Chronogram October 2022

Friday night lights at Dietz Stadium, where the Kingston Tigers played Our Lady of Lourdes Warriors on September 9.

COMMUNITY PAGES, PAGE 42

DEPARTMENTS

6 On the Cover

An illustration by James Christopher Carroll.

11 Esteemed Reader

Jason Stern meets a holy man.

13 Editor’s Note

Brian K. Mahoney says farewell to a very good dog.

FOOD & DRINK

14 Bossing It in Hudson: Padrona

The bartender and service industry veteran Kat Dunn recently opened her long-awaited bar on 4th Street.

CRAFT BEVERAGE

19 Sip and View

Fall is here and the time is right for drinking in splendid vistas as well as local craft beverages.

HOME

24 A Wayward Spirit Finds a Home

Artist Jesse Bransford entertains guests from the spirit world in his octagonal house in Catskill.

HIGH SOCIETY

34 Let’s Roll: Top Sellers at Local Dispensaries

Sales of flower are down while concentrates, edibles, and seltzers have increased in popularity over the past year.

HEALTH & WELLNESS

36 Healthcare Heroes of the Hudson Valley

This month, we put a spotlight on local health-and-wellness changemakers, including a globetrotting MD on a mission to crush cervical cancer, an acupuncturist who’s moving the needle on access to holistic care, and a spiritual intuitive with training in emergency mental health.

COMMUNITY PAGES

42 Kingston: Making Space

The city that had the hottest real estate market in the country is putting housing solutions into place.

PORTFOLIO

58 The Story of Historic Kingston

Stephen Blauweiss and Karen Berelowitz tell the origin story of New York’s first capital city in the recently published The Story of Historic Kingston

Photo by David McIntyre

A fireplace mantel in Jesse Bransford’s study is one of several altars in the octagonal Catskill house. An alchemical print from Ouroboros Press sits above candlesticks and found objects.

HOME, PAGE 24

ARTS

60 Music

Album reviews of the compilation New Paltz in the ‘90s: A Loud Place; Time and Other Things That Don’t Exist by Double Celled Organism; and Gone Too Far by Johnny and the Triumphs. Plus listening recommendations from Newburgh-based saxophonist Eric Person.

51 Books

Betsy Maury reviews Nineteen Reservoirs, a history of the creation of New York City’s watershed by Lucy Sante. Plus short reviews of How to Write a Song That Matters by Dar Williams; Stories by Sparrow; Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging by Cait Johnson; Witches and Warlocks of New York by Lisa LaMonica; and Lily Narcissus by Jonathan Lerner.

62 Poetry

Poems by Diego Antoni, Jennifer Axinn-Weiss, Frieda Feldman, Anthony G. Herles, Tony Howarth, A. J. Huffman, Marjorie Maddox, Frank Malley, Thomas Schwartz, Danielle Sweetser, Charlotte Tramontana, Mark Vian.

Edited by Phillip X Levine.

FALL ARTS PREVIEW

64 A profile of Faheem Haider, executive director of Unison Arts, the venerable New Paltz-based arts organization

66 Events we’re excited for this season include Lucid Dreaming Minigolf, the Sheep & Wool Festival, Film Columbia, and “Tell-Tale Heart” at Denizen Theater.

71 Concerts not to miss this fall: Ani DiFranco, Trombone Shorty, !!!, Rufus Wainwright, and Al Bilali Soudan.

75 Upstate Films screens Brilliant Disguise, a documentary about Indian spiritual seeker K. C. Tewari

81 Emil Alzamora at Garage Gallery and Robert Bordo at Foreland are two must-see shows this autumn. Plus listings of art exhibits from across the region.

HOROSCOPES

84 Come On, Feel the Noise What the stars have in store for us this month.

PARTING SHOT

88 Art of the Columbia Collective Art by incarcerated youth in Hudson.

on the cover

My Last Lullaby

James Christopher Carroll mixed media, 2022

Illustrator James Christopher Carroll says he could never envision anything other than pursuing his chosen path. “I’ve always wanted to be an artist; nothing else made sense,” he says. “What a blessing it is to be able to make art every day! Though I’m sure that it may be the most selfish thing that a person can do. Perhaps, after all the words and colors have dried, they can bring some beauty to others.”

Carroll has published a number of books for children including his most recent, The World Below The Brine (Creative Editions, 2021), which sets Walt Whitman’s poem about the mystery and wonder of life underwater against Carrol’s lush illustrations. Imbued with a lyrical, whimsical style, Carroll’s work suggests dreamscapes. At times his flying figures recall the work of Marc Chagal, but Carroll’s palate is brighter, saturated with a magical, glowing luminescence as if powered by fireflies. In contrast, his black-and-white work is starker, with an etched or woodcut quality.

Carroll’s creative method is open-ended. “I have discovered that my best work comes when I allow the process to remain just beyond my control for as long as I can bear it,” he says. “This is a time of discomfort, wrapped in some self-loathing, but setting the ego aside for a spell allows me to drink from a well that my ancestors dug a long time ago.”

Carroll is also receptive to the narratives in available materials, like an antenna for stories floating in the ether. “I see an image, a photo, a sketch, and I imagine the story they want to tell us. They sit there waiting for someone willing to spend time in conversation with them. This is likely why I have spent much of my time illustrating and writing books for children. To enjoy the slow waltz of words and pictures across the page. In truth, I write for myself, to create a world that I want or that I remember. Then comes the added pleasure of sharing this bit of myself with others.”

The written word is an equally powerful medium for Carroll, and he considers himself a poet as much as he is an illustrator. His poem “My Last Lullaby” is a companion piece to the illustration on this month’s cover, which is about the death of Carroll’s mother. “My dear mother passed away last winter, and, of course, took part of me with her when she left,” he says. “In an effort to find some balance, I took a long walkabout in the Catskills this spring. I camped, biked, meditated, prayed, sketched, and wrote ‘My Last Lullaby’ during this time. My mother helped write this poem and inspired the artwork.” (The poem is included in the online version of this piece.)

The Hudson Valley has always been home for Carroll, who lives in Chatham with his wife and children. He has spent his entire life in the area, and continues to find inspiration in the history and the landscape. “The beauty around us is unavoidable. The mountains are haunted with lovely old ghosts. I wonder if there could be a place better charmed than what we have here?” Carroll asks.

Carroll’s illustrations will be exhibited, along with photographs by Matt Drake, at Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham from October 15 through November 13.

—Mike Cobb

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

HEALTH & WELLNESS EDITOR Wendy Kagan health@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, Micke Cobb, Michael Eck, Morgan Y Evans, Amadeus Finlay, Lorelai Kude, Aki Kuwahata-Diggle, Betsy Maury, David McIntyre, Jeremy Schwartz, Sparrow, Carl Van Brunt

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

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

Margot Isaacs margot.isaacs@chronogram.com

Ashleigh Lovelace ashleigh.lovelace@chronogram.com

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Kate Brodowska

9:30–5:30

esteemed reader by Jason Stern

“I must see the dervish.”

The tall man on the other side of the reception table was much taller than me. At least 6’2” with a neatly trimmed beard.

“It is imperative that I speak with the dervish before the ceremony.”

I was the doorman for a public presentation of the sama’a, a ceremony of whirling practiced by Sufis in the Middle East and Central Asia. The dervish giving the demonstration had given me clear instructions that no one was to disturb him while he was dressing and preparing inwardly for the ceremony.

Feeling intimidated, I straightened myself and tried to plant my feet more firmly on the floor.

“As I said, the dervish has left clear instructions that nobody can see him now.”

The tall man replied in such a commanding voice that all the heads in the lobby of the theater turned our direction.

“Go and tell him Nobody is here to see him. I am Nobody!”

His meaning came clear as I replayed the conversation in my mind. Nobody can see the dervish… I am Nobody…

“Aha,” I said, smiling. “That’s very clever. Deep, too. Like Odysseus. Still, you cannot see the dervish.”

The man turned and walked out the front door without looking back.

In the ceremony, the dervish wore a white cloak meant to represent a casket. He embodied one who is dead to the world of things and phenomena and whose attention is absorbed in consciousness. His hands were held high, a little like a gesture of crucifixion. His right hand was turned up in a receptive gesture, and the left hand down, transmitting. And he whirled, faster and faster until his flowing skirt became a blur, for a very long time. When he stopped, suddenly still, arms crossed on his chest, an atmosphere of profound stillness filled the room.

As I watched the dervish turn in his flowing white robe the question resounded in my mind: “What does it mean to be nobody?”

Though the demanding man gave the impression of being very much a somebody, which is to say he seemed to be full of himself, the conversation stuck in my mind like a thorn I couldn’t remove. Over the ensuing years I held the question in my mind and it became a kind of beacon in navigating life.

After some decades of searching, I found myself in a mosque and madrasa in Old Bukhara, in Uzbekistan. This was one of the places that the Sufi order called the Malamati, or people who follow the way of blame, had its center prior to the invasion by the Soviets in the early part of the last century. Through a guide I had found a representative of the brotherhood. He had agreed to meet and speak through an interpreter.

His gray beard and lined face suggested age but his movements and bearing showed the vitality and lightness of youth. We sat together in a quiet section of an enormous mosque under a high roof supported by stone pillars. We sat together in silence with legs crossed on the floor. The atmosphere vibrated with the crackling stillness I recognized from the ceremony of whirling.

Without any introduction, he began to speak about the precise inner work I was doing at the time. It is a practice relating to the lataif “subtleties.” The lataif are energetic qualities analogous to chakras, but in the emotional center instead of the body. Each of them has a location in the chest associated with higher emotions which are so called, in part, because they have no opposite.

“This is the secret place,” he said, pointing to a location in his breast. “It is the source of longing for completion. It is our wish and yearning to be, from which true evolution begins.”

And then the man was silent and I had the impression that he had instantly returned to the energetic stillness of his practice. I struggled to keep his intense gaze, which seemed to have in it both pity and radical indifference.

“How do we develop this wish to be?” I asked.

When he spoke again it was as though the bell of his being had been struck by my question. His voice seemed to come from an acoustic chamber full of resonant cavities adding subtle harmonics to the sound.

“Stop thinking of yourself and be nobody,” he said.

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Years ago, we had a groundhog problem. Not only were they eating everything we planted in our garden, but the bandits were quite discerning about it, waiting until our veggies and berries were at the peak of ripeness. I’d inspect the strawberries one evening, thinking, “Tomorrow will be the day to enjoy a bowl of strawberries,” and in the morning, they’d be gone, eaten by the plump, scurrying critters who lived under the shed.

A couple days after such an incident, I decided to take action. I got up before dawn with murder on my mind. But first things first: I let Shazam out to relieve himself and fed him breakfast. Then, I went back upstairs to my office window, which has a good view of the shed and the 30 feet of lawn between it and the garden. I crouched in the window with a pellet rifle like Oswald in the book depository.

When the groundhog appeared, peeking its little head out, I took aim, caressed the trigger with my finger, slowed my breathing, and waited. When the groundhog came fully into view, I was just about to shoot when Shazam—who I thought was inside the house—jumped off the deck and grabbed the groundhog by its neck. Shazam shook the thing so hard it kept slapping against the sides of his face. By the time I got downstairs Shazam was poking the dead groundhog like it was a broken toy. When it didn’t get back up, Shazam, our sweet, adolescent pup/natural-born killer, gave me a delicate lick on the shin and trotted back inside. We never had groundhog trouble after that; or, not for long anyway. Shazam was so proficient that our neighbor Vicki made him a medallion for his collar that notched his kills.

***

When we adopted Shazam he was named Red, which made some sense as his head was reddish brown with a white stripe running

down his nose. And he was supposedly from Louisiana. I cannot remember why we decided to name him Larry at first, but that lasted only a day or so before Lee Anne came up with Shazam, which was the word Joe Brill said at our commitment ceremony to formalize our union. Shazam had many aliases: Shazamalama Ding Dong, Love Muffin, Lama, Smushy Face, Dog Breath, and Nature Boy among them.

