic; that if a city is well-enough worn by the magic of our feet that tunnels and pathways swell and squall with the lungs of a thousand years. it’s been said that in a real well-worn city, you can kick up some dust and it might whisper its name back. it’s been said that in a real well-worn city, you can take a walk hidden in the dark of midnight and find yourself following the footpath to a portal that may let you in just to taste your name and spit you back out. it’s been said that the door to a dear friend’s apartment may one day be just the swirl of such a portal closing as you stand, about to knock. and you may realize your friend was always on the inner veins of this ancient city that you are just a small, a very small, specter trying to call home. this city is too old to fold you into it, so you stay on the smooth edges it may have lovingly laid its weathered face under. a well-worn city may hide itself under train tracks that cackle as they scream a trillion passengers towards a trillion tiny homes, like a thousand pores, each with a new name that traces a new line of magic into the curves of a city laid to rest.

—Nechama Anolik

—David Lukas

Succulents Sustained

Unwilling to verify whether or not the experiment’s been performed since science has been bastardized and the internet’s been hijacked

I’d wager what’s left of a poorly squandered soul that if most indoor houseplants were only watered when it rains the majority would survive.

The laws of mortality transcend manmade labels of flora and fauna:

We get what we need on a schedule outside our control.

—Mike

Vahsen

Daisy petals are picked

He loves me, he loves me not The “Truth” is revealed.

—Frances

Greenhut

Full submission guidelines: Chronogram.com/submissions

Abecedarian: I Haven’t Thought of You

All about you, isn’t it? You treated me beastly. Because I swooned, you came to Count on such adoration. Charming, with a mission. Dear Fred: You broke up with me in the car. Even as I invited you to a weekend timeshare

For sex, walks up Melville’s Mountain.

Geared for autumnal cuddling, you puffed on a joint. Held in smoke, one hand on the wheel, ending it.

I heard Billie Holiday wail about losing her man, low-down blues Just another blip on the gone-man meter.

Kinda creepy, grandiose and fake.

Let me acknowledge moving on walloped me. Many others too, long gone major attractions. Needful, alone in the dumps with a soundtrack. Open to the ones who burn through gals, closed to those Pulsing admirers, with only a faint spark.

Quiet ones cannot express themselves. Righteously they do not utter “I want you.” What to do, or Say without brutal honesty?

Think back. Those slick seductions. Using mud for sand. Sink into the moment’s Viciousness. Failed loves become behemoths. Watersheds of wasted time.

Xeroxed from electronically charged plates

You, and You, and You, never ready for that particular Zenith. Fixated on the glass, brief. Fantabulous.

—Cheryl J. Fish

Green Fancy

Over coarse stone, I followed him ‘Twixt rummaged leaves unsewn, Against the fenceposts faltering Until the meadow’s lull. There the Broadleaf’s springing green Lay like the silk adorning me, And as by gustful breeze it rippled in its limb, So like my shift when pressed to him.

Dream

I tell my therapist this recurring dream

So embarrassed to repeat it because it sounds so cliched In it I tried to scream and no sound escaped. They immediately start writing

Now I make a game of trying to predict when they’ll jot something down Sometimes I get too eager and am only met with their receptive listening face.

Damn

I thought for sure that would land harder. Back to that scream

It caught in my throat some thirty-odd years ago And has made itself a home.

Maybe it’ll find the temerity to move someday

—Greg Baffuto

A love letter to my old man friend

Why is it that no one talks about fairy godfathers?

You flit into my life, at first a sparkle transforming into a glow that illuminates me.

Beginning with slimy seaweed and onto social theory, soon you taught me about the four promises of love, starting with, “I will be a dependable person for you…”

As I See You Lying There

Your aged and graceful face Turns so smooth and so radiant, Like you were,

As you are to me.

Your ever sleeping eyes Turn to wide open vestibules of love, As you were,

About heart-space, and heart-voice, and a guide to creating the perfect height for hugs. Your waters ice over while I melt in the southern heat.

You tell me about black apples and I tell you about tango embraces.

Savino Tony

—Karen

When I ask a woman on a date, my first question is always their dating history. Were you married? Is he dead?

—Esther

Cohen

As you are to me. Your strong but silent voice Keeps a sweet and heavenly sound around, As you were,

As you are to me, As you always will be.

—David Capellaro

I made you eyebright tincture for your shining blue eyes. You sent me dark, gnarly nori for my thirsty back discs.

Do something concrete everyday, you said to me, your little Heron.

In the ebbs and flows of life, who knew that true love was inside of such a simple phrase as,

“We are friends.”

Love, H

—Anna Keville Joyce

Free Former

JOHN KAHN’S “IKAHN: ARC OF AN ARTIST” EXHIBITION

“I am, as always, the vagabond artist, [and] therefore have little constraints with my time as opposed to your schedule (as I imagine),” emails John Kahn when setting up an interview, later expanding on that sense of freedom, and much else, when he and your arts editor meet up in person. “All I’ve ever done was art. I’ve never had a ‘real’ job. I’ve never done anything but exactly what I wanted to do.”

And what the sculptor, architectural and theatrical set designer, woodworker, visual artist, street performer, costume creator, inventor, and master builder has done in the last 45 years has been consistently astonishing— as is vividly shown in “IKAHN: Arc of an Artist,” a careerretrospective exhibition on view this month at the MARS Creative Factory in Saugerties, a former machine shop and Avon beauty products distribution center that has been reopened by his son Jasper as an alternative arts space. The sprawling indoor/outdoor exhibit features a wealth of eye-popping Kahn creations that includes mammoth works like his Tower Mobile, dinosaur spinelike Wing Bench, wall-sized Homage to Scrabble pop art game board, and the tellingly named World’s Largest Skateboard, which measures over 40 feet and rolls along on 30-inch wheels repurposed from racing cars.

Inspired “mainly by nature and man’s

accomplishments, both technologically and industrially,” Kahn’s works incorporate a wide range of materials, such as stone, steel, glass, ceramics, cast aluminum, and fabrics. His sculptures have been shown at a raft of prominent galleries as well as the Neuberger Museum of Art in Harrison, the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum in Chile; several of them are even part of the permanent art collections of companies like Texaco, PepsiCo, IBM, Disney, and General Foods. His most visible presence, however, has been via his long association with the late Muppets creator and puppeteer Jim Henson, with whom he collaborated on designing sets for the beloved 1980s children’s television show “Fraggle Rock.” The sense of childlike wonder and love for making things that defines and runs through all of Kahn’s work is something that came to him at the beginning and never left.

“My ‘skin’ as an artist is one I was born with,” says Kahn, who grew up on the South Shore of Long Island with six other artistic siblings. “The earliest testimony to this fact comes from my mom’s entry into my baby book when I was just under two years of age. Engaging and acclimating with this new phenomenon called life, she wrote, ‘This guy is a little builder, he enjoys organizing

By Peter Aaron

all of his blocks and then constructing fantastic little structures.’” Summers spent accompanying his novicearchaeologist father on digs sparked his deep interest in Indigenous cultures and paleontology while supervised visits to area junkyards and outdoor markets were likewise pivotal.

“At age eight my mom entered me into my first crafts fair in school, where I was selling painted rocks and little figurines made of plaster,” says Kahn, who by 10 was shooting and developing photos and making pottery using his dad’s homemade kiln and kickwheel, the latter fashioned from Volkswagen parts. “Eventually, Mom would take me to a couple of town craft fairs that went on all weekend long. She would manage our booth, and I would scour the fair looking at all kinds of techniques and materials, eyes wide open and always exploring what was unfamiliar. I was a hunter-gatherer of both natural and industrial waste—any objects that went into the category of ‘Fascinating Item That I Certainly Could Never Recreate’ lay in wait to be incorporated into a project.”

His mother also took her kids to the circus, another powerful early influence. “She loved the circus, and every year, somehow, she saved enough money for at least five of her seven children to attend the Ringling

Artist John Kahn in 1992 with Homage to Scrabble

Brothers show,” says Kahn. “So memorable were these special visits that they became a huge facet of my persona. I would have backyard circus shows, all the while accumulating the skills of sets, props, design, choreography, and performance.” Before long, the pint-sized performer had perfected his ability to ride a unicycle handed down from his drafted big brother, a skill he credits with helping him later master the tight wire, stilt walking, juggling, and fire twirling. He cocreated a recurring “Art Day” event for his junior high school, sang in and made costumes for a couple of high school rock bands, and got a summer job at Great Adventure amusement park in New Jersey, where he appeared as the fire-eating Dusty the clown.