The moniker Nature Boy came about because of Shazam’s penchant for standing stock still with his head thrust in a bush or hedgerow, as if in a reverie. This may or may not have had something to do with the time he found a sandwich in the bushes outside the Catholic church down the street. We walked past those bushes every day on our way to the park. One afternoon, Shazam poked his head into the hedge and came out with an entire submarine sandwich, still wrapped in paper. Normally, I tried to keep our sensitive-stomached dog from eating ground scores, but the situation was so delightfully strange that I stood there and watched him eat the whole thing, paper and all. I’ll never understand why someone stashed a hero in that hedge, but Shazam inspected that bush closely every day thereafter.

***

Shazam was an alpha (runs in the family) and did not back down from pecking-order challenges. He never met a canine he didn’t want to make a beta, regardless of its size. As Adie, the owner of Rudy, a goofy beta, said of Shazam: “Macho was part of his charm.” Or, as Steven put it in a letter to Shazam: “You maintained territorial reign without having to invoke aggressive pronouncements. OK, there was that one gopher…oh, and UPS, USPS, and Fed Ex… but nonetheless, you weren’t a brute.”

Shazam was a cuddler and a lover. After a bracing walk on a winter’s morning we would

often take to the couch and I would read while Shazam crawled on top of me and burrowed his cold, wet nose in my armpit before falling asleep. Sometimes he would stick his head in my crotch and hold it there and let me scratch the back of his neck. That was his happy place.

***

Shazam was a dog’s dog. He loved to swim, hike (he bagged 22 of the 35 Catskill peaks above 3,500 feet) catch Frisbees, destroy plush toys, chase deer, eat garbage, roughhouse with other canines, roll in dead things, menace the mailman, and sleep it all off on the couch.

***

One of my favorite memories of Shazam is the time we ran away from the dog warden. The city had decided to crack down on people walking their dogs off leash at the park. The dog warden had been driving around the park in his little white van handing out tickets to folks for their dogs being off-leash. A few people I knew had been ticketed, and the fine, with court fees, was close to $100.

One fine morning, Shazam and I were walking in the park when I saw the warden’s white van coming over the hill. And he saw us. Unleashed as always. I turned to Shazam and said, “We’re gonna make a run for it, buddy.” As the van bore down on us, Shazam and I took off. We jumped a low stone wall and ran across the grass and through the trees and across the bridge to the train tracks along the river where the city property ended. The dog warden had no jurisdic tion here. But we didn’t stop and gloat or jeer at the dog warden in his little van. We kept going. We ran all the way home, two creatures simply delighted to be alive, to be running through the early-morning streets, to have found such a fine companion. Such a damn fine companion.

Shazam the Wonder Dog (2007-2022)

by Brian K. Mahoney

note

Photo by Aki Kuwahata-Diggle

Bossing It in Hudson

PADRONA

By Marie Doyon Photos by David McIntyre

Kat Dunn’s Plan B was more successful than most restaurateurs’ wildest dreams.

While she waited out pandemic stopwork restrictions, permitting delays, and material price hikes that held up the launch of her bar, Padrona, she launched an essence-of-summer pop-up called Buttercup. Operating out of the same space Padrona now occupies on 4th Street in Hudson, Dunn slung lobster rolls, Coney Island hot dogs, and playful cocktails to a COVID-fatigued crowd hungry for some semblance of frivolity.

The seasonal pop-up, which kicked off Memorial Day weekend, went well into December for two years running. It started out as a stop-gap measure, but eventually turned into a delay for Padrona itself. The customers were faithful—even in less-than-beachy weather—and Buttercup’s catering arm popped off. So it was understandably hard to suspend a good thing. “I had to think long and hard about Buttercup and really what its purpose was. For me, it was always about Padrona,” says Dunn, who decided to shut the pop-up down at the end of July. “It was really

delaying construction, only to be able to get in there twice a week. We had to put the pressure on to get it finished.”

With attention solidly on Padrona, the final push took a month, and the bar Dunn had so long dreamed of opened September 2. Now, on a Friday night at 8pm, it’s hard to find a seat at the bar beneath the amber glow of the hanging glass orbs, but there are still two-tops available. By 9:30pm, there isn’t an open seat in the house as older couples on double dates crowd around pushed-together tables, groups of friends throng on the patio, and a party of 10 occupies the lounge corner in the back by the piano. The crowd is a multigenerational mix of locals and visitors of all ages, races, and fashion sensibilities.

“There will be changes rolling out over the next couple of months. I don’t even have signage up— just Sharpie on the side of the building,” says Dunn. “But it was really time. I just wanted to be open. And it really was worth the wait.”

Like Mary Poppins stepping into a chalk drawing, the interior of the newly debuted Padrona is a rendering come to life off the

Kat Dunn at Padrona, a bar that serves creative cocktails and indulgent bites like devilled eggs and lobster rolls.

Opposite, clockwise from top left: Trout rillettes; whipped ricotta with wildflower honey; bottarga onion dip; a martini-in-waiting.

page. COVID concerns led Dunn to tweak some features, like trading a single, room-long banquette for individual seating. But the color schemes, the fabrics, the look and feel are all intact. “Things I had been thinking about for years seemed to really resonate with people,” Dunn says. “All sorts of people. People up from the city. Some locals. Younger couples. An older man who had worked at Miller for 40 years was so psyched to be drinking a Miller High Life pony at the bar. Everyone enjoyed the seating and overall decor, and I didn’t have to tell someone once to stop banging on the piano.”

Lobster Rolls, Potato Chips, Bottarga Dunn’s approach to the food program at Padrona is an indulgent take on casual grazing with menu items like assorted giardiniera, devilled eggs ($7), and a local cheese and charcuterie board ($16). The trout rillettes ($16) is a fast favorite, offering a luxurious, housemade spread served in a small, swing-top Hermes jar with pickled red onion, thick slices of baguette, and endive, which does double duty as a colorful garnish and as a beautiful, bitter counterpoint to the rich umami of the smoked trout. Dunn’s mastery of high-brow/low-brow shows with the

bottarga onion dip ($14), which recalls Super Bowl Sunday, served with a massive plate of crispy Cape Cod potato chips. The sweetness of the caramelized onion is balanced by the tang of the creme fraiche that forms the dip’s base while the garnish of chives and green onions deliver a necessary allium bite.

Potato chips are the Padrona food program’s workhorse—they also come with the blue cheese fondue ($8) and the quarter-pound lobster roll ($32), a concession for the Buttercup faithful. It’s no wonder the pop-up was so successful, when the split-top roll arrives smelling of hot butter and overflowing with fresh Maine lobster that melts in your mouth. (Use the chips to pick up the stragglers.) It’s good enough to eat three, pricey enough to share. For a sweet, rich treat, try the whipped ricotta served with wildflower honey and fennel pollen and baguette ($12).

“This is how I like to eat—a nosh of all sorts of different things,” Dunn says. “It’s luxurious, so you don’t do it every day, but when you want to, it’s available for you.”

Flip to the last page of the menu for Dunn’s coup de grace: a gourmet tinned fish program offering everything from pickled sardine tails and loins (both $26) to Pinhais mackerel in olive

oil ($19) and Gueya Mar razor clams ($32). The bartender recommends the razor clams for only the most avid aficionados of tinned fish, while dilettantes and newbies might prefer the whole sardines ($19) or the wild-harvested Scout lobster—claw meat preserved in a lemoninfused, olive oil ($21).

“We’ll never be the Cheesecake Factory, but as we get more comfortable, we’ll add more and more food and drink options,” says Dunn. If you’re splurging on date night, it’s hard to go wrong with the Brown Trading Company caviar ($60). “We’re making everything in-house except the tinned fish. Now that my chef isn’t focused on Buttercup as much, we have an opportunity to play around a bit more,” Dunn says. “I never considered cooking my forte, but after having to be a cook for the last two years, it’s been a lot of fun to create recipes in the kitchen. The cook and I are working together, which is awesome to get that opportunity to collaborate.”

A Lighthearted Approach to Cocktails

As far as the drinks go, Dunn is flying solo, but that is no problem for the seasoned bartender, who has worked at former Greenwich Village haunt The Lion, and several Fatty Crew

restaurants before moving upstate to design the cocktail program for Zak Pelaccio’s Fish & Game and Backbar, as well as Rivertown Lodge. At Padrona, Dunn has traded in the pressed canvas apron and pretension of the craft cocktail movement for a more playful approach. “Anyone who has worked for me knows that my number one peeve is when servers say, ‘Are you still working on that?’” Dunn says. “What people are doing in our place is not work. Drinking—and eating—should be fun.”

The drinks list doesn’t take itself too seriously with slushes, a bottled twist on the classic Long Island iced tea called Get LIT, beer-and-shot combos, and accessible natural wines. One of the slushes, made with butterfly pea flower for a brilliant indigo hue that recalls the OG Slush Puppie, is called I Just Blue Myself, a reference to the “Arrested Development” episode when Tobias Funke tries to join the Blue Man Group ($14). Despite the electric color, the drink isn’t overly sweet, tempered by notes of black licorice and bitterness from the curacao.

The cocktails themselves are broken down

into high-, low-, and no-proof. “COVID either made people drink more or decide that they were drinking too much and cut back,” Dunn says. “The low- and no-ABV drinks went really well.”

A highlight is the Cins of Passion, a tropical romp featuring cachaça, passionfruit, cinnamon, and coconut milk ($14) that is dangerously easy to drink. After Dark, Dunn’s spin on an amaretto sour, is a perfect cocktail ($15). Made with bourbon, lemon, whipped egg white, and housemade peach pit liqueur that lends a faint nuttiness, it is served in a coupe with a crown of froth and garnished with lemon peel-wrapped maraschino cherry ($15).

But the hands-down most popular cocktail of opening weekend was born of a stroke of sustainable genius that honors Dunn’s lighthearted approach while never sacrificing on taste. The Holy Mountain ($16), made with mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, Thai basil, and black pepper uses a corn stock made from the boiled cobs leftover from Dunn’s corn and tomato salad.

“It’s served with a spear from Twin Lakes Ice Co.—a beautiful ice cube in a beautiful glass. It’s

On a recent night at Padrona, the crowd was a multigenerational mix of locals and visitors of all ages, races, and fashion sensibilities.

still exuberant and playful but delicious.” Beyond the bespoke cocktails, you can also order any of the classics, from a Sazerac to a G&T or choose from the dozen wines by the glass (including one sake). The glasses range from a $10 prosecco to a $17 Ribolla Gialla. There is a Georgian skincontact, an unpretentious South African Rhonestyle red blend, and an Oregon wine.

Dunn promises that Buttercup will be resurrected in 2023, whether as a food truck, a separate location, or a pop-up is still TBD. In the meantime, catering is going strong, and Dunn is settling into her new space. “You know the funny thing about opening weekend is that it felt really natural,” she says. “I thought it would feel more awkward or more novel, but it felt so normal—in a good way. Like when you meet someone you feel like you’ve known forever. This all happened in the time it was supposed to. I wouldn’t have Buttercup if the pandemic had not happened, and I don’t think Padrona would’ve been as great if it had happened any differently.”

Padrona: Friday through Tuesday, 3 to 11pm.

Sip and View

DRINK IN THE VIEWS AT THESE CRAFT BEVERAGE DESTINATIONS

By Marie Doyon

The Hudson Valley has long been known as a leaf-peeping destination for folks eager to soak up the technicolor tree show mounted by the crisp advance of autumn. But in the past decade, the explosive growth of the region’s craft beverage scene has given the touristic draw of fall foliage a run for its money. But there’s no reason to choose. At these 13 scenic craft beverage producers you can take in sweeping hillsides and dramatic vistas of fall color while sipping wine, cider, spirits, or beer at the source.