Kahn majored in visual art at SUNY Purchase, studying under the integral Surrealist art dealer and gallerist Julian Levy. Utilizing the college’s wood shop and other facilities, he began creating the Alexander Calder-inspired mobiles and early examples of the type of oversized, whimsical works that would come to define his sculpting: a seven-foot wooden eggbeater, a four-foot can opener, a seven-foot zipper, and an 11-foot “flying machine” based on one of Leonardo DaVinci’s designs.

In the 1970s he ran with the New Vaudevillians, a movement of loosely affiliated vaudeville/carnival-inspired performers that included clown and actor Bill Irwin, juggling/comedy troupe the Flying Karamazov Brothers, and juggler Michael Moschen. “John’s always had this intense ability to go after something unknown, to go into the unknown and come back,” says Moschen, who met Kahn in 1974 and further schooled him in juggling. “His artwork is potent and powerful, but not just intellectually. It’s very visceral, very primal. Some of his shapes are almost prehistoric.” While doing a two-month circus gig, and living in a camper van he built himself, at an amusement park in California, Kahn found himself fixated on the mechanics of the site’s roller coaster. The fascination led to a series of giant gears and chains that he sculpted from wood; “IKAHN” includes Chain Gang, a piece that features individual chain segments made of stone, wood, bronze, and glass.

Another crucial figure that Kahn met in the ’70s was Henson. “In 1976, the Neuberger Museum had a show of 35 of my pieces, and Jim purchased one,” Kahn remembers. “I sort of knew who he was because I knew who Kermit the Frog was, but I’d never seen ‘Sesame Street’ because I didn’t watch TV. We got to be friends, and I had a studio in Port Chester where he’d come to hang out. He was trying to lure me into that TV world, but I could see how with Kermit he’d created this rag doll that led to this institution that he was trapped in. And I wanted to keep my independence.” In time the two worked out a partnership that resulted in the hit “Fraggle Rock” while allowing autonomy for Kahn, who, besides designing the sets, was one of the costumed characters who performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and at malls around the country.

In the late 1980s Kahn moved to Saugerties, where he and Henson developed the Schoolhouse studio in a historic 19th-century brick house in which he also lived. With his ex-wife, trapeze artist Niki Swarthout, in 1984 he launched the Runaway Circus, which taught local kids circus skills and helped them create unique performances and appeared in the Eco-Village at the Woodstock ’94 festival. After deciding he should live somewhere that was a refuge from the constant work and coming-and-going visitors at the Schoolhouse, he purchased a land parcel outside the village and spent the ensuing 20 years designing and building— mainly by himself—the Tower House. The five-level, Tolkein-esque home was crafted using locally sourced bluestone and wood, copper, aluminum, repurposed historical components, and other materials. “Some people have described the house as octagonal, but it’s not, it’s round,” the builder says, adding that while he’s not a trained architect he is an accredited draftsman. “When I was studying woodworking in college, I also learned wood bending; all of the walls in the Tower House are completely curved.” Set on a thickly wooded property with a pond, the 3,518-square-foot house has three bedrooms, four baths, and a sauna.

As idyllic and isolated as life at the Tower House was, however, in 1996 Kahn would relocate to somewhere that is, both of those things in the extreme: Easter Island. “I’m super-reclusive and I’ve lived three quarters of my life in isolation in the studio anyway—I’ve been hiding out my entire life,” says a laughing Kahn, who reinforced his resourcefulness by learning survivalism from expert tracker Tom Brown, Jr., at his Pine Barrens school. “So now I’m really all alone and I’m thrilled!” (Well, not all alone: The artist met his present wife, Anita, a native Rapa Nui descendent, on the isle.) Although he’s been camping for most of his 25 years on Easter Island, for the last few he’s been constructing his next domicile: Earth House, a 22-foot structure that faces the island's sacred Rano Raruku and Poike craters.

And now, as he prepares to return permanently to Easter Island, he’s preparing leave it all behind—“it” being the collection of his outsized and bemusing sculptures that he, Jasper, and their truck-driving crew have been transporting to the MARS space for the September show.

“It’s been an emotional time for me, all of this looking back while I put the show together,” says Kahn. “The whole idea feels dangerous to me, it makes me feel stagnant and claustrophobic, because I’m ever kinetic. I’ve never looked back. Ever.”

“IKAHN: Arc of an Arist” will open on September 2 at the MARS Creative Factory in Saugerties, where it will be on view through September 30. Ikahnic.org.

From top: Tower House in Saugerties, handcrafted by Kahn; Twenty-foot-tall Moai inflatables created by John Kahn to illustrate the walk of the Moais from the quarry where they were sculpted to the ahu (sacred platform) where they were erected on Easter Island; John and his son Jasper moving a work in progress in July.

Dance Marathon

THE KAATSBAAN FALL FESTIVAL

September 9-October 1

Kaatsbaan.org

Kaatsbaan is a hidden delight of the Hudson Valley: a venue of first-rate dance performance set on 153 acres in Tivoli, with an engrossing sculpture park. Its fall festival takes place over three weekends beginning September 9. “Festival” suggests variety, and this is a true festival. Even people who think they hate “dance” will find an event to admire.

Herman Cornejo, a principal with the American Ballet Theatre, is the choreographer of “The Apartment,” a duet he performs with his sister, Erica. Cornejo is one of those men in tights who convinces one, for three or four seconds at a time, that he can actually fly. Born in Argentina, Cornejo drew on the symbology of the tango in creating this piece. Dancing a passionate tango with one’s sister is, as we used to say in the `90s, thrillingly transgressive. Dance can also express political outrage. Dancer and choreographer Roderick George’s world premiere of “The Missing Fruit” is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. George employs the Nina Simone rendition of “Strange Fruit,” the 1939 protest song attacking Southern lynchings:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root; Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze; Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

“I was thinking, ‘What about the individuals who are dying who are not being mentioned, and only the people at home are dealing with that trauma?’,” George says. DJ Hussein Pwono provides accompaniment. Text is intermixed with the music, but much of the speaking is done by human legs and torsos.

The New York Theatre Ballet will present “The Firebird,” with music by Stravinsky. The story, based on a Russian folktale, begins when Prince Ivan captures the elusive

firebird, and snags one of her feathers. Thirteen princesses enter his garden, and Ivan falls in love with one of them. The couple dances amorously, but then all the princesses enter the palace of the evil Koschei. Ivan is locked out. Will he reunite with his beloved—or will he suffer a tragic Russian fate? I’m certainly not going to tell you. With bright costumes and vivid, sweeping motions, the New York Theatre Ballet especially appeals to children, though adults should not be ashamed to attend.

Ruckus is an acoustic ensemble—harpsichord, bassoon, bass, cello, and lute—specializing in Baroque music. As their name suggests, they take a freewheeling approach to performance. “They’re the rock stars of early music,” remarks Adam Weinert, artistic associate at Kaatsbaan.

Ruckus will accompany Sargent Seedo, a local line dance caller, who will lead group dancing. The audience is invited to participate. This may be the closest you’ll ever come to attending a 16th-century Flemish peasant feast.

A great dance makes music visible. Tan Dun, dean of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, composed “Ghost Opera” 30 years ago. The Attacca Quartet joins with pipa master Wu Man to perform the work, which combines Chinese and Western musical traditions. (The pipa is a pearshaped stringed instrument that has been plucked in China for centuries.) The five instrumentalists appear on stage, occasionally playing dramatically lit water bowls. They also tear paper, as a musical accent. PeiJu Chien-Pott developed a dance accompaniment to “Ghost Opera” at a residency at Kaatsbaan in April. At times she will dance among the performing musicians.

Many of these shows will be on the outdoor Mountain Stage. How nice to see wind tug at a dancer’s hair, under the blue Tivoli sky! “Bring your friends, bring a picnic!” Weinert suggests.

—Sparrow

New York Theatre Ballet performs "The Firebird" as part of the Kaatsbaan Fall Festival in Tivoli.