BREWERIES

Industrial Arts Brewing, Beacon

Located in a converted old factory building on the edge of town, the Beacon outpost of Industrial Arts Brewing serves up 10 taps of craft beer and views of the Hudson Highlands. Order your pint then head outside to stake out a spot at one of the orange picnic tables and soak up the rolling vistas. On weekends, the Eat Church food truck serves up a globetrotting best of menu including bao buns, tacos, chicken wings, and sesame noodles.

West Kill Brewing, West Kill

At 3,881 feet, West Kill Mountain is one of the Catskills High Peaks. The eponymous brewery at its base is the unofficial sponsor of this favorite fall hike. Work up a sweat hiking (don’t skip the views from Buck Ridge Lookout), then settle into a picnic table on West Kill Brewing’s bluestone patio, or throw down a blanket on their sloped lawn to take in the colorful mountainside from a distance. The beers here are brewed with crystalline mountain water and local ingredients, including many herbs, flowers, and aromatics from on the property. Order from the food truck before taking home a four-pack (or two) for later.

Zeus Brewing, Poughkeepsie

The city of Poughkeepsie is likely not your first instinct for a fall foliage destination, but head up to Zeus Brewing’s rooftop bar to find yourself pleasantly mistaken. Located in the city’s historic district, the brewery’s rooftop offers an Olympus-caliber vantage point with views of the city, the mighty river, the Mid-Hudson Bridge, and the Walkway Over the Hudson, all bathed in fall color. There are 20 beers on tap, a food

menu including pressed sandwiches and fresh pasta, plus pizza on Wednesdays and brunch on Sundays. The rooftop is accessible by elevator, and open to walk-ins.

CIDERIES

Rose Hill Farm, Red Hook

In the past three years, Rose Hill Farm’s fermentation program has gained recognition for its inventive, low-intervention fruit wines and ciders made with produce from the farm. Order a drink at the barn tasting room and sit on the patio or stroll the rolling 144-acre farm for breathtaking views of the Catskills. In season, you can pick your own cherries, blueberries, plums, apricots, nectarines, peaches, and apples at their orchard. And come fall, the farm stand offers honey from the hives, mulled hot cider, warm apple crisp, and cider doughnuts.

Treasury Cider, Fishkill

Treasury Cider offers a taste of place with traditionally crafted ciders made with produce grown onsite at Fishkill Farms. The spacious modern tasting room, with its ample covered

Millbrook Vineyard

porch, offers a view of the farm’s flower gardens, orchard, and the Catskill Mountains across the river. Selections in Treasury’s line of wild-fermented estate ciders get a colorful boost of flavor with co-ferments of peaches, cherries, sumac and apple blossom honey. Can’t pick? Order a flight. The food selection is limited to snacks with a local cheese and charcuterie plate, pita and humus, nuts, popcorn, and potato chips. The farm cidery offers sunset yoga on Fridays, live music during the weekends, and Sunday brunch.

Seminary Hill, Callicoon

Set in the bucolic rolling hills of the Delaware River Valley, Seminary Hills’ certified Passive House tasting room has vaulted ceilings and a bank of windows overlooking the 12-acre property. The craft cider is made largely with fruit from the holistically managed orchard with over 60 varieties of heirloom American, English, and French apples and pears. Choose from one of the five dry and off-dry ciders on offer and sit on the expansive deck while taking in the rural landscape. The restaurant’s menu is locally sourced and seasonal, with dishes changing with the availability of ingredients.

VINEYARDS

Millbrook Vineyard, Millbrook Soak up the bucolic landscape of eastern Dutchess County and the Catskill Mountains in the distance from the Millbrook Vineyard and Winery’s terrace while you sip on one of their wines by the glass or bottle. Stroll the property’s 30 acres of vineyards or throw down a picnic blanket by one of the ponds and watch the sun set over the mountains. During the week, you have to bring your own nosh, but on weekends the tasting room serves snacks like local cheese and charcuterie boards, pickled veggies, and pastries. The taproom also serves local beer and teas from Harney & Sons. Dogs and children are welcome.

Whitecliff Vineyard, Hudson & Gardiner

Husband-and-wife team Michael Migliore and Yancey Stanforth-Migliore produced their first vintage on the nascent 70-acre Whitecliff Vineyard in Gardiner in 1998. Now they have one of the largest vineyards in the Hudson Valley, growing over 20 varietals. Head to the Gardiner taproom for a tour of the winery and a glass on the grass in full view of the

Seminary Hill, Callicoon

Shawangunk Ridge, or scoot up to their newest tasting room in Hudson. Opened in June, the modern-industrial bar sits in the shadow of Olana on a slope overlooking the Hudson River. Order wine by the flight or glass, along with local cheese from McGrath Cheese Company and the occasional food pop-up, plus live music and epic sunsets over the Catskills.

DISTILLERIES

Hillrock Estate Distillery, Ancram

Founded in 2013, Hillrock Estate Distillery harkens back to the heyday of the Hudson Valley’s craft distilling industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Using traditional, time-tested methods, grain grown onsite is floor-malted, distilled in a copper pot still, barrel aged, and hand-bottled for a line of estate whiskeys that have won the distillery numerous accolades. The property encompasses acres of rolling barley fields, with a circa 1806 Georgian manor house sitting atop a hill and offering views of the Berkshires. While the distillery is not open to the public, you can book a field-to-glass tour for $28$78, which offers a behind-the-scenes look at the distillery, malt house, and rickhouse followed by a tasting of five whiskeys and snacks.

Hudson House, West Park

On a quiet stretch of Route 9W, an elegant Italian Renaissance Revival-style villa, constructed in the 1850s as a monastery, has found new life as Hudson House Distillery. The historic building sits on 27 riverfront acres with sweeping vistas of the Hudson and the Vanderbilt mansion across the way. The ground floor of the building houses the parlor, living room, library, bar, and a sprawling 5,000-square-foot deck with river views. Head directly to the bar to order a cocktail of your choosing or a glass of homemade Black Creek spirits neat or on the rocks. Or for $40, take the hour-long walking tour with a cocktail, wine, or beer, followed by a whiskey tasting.

Taconic Distillery, Stanfordville

Taconic Distillery’s red metal-sided tasting room is a jolly landmark in the midst of rolling farmland with the brand name proudly printed on the ends of mounted barrels. Whiskey specialists, Taconic offers small-batch bourbons and ryes made with New York State grain and spring water from the farm. The tasting room has a bluestone patio with picnic tables, umbrellas, fire pits, and rocking Adirondack chairs overlooking verdant pastures lined by woods. Inside, order your whiskey, wine, or beer at the bar and get your merch, from Taconic Distillery hats and totes to “Got bourbon?” T-shirts.

Head to the Cider House and taste through an exclusive line-up of craft ciders, sign up for a guided tour, and experience all that our 60-acre Orchard has to o er.

LEARN

Hudson House, West Park

CIDER TASTING • GUIDED TOURS • EVENTS AND MORE

The artist Jesse Bransford on the porch of his octagonal home in Catskill, which he bought in 2013. Although the home was in good shape, Bransford rebuilt the porch in 2017 as well as repaired the soffits and shutters. He also installed the stone-lined driveway and worked on the surrounding property. The home sits in a grove of black walnut trees, adjacent to a tulip poplar that is as old as the house. “The property is completely sequestered in the midst of the village. Many people I meet don’t even know it’s here,” he says.

Opposite: Bransford believes the three-story spiral staircase is central to the home’s purpose— guiding wandering spirits to pass. “The design is about directionality,” he explains. “But it’s also about centrality. The center of the staircase feels as if somebody took a staff and drove it into the ground, so that this is the center of the world.” Bransford has started hosting events at the house, including sounds baths and a seance. “The results were pretty impressive,” he says.

“The house really seems to enjoy these kinds of gatherings.”

A Wayward Spirit Finds a Home

An artist embraces his historic octagonal house in Catskill

By Mary Angeles Armstrong Photos by Winona Barton-Ballentine

In 2013, when the artist Jesse Bransford bought his historic octagonal home in Catskill, he didn’t anticipate its one rather unusual hospitality requirement. More on that later. “I was very careful the first time I looked around. I knew I didn’t want any structural damage,” he explained of his first walk-through when he discovered the 1860 brick home in surprisingly good shape. Set on two-and-a-half landscaped acres, and guarded by a sentinel of ancient walnut trees that separate the verdant, serene property from the surrounding town, the three-story home was designed around a central, spiral staircase leading to a domed cupola with views all the way to Olana and painted to evoke the heavens.

A first-floor sitting room features some of Bransford’s extensive art collection. Two works by the artist Max Razdow, a longtime friend and collaborator, hang above a collection of albums.

After studying art in New York City, Bransford developed an interest in the artistic and alternative cultures of the Hudson Valley. “I’m especially drawn to the spiritualist movement and the Hudson River School of painting,” he says.

After poking around the basement, checking all the beams and trying to sniff out any mildew, Bransford kept wondering, “ What ’ s wrong with this place?” The 3,000-square-foot home, with a first floor that rambled through a library, dining area, and sitting room and four ample second-floor bedrooms with multiple irregularly shaped nooks at the edges, seemed ideally suited to Bransford. Even the home’s distinct history resonated with Bransford ’s surrealist-informed visual work, which explores themes of deep symbolism and color. Luckily, he’d brought along a friend to serve as reality check on that first visit. “She was supposed to be the bad cop,” Bransford says. “So I asked her to tell me what I was missing.” But the home had Bransford ’ s friend under its spell too. “She told me it was the most beautiful house she’d ever seen and she’d do anything to live here,” he says. “ That was the turning point.”

From Surrealism to the Hudson River School

Indeed, Bransford suspects that the house found him, rather than the other way around. “I really do feel like I’ve been charged with its custodianship,” he explains. Originally from Atlanta, Bransford descended from a family that had made their home in Western Tennessee for multiple generations. “ We were really part of the New South,” he explains. “And while my parents were raised religiously, I was always allowed to choose my own path.” That path led Bransford to New York City, where he studied art at Parsons School of Design and then Columbia’s MFA program. After school, he remained in Manhattan, focusing on his own art practice and teaching at NYU, while living on the Lower East Side.

It was Bransford ’s own artistic evolution that lead him upstate and eventually to the stewardship of his historic home. “My art

education pulled me over and over again into surrealism,” he explains. “Surrealism has a relationship to psychology and an interest in what lies underneath normal reality.” Bransford ’s work also explored symbolic structures, which pushed him into depth psychology. “ You can’t study the material without bumping into alchemy,” he says, “ which has its own beautiful, rich visual world. Alchemy is one step away from magic, which is a loaded term, but was also something my work has led me to explore.”

Early in his artistic career Bransford also developed a keen interest in the Hudson River School of art. “ We didn’t really learn about it in art school, but it was always in the background,” he says. “ When I started visiting the Hudson Valley, I realized this was where it all happened.”

Over regular visits, Bransford developed a deep connection to the region’s landscape and creative history, but hadn’t considered actually buying property in the area until a friend came across the octagonal home and thought of him immediately.

“It came at an interesting time in my life when I’d just inherited a bit of money,” he says.

He was also experiencing a crisis of faith in his own city-based career. “I never really felt at home

in New York City,” he says. “I felt like I was part of a community that was constantly creating and destroying itself. At that time, I felt like the art world around me was devolving into a merely commercial venture and the competitiveness it brought out was very toxic. I really feel at peace in Catskill.”

A Light in the Dark Bransford ’s, and his friend ’s, initial instinct about the house proved sound. It was built by David Van Gelder, a local farmer who also built several covered bridges in the area. The home’s design was based on Orson Squire Fowler’s book The Octagon House: A Home for All (1853). The practical purpose of the design was to maximize light exposure and space and to discourage the use of right angles, which Fowler believed caused miasma—or bad and unhealthy air that was blamed for diseases such as cholera and the common cold. Van Gelder’s original construction sat on the entirety of the surrounding Cherry Hill and included a fruit orchard and extensive year-round edible gardens according to Fowler’s designs.

While Fowler ’s practical designs encouraged a healthy lifestyle, there was more to the octagonal

Bransford’s study features an extensive library of books on alternative historical movements, spiritualism, and art. An expert on color theory, Bransford teaches art at NYU. “Color has a fascinating history,” explains Bransford. “And when you connect that history to the history of magic, it becomes mind-blowing.” A vintage Odd Fellows Ritual Chamber Chair is matched with a copy of a Renaissance style table to serve as Bransford’s desk.

On the second-floor, multiple nooks sit adjacent to the home’s four bedrooms. Bransford has outfitted each as a different art/work space. “Really,” he admits, “they’re my procrastination nooks.” From left to right hang paintings Evie Falci, Rebecca Forgac, and Anne Crossey.

Hanging above the dining room table is a print by Swiss-American Surrealist painter Kurt Seligmann, an expert on magic and the occult. “His book The Mirror of Magic is a much-used reference in my library,” says Bransford. Through the doorway, the home’s kitchen was moved from the basement to the first floor as a later addition to the house.

shape than that. “ Much of Fowler ’s thinking was born out of the spiritualist movement, and their beliefs state that octagonal structures encourage the visitations of spirit,” Bransford says.

According to Bransford, the home was built to be like a lighthouse for wayward spirits. In the spiritualist belief system, the eight sides were designed to face the eight cardinal directions, all revolving around the stairwell, serving as a conduit helping the wayward spirits to pass. “ The simple way to say it is that the house is pretty haunted, but it ’s nothing malevolent,” Bransford explains.

After the Van Gelder family passed on, the home was owned by multiple families over the years before it was eventually abandoned. In the 1990s, it was bought by Mark Phillips, who was able to stabilize the original construction and list the home with the National Register in 1997. The intervening owners continued with the home’s upkeep and when it fell into Bransford ’ s hands he was able to focus on exploring and preserving the home’s distinct history. Beyond the normal maintenance of a 160-year-old property, and a few “shoring-up” projects— including rebuilding the partial wraparound porch, stabilizing the kitchen addition, and

replanting the garden—the structure of the home has remained solid.

After living in the home for almost a decade, the architecture’s true purpose has slowly revealed itself. “ The metaphor I use to get myself around it sometimes is that it’s like we have spiritual squirrels in the attic,” he says. “Maybe you see it for an instant but you feel like it ’s absolutely there. It ’s like concrescences of energies that are attracted to other energies. And I can see how this house in particular was built to attract all this stuff.” Still, Bransford likes to leave a space open for incredulity. “ There’s a lot of people up here with more conservative belief structures, and I respect that,” he says. “ You don’t have to fully believe in it for it to be a great story.”

Bransford has channeled the octagonal house’s ambiance and powerful history into his creative practice and research into the esoteric. He’s also learned to set boundaries with the home’s wayward spirit drop-ins. “Sometimes, when it gets to be too much, I’m a bit like a bartender at 3am,” he explains. “I just say: ‘Look we’re closed. You can go up or you can go down, but you can’t stay here.’” Then Bransford directs the entities to the stairwell. “As dumb as that sounds. It seems to work.”

A second-floor bedroom features a handmade Thai wood canopy bed and two antique 1940s school chairs. “I find myself unconsciously pairing old and new things,” says Bransford of his decorating style. “I’ve also come to love plants, especially ferns. They have a lot of say about what goes where in terms of furniture placement.”

Let's Roll

What’s Hot at Regional Dispensaries

By Amadeus Finlay

With adult-use recreational cannabis now legal in 18 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington), market analysts are starting to gain a wider picture of consumer behavior across the country. Who these consumers are, where they are concentrated, as well as what, and how much, they are buying.

The National View

Flower is power, or so the cannabis industry has been saying for years, but it would seem that the popularity of stinky buds is on a gradual decline (at least for now). Cannabis flower accounted for only 59 percent of national sales last year,

down from the previous three years where it consistently tipped over the 60 percent mark. On the other hand, concentrates and edibles increased in popularity nationwide in 2021. Another indicator of consumer spending is the big money swirling around cannabis-infused seltzers, which are expected to exceed $1 billion in annual national sales by 2025. Little wonder that Coors, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Constellation Brands (owners of Corona, Modelo, and many other wine and spirit brands) have already made their first forays into CBD seltzers. (None of this, of course, accounts for black market sales.)

Like with any consumer product, these numbers and trends come with state-to-state variation. For instance, Missouri and Nevada are among the highest consumers of edibles, but edibles are much less popular in places like

California, Oregon, Alaska, and Montana. By contrast, Oklahoma and Maine aren’t as keen on concentrates as Nevada and Colorado, but consumers in those two states like their flower more than many other parts of the country.

The Local Lowdown

With this evolution in consumer spending and preferences, as well as a greater understanding of what these trends mean for the industry, how does the Berkshires market measure up to national and statewide behaviors, and what are the hot ticket items among recreational consumers?

Across Massachusetts, pre-rolled joints accounted for 13 percent of sales over the past 12 months, and while dried flower is still a significant market, last year it accounted for just over half of the state’s overall recreational business. Edibles account for a large chunk of sales on their own, with 15 percent of the market being nibbled last year, a rate higher than the national average. How does this match with the Berkshires?

“Edibles and beverages are very popular right now, especially in Massachusetts,” says Carol Tyson, marketing manager at the Pass in Sheffield. “Our best-selling product is Knockout Gummies, made in-house. Vapes are also making a massive comeback in 2022, especially disposables for ease of use.”

Vapes are popular everywhere as smoking, particularly cigarettes, declines nationally, but how about the billion-dollar industry that is cannabis-infused seltzer, and how does it impact the Bay State? If the purchase of cannabisinfused seltzer brand Levia (which was acquired by Ayr Wellness in a deal that is expected to reach around $60 million) is anything to go by, Massachusetts is falling into lockstep with the rest of the nation.

“We are seeing a broad adoption at a local market and national level as consumers are shifting to infused beverages as an alternative to alcoholic drinks,” comments Thomas Winstanley, chief marketing officer at Theory Wellness in Great Barrington.

Winstanley also points to anecdotal evidence from Theory’s consumers, who reported that their choices were health-based (citing the damage of catching a buzz from alcohol versus the limited impact of drinking cannabis), as well as being inspired by change brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. It lines up, too. Hi5, theory’s in-house cannabis seltzer brand, is one of the most popular products sold at Theory’s six dispensaries in Massachusetts and Maine.

Cannabis-infused seltzers are also doing effervescent sales at Canna Provisions in Lee, where Levia and other similar beverages are flying off the shelves. “The convenience and familiarity of the product corresponds with the trend of a rise in dosed beverages entering the recreational/adult-use cannabis market,” says Dan McCarthy, Canna Provisions media specialist, “but flower is also big for us.”

This should come as no surprise. Canna Provisions boasts cannabis legend Greg “Chemdog” Krzanowski as their head grower, the man who helped redefine American cannabis with a special Chemdog strain and its offspring

Pre-rolled joints are a big seller at Berkshire Roots, and accounts for 13 percent of all cannabis sales in the past year in Massachusetts.

(Sour Diesel, Deadhead OG, et al.) continues to innovate, creating new cultivars for a new generation of consumers.

“Smash Hits is our own [flower] brand we cultivate, spearheaded by a legacy market legend, Greg 'Chemdog' Krzanowski,” says McCarthy. “When people learn you can get real Chemdog genetics—grown by Chemdog himself and the Smash Hits team—on the legal market, they flock to the door.”

Flower is also a popular seller at Berkshire Roots in Pittsfield, with Orange Chem (rumored to be a descendant of the Chemdog strain) their most popular product with consumers, followed by an indica-dominant elderberry chew infused with melatonin—another popular edible in a state where edibles are on the tip of everyone’s tongues.

The Truth About Trends

But Holly Alberti, senior director of marketing at Berkshire Roots, warns against relying too heavily on, and looking too deeply into, consumer purchasing trends in the cannabis industry. “Trends in cannabis are affected by several factors, one of which being national trends,” comments Alberti,

“and as new products hit other markets, trends will migrate to other states.”

“However, as cannabis is highly regulated,” Alberti continues, “it is more complex than coffee or fashion trends—many times certain products or items that are available in other states might not be something you can find across the country due to the individual regulations within each state.”

Federal law prohibits THC cannabis in any form from traveling across state borders, meaning each state must grow its own plants and create all of its consumer products from scratch. But if national trends aren’t as important as they might seem, how to get accurate and reliable data that is representative of local consumer demand? Winstanley of Theory Wellness reveals a system that his team has developed to stay on top of what’s hot, and what’s not. “We keep data on sell-through and production rates to ensure the products we’re producing meet the consumer where they are,” explains Winstanley. “Evaluating what’s working, what’s not, and what has potential. It’s a daily conversation that is constantly evolving.”

Evolving is the right word. The nation is still getting acquainted with cannabis as a day-to-

day consumer product. Given the complexity of the plant and the ever-expanding range of goods for sale, however, consumers can get overwhelmed by choice. Or worse, purchase something that doesn’t react well with them. “As consumers access more education, information and awareness about cannabis in general, this will shift what companies produce,” explains Alberti. “Many folks are just not familiar with certain products or the different ways to engage with cannabis, which is why information is key.”

Consumers who want to explore the cannabis industry, to whatever degree, should feel empowered to approach industry professionals at their local dispensary and ask questions to help them to understand what they are buying. It is then that they can grasp, and influence, the trends that dictate the industry, and what companies create

As Tyson at the Pass explains, “We’re always taking in customer feedback and what exactly the customer wants to see. If we don’t have a specific product, we will make it a point to bring it onto the menu.”

The cannabis consumer, it would seem, is very much in control.

Da Funk, part of Canna Provisions Smash Hits flower strain, is a big seller at its Lee dispensary.

Hi5, Theory Wellness's in-house cannabis seltzer brand, is one of the most popular products at Theory's six dispensaries.

Healthcare Heroes of the Hudson Valley

A HUDDLE OF HEALERS

By Wendy Kagan

Aglobetrotting MD on a mission to crush cervical cancer. An acupuncturist who’s moving the needle on access to holistic care. A spiritual intuitive with training in emergency mental health. I recently sat down with these powerhouse healers to talk about their work in the world, the passions and principles that drive them, and their advice to you, dear readers.

Maggie Carpenter, MD

International healthcare crusader

Work in the world: From spearheading women’s health initiatives in Ethiopia, to leading palliative and hospice care programs here at home, Maggie Carpenter gets around. About six years ago, I wrote about her nongovernmental medical nonprofit Go Doc Go, which she created to help bring cervical cancer screenings to parts of sub-Saharan Africa—where Pap smears didn’t exist and about 53,000 women died yearly of the preventable cancer caused by the human papillomavirus virus (HPV). Since then, the New Paltz-based doctor and her team of volunteers have brought HPV testing (simpler than the Pap but no less effective) and treatment protocols to Senegal, the Gambia, and Haiti. Next stop: Alabama, where Carpenter hopes to bring HPV testing to US communities with “a super-high rate of cervical cancer and very low access to women’s health care.”

“About three years ago, the World Health Organization said cervical cancer was a crisis and stressed the need for increasing screening around the world,” says Carpenter, whose volunteer work is supported by tax-deductible fundraising. “That has made a big difference in how the countries receive us and their interest in having our services.” These days, she’s able to get more done thanks to the help of Go Doc Go’s program director, Patricia Bacon. This frees up Carpenter to focus on tending to her local palliative and hospice care patients, as well as those in need of medical marijuana certification, through her Nightingale Medical practice.

Biggest passions: Volunteering to improve lives has always motivated Carpenter in her work— and lately she’s channeling those efforts to support people’s self-determination. “In my 20plus years as a physician, I’ve heard way too many stories of people who feel stuck and unable to advocate for themselves or make the changes they would like to see,” she says. “To empower people to be their true selves and live life to their fullest is my goal. Sometimes it just takes listening and seeing them for who they are. Often it takes connecting them with the tools they need.”