Photo by Rachel Neville

WILLIAMSTOWN MASSACHUSETTS CLARKART.EDU

“People said it wasn’t gonna work,” recalls co-owner Cory Plump about when he and his partners opened Midtown Kingston underground music venue Tubby’s in 2018. “You know, ‘This isn’t Austin, Texas!’ or whatever. I shrugged it off.” Five years later, even after the pandemic, the club is thriving, having presented dozens of touring and regional acts, with many highly notable names among them. And now, to celebrate, the bar is throwing a three-day party featuring some veteran and fast-rising artists: Tubby’s Five-Year Anniversary Weekend, which will take place September 29 through October 1.

The fully stacked weekend kicks off on September 29 with appearances by cult-fave singer-songwriter Bonnie “Prince” Billy AKA Will Oldham; Austin postpunk quartet Hidden Ritual; Michigan indie poppers Idle Ray; and, from Brooklyn, electro/sax rockers P.E., noise punkers Weeping Icon, and dreamy electronica project Zenizen.

September 30 promises monumental avant jazz bassist William Parker and his trio; Austin free rock collective Water Damage; angular New York rockers Weak Signals; Neil Young-ish Connecticut foursome Mountain Movers; Brooklyn emcee Akai Solo; influential slowcore pioneers Codeine; and New York trance/ethnic/ jazz juggernaut the 75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band, whose 2020 Live at Tubby’s double LP greatly helped to put the venue on the international map.

October 1 closes out the occasion in fine style with sets by returning downtown Manhattan legends the Bush Tetras; Big Apple rap duo Armand Hammer; Chicago psych jammers the Bitchin’ Bajas; New York hip-hopper Billy Woods; Brooklyn producer/rapper

Elucid; ex-Dum Dum Girls/Vivian Girls/Crystal Stilts member Frankie Rose; Kingston space rockers Ultraam; Hudson Valley electronica artist Photay; South Korean drone act Tenngger; Egyptian vocalist Nadah El Shazly; and enigmatic Chicago outsiders ONO.

“We’ve had bands that play 1,000-capacity rooms and the next night come and play here,” says Plump, citing Tubby’s bookings of ballroom-packing names like Black Midi, OFF!, and Protomartyr into what he describes as a “small, 100-ish-person show space.” A major part of what keeps the cool bands coming back—and keeps attracting new ones—is the empathetic treatment that featured artists enjoy at the club, whose staff includes musicians from the same DIY touring community.

“The first time I played Tubby’s, in November 2018, I felt immediately welcome and at home,” says Codeine’s Chris Brokaw, who has appeared multiple times at the nightspot as a solo artist and with the Martha’s Vineyard Ferries and other projects. “The vibe felt fun and funny, the dub on the stereo was a welcome relief from everything you hear everywhere. It made me feel like someone was speaking my language. So I kept going back and it’s always good. Things like ‘feeding the band good food, for free’ and ‘a free band apartment’ are things I very rarely encounter in the US, and these things are huge. Paying the bands decently. The list goes on and on! It’s one of my favorite venues on Earth.”

Tubby’s Five-Year Anniversary Weekend will run September 29 through October 1. Single-night and three-day general admission and VIP passes are available; see website for pricing.

—Peter Aaron

Emergency Sound performing at Tubby's on May 16

Photo by Christopher Bruno

“The first moment I saw you, I knew I could love you if you could love me.” One of the first lines of “Savage/Love” embodies what the production is really about: a collection of deep, heartfelt monologues about the mutations of romantic love. This stream-ofconsciousness concerto creation of theater legends Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin will be paired with “Tongues,” a similar piece by the pair, at the Woodstock Playhouse this month. The production, directed by Chris Silva, will feature acclaimed actors Estelle Parsons and David Strathairn, with percussion accompaniment by jazz great Jack DeJohnette.

“Tongues” and “Savage/Love” were first performed in 1978 at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. The minimalist staging featured Shepard and Chaikin seated back to back, Chaikin voicing various poems, songs, and prose and Shepard on percussion. Silva, the executive director of the Bardavon and UPAC, was on hand at the creation of the work as then-director of the Eureka Theater, which he founded. “That production was over 40 years ago,” Silva says, “but I do remember that it was powerful and moving, and at the same time, ethereal and mysterious.”

Silva, the Eureka Theater founder and director, fell in love with Shepard’s work, and continued to collaborate with him on and off for 50 years. Considered the greatest playwright of his generation Shepard’s place in American theater, acting and writing plays—“True West,” “Fool for

Love,” “Curse of the Starving Class”—that are poetic, bleak, and surreal, with a splash of dark comedy. The current production will be Silva’s unofficial and temporary return to directing.

The performers for this limited run of “Tongues” and “Savage/Love” are American cultural icons. David Strathairn has worked extensively in television, along with a successful string of supporting and leading roles across his 43-year career including an Academy Award nomination for Good Night and Good Luck Jack DeJohnette is an innovative percussionist with a wide-ranging style, who’s worked with musical giants like John Coltrane, Miles David, and Herbie Hancock. Parson's storied career as an actor and director includes an Academy Award for Bonnie and Clyde and five Tony Award nominations.

Parsons is really the reason this production is coming about. While Silva has a background in theater, he hasn’t directed a play in years. But he’s wanted the opportunity to work with Parsons as an actress for 20 years. “Working with Estelle as an actress, the timing, and the people involved motivated me to return,” Silva says. When he started searching for a piece, Silva’s mind naturally went to Shepard, recalling their history.

“‘Tongues’ and ‘Savage/Love’ are very surreal pieces that look at romantic love in a very raw way,” says Silva. “It’s a good piece to show off Estelle’s incredible skills.”

—Nola Storms

Concertos for Theater

“TONGUES” AND “SAVAGE/LOVE” AT THE WOODSTOCK PLAYHOUSE

September 22-24

Bardavon.org

David Strathairn, Estelle Parsons, and Jack DeJohnette will perform two theater pieces by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaiken in Woodstock this month in a production directed by longtime UPAC and Bardavon excutive director Chris Silva.

Independents’ Day

WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL

September 27-October 1

Woodstockfilmfestival.org

This year’s Woodstock Film Festival comes at a pivotal moment. From the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to a global reckoning with equity and accessibility, the film community is in a self-examining mood. Accordingly, the 2023 Woodstock Film Festival’s programming seeks to deepen our engagement with these thorny conversations.

The festival runs September 27 to October 1. However, Meira Blaustein, co-founder and executive and artistic director of the festival, emphasizes: “We are very much a 365 organization.” Through year-round programming, it creates opportunities for members of underrepresented groups, including an artist-in-residency program and a youth filmmaking workshop.

The festival will screen about 120 films spanning categories that include animation, documentary, and music videos. Films include the dramedy I Used to Be Funny starring Rachel Sennott; The Kill Room, a mystery about a hit man who teams up with an art dealer starring Samuel L. Jackon; and the documentary Omoiyari: A Song Film By Kishi Bashi, which follows Bashi, a composer, as he creates music at sites of historic importance for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Short films include animation and documentary entries, including What Even Is A TERF? an animated history by Dez Stavracos, as well as music videos to the work of Frankie Cosmos and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Concurrently, the festival will run eight panels. Author and Woodstock resident Neil Gaiman will lead the Union Strikes panel. The Current and Future State of Independent Cinema panel, hosted by entertainment lawyer John Sloss, fits in with the festival’s advocacy for independent cinema. In keeping with their social justice focus, the Climate Storytelling panel reckons with filmmaking in the midst of a climate crisis.

Other panels center around distinguished figures. This includes a conversation with famed producer Sheila Nevins, and a masterclass taught by screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (My Policeman). On October 1, a group of actors including Steve Buscemi, Brittney Snow, and Matthew Modine will sit down for a panel called Actors Who Direct. “What is it about directing that pulls them to make films rather than just act in front of the camera?” Blaustein asks.

The artist-in-residency program culminates with a showcase on September 29 featuring four residency fellows. The emerging filmmakers will have a chance to share their work at whatever stage of production they have reached.

Screenings are often accompanied by performances or events. After a screening of Texas Music Revolution, the story of the Country Western music festival of the same name, lead Kiefer Sutherland performs at Levon Helm Studios. Sixties rockers The Zombies (“Time of The

Season”) will give a concert at the Bearsville Theater following a showing of Hung Up On A Dream: The Zombies Documentary.