On being a change-maker: Carpenter has hit many roadblocks, from bureaucracy to stubborn mindsets. To make change, she has to get creative and find alternative solutions. One case in point is The Box, an interactive art installation created in collaboration with Hudson Valley artist Ryan Cronin. A fixture at Kingston’s O+ Festival in 2017 and 2018, The Box is a free, portable, private space where women can self-test for HPV.

“A lot of people don’t know these tests can be self-collected,” says Carpenter. “Education and engagement are extremely important. You need communities that understand the problems and are engaged in making the change.”

Bit of advice: “Listen to your heart. Don’t be ruled by fear and concerns about what others may think,” says Carpenter. She has proved many naysayers wrong with her endeavors, including her early espousal of medical marijuana. “If you’re doing the right thing, you will never regret it.”

Masha Schmidt

Acupuncturist and community clinic owner Work in the world: The realm of wellness has always exerted a pull for Masha Schmidt, who immigrated to the US from Odessa, Ukraine, as a baby with her family in 1978. Following a brief

stint post-college in employee wellness, she left the corporate world after 9/11 to study yoga, then acupuncture. At every turn, she found a lack of inclusivity and financial accessibility—from the whitewashed demographics (“there were almost no Asians in my [acupuncture] school”) to the cost of entry ($60K for a three-year master’s program) to the price of treatments, which is out of reach for many. Asks Schmidt, “Why is wellness the least accessible to the people who need it most?”

Determined to change that, she set out to find a new model—eventually opening the DayDream Collaborative Clinic in Beacon in 2021. (A previous iteration, the Hudson Wellness Clinic, served the Hudson community.) The multidisciplinary, trauma-informed clinic offers treatments on a sliding scale under a simple premise: As long as some people are able to pay at the top of the scale, those funds will help to subsidize those who can’t pay as much. With about a half-dozen practitioners, DayDream offers community acupuncture clinics that are combined with one other modality—such as acupressure, Reiki, craniosacral therapy, or sound healing. The space has group events too, including a Birth Story Hour that starts on October 6.

“Our goal,” says Schmidt, “is to never turn anyone away for lack of funds.”

Dr. Maggie Carpenter (third from left), Dr. Becky Scott, and Dr. Juliet Faye with doctors and midwives at the hospital in St. Louis, Senegal

photo by:

Biggest passions: Indigenous traditions have a lot of juice for her. “I grew up in a community of immigrants, so ‘folk traditions’ like fire cupping (my grandpa brought over his cups from Odessa), mustard plasters, or herbal teas were part of our day-to-day lives,” Schmidt recalls. “I got some funny looks in high school gym class coming in with cupping marks all over my back.” She went from rejecting these traditions as a teenager to re-embracing them in grad school, when her teachers affirmed their efficacy. “The modern allopathic medical system is a relatively new set of ideas and definitely could benefit from asking Grandma for advice.”

On being a change-maker: “My approach is curiosity and a willingness to question the entire concept of ‘wellness’—who defines it, who has access to care, and who has the opportunity to become a practitioner,” says Schmidt. “It’s also important to recognize the staggering role that stress, trauma, and nervous system dysregulation play in our experience of health. Nervous system support is the best medicine, but healthy nervous systems depend on external conditions. We all need access to safe, affordable, and stable housing, food, water, medical care, support systems, childcare, eldercare. ‘Holistic’ care is not a substitute for these things, but a way to improve our quality of life regardless of where we’re starting from.”

Bit of advice: Consider coming together in groups to heal—and challenge the idea that health and wellness are private, individual affairs. “We’re only as healthy as the most vulnerable people in our communities,” she says. “COVID made this clear. As we suffer the effects of latestage capitalism, climate change, pandemics, and natural disasters, we will need more places where people can come together to heal, to learn, and to remember hope and connection.”

Taylor Jackson

Intuitive reader and Reiki practitioner

Work in the world: Though she’s trained in the arts of astrology, tarot, and Reiki, the last thing Taylor Jackson wants her clients to do is feel the need to consult her before they make any move or decision in life. She’d rather empower them to find their own inner guide. “My approach is centered on the wholeness of the person, really witnessing them, seeing them, providing all the insight that I get from divine communication in ways that are going to help them become the most themselves,” says Jackson, who also goes by Black Satin Venus. “My goal is for people to tap into their own sense of intuition and confidence.”

What’s sungular about Jackson’s approach is that she blends her ethereal modalities with a firm focus on mental health—she’s trained in emergency Mental Health First Aid as well as QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) Suicide Prevention. “What I was seeing, especially during lockdown, was that people were just not okay,” she explains. “I’ve been recommending these trainings to every wellness reader or spiritual practitioner that I can evangelize them to, because it wasn’t very long after I completed the mental health training that I had my first

client express a desire to end their life. We turned off the timer, I moved the cards to the side, and my body language shifted as I asked the questions and worked the conversation as I’d been trained to do.” Jackson, who is based in Beacon and gives readings on Zoom and at events, collaborates with local therapist Moraya Seeger DeGeare to help clients with self-discovery. She also offers Reiki during community acupuncture sessions at DayDream Collaborative Clinic.

Biggest passions: After doing astrology readings as a side gig for years, Jackson quit her career in corporate marketing when the pandemic hit, pivoting toward a path that better suited her—and that better served others. “A lot of times as I’m speaking with people, it’s just clearing out external noise and old programming to validate what they already deeply feel inside,” she says. “Whether it comes through mediumship or their higher self or spirit guides, I try to give clarity, insight, and a breath of fresh air to anyone who works with me.”

On being a change-maker: Creating change is a kind of alchemy for Jackson, one that brings out “the harmony I see between science, traditional mental health, and spiritual and wellness support,” she says. “That is something I’m so excited to be part of—the movement where all of these are playing well together to offer a well-rounded experience of lifting people up.”

Bit of advice: “Surround yourself with people, whether it’s your friends or healing practitioners, who see the wholeness and fullness of you,” says Jackson. “A huge part of my approach is that every person’s self-actualization is a vital part of the world we all create. It’s about realizing your gift and core contribution to this collective. Be around people who empower you to be the most radiantly you.”

RESOURCES

Maggie Carpenter Godocgo.org

Masha Schmidt Daydreamclinic.com

Taylor Jackson Blacksatinvenus.com

Masha Schmidt Photo by Laura Simon

Taylor Jackson, intuitive reader and Reiki practitioner

Afew years ago, Cecilia Masiello found herself in a bind that locally minded shoppers encounter all the time. She was on the hunt for a specific product, but despite her best efforts to find it at a nearby store, she kept turning up empty handed. “After calling a bunch of shops, I finally found what I needed at a small independent grocer,” she says.

Then it hit her. “Why aren’t all of these local stores on one platform together so I can find what I need with just one search?”

Masiello, who worked in the startup world, kept returning to the idea. She eventually refined the concept into Shop the Blok, an all-in-one, location-based shopping app aimed at fusing the convenience of online shopping with the intimate experience you get from visiting a mom-and-pop shop. The app officially launched to the public in September with retail-rich Kingston as its pilot city.

In search of convenience, consumers often turn to online shopping and away from local shops. As Masiello says, “What’s more convenient than picking something up around the corner?” After several years of pandemic-fueled, carbon-heavy online shopping Masiello’s goal for the app is to nurture the independent retail scene that has long been a keystone of happy, healthy neighborhoods and reacquaint customers with the delights of doing business face-to-face. “Our goal is to increase foot traffic to stores and bring people back together,” she says. Eventually, she hopes that most brick-and-mortar retailers will join the platform.

Shop the Blok offers a buy online, pick up in-store model. How it works: The platform connects to multiple stores’ point-of-sale systems, allowing shoppers to conveniently search, browse, and buy products on

the app with real-time accuracy. When you buy a product, the individual shop fulfills the order and prepares it for pickup. The app then notifies you when it’s time to hit the shopping district and collect your prepaid order.

“Other shopping platforms are all about convenience. While that’s a priority for us, we’re also creating experiences that go beyond the transaction,” says Masiello. “Each shop on our platform has its own page with details about the store and its owners so you can create a connection and really know who you’re supporting.”

It’s a win-win scenario for shoppers and store owners alike. “It provides another avenue for devoted customers to keep shopping from their favorite places, just more conveniently,” says Masiello. “It also makes things from different stores more discoverable, both for people in and around Kingston and also for those who are visiting and need something in the area,” she adds.

In contrast to other startup tech solutions that launch in large cities, Masiello, whose mother lives in the area, believes that Kingston is the perfect first market for Shop the Blok. “There’s a really strong community of shops and shoppers here who are looking for something that can help them shop locally,” she says. “There’s a consciousness of the community here. People are aware of the importance of supporting Main Street. Shop the Blok will make it easier to make a habit of it.”

Ready to support the neighborhood? Download the free app at ShoptheBlok. com or scan the QR code and get a taste of the local wares currently available from Rough Draft Bar & Books, Clove & Creek, Exit Nineteen, Revolution Bicycles and more. Knowing exactly where to find what you need is useful. Preserving the vitality of our communities and the dreams of our entrepreneurial neighbors? That’s priceless.

The New Way to Shop the Old Way Shop the Blok Makes Local Shopping Easy

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DOWNLOAD THE SHOP THE BLOK APP

MAKING SPACE

Kingston

By Peter Aaron Photos by David McIntyre

It’s been 10 months since we’ve checked the pulse of Kingston in these Community Pages. In the December 2021 issue of Chronogram, contributor Connor Goodwin gave readers a snapshot of the state of the city at that time. The main focus of Goodwin’s piece was, unsurprisingly, the issue that has been facing Kingston and other Hudson Valley towns: the housing crisis that began with the rise of gentrification before COVID and was greatly exacerbated by it. What’s been happening in Kingston since then, on the housing front and otherwise? The housing emergency remains ongoing, but, encouragingly, there are some specific actions that have been taken to counteract it. And while some long-time businesses have been lost to the pandemic, new ones have opened. But before we get into these more recent developments, let’s have a bit of a recap to bring readers up to where we’re at.

A Popular Place

Prior to the pandemic, Kingston, with its beatific surroundings, vibrant culture, historic

architecture, comparatively affordable property, and, crucially, easy access to New York City via bus line at the New York State Thruway, was already becoming a buzzy hotspot. With the cities of Hudson and Beacon having become more exclusive, Kingston started attracting more attention among downstaters interested in moving to the region. Then COVID kicked in, and that attention became an avalanche. Seemingly in a snap of the fingers, Kingston became, literally, the hottest real estate market in the country. Add to this the number of potential dwellings that were being used as Airbnb rentals instead of tenant housing (2,500 listings among 1,880 hosts in Ulster County) and the plight of a huge swath of local tenants who’d, at least temporarily, lost their hospitality and retail jobs (Goodwin cites a loss of 3,300 such jobs) due to the pandemic lockdowns, and you have the recipe for a crisis. Tenants had to leave the area because they weren’t earning the income needed to pay their rents, and they couldn’t find other apartments in town. Meanwhile, many landlords were raising rents because suddenly vast

numbers of newcomers were arriving and in the 8.7-square-mile city space, was at a premium.

With the warmer weather, the easing of workplace COVID guidelines, and a larger, newly arrived customer base, by late summer 2020 many of the lost hospitality-sector jobs had returned—some businesses even increased their staffs to better handle the wave of new transplants. Many of those new arrivals, now able to work remotely, brought their jobs with them to their new homes. Some, however, didn’t have a dedicated workspace in their new digs or were between places or were merely staying in town temporarily during the pandemic. And a large number of them found a spot to do their thing at CoWork Kingston, a community coworking facility located within the Senate Garage building in the Stockade District.

“Our demographic has changed significantly since we first opened in 2018,” says Judy Tallerman, who manages CoWork, which is membership-based but also offers drop-in rates. “Before COVID we didn’t have as many younger people, but during COVID our clientele

The Kingston Tigers playing against the Warriors of Our Lady of Lourdes in their home opener at Dietz Stadium on September 9.

The Hudson River Maritime Museum’s solarpowered boat Solaris is a floating classroom that takes visitors on tours of the Rondout Creek and out to the Rondout Lighthouse.

Leslie Woodward, owner of Edenesque nut milks, which is one of 22 finalists in New York State’s Grow-NY food and agriculture competition. Three winners will each receive $1 million.

expanded. There’s a bigger variation in the age span now, with a huge increase of people in their 30s and a lot of people with babies and young kids. When COVID started there were more transient people using the [CoWork] space, but over the summer that calmed down. Most people we see here are more settled in now.”

Business to Business

Sadly, several long-time Kingston businesses became casualties of COVID and its attendant retail rent increases under avaricious landlords banking on the Brooklynization of the town; this is especially glaring in the Stockade district, where several shopfronts remain unoccupied after some rents shot up to nearly two-and-ahalf times their previous level. Now gone from Uptown are beloved boutique Bop to Tottom, Outdated cafe, Duo restaurant, and others. Midtown has lost favorite eatery Pakt and, after 40 years, Town of Ulster institution Zenon’s restaurant. Midtown bistro Lunch Nightly has gone to partial hours, and its neighboring bar/ comfort food spot/donut operation the Anchor and Hole in the Wall are still open while the building that houses them is for sale. “The goal is to sell the building and move to a smaller location to do breakfast/lunch with donuts, bagels, coffee, and fried chicken,” says owner Brandy Walters. “We had hoped to keep [the business] going until the sale, but due to a lack of staffing and supply issues we had to make a

hard pivot into the breakfast/lunch setup sooner than we had wanted. The good news is that the customers we do get love the food and keep coming back.”

In other good news, there’s the crop of new businesses coming in to pick up the mercantile slack elsewhere in the city. These additions include the ethnic eateries Mexico Lindo and Calcutta Kitchen, cafe/food shop Rosie General, clothing outlet Westerlind, farm-to-table takeout/delivery/catering and casual eat-in boite Black-Eyed Suzie’s, a designer clothier At Land and soon-to-open wine bars Chleo and Sonder.

The biggest business news, though, is that of the doings at the former IBM campus known as Tech City, which is north of central Kingston, in the Town of Ulster area. Since IBM pulled out in the 1990s, the empty site has been an ongoing onus to the city as Ulster County’s government and various entities have brainstormed for ways to utilize the sprawling property. In the summer of 2021 it hosted arts events under the name BluePrint, although the incarnation was shortlived. But in April 2021, Brooklyn lighting manufacturer RBW Studio purchased and soon after moved into one of Tech City’s buildings, and last June it was announced that the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance had struck a deal with National Resources, a developer that specializes in repurposing former industrial sites, to manage and convert the facility for new business use. Rechristening the

complex iPark 87, National Resources, which has readapted disused sites in Dutchess County and Yonkers, has secured battery maker Zinc8 as a charter tenant.

Midtown Lowdown

The former Tech City isn’t the only hive of newer business activity. The Fuller Building in Midtown houses a host of creative enterprises, such as photographers Andrew Moore and Kate Sears, knitwear designer Eleven Six, textile maker Rural Modernist, L’Impatience ceramic studio, Sea to Table fishmonger, Heidecker Land Surveying, and the Chronogram Media offices. Also in the district are R&F Handmade Paints, Bailey Pottery, Lite Brite neon, Workshop Art Fabrication, and Found My Animal pet leash makers. Located in Midtown until March 2022, when it moved into a larger location outside of town on Route 28, is artisanal nut milk maker Edenesque. Owned and operated by Leslie Woodward, Edenesque is one of 22 finalists in New York State’s Grow-NY food and agriculture competition, which will award $1 million in prize money to three winners who, according the Grow-NY website, “execute bold plans to grow jobs, connect with local industry partners, and contribute to a thriving upstate economy.”

“We started selling at outdoor and farmers’ markets in 2014 and bootstrapped ourselves along until we moved into a 600-square-foot space on Cornell Street in 2019,” says Woodward.

Stefan Satter and Laurie De Chiara, owners of ArtPort Kingston, housed in the historic Cornell Steamboat Building, pictured with the installation Secret Project Robot Country Club

“By November of that year we’d made our first sale to a retail outlet and things just kept expanding from there. We’ve had a lot of support for our business in Kingston, especially through the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance. [As of this writing] of course we don’t know if we’ll win [the competition] or not, but in other ways we feel like we’re already winners.”

Time for Action

The Kingston homebuying gold rush of 20202021 seems to have slowed. The market is still desirable, of course, but prices appear to have stabilized and tales of downstate buyers getting into bidding wars and snapping up houses sight unseen are less frequent. Yet despite the lowered competition that has come with the abatement of urban flight and the return of many of the local jobs that had disappeared, the shortage of affordable places to live in hasn’t gone away. So, what steps are being taken to address the housing situation?

One of them came in May 2022, when Mayor Steve Noble announced that the City of Kingston had increased enforcement of new short-term rental regulations that had been adopted by the Kingston Common Council to create more residential spaces by limiting the number of short-term rentals (STRs, which

include Airbnbs) that are permissible in the city. The move amended the definition of “hotel” in the city’s zoning code to include short-term rentals so that the definition aligns with the Ulster County definition of “hotel,” which includes STRs, and allows for the collection of an occupancy tax from STR owners. Also approved and awaiting implementation is a project to convert the former Ulster County Jail at Golden Hill into 164 livable units, and local social justice advocacy group For the Many recently launched its “Homes Are Not Hotels” campaign and held an informational block party to raise awareness about the issue in September. The latest action by the city to create more housing, along with supporting historic preservation, economic development, and better enabling street and public space redesigns, is its proposed overhaul of the zoning code. Some areas of Kingston limit housing to single-family units, a practice put in place in the early 1960s that’s long been seen by many as being socially and economically discriminatory. The central change in the new code, which was drafted by outside planning firm Dover, Kohl, and Partners, would make it easier for homeowners in single-family-dwelling-designated areas to add accessory dwelling units on their existing properties (up to six units in most places) and to

readapt garages, outbuildings, and basements to become apartments; it would also prohibit new short-term rentals that are not owner-occupied (existing ones that have permits would still be allowed) and eliminate minimum parking requirements. With the average rent for a onebedroom in Kingston currently at $1,437, more people wanting to work and live in the area, and little space (or public desire) to erect larger multi-unit apartment buildings within the city limits, most residents seem in favor of the plan. Last month its second draft was opened by the Kingston Common Council to public comments and is expected to pass when it comes up for a vote this fall.

“This will be a big win for tenants,” says Bartek Starodaj, the city’s director of housing initiatives, about the new code, which also codifies new standards for affordable housing requirements, street and open space design, and other guidelines. “It brings things back to how they were before urban renewal and single-family zoning. It doesn’t propose that large government apartment buildings be built; it instead enables adaptive use of existing structures and creating duplexes and triplexes that fit in with our historic architecture while at the same time freeing up more spaces for people to live in.” Starodaj, who served as a founding member of the Kingston

Jim and Anne Bailey, owners of Bailey Ceramic Supply and Pottery Equipment. The company has been headquartered in Midtown Kingston since 1983.

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Lenox, aka Ox, inside Ox Caribbean Deli on Brodway.

Claire Cohen running a Magic the Gathering tournament at World’s End Comics on Wall Street.

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people overcome

caption tk

Carol Countryman walking on the Empire State Trail in Sojourner Truth State Park, which opened in April. “It’s about darn time they honor women, black women from our past,” says Countryman.

Mark Haldeman, proprietor of the Wall Street location of Westerlind, an outdoor retailer with locations in Millerton, Great Barrington, and Manhattan.

City Land Bank before taking office in January, adds that, “[The housing initiative] is always focused on tenant support and supporting access to legal services for tenants. We commissioned a Housing Vacancy Rate Analysis for residential properties with six or more units that were built prior to 1974, and that found a vacancy rate below the five-percent threshold required to declare a state of public emergency requiring the regulation of certain residential rents. So we knew we couldn’t be sitting around on [the housing issue] and that we have to take strong action, and the council voted to adopt the New York State Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA).” Kingston is the first upstate city to adopt the ETPA, which freezes rents for certain properties (with increases determined annually by a Rent Guidelines Board) and ensures that residents in covered units receive essential services and some protections from eviction.

“We’ve been making a lot of progress, but it’s been slow and we’re still behind the eight ball in some ways,” says Kingston Ward 9 Alderperson Michele Hirsch, who has been at the forefront on housing issues and was a vocal proponent of the Good Cause Eviction law that was passed by the city earlier this year. “There’s still a lot of work to

do. Even if we have more apartments in the city, Good Cause still needs to be strengthened.”

“The second draft of the new zoning plan includes revisions to the permitted uses within different areas of the city, as well as requirements for affordable housing,” Ariel Zangla reported in the Daily Freeman on September 16, the day after a public hearing on the newer draft. “Instead of requiring 10 percent of units in new or renovated buildings with seven or more units to be ‘affordable’ [monthly rent and utilities not more than 30 percent of the figure representing 80 percent of the county’s median income], the new proposal would require 10 percent for projects with between seven and 49 units. Any developments with 50 or more units would be required to have 10 percent set aside as affordable, while another 10 percent would be designated for workforce housing.” A final draft of the plan is expected to be ready to be voted on in November; after an environmental review process, says Hirsch, it would be enacted.

Looking Up and Ahead

In another bit of welcome Kingston news, the city got it first state park last winter when Governor Kathy Hochul announced

the opening of Sojourner Truth State Park. Named for the renowned local abolitionist and suffragist, the new park is situated on more than 500 acres of former industrial property along the Hudson River and opened to the public on Earth Day last April.

“Kingston is at a crossroads now, but this is its second or third renaissance in the last few decades,” muses Daily Freeman senior editor Ivan Lajara. “IBM [which closed its Kingston plant in 1994 after nearly 40 years of operation] left, and then you had the first migration here after 9/11. Then, around 2010, you could see the change in Uptown, with more music venues and restaurants opening and more people moving to town. And then with COVID things really took off. There’s a certain social aspect of concern, with a demographic shift and new developments, new people, big investors, and the tension with concerns about displacement. It’s a social experiment, and the question becomes ‘Is it gonna be a great place for people to live or a place most people can’t afford?’ It looks nicer now, and I think it’s a better place than it used to be. We’ll see where the city goes from here. Yes, there are problems. But they’re problems that can be addressed. I’m an optimist.”

Siblings Anthony and Nicole Sasso opened Rosie General, a cafe and market, in the former Skillypot Antiques storefront in the Rondout in July.

Top row: Laura Crimmins, co-music director of O+ Festival; Ivan Lajara, Senior Editor at the Daily Freeman ; Aditi Goswami, owner of Calcutta Kitchens; Bryant Drew Andrews, executive director, Center for Creative Education

Second row: Steve Noble, mayor of Kingston; Sarah Litvin, executive director of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History; Dawn Bisio, artist; Eryn Stutts, chef/owner of Pakt

Third row: Felix Castro, trainer at the YMCA of Kingston and Ulster County; Sima Dhesi, volunteer with A. J. Williams-Meyers African Roots Center; Fred Lonberg-Holm, musician; Jaguar Mary X, filmmaker and ritual performance artist

Bottom row: Karen Ruiz Leon, administrative assistant at La Voz magazine; Joe Concra, painter and cofounder of O+ Festival; Lee Anne Albritton, Ulster County Habitat for Humanity ReStore manager; Jess Davis, director of membership for Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce

Kingston Pop-Up Portraits

Photos by David McIntyre

On September 8, Chronogram held a pop-up portrait shoot at Keegan Ales on St. James Street in Kingston. Kingstonians responded to the call and showed up in force to represent their city and be photographed by David McIntyre. Thanks to all who came out and to Lisa Hantes and everyone at Keegan Ales for hosting us.