The festival holds nightly parties featuring live music, as well as an awards ceremony. This year, they are presenting James Ivory, director of films like Maurice (1987), with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

For the duration, attendees can view an art installation about climate change in film created by Lydia Dean Pilcher. The installation, located at the Kleinert/James Art Center, is an immersive, multiscreen, 26-minute presentation. It’s adapted from a short film Pilcher created, which is based on Dani McClain’s story for the anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

The festival will continue expanding the reach of independent cinema while providing an artistic home here. According to the Hudson Valley Film Commission, hundreds of projects have been created in the region recently, including award-winners like A24’s The Whale , bringing tens of millions of dollars in economic activity “I just see the festival growing,” says Blaustein. “There are so many people working in the industry who call the Hudson Valley home. I want us to continue supporting them and bringing more and more film to the Hudson Valley.”

—Sophie Frank

A still from Larry Fessenden's horror movie Blackout

A still from Pawo Choyning Dorji’s The Monk and the Gun

NOT-TO-MISS at WFF

We asked the team at Woodstock Film Festival for five not-to-miss films this year. Here are their picks.

The Listener

In this intense character study directed by Steve Buscemi, viewers follow Beth, played by Tessa Thompson, through one night as a crisis helpline volunteer. The film paints a diverse picture of grief and suffering in America as Beth talks to callers ranging from a struggling veteran to a teenage runaway in an abusive relationship. Thompson is the only actor shown on screen, though viewers may recognize the voices of her callers, including Alia Shawket and Rebecca Hall.

The Monk and the Gun

Set in Bhutan in 2006, Pawo Choyning Dorji’s story explores modernization and democracy. The film follows a king who decides to abdicate the throne in order to usher in democracy, an American treasure seeker, and a monk traveling through isolated mountains as they inevitably cross paths. Doriji became Bhutan’s first Oscar nominee for his film Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

Fioretta

Michael Mishory’s slice-of-life documentary follows E. Rand “Randy” Schoenberg and his son as they travel across Europe learning about and celebrating the history of their Jewish family. This includes Randy’s grandfather, the classical composer Arnold Schoenberg. Mishory’s films blur the line between documentary and narrative, and his stories center on those who have altered the way people understand art and history. The film’s world premiere will take place at the Bearsville Theater, followed by a performance by the Maverick Sextet of the work of Schoenberg and other composers of the period.

Feeding Tomorrow

There are so many forces exacerbating food insecurity and harming our agricultural systems that the conversation feels overwhelming. In this documentary, filmmaker, chef, and food equity advocate Oliver English highlights the stories of farmers, teachers, and nurses exposing the struggles of our food systems and showing working examples of change. In keeping with the festival’s social justice focus, on September 27 at 6:30pm, festival goers can visit the nonprofit farm White Feather Farms for a community gathering with food and drink following the screening.

The City of Your Final Destination

A graduate student travels to Uruguay to persuade a deceased author’s descendants to allow him to write the man’s biography in this film starring Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney. Though the film was released in 2009, the festival screening is a special tribute to legendary filmmaker James Ivory. Ivory will be given a Lifetime Achievement Award, and participate in a Q&A with the author Peter Cameron.

A still from Henry Nelson's Asleep in My Palm

A still from Michael Mishory's documentary Fioretta.

A still from James Ivory's 2009 film The City of Your Final Destination.

A still from Steve Buscemi's The Listener

Purple Haze: Art and Drugs Across the Americas

September 9 – December 10, 2023

Examine the Americas’ ambiguous relationship with drugs and their representation in the media and the public imagination.

SAMUEL DORSKY MUSEUM OF ART STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT NEW PALTZ www.newpaltz.edu/museum

Ex Hex

September 5. Purveyors of power pop with a vengeance, indie trio Ex Hex, who here come to Colony, set the scene ablaze with their addictively anthemic 2014 debut, Rips, and 2019 sophomore set, It’s Real. Fronted by guitarist and singer Mary Timony (Helium, Autoclave, Wild Flag) and also featuring bassist Betsy Wright (Bat Fangs, Chain and the Gang) and drummer Laura Harris (Death Valley Girls, the Aquarium), the band blasts out bright, crunchy, radio-ready singalong jams with enough ear-snagging hooks to fill Ric Ocasek’s swimming pool. (Dirty Fences rock September 14; Superchunk slams September 15.) 8pm. $29.02. Woodstock. Colonywoodstock.com

Squeeze/Psychedelic Furs

September 7. This evening at the Egg unites two of the 1980s’ biggest new wave hitmakers. Squeeze topped the charts in their native UK with singles like “Cool for Cats” and “Up the Junction” before finding massive success in the US with “Tempted” and “Black Coffee in Bed.” Fellow Britons the Psychedelic Furs were already a top postpunk name when their rerecorded version of “Pretty in Pink” blew up MTV via its inclusion on the soundtrack of the film of the same name and “Love My Way” repeated the feat. (Grace Potter plays September 17; the Fab Four do you-know-who September 29.) 8pm. $79.50, $89.50. Albany. Theegg.org

Basilica SoundScape Presents: Godspeed You! Black Emperor

September 9. In what the venue is describing as “either a condensed version of our expansive fall music festival or an expanded Saturday-evening concert,” Basilica Hudson this month presents the return of Montreal’s psychedelic postrock steamroller, Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Along with an epic performance by the headliner, the event also features sets by Zannie and Irreversible Entanglements; readings by Shanekia McIntosh and Hanif Abdurraqib; an “activation” by John Doe Records; art by Niagara Detroit; the midnight Audiofemme Afterparty; food; vendors; and more. 5pm. $50; $60 day of show. Hudson.

Basilicahudson.org

In the Pines Festival

September 9. “Bands, beer, Beacon”—that’s the theme of this day-long outdoor music festival organized by singer-songwriter, educator, and indefatigable local music booster Stephen Clair at the park at University Settlement Camp. The packed roster includes Liz Kelly and the Better Half, Harrison Manning, Noga, Barnaby!, M Roosevelt, Watson, Marigold, the Lousin Brothers, Ears with Eyes, the Stephen Clair Band, and even more. Food and drink by Hudson Valley Brewery and Number Seven Sandwich Hub are part of the program as well. 2pm. $25. Beacon.

Inthepines.rocks

Neil Alexander’s X Ensemble

September 17. Local fusion keyboard king Neil Alexander leads X Ensemble, a modern chamber music ensemble of variable size and instrumentation that encompasses everything from strings, piano, wind instruments, synthesizers, digital music tools, and beyond. To celebrate its 15th year as a Hudson Valley nonprofit arts organization, the Wallkill Center for the Arts recently launched the Arthur Patchett Memorial Music Series, which is running through the first week of November in Orange County and welcomes X Ensemble for this early evening concert of Alexander’s new original compositions. (Daniel Villegas presents “Rhythms and Rhymes: Hip-Hop Poetry, Salsa, Afro/Latin Drums” November 4.) 5pm. Suggested donation $20. Montgomery. Wallkillriverschool.com

The Persian-Tuned Piano

October 3. Inspired by the microtonally-tuned piano music of the influential Iranian pianist Morteza Mahjoubi, the Persian-Tuned Piano is a project featuring contemporary works by Ramin Zoufonoun (piano), Amir Abbas (percussion), and Hafez Modirzadeh (saxophone and 2024 SUNY New Paltz Davenport Composer in Residence). Joined by guest pianist and SUNY music professor Alex Peh, the trio will converge for this special concert at the college campus’s Studley Theater with a selection of new world premieres, improvisations, and standard practice works for piano and percussion. 7:30pm. $10. New Paltz. Newpaltz.edu

—Peter Aaron

Godspeed You! Black Emperor play Basilica SoundScape in Hudson on September 9.