Members of the Dutch Guard, FC Stockade’s supporter group

Top row (left to right): Anthony Saullo, Kim Tesoriero, Marian Elflein, Scott McIntosh, Bradley Delmar, Lorenzo Galante

Bottom row: Christine Campbell, Skye, Mellisa Higgins

Yungchen Lhmao, singer-songwriter

Bottom row: Maureen Byrd-Blue and John Allen Blue, co-owners of Blue Byrd’s Haberdashery & Music; Hope Mathews and Charles Mathews, co-owners of Chleo wine bar; Lauren Aitken and Chase Folsom,

pictured with C. J. Liotta; Molly Sterrs, local rabble rouser and party starter

Middle row: Stephen Blauweiss and Karen Berelowitz, authors of The Story of Historic Kingston , pictured with Henry Berelowitz; Samantha Liotta, Business Services Administrator for Ulster County Economic Development,

Top row: Michael Bisio, musician; Bartek Starodaj, director of Housing Initiatives for the City of Kingston, pictured with Ann Starodaj, Roman Starodaj, and Lena Starodaj; Addie Smock and Brian James, librarians at the Kingston Library

5710/22 CHRONOGRAM COMMUNITY PAGES co-owners of Headstone Gallery and Headstone Ceramic Casting

Portfolio: The Story of Historic Kingston

Stephen Blauweiss and Karen Berelowitz tell the origin story of New York’s first capital city in the recently published The Story of Historic Kingston, a kind of documentary film in book form. (With Lynn Woods, Blauweiss codirected Lost Rondout, documenting urban renewal’s effect on the city’s waterfront neighborhood.)

Over 950 photos, maps, and drawings are spread across 475 pages in the book, weaving together a town history that dates back to the Ice Age. The book is broken into two parts—the Ulster County section takes readers through the land’s earliest recorded history through the mid-20th century. It also includes details about the construction of some of the area’s iconic landmarks, including the Wurts Street Bridge and the James Taylor Knox-designed post office, which was torn down in 1969 and replaced with a Jack in the Box. Historic Kingston, the book’s second section, takes a deeper look at the city’s neighborhoods, detailing life in the city through historic photographs and ephemera.

—Brian K. Mahoney

Top: The Hudson River Day Line docking at Kingston Point Park circa 1910. Prior to World War I, visitors to the park reached 8,000 per day.

Photo courtesy Friends of Historic Kingston Bottom: Opened in 1897, the Kingston Point Park was designed by Downing Vaux and included lush gardens as well as a Ferris wheel, carousel, movie theater, dance hall, and convention center.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress

Clockwise from top: The old Kingston Post Office,demolished in 1969 (private collection); Woolworth Building on Wall Street, mid-’60s (Friends of Historic Kingston); Lower Broadway in the Rondout, circa 1906 (Jack Matthews Collection); the Shanty Army-Navy Store on the corner of North Front and Fair streets was torn down in the ‘60s (Gene Dauner); Hutton Brickyard, seen here in 1939, operated continuously from 1865 until 1980, one of many brickyards in the region that produced up to one billion bricks a year, mainly used for construction in New York City (Library of Congress)

Various Artists

New Paltz in the ’90s: A Loud Place (Enter the Devil Recordings)

With its youthful, artistic energy replenished with each incoming SUNY class, New Paltz has a well-earned reputation as one of the Hudson Valley’s premier bohemian enclaves. This nifty digital compilation shines the spotlight on the village’s 1990s-era music scene. Assembled by California-based electronic musician Gustavo Sandi, formerly of punk-funkateers Kung Fu Grip, it’s an aural time capsule to the earlier, beer-soaked floorboards of Snug Harbor (AKA Snug’s) and long-defunct venues like Oasis and the Griffon. The compilation’s title is a riff on the Walkill Valley Rail Trail truss bridge that featured in the 2018 horror film A Quiet Place. The stylistic diversity of the 11 bands on the album is striking. Como Zoo’s “Pumpernickel” is a jazzy, metallic groover. The band’s drummer, Martin Dosh, went on to a notable solo career and collaborations with Andrew Bird.

The all-female Fidoplankton epitomizes the early ’90s grunge zeitgeist with the fuzz-and-echo-drenched “Pepper.” Mearth’s “El Temperamental” evokes the manic noise rock of bands such as the Jesus Lizard. The aforementioned Kung Fu Grip’s “Garbage In, Garbage Out” delivers some deliciously abrasive rock with a jazzy undercurrent. Wormwood’s “Sleep Melody” has a progressive, chamber rock touch; the band featured guitarist John Burdick, whose current project is the much-loved Sweet Clementines. Anilore’s “Something Always Shines” has a bright, dreamy, high-decibel sound that evokes shoegazers like My Bloody Valentine. A Loud Place provides engaging context to a fertile period in local music.

— Jeremy Schwartz

SOUND CHECK

Eric Person

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

I often listen to a great deal of music in my car; this is why I often refer to it as my living room. Lately, I have been listening to various talented regional artists such as the Slambovian Circus of Dreams’ A Very Unusual Head, the Big Takeover’s Spill ing Water, and pianist John Esposito’s Flying with the Comet. Also some classics such as Chick Corea’s Time Warp, Joe Henderson’s Big Band, and Stokley Williams’s latest, Sankofa. Due to our recent collaboration, Person2Person, I have been delving into [unrelated fellow saxophonist] Houston Person’s discography on YouTube, as well as oldschool gems from Eddie Harris, Jackie Mclean, and Lee Morgan.

Saxophonist Eric Person’s Blue Vision features Houston Person and is out now on Distinction Records. Eric Person will perform at Quinn’s in Beacon on November 14. He lives in Newburgh.

Double Celled Organism Time and Other Things That Don’t Exist (Independent)

Somewhere between acoustic, ambient, cinematic, and lucid dreaming is the sweet spot this project calls home. The second album from Bill Brovold and Richard Carr’s Double Celled Organism feels both peculiar and familiar, like if the characters on “Dead wood” got into ayahuasca. Your whole mood shifts to a pensive and relaxed, fairly open, and semi-rustic state while listening, as if you’re at home while adventuring. “Cocaine Sniffle” reminds me more of elegant and moody koto music than a runny, fiendish nostril. Elsewhere, “Disaster in the Mine” takes ad vantage of deceptively meandering sonic elements to create consternation set to a jangly, jerky rhythm. Brovold plays guitar, banjo, drums, and home-made instruments. Carr plays violin, keys, and samples. Two expert veterans consistently at the frontier of the avant-garde scene, here showing their chops and combined mystique to full effect.

—Morgan Y. Evans

Johnny and the Triumphs Gone Too Far (Belly Boy Records)

With deep roots north of Saratoga Springs, Johnny and the Triumphs have been making a unique brand of jumping Adirondack rockabilly for nearly 40 years. Led by inimitable songwriter John Kribs— who has also performed around the region solo and as a member of the McKrells and the Bluebil lies—the band has long kept things lean and mean, with a deep respect and understanding for the form, twang you very much. A new four-song EP, with Kribs abetted by mainstay Michael Hadfield (bass), session ace Marty Feier (drums), and steel master Kevin Maul, along with the departed Joan Crane lending vocals to the genteel, hiccupping ballad “Stolen the Wind,” shows what a mix of experience and inspiration can still accomplish. The mandolin-fueled “An Angel in the Bar” calls up latter Everly Brothers; “Kiss Me Hard” updates Dion; and the driving title track is, at once, modern and retro.

—Michael Eck

How to Write a Song That Matters

Dar Williams

HACHETTE, $19.99, 2022

Cold Spring resident Dar Williams, a singer-song writer who has moved the hearts of millions with her well-turned phrases and insightful stories told in song, shares her techniques with the aspiring songwriters among us. Just as her songs plumb the reaches of human experience (for the unfamil iar, start with “The Babysitter’s Here”), this book delves beyond the technicalities of songsmithing to guide you in discovering your own creative wellsprings and finding your own voice to craft songs that are uniquely yours—and a gift to the wider world.

Stories

Sparrow

APATHY PRESS, $15, 2022

Sparrow is a prolific producer of witty bits of text— poems that are stories and jokes and epiphanies all rolled into one—that rattle around intriguingly in the brain and stick there. Phoenicia’s poet laureate is a keen observer of the human condition from a point of view that manages to be both absurd and relatable, as if we are being visited by a droll and empathetic alien. Fans of incisive ironies, concise, revelatory anecdotes, apt aphorisms, and books that taste good whether nibbled or gulped, will be delighted.

Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging

Cait Johnson

DESTINY BOOKS, $16.99, 2022

Aging with grace and achieving spiritual maturity can feel like a lonesome challenge. Cait Johnson, a Hudson Valley-based transpersonal psycholo gist and student of shamanism, brings us a witch for each season: the earthy Root Witch of Winter, the airy Winged Witch of Spring, the fiery Summer Merwitch, and the watery Autumn Kitchen Witch. Each of these wise women brings us spells, ritu als, ceremonies and recipes appropriate for her season, all calibrated to serve you well as you em brace life’s latter half with creativity, insight and joy.

Witches and Warlocks of New York

Lisa LaMonica

GLOBE PEQUOT, $19, 2022

We have an enchanting collection of witch tales in these parts, many of them untold outside of the places they originated. Lisa LaMonica has collected lesser-known legends and historical ac counts and placed them in historical context for the first time. You’ll meet Hulda, who inspired both the Brothers Grimm and Washington Irving; Elizabeth Garlick, the Easthampton Witch, who was accused and tried long before the famed Salem trials; along with other legends, victims, and sinister spell cast ers who walked our hills and valleys in a bygone era.

Lily Narcissus

Jonathan Lerner

UNSOLICITED PRESS, $16, 2022

Growing up an expatriate American in Asia dur ing the Vietnam years would have been passing strange, and Hudson-based writer Lerner—a `60s radical emeritus who joined SDS and founded the militant Weathermen—was inspired by his own experience in writing his third novel, a panoramic whirl of turbulent world history told through the story of an expat family: diplomat father, enigmatic and dramatic mother, and two wildly divergent daughters, each seeking adventure and meaning in a setting brimming with conflict and intrigue.

—Anne Pyburn Craig

Nineteen Reservoirs: On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City

Lucy Sante

THE EXPERIMENT, $24.95, 2002

Lucy Sante’s latest book, Nineteen Reservoirs, hits bookshelves just as signs of drought in the Hudson Valley are all around us. Landscapes usually green with late harvests are bone dry and dusty, reminding us how vital a resource water is, and how closely it is tied to prosperity.

Nineteen Reservoirs is a thoroughly researched, handsomely illustrated book that traces the history of New York City’s quest for water during the 20th century. Through close examination of archival material, Sante interrogates the crafty maneuvers city officials employed to establish these reservoirs through eminent domain over the course of 60 years. She presents this reasoning plainly: “My purpose here is not to condemn the reservoir system, without which New York City might have faded into insignificance over the course of the 20th century, not only squelching its vast financial powers but aborting its function as a shelter for millions of people displaced from elsewhere. I would simply like to give an account of the hu man costs, an overview of the trade-offs, a summary of unintended consequences.”

The book charts New York City’s ongoing need for water and the parallel devel opment of public policy around its acquisition and use. The Croton Reservoir was the first to be engineered in 1842 and was considered at the time to have an “inex haustible” supply of water for the burgeoning city. Yet by 1907, with the population hovering around four million, New York City’s Board of Water Supply looked to find a more plentiful water source, setting its sights on Ulster County.

What follows is a repeating pattern of growing demand punctuated by exhausted supply, and then further reservoir exploration. The city was rapacious in its quest for water and seemed to view all neighboring rivers and basins as available for the taking. With the money and power to push farmers, townspeople, and small businesses out of the way for reservoir projects, New York City got its way and 26 villages were eventually flooded. Grievances were lodged but residents were largely powerless to make claims until the legal authority to do so was established in the 1950s.

The most ambitious engineering project, the Ashokan Reservoir, began in 1907. Upon its completion 10 years later, it was touted in the press as a “project rivaled only by the Panama Canal as an achievement of America’s engineering might.” The Ashokan had the potential to deliver 770 million gallons of water a day, an astonish ing amount at the time. Yet in a recurring theme of the book, by 1916 this amount was insufficient, and the city moved to develop the upstate Schoharie Creek in search of more water.