Photo by Heiner Bach/Grywnn

Housatonic Heritage Walks 2023

Celebrating our heritage through hiking & walking, biking, & canoeing

Enjoy more than 80 FREE guided adventures on five weekends

September 2 & 3 l September 9 & 10

September 16 & 17 l September 23 & 24

l September 30 & October 1

www.heritage-hikes.org

Soon Is Now

September 23 at the Long Dock Park, Beacon

An annual immersive day of climate change and eco-themed live performance, art and activism, performers at Soon Is Now include Raven Chacon, Edwin Torres, Koyoltzintli, Jaanika Peerna. Resistance Revival Chorus will close the day with a concert at 5pm. Soonisnow.org

Spencertown Academy Festival of Books

September 1-4 at the Spencertown Academy

If you’re a book lover, look no further than the 2023 Festival of Books at the Spencertown Academy Arts Center. The free children’s program on September 2 allows kids of all ages to meet Lyle the Crocodile and listen to Lyle’s books read by storyteller Ann Gainer. Adults can gather for the giant book sale, from September 2-4, where more than 15,000 affordable, gently used books and audiobooks are ready to be browsed. Fans of Eleanor Henderson, Jonathan Darman, Daphne Kalotay: look out for the free author presentations on September 2 and 3.  Spencertownacademy.org

“Penelope”

September 3-17 at the HV Shakespeare Festival

“I could wait for you forever, if you told me what forever was for.” Eva Steinmetz’s “Penelope” is a retelling of “The Odyssey” through the eyes of Odysseus’s wife, who spent 10 long years fending off suitors waiting for him to return from Troy. “Penelope” is a musical love letter to all those that wait for someone they love with hopes that waiting will create a better end. This explosive and intimate theater piece with music by Alex Bechtel will be running from September 3-17 in Garrison.  Hvshakespeare.org

Hudson Valley Wine & Food Festival

September 9-10 at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds

Wineries, cideries, distilleries, and breweries from across the state join more than 100 gourmet specialty food distributors and lifestyle vendors to bring the region’s best flavors to the Dutchess County Fairgrounds. Not only is this event chock-full of delicious brews and bites, but there will be live music, cooking demonstrations, and seminars on wine tastings, food pairings, and gourmet foods.  Hudsonvalleywinefest.com

A Celebration of James Ivory

September 16-17 at Hudson Hall

Multi-award-winning director, screenwriter, and producer James Ivory is being feted at Hudson Hall this month. Celebrations will include film screenings, Q&As, and special events, not to mention special guests actor Peter Spears and Firoze Jhabvala, producer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s daughter. There will be screenings of The Bostonians, Call Me By Your Name, and Shakespeare Wallah Hudsonhall.org

“Off Peak” at Shadowland

September 15-October 1 at Shadowland Stages

Brenda Withers’s new play “Off Peak” is about forgiving, forgetting, and the healing power of time. When two old flames run into each other, they start to discuss different views of the same past, threatening to derail their rekindled connection. This intimate two-hander gives audience members a peek into the past and present relationship of Sarita and Martin, a musician and a writer, stuck on a train, wading through memories.  Shadowlandstages.org

Art Walk Kingston

September 16-17 in Kingston

Kingston’s studio tour weekend is one of the largest in the Hudson Valley, with over 150 artists at 50 locations across the city. Attendees are invited to immerse themselves in various media: Paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures, and jewelry are just a few of the options that home studios and galleries will be offering across the city. Some locally acclaimed participating artists include Amy Fenton, working with mixed-media, paintings, and collages; acclaimed photographer Andrew Moore; and Deborah Mills Thackery, who prints her colorful photographs on textiles.

Artsmidhudson.org

Welcome to Night Vale

September 26-27 at the Colony, Woodstock

“Turn on your radio and hide.” A funky blend of the macabre and the mundane is presented in the “Welcome to Night Vale” podcast, a twice-monthly community update for a fictional town. Here, you can hear about the weather, dark-hooded figures with supernatural powers, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, and cultural events for the desert town of Night Vale. The creators of Night Vale return to Colony to commune with fans of the weirdness.

Colonywoodstock.com

Woodstock Community Festival of Awakening

September 22-24 in Woodstock

Find some inner peace with two nights and three days of music, dance, spiritual exercises, communal attunings, and more. Friday night will consist of the opening ceremony, a community meal, an ecstatic dance, a fireside jam, and a Kundalini-Gong meditation

at the Woodstock Community Center, The Nest, and the Mountainview Studio.

Woodstockawakening.org

Berkshire Pottery Tour

September 23-24 in the Southern Berkshires

The Berkshire Pottery Tour is hosting their annual ceramics celebration, offering self-guided tours and sales. Among the artists are potters and sculptors Paula Shalan, Ellen Grenadier, and Lorimer Burns. There will also be guest potters present, including Connie Talbor, Sidney Schatzky, Mark Rowntree, and Rie McCarthy. Be sure to pick up a plate from Daniel Bellow, a variety of vases from Ben Evans, or a simplistic sculpture from Linda Skipper.

Berkshirepotterytour.com

An Evening with Al Franken

September 29 at the Ulster Performing Arts Center

Some people might know Al Franken’s name because of his five Emmys, two Grammys, four New York Times best-sellers, or because he’s a former United States Senator. But he might be less known as the satirical voice behind the political scripts for “Saturday Night Live.” As a 15-season “SNL” veteran, Franken wrote the lion’s share of political humor with Jim Downey, serving viewers with unbiased political comedy. Franken’s live shows are wide-ranging, improvisational affairs, drawing on his long history in politics and entertainment.

Bardavon.org

Hudson Valley Garlic Festival

September 30-October 1 in Saugerties

The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival turns 35 this year. Kiwanis Club of Saugerties is once again hosting the annual festival of the “stinking rose” at Cantine Field. While you have the chance to get garlic and eat garlic if you go, there will also be opportunities to participate in chef demonstrations and lectures, browse various crafts by local artisans, shop at the farmers’ market, all while listening to live music. But really, if you go, you have to try Wild Bill’s old fashioned root beer, including a vanilla garlic flavor; Lemon Love’s garlic lemonade; and of course, the garlic ice cream.  Hvgf.org

—Nola Storms

Sentinels, choreographed by Elise Knudson with Ava Heller and Randy Burd. A performance on sculptor George Trakas’ Beacon Point, evoking flooding from the sea level rise of the Hudson River.

Photo by Flynn Larsen

art exhibits

1053 MAIN STREET GALLERY

1053 MAIN STREET, FLEISCHMANNS

“Gary Gissler.” Text-based collage. Through September 24.

510 WARREN ST GALLERY

510 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Botswana and Namibia 2023.” Photographs by John Lipkowitz. September 2-30.

AL HELD FOUNDATION

26 BEECHFORD DRIVE, BOICEVILLE

“Kite: (In a Dream).” Oglála Lakóta artist Kite approaches embroidery as a means of bringing knowledge from the nonhuman realms of machines, animals, and spirits into the human realms of creation. Through October 14.

“On the Grounds 2023.” Sculptures by Anina Major and Sagarika Sundaram. Through October 14.

ARKELL MUSEUM

2 ERIE BOULEVARD, CANAJOHARIE

"Britt LoSacco, Mary Nolan, and Mary Ellen Riell." Paintings. Through October 8.

ART GALLERY 71

71 EAST MARKET STREET #5, RHINEBECK

“Evelyn La Stella: Paintings.” Through September 4.

“John Franco: Paintings.” September 1-30.

ART SALES & RESEARCH

CLINTON CORNERS

“John Tweddle.” Newly discovered wall constructions and works on paper. September 1-October 1.

BANNERMAN ISLAND GALLERY

150 MAIN STREET, BEACON

“The Magic of Castles.” Photographs by Linda T. Hubbard. September 9-November 5.

BASILICA HUDSON

110 FRONT STREET, HUDSON

“Niagara Detroit.” Retrospective organized by the New Gallery. September 8-25.

BAU GALLERY

506 MAIN STREET, BEACON

“Resurgence.” Ceramics by Eileen Sackman. September 9-October 8.

“What Matters.” Painting and sculpture by Daniel Berlin. September 9-October 8.

BEEKMAN LIBRARY

11 TOWN CENTER BOULEVARD, HOPEWELL JUNCTION

“Hudson Valley Landscapes.” Oil Paintings by Kate Masters. September 2-October 30.

BERKSHIRE MUSEUM

39 SOUTH STREET, PITTSFIELD, MA

“Romance and Nature: Art of the Hudson River School.” Highlights of the museum’s Hudson River School collection and lithographs from John James Audubon. Through October 1.

BETHEL WOODS CENTER FOR THE ARTS

200 HURD ROAD, BETHEL

“Rockin’ the Woods.” Sculptures by Wayne Holbert. Through October 31.

BILL ARNING EXHIBITIONS / HUDSON VALLEY

17 BROAD STREET, KINDERHOOK

“Once Removed.” Work by Meghan Gerety, Erik Daniel White, and Zeke Williams. Through October 1.

WOMEN’S STUDIO WORKSHOP

722 BINNEWATER LANE, KINGSTON

“in the palm of your hand.” Group exhibition of itty-bitty works of art. Through October 31.

BUSTER LEVI GALLERY

121 MAIN STREET, COLD SPRING

“Legacy.” New sculptures by Pat Hickman.

September 1-October 1.

CAROL COREY FINE ART

6 NORTH MAIN STREET, KENT, CT

“Roz Chast: Buildings, Bananas, and Beyond.”

August 26-October 1.

CARRIE HADDAD GALLERY

622 WARREN STREET, HUDSON.

“Equipoise: Stasis and Sensuality in Still Life.” Group show. Through October 11.

CATSKILL ART SPACE

48 MAIN STREET, LIVINGSTON MANOR

“Vera Iliatova, Jude Tallichet, and Charles Wilkin.” September 2-October 14.

CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AT WOODSTOCK

474 BROADWAY, KINGSTON

“Upstate Girls to Grown Upstate: Unraveling Collar City 2004–23.” Photographs by Brenda Ann Kenneally. Through October 22.

CHANGO LIFE ARTS

211 FISHKILL AVENUE, BEACON

“Seres Imperfectos.” Work by Cuban artists Sheyla, Mijail Ponce, and Eddy. Through December 27.

CLARK ART INSTITUTE

225 SOUTH STREET, WILLIAMSTOWN, MA

“Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth.” Thirty-five works from the Munchmuseet’s worldrenowned collection. Through October 15.

“Humane Ecology: Eight Positions.” Work by Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Carolina Caycedo, Allison Janae Hamilton, Juan Antonio Olivares, Christine Howard Sandoval, Pallavi Sen, and Kandis Williams. Through October 29.

“Printed Renaissance.” More than 30 prints drawn from the Clark’s extensive holdings of works on paper. Through October 22.

CMA GALLERY

AQUINAS HALL MOUNT SAINT MARY’S COLLEGE, NEWBURGH

“A Place To Connect.” Work by Romina Gonzales and Jason Bauer. Through September 30. CO.

6571 SPRING BROOK AVE, RHINEBECK. “Big Polaroids.” Franc Palaia photography retrospective. September 8-October 31.

CORCORAN COUNTRY LIVING

51-3 EAST MARKET STREET, RHINEBECK

“Welcome Home!” Recent paintings by Susan Angeles. September 1-30.

DISTORTION SOCIETY

172 MAIN STREET, BEACON

“Distortion: Subverting Reality.” Collaborative group exhibition hosted by Distortion Society and Super Secret Projects. Through September 3.

ELIJAH WHEAT SHOWROOM

195 FRONT STREET, NEWBURGH

“Souvenirs of the Wasteland.” Work by Caitlin McCormack and Kat Ryals. Through September 24.

FENIMORE ART MUSEUM

5798 STATE HIGHWAY 80, COOPERSTOWN

“M.C. Escher: Infinite Variations.” More than 160 works by the Dutch artist. Through September 4.

FOLEY AND COX HOME

317 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Woven Together.” Woven photographs by Fernando Engoechea. September 2-30.

FOREST HALL STUDIOS

210 BROAD STREET, MILFORD, PA

“Wildlife.” Hunt Slonem retrospective. September 23-November 30.

GALLERY 40

40 CANNON STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE

“On the Way.” International group show curated by Xuewu Zheng. September 2-October 1.

GALLERY 495

495 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL

“Out of Many, One.” New paintings by Myron Pollenberg. September 23-October 23.

GARRISON ART CENTER

23 GARRISON’S LANDING, GARRISON

“Barely Not Impossible.” Sculpture by David Provan. September 23-November 5.

GREEN KILL

229 GREENKILL AVENUE, KINGSTON

“Leslie Bender and Karen Shasha.” Paintings and altered photographs. September 1-October 31.

GRIT WORKS | GRIT GALLERY

115 BROADWAY, NEWBURGH

“Corners of My Mind.” Paintings by Carolyn Bogart Deleo. Through September 17.

HAWK + HIVE

61 MAIN STREET, ANDES

“Once Met By Morning Dew.” Paintings by Melissa Murray. Through September 17.

HESSEL MUSEUM OF ART/CCS

BARD

BARD COLLEGE, ANNANDALE

“Erika Verzutti: Oil Moon.” Survey of sculpture and wall works from the past 15 years by the Brazilian artist. Curated by Lauren Cornell. Through October 15. “Indian Theater.” Bard College’s Center for Indigenous Studies explores Native North American art through the framework of performance, abstraction, and material experimentation that emerged from the Institute of American Indian Arts’ theater department in the late 1960s. Curated by Candice Hopkins. Through November 26.

HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WOODSTOCK

20 COMEAU DRIVE, WOODSTOCK

“Goin’ to Town…a Celebration of the Woodstock Village.” Through September 17.

HOLLAND TUNNEL GALLERY

46 CHAMBERS STREET, NEWBURGH

“Vivien Collens: Exhibition.” Sculptures by by Vivien Collens. Through September 24.

HOWLAND CULTURAL CENTER

477 MAIN STREET, BEACON

“Realism on the Hudson.” Group show of members of the American Artists Professional League. Through October 1.

HUDSON MILLINER ART SALON

415 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Sitting.” Work by Robin Rice, Shannon Greer, and Charlotta Janssen. Through October 31.

HUDSON HALL

327 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Walking.” Nature photographs by David McIntyre. Through October 8.

JACK SHAINMAN: THE SCHOOL

25 BROAD STREET, KINDERHOOK

“Michael Snow: A Life Survey (1955-2020).”

Retrospective for the musician, painter, photographer, and pioneering experimental filmmaker. Through December 30.

JANE ST. ART CENTER

11 JANE STREET, SAUGERTIES

“Intermundia.” Work by S. B. Woods. Through September 10.

“Aydea.” Work by Michael Pope. September 16-October 22.

KATONAH MUSEUM OF ART

134 JAY STREET, KATONAH

“Synchronicity.” First museum solo exhibition of Taiwanese artist Wu Chi-Tsung. Through October 1.

KLEINERT/JAMES ARTS CENTER

34 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

“Here Now: Contemporary Photographers of the Hudson Valley.” Work by Sharon Core, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Tim Davis, Phyllis Galembo, Lyle Ashton Harris, Marvin Heiferman, Dana Hoey, Carmen Lizardo, Tanya Marcuse, Pete Mauney, Qiana Mestrich, Jeffrey Milstein, Andrew Moore, Carla Rhodes, Seth David Rubin, Ryan Rusiecki, and Oliver Wasow. Curated by Jane Hart. Through September 26.

LABSPACE

2642 NY ROUTE 23, HILLSDALE

“Infinity Weight.” Sculptures and drawings by Elisa Soliven. Through September 10.

LEHMAN LOEB ART CENTER

124 RAYMOND AVENUE, POUGHKEEPSIE

“Body Matters.” Vassar students re-curate, reshape, and reimagine “What Now? (Or Not Yet).” Through September 10.

“The Hairy Leg or What To Do Wrong.” Judy Linn selects photographs from the Loeb’s permanent collection: Diane Arbus, Sid Grossman, and others. Through September 24.

“Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection.” Highlights from the Spelman College collection. September 29-January 28.

LONGYEAR GALLERY

785 MAIN STREET, MARGARETVILLE.

“View From Here.” Work by Deborah Ruggierio. “The Crones.” Work by Bonnie Mitchell, Elaine Grandy, and Linda Lariar. Both shows through September 10.

MAGAZZINO ITALIAN ART

2700 ROUTE 9, COLD SPRING

"Welcome to New York!" Special project dedicated to the renowned artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. Through June 24, 2024.

MANITOGA / THE RUSSEL WRIGHT DESIGN CENTER

584 ROUTE 9D, PHILIPSTOWN

"The Art + Design of Ceramics: Layered Voices, Stephanie H. Shih/Jolie Ngo." Through November 13.

MARK GRUBER GALLERY

13 NEW PALTZ PLAZA, NEW PALTZ

“Pastel Rhythms.” Landscapes by Marlene Wiedenbaum. September 9-October 28.

MARS CREATIVE FACTORY

441 MALDEN TURNPIKE, SAUGERTIES

“IKAHN: Arc of an Artist.” John Kahn retrospective. September 2-30.

MASS MOCA

1040 MASS MOCA WAY, NORTH ADAMS, MA

“Love from Vicki Island.” Playful and provocative sculptures by Daniel Giordano. Through September 30.

MILLBROOK LIBRARY

3 FRIENDLY LANE, MILLBROOK

“Deeply Rooted.” Photographs by members of the Millbrook Garden Club. September 15-October 14.

NORTH LOOP

112 WATER STREET, WILLIAMSTOWN, MA

“At Finger’s End: Michael Cuadrado and Rina Goldfield.” Abstract drawing and painting. Through September 17.

“Beverly Acha, Annie Bielski, and Odessa Straub.” Contemporary approaches to abstract painting, drawing, and installation. In collaboration with September gallery. Through September 17.

OLANA STATE HISTORIC SITE

5720 ROUTE 9G, HUDSON

“Terraforming: Olana’s Historic Photography Collection Unearthed.” Nineteenth-century photographs from Frederic Church’s collection curated by David Hartt. Through October 29.

OLIVE FREE LIBRARY

4033 ROUTE 28A, WEST SHOKAN

“Define Beauty.” Group show curated by Donal Elder. Through September 9.

“A Town Shaped by Water: 200 Years of Olive History.” Photos, ephemera, and colorful stories collected through oral histories of several Town of Olive notables. Through December 31.

“From Soup to Nuts.” Group show curated by Elaine Ralston. September 23-November 5.

PAMELA SALISBURY GALLERY

362 1/2 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Convulsive Calculations.” Work by Lisa Corinne Davis.

“Fruits.” Work by Phoebe Helander.

“Meditations on Place.” Work by Michael Meehan.

“Oh Ok.” Work by Scott Brodie.

“Rooms for Strangers.” Work by Brian Rego and Pierce Scantlin.

All shows September 2-October 1.

PINKWATER GALLERY

56 NORTH FRONT STREET, KINGSTON

“Mind’s Eye: The Abstract Beyond Perception.” Group show of contemporary women artists. Through September 10.

“Mapping the Abstract.” Group show. September 16-October 28.

PRIVATE PUBLIC

530 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON

“Summer Disaster Show.” Group show. Through September 10.

SAMUEL DORSKY MUSEUM OF ART

SUNY NEW PALTZ, NEW PALTZ

“Notes for Tomorrow.” Exhibition conceived by Independent Curators International featuring artworks selected by 31 curators based in 25 countries around the world to reflect on a new global reality ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through November 12.

“Purple Haze: Art and Drugs Across the Americas.” Exhibition exploring the representation of drugs in the media and public imagination. September 9-December 10.

SEPTEMBER

4 HUDSON STREET, KINDERHOOK

“Myth Maker.” Work by Laleh Khorramian. Through October 15.

SPENCERTOWN ACADEMY ARTS CENTER

790 ROUTE 203, SPENCERTOWN

“Homes, Hamlets & Villages: Style and Lifestyle in Small Towns and Rural Communities.” Group show juried by Carrie Chen, Linden Scheff, and Nelena Soro. September 30-October 29.

STORM KING ART CENTER

1 MUSEUM ROAD, NEW WINDSOR

Site-specific presentations of new and recent artworks by Beatriz Cortez, Ugo Rondinone, and RA Walden in addition to permanent collection. Through November 13.

skip skip, Laleh Khorramian, ink, conte, gouache, polypropelene, 26" x 14", 2023. From Khorramian's solo exhibition "Myth Maker" at September.

SUSAN ELEY FINE ART

433 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Bountiful.” Work by Eunju Kang and Fumiko Toda. Through September 3.

“Fission/Fusion.” Work by Carole Eisner and David L. Bullis. Through October 15.

‘T’ SPACE

137 ROUND LAKE ROAD, RHINEBECK

“Giuliano Fiorenzoli.” September 3-October 15.

THE RE INSTITUTE

1395 BOSTON CORNERS ROAD, MILLERTON

“Face Nature: Experiments in Trees.” Work by Madeline Schwartzman. Through September 9.

THE WASSAIC PROJECT

37 FURNACE BANK ROAD, WASSAIC.

“Counting the Seconds Between Lightning and Thunder.” Work by Fern Apfel, Mara Baldwin, Desmond Beach, Shawn Bitters + Matthew Willie Garcia, Leonardo Bravo, Michael Covello + Elizabeth Schneider, Adinah Dancyer, Liz Ferrer + Bow Ty, Francesco Gattuso, Jeila Gueramian, Dan Gunn, Iris Helena Hamers, Jazmine Hayes, Joe Hedges, Pete Hillstrom, Jeremiah Jossim, Natalja Kent, Danielle Klebes, Kyle Kogut, KK Kozik · Ailyn Lee, Chip McCall, Caitlin McCormack, Austin Nash, Chiara No, Marianna Peragallo, Kat Ryals, Azadeh Nia, Jen Shepard, Daniel Shieh, Jeff Slomba, Melissa Vogley Woods, Janet Wang, Poyen Wang, Jen White-Johnson, Natalie Woodlock, and Ping Zheng. Through September 16.

THOMAS COLE HISTORIC SITE

218 SPRING STREET, CATSKILL

“Women Reframe American Landscape: Susie Barstow & Her Circle/Contemporary Practices.” Female artists of the 19th century exhibited alongside contemporary female artists. Through October 29.

TIVOLI ARTISTS GALLERY

60 BROADWAY, TIVOLI

“Farms & Fields.” Group show. Through September 10.

TREMAINE ART GALLERY AT THE HOTCHKISS SCHOOL

11 INTERLAKEN ROAD, LAKEVILLE, CT

“Cicatrix | in Bloom.” Work by Maggie Nowinski. September 6-October 15.

UNISON ARTS & LEARNING CENTER

68 MOUNTAIN REST ROAD, NEW PALTZ

“Community Imprint.” Prints by artists fro the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory and D.R.A.W. in Kingston. September 2-October 7.

VISITOR CENTER

233 LIBERTY STREET, NEWBURGH

“Field Dressings for Lazarus.” Mixed media by Lodger Studio. September 1-October 6.

WEST STRAND ART GALLERY

29 W. STRAND STREET, KINGSTON

“A Point in Time and Space.” Work by Amy Cheng, Isabel Cotarelo, Lydia Rubio, and Julia Santos Solomon. Through October 8.

WOODSTOCK ARTISTS

ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM

28 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

“Featured Active Members’ Show.” Group show. Through September 24.

“Norma Morgan: In the Lands of the Moors and Catskills.” Paintings, drawings, and engravings by Norma Morgan (1928-2017). Through September 10.

“Radius 50: Intimate Immensity.” Regional group show juried by Susan Wides. Through September 24.

“Paper Unframed.” Benefit exhibition and auction. September 14-24.

WOODSTOCK SCHOOL OF ART

2470 ROUTE 212, WOODSTOCK

“Woodstock Monoprint Invitational Exhibition.”

A survey of monoprints by contemporary artists. September 9-October 7.

An untitled photograph by Larry Clark from 1963. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. From “Purple Haze: Art and Drugs Across the Americas” at the Dorsky Museum.

Horoscopes

By Cory Nakasue

Critical Conditions and Finding Coherence

There are three distinct experiences contained in the month of September that we are challenged to cohere. We have many tools at our disposal to do this work, but we’ll have to make some painstaking edits to achieve this coherence. Some of us might find this an enjoyable activity (Virgo, I’m looking at you). At the top of the month, we have two important planetary stations: Venus stations direct on September 3, and Jupiter stations retrograde on September 4.

Venus turns direct after a six-week journey exploring the underbelly of our desires. Once she picks up speed in her forward motion, we can implement all that we learned while examining the depths of our hearts. While Jupiter prepares its journey back in time, we can expect to learn salient lessons about how we value the material bodies of Earth and flesh. As Venus in Leo and Jupiter in Taurus adjust to their transitions, they will be in alignment, suggesting some dynamic action around these topics.

The new Moon in Virgo on the 14th, followed by Mercury’s direct station in Virgo on the 15th, asks us to make choices now that we’ve had time to reflect on our values. Virgo is the last phase of experience that everything must go through to determine if something is qualified, good enough, or healthy enough to withstand exposure to the external world. A key word for Virgo is critical, in all of its multiple meanings.

The month ends with the Sun’s entrance into Libra at the autumnal equinox on the 23rd, and a full Moon in Aries on the 29th. Right on cue, we are thrust into relationship with each other and with the outside world after a deeply internal summer. Who are we now, and where do we fit in?

ARIES (March 20–April 19)

The characteristic Aries boldness and decisiveness is severely challenged mid-month by Virgo’s endless adjustments and corrections. You may feel slowed down by someone else’s need to behave in a more cautious manner. How do you balance your need for speed and action with the compassion you feel for those closest to you? Is it possible to expand your range of speed? Lessons in modulation are coming for you this month, and they serve to clarify your personal needs. The full Moon in Aries at month’s end is a culmination of all that you’re learning about yourself by way of contrast.

TAURUS (April 19–May 20)

Not only has your planetary ruler, Venus, survived a trip to the underworld, she’s come out the other side a charged-up morning star. Jupiter, in your sign, is about to start its own inward and underground journey. There are two sensations that need to be held in the body and reconciled: movement and stillness. Part of you may feel ready to express and go after your heart’s desire, and another part of you needs to turn inward to incubate some burgeoning realizations that have not been integrated. Give yourself time to find rightrelationship between flesh and philosophy.

Cory Nakasue is an astrology counselor, writer, and teacher. Her talk show, “The Cosmic Dispatch,” is broadcast on Radio Kingston (1490AM/107.9FM) Sundays from 4-5pm and available on streaming platforms. AstrologybyCory.com

Horoscopes

GEMINI (May 20–June 21)

Your planetary ruler, Mercury, stations direct at the same time as the new Moon on September 14. This all happens in a section of your chart that has to do with your origins, foundations, and the most private parts of yourself. You may have caught yourself in deep reflection as of late with regard to your family, home, and emotional life. By mid-month you arrive at some clarity around the topic of environmental support. How do the people and places you rely upon help or hinder your need for movement, expression, and curiosity? Some critical conversations are encouraged in reference to a change of living situation.

CANCER (June 21–July 22)

The key word for you this month is belonging—in all of its possible meanings. Where do you belong? What or who belongs to you? Is it wrong to want to belong, to own, and to have? You may be feeling greedy and equally judgmental of yourself for these feelings. Without being overly critical, feel into these urges. Does belonging symbolize safety? Does it help to define you? Start this process at the top of the month. By month’s end, you should feel more comfortable and less compulsive about your relationship to ownership. You may find belonging to yourself is enough.

LEO (July 22–August 23)

The time has finally arrived, Leo! Whether your experience of Venus’s retrograde through your sign was somber, decadent, or triumphant, all that you’ve uncovered in the nooks and crannies of your heart is ready to be expressed. As Leo is about presentation, among other things, this should be a more comfortable time for you. Like a kid who’s spent the whole summer collecting treasures on the seashore, it’s time to empty out your pail and examine the beautiful shells, rocks, and maybe even some garbage you found. What will you make with your discoveries? How will you display them?

VIRGO (August 23–September 23)

With Mercury zigzagging through your first house, I’m imagining the back-and-forth motion of a blade being sharpened on a stone. There’s something you’re honing. Whether it’s your body, your mind, or a personal project, be careful not to over-scrape or press too hard. There’s rigor, and then there’s burn out, which actually dulls the mind and senses. You’re being tasked this month to find the sharpest edge of your abilities without going over that edge. There is work to be done though, and new methods and systems to implement that result in the highest quality with less effort.

LIBRA (September 23–October 23)

You’ve been in high circulation with others over the past few months, and this month is no exception. The tone and content of relationships takes a turn towards more complexity though. Luckily, you have the energy to maneuver through thornier entanglements. Where have you gotten in over your head in deals made in the energetic, sexual, or financial realms? You may need to break a promise or reverse-engineer a merger. Not the most comfortable position for you, but you are armed with a machete to cut through a bind that is too tight by month’s end.

Practical Spiritual Wisdom

HIGH SOCIETY

Horoscopes

SCORPIO (October 23–November 22)

It is crucial that you say what you mean and mean what you say. If you’re tempted to enhance, bend, or otherwise skirt the truth of what’s in your heart of hearts, it will reek of insincerity. Your friends and colleagues are watching you with a very discerning eye. The good news is that if you dare to express yourself without hedging, you’re likely to get the support you need to move through the world exactly as you desire. This takes courage, and most of all, trust in yourself. Transparency can be difficult for Scorpio, but right now it’s so worth it!

SAGITTARIUS (November 22–December 22)

You’re doing the delicate work of figuring out how to fit your fiery beliefs and grand visions into a practical system. At the moment, it may feel like the world, as it is, is too small to contain all the possibilities you’d like to make realities. You’re about to learn some hard and valuable lessons in the art of editing and distillation. You may have to “kill your darlings,” as it were, to manifest the dream that burns brightest, but this is a necessary step in becoming an artisan. Finding a purpose for your passion is ultimately healing as well.

CAPRICORN (December 22–January 20)

The autumnal equinox and the full Moon that follows is a pivotal time for you. It looks like there are many deals to be made and that you’re feeling confident. Your equinox chart reminds me of the 1987 film Wall Street, directed by Oliver Stone. It’s ambitious, full of social prowess and the ability to source hidden information. And it looks like you’re having fun to boot! Whatever it is you’re after, it looks like you’ll get it. It’s possible that feeling your desires so thoroughly is enough. Watch that they don’t consume you. Stay close to the fire without getting burned.

AQUARIUS (January 20–February 19)

Of all the signs, Aquarius is going through the most disintegration and transformation. While it might be difficult to feel your edges right now, it’s prime time for merging with your environment and other people. Your current, incredibly porous state of being is a blessing. While finding a material form might be hard, you have amazing access to the kernel of truth about something. While uncomfortable, you’d be remiss to not take advantage of the wisdom contained in your heart. Who needs outward definition with such a strong core? Who needs the ground beneath their feet when they’re a sky god?

PISCES (February 20–March 19)

A lot of us grew up with the idea that perfect clarity around a situation is something we should strive for. Sometimes, it’s so tempting to just pick a rocksolid interpretation of something, and then be on our merry way. Neat and concise explanations of complex circumstances and feelings seldom reflect the truth of life. You’re being asked to think critically this month, but also understand that “either-or” types of determinations are a good sign that you’re not thinking critically. Investigate the spaces in between the obvious fragments of what you’re being presented with. If others offer you two possibilities, find a third.

Tao of Thoreau combines Taoism and Nature, creating a practical guidebook to realizing personal potential. Matching Thoreau’s ideas with Taoism leads the Seeker on the path of simplicity, natural harmony, and spiritual power. Tao of Thoreau gives you two transcendent Sages to guide you on your enlightenment journey.

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Photo Credit: David McIntyre

parting shot

Walking on Broken Glass

Four of the artists featured in the exhibit “Here Now: Contemporary Photographers of the Hudson Valley” at the Kleinert/James Center for Arts have been featured on the cover of this magazine: Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Tim Davis, Pete Mauney, and Jeffrey Milstein. Seeing the show was like meeting up with old friends: Milstein’s Crayola-colored airplanes, Blackwood’s nature photos with humans hovering just out of frame, Davis’s eye for the absurd in the mundane, Mauney’s fascination with long exposures at night.

The fractured prints of Seth David Rubin are a delightful discovery. The most formally intriguing pieces in the show, Rubin’s deconstructions of portraiture— he arranges mirrors on location—blur the line between the fictitious and the real, questioning what is actually “real” about photographs themselves.

The exhibit, curated by Jane Hart, is a clever gathering of acclaimed (Andrew Moore) and emerging (Ryan Rusiecki) Hudson Valley photo-based contemporary artists who employ various approaches and techniques to tell stories that reflect our present moment. Other artists participating in “Here Now” will likely be well known to our readers: Sharon Core, Phyllis Galembo, Lyle Ashton Harris, Marvin Heiferman, Dana Hoey, Carmen Lizardo, Tanya Marcuse, Qiana Mestrich, Carla Rhodes, and Oliver Wasow. The exhibit will be on display through September 26 in Woodstock. Woodstockguild.org.

—Brian K. Mahoney

Burgess, Seth David Rubin, from the series Placements, dye sublimation print, 28" x 42", 2023

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