Nineteen Reservoirs is richly enhanced by archival postcards of forgotten town centers, historic maps, photographs of work crews carving waterways out of earth and crag. The narrative is greatly humanized by this vivid source material; I couldn’t help but think of the rural communities and families in this march toward more urban water faucets. One of the most resonant passages in the book is Sante’s own reflection of living in an upstate community near the Pepacton Reservoir in the 1990s when residents remembered the flooding of their town and seemed to possess “an air of permanent mourning” over the dislocation. At the time, there was a living memory of a community that was torn asunder; one that was never able to feel fully accepted in a new town.

The book’s epilogue includes Tim Davis’s evocative photographs of present-day life near reservoirs. Photos capture still bodies of clean drinking water as well as battered markers of the towns that came before. These are images of rural life in New York State still wrestling with the politics of resource allocation. The book ends with an invitation to reflect on not only on the history of the reservoir system in the Hudson Valley but also larger questions of shared resources. Though Nineteen Reservoirs comes with a stated aim to explore an untold history, even readers not drawn to the subject will find pleasure in reading it.

—Betsy Maury

William Carlos Williams Repaints the Red Wheelbarrow Then Fills It with Plums

Because once again, the rain water has pooled, the chickens have shit, and my X-Large Depends are sagging and this is just to say it’s after breakfast and blue also is beautiful and— this brisk morning—the shade looks lovely as backdrop to the piled plums, catching the light just-so: fruit and day so cold and so delicious. Forgive me.

—Marjorie Maddox

Late Afternoon at the Audubon Sanctuary

Probably in her late eighties

Shy, not coy, smiling wanly, She tilted her head and lowered her sight Lifting it only as we passed on the trail Through the scrub pines. She’d been photographing The trail map with her iPhone, Steady as she could, Taking her time.

He was ten steps behind her Carefully reading a marker “The Salt Marsh”; that’s all it read, But he was taking his time. In his bony hand he held Several small white shells, Chipped, bleached, Treasures.

They looked like little children again, Hansel and Gretel

Nothing to say, only looking Touching the world in ancient appreciation And wonder.

Perhaps when he was three years old His parents brought him to the beach. At the straggling slow end of the day, On the long walk back to the car he stopped To read some sign, the cracked and bleached Shells in his little hand forgotten. Maybe he’s living his life backwards now And three years from now He’ll return to his parents, and her, and tell, “Look what I found!”

—Thomas Schwarz

BY Phillip X Levine

I can hold a note

But just the one —p

Game of Telephone

Now he is much more than a MOMA patron He is the angry man holding the knife while the guard throws the binder he was holding at him and over two frightened French tourists who will later recollect the event as someone who’s been stabbed in the underarm. Other witnesses will report a back and a throat stabbed. The video recorded a white man around sixty with a colorful shirt under a black jacket and a blue surgical mask. Fabian Levy, the mayor’s spokesman, recapitulates: people were screaming “Shooting!”, as if the projectile man who had just received a letter revoking his Museum membership were anything else than a New Yorker who had been in line with other neurotic New Yorkers to get their MOMA tickets.

Jo Walker—a graduate student at Yale who uses the pronouns they and them—were in the second-floor cafe waiting to see Bringing Up Baby and reading out loud with their friend the Wikipedia note on the incontrollable laughing fits of Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant while filming this endearing 1938 comedy in the company of the trainer of the tame leopard standing off-screen with a whip for all the scenes. “We had no idea what was going on” they said to Alyssa Katz, the deputy editor for a local news site. The circus had just started.

—Diego Antoni

Three Hundred and Thirty-Three Barrels are staring at me. It is well past midnight, and I am indifferent to the random tolling of time’s bells. I have taken to dissecting shadows, twisting them to fit my mind’s mood. The one in the corner looks like Oklahoma. The one hanging over my bed looks like Elvis’s sideburns. I am sure that one is an omen of an overloaded future I do not want.

I roll over instead, bury my head in cool blue linen, pretend I am fish. This tank is suffocating, filmed in forgetting. I start tinkering with the plastic seaweed. Without thinking, my fins configure a figure that looks a little too much like a gun. I drown in the idea of firing. *Exhale*

I watch the bubble float up, and feel my body rising to meet them. I only hope I wake belly up.

—A. J. Huffman

Cathedral of Pines

That certain slant of August light is Blended so with gold. It sends its linear aurum through The pinewood’s darkened hold. There is, at last, no hubbub here: Let silence all enfold.

In the church of the brimming forest There is quiet all around; The golden cozy blanket runs From treetop to the ground. Eager nature needs breathing space, And peace now fills this glade.

The resting trees respire and Infuse with their perfume

The tranquil spans of gilded light That find routes through the gloom, Shoot golden spans of lucky light That coax trefoil to bloom.

The earth, too, lends its fragrance Spiced with life and death, the both This ambience has blended thus For many a million years Ere humans, and their gift of thought, From beauty, hope had wrought.

Something is lost, something is found In this solemn, rich cathedral: In this is the church of our planet is A grace that has no sound.

—Frank Malley

After Midnight

After midnight for both of us in our own time zones, the separating distance longer in the darkness between heavenly bodies,

and I welcome the slide out of the day and the distance and into our spooning dreams, loving you like my cat sweeps me ever more lightly, finding a thousand ways to barely touch me with her tail

—Mark Vian

Tom’s Only Night on the Town

At Halloween’s curfew he takes to the air `Tis Tom O’ Bones the drinkers all swear Out of his home from the autumn’s cold ground.

The clink and clack of his joints are the sounds Thirsty Tom makes as he opens the door Of the Garden Street Pub, his life’s favorite lair.

Costumed bodies stand drinks all around And Tom the winner wearing skeleton fare Makes a scene of great joy and high spirits galore.

Into dark morning false freedom abounds Revelers enjoying their night on the town. But too soon Tom’s sated and finally aware Another year ended, the dawn’s sobering glare Pointing him homeward – a dry, lonely affair. But he grins nonetheless, for the secret he shares –A Halloween hangover needs a year to repair.

—Anthony G. Herles

Wing

I found an angel wing in the street one day. A car had run it over, and a little boy was crying.

—Jennifer Axinn-Weiss

The Sun Is Fierce

I amble droopy from the parking lot to the front glass doors of the medical center a man as old as I am white hair and a cane at the bottom step shivering uncertainly

I ask him if I can help he points to the rail it’s too hot to touch as if it’s a swearword

I offer my hand his is all muscle steady him up the first step slowly a sudden rush two securities flying past me behind him prop him up and upright professionals who saw us from behind the glass I yield the field as I head for the glass

I tell him I know how he feels his response thank you buddy

I treasure that word buddy I leave him behind feeling giddy hep hep in my step a little moment but something humungous

I helped a stranger

Small Town, Upstate

i’m from rolling green hills leaf peepers seek in fall driving slow to appreciate what we take for granted.

i’m from narrow roads winding roads quiet, endless roads leading somewhere, hopefully.

i’m from a single stoplight which begs the fear of stopping too long at an intersection which is clear for “go.”

i’m from a small town, upstate with a gentle vastness that swallows.

—Danielle Sweetser

An Accident

At summer’s end, A gray storm fog And loud blue sirens Eclipsed the bridge:

An accident—

I thought about Christmas And coming home to you.

—Charlotte Tramontana

Quarry

I went to the quarry

Looking for a proper stone

To put over the remains of the day

But it broke into a hundred pieces, When I tried to lift it

So I put what was left

In my pocket, to save it

For tomorrow

Full submission guidelines: Chronogram.com/submissions

—Tony Howarth

—Frieda Feldman

All Together Now

FAHEEM HAIDER TAKES THE HELM AT UNISON

By Carl Van Brunt

The art world, like the world in general, is in a state of flux. Who is art for? What does art do? Whose art should be shown and how should it be made, exhibited, and sold? These kinds of questions resonate not only in the world’s big art capitals and across the internet but also in our local art scene.

Added to these wide-ranging general questions is this one: How can regional artists and exhibition spaces make a relevant contribution to this conversation? Faheem Haider is focused on these issues. Hired last November as the executive director of Unison, a New Paltz-based arts organization founded in 1976, he believs that Unison can leverage its resources to impact art in the region. Haider brings an impressive array of tools to this task: He is an artist, curator, critic, social activist, community organizer, educator, and fundraiser all in one.

How does this play out under Haider’s leadership at Unison? That he was born in Bangladesh in 1978 and immigrated with his family to our region when he was 12 is important to Haider but not definitive. Who he is cannot be defined based solely on his cultural heritage. And who he is as executive director is first and foremost a person who is moving quickly to build and expand upon Unison’s past by stabilizing the organization in the wake of COVID—he raised more money during his second month on the job than had ever been raised in a single month at Unison previously. “I don’t think I should be the exemplary person just because Unison has hired someone who has a broad personal

Unison Executive Director Faheem Haider with artist Tibor Spitz and filmmaker Ilene Cutler. Below: A poetry reading celebrating Mimi Graminski’s exhibtion at Unison’s Project Space.

experience,” Haider says. “I don’t think that is what you want to rely on. You want to have an institution that can be used by anybody. You want to build an organization that anyone can plug and play.”

Living Legacy

Haider is choosing to exhibit artists whose work speaks to the commonalities of human experience rather than adhering to stylistic trends dictated by art-world market forces. Over the past year, Haider has highlighted the feminist abstractions of Beth Humphrey and Mimi Graminski, the conceptual cartoons of Sean Nixon conveying his responses to Covid, and the expression of ecological alternatives rooted in a reverence for nature realized by the 20-plus artists in “Owning Earth,” curated by Tal Beery, which is on view in Unison’s sculpture garden through the end of October. Haider and artist Ryan Cronin recently installed Cronin’s work The Box, an interactive public art installation that creates a safe space for women to gather information about sexual health and wellness.

“From my point of view as a founder and past executive director of Unison, Faheem is bringing a strong vision and passion for bringing new life and engaging new audiences for our now 46-year-old arts organization,” says Stuart Bigley. Matthew Friday, a SUNY New Paltz art professor and Unison board member adds, “Faheem carries on the legacy of Unison, which began as an intentional community interested in radical forms of living where aesthetics were understood to be something more than decoration and passive contemplation. Faheem’s background, which includes study at the London School of Economics and two terms as the vice chair for the Orange County Democrats, informs his unique approach to thinking of art as a driving force in the creation of a more just and interdependent community.”

Haider sees art as storytelling and storytelling itself as a powerful tool for inclusive community building. Take, for example, the recent exhibition of paintings and ceramics by Tibor Spitz, “A Retrospective: Stories, Remembrances,”

which Haider curated. “Tibor is a 93-year-old working class artist. He uses basic materials purchased at local art supply stores,” Haider says. “He is essentially creating paintings that are devices to tell a story encapsulating memories of his own experiences—he and his family survived the Holocaust by hiding in the woods.”

Haider sees forced displacement, genocide, and the other horrors of war Spitz depicts in the wider context of how these calamities continue to plague humanity today. “I think the most important thing is to be sensitive to other people’s experiences,” he says. “Our neighborhoods and our friendships should extend beyond the cul de sac. We need to gather people together—because if we all go back into our silos and we don’t have this interpenetration of cultures, we’re done for.”

Narratives of Engagement

Coming to Unison in 2023 are other storytelling artists weaving narratives of engagement in diverse and innovative ways, including legendary performance artist Linda Montano, the photographer and installation artist Tiffany Smith, the painter and muralist Kevin Paulson, and Heather Renee Russ, who deals with queer femme concerns with an inventive and varied visual vocabulary. Also on view will be two collaborative, site-specific exhibitions. Kimberly Ruth, who showed photographs at Unison earlier this year, will team up with Rena Leinberger who makes use of prosaic everyday materials to illuminate the mysteries of sometimes overlapping real and imagined spaces. Indigenous artists and life-partners Tlisza Jaurique and Marcus Zilliox will put a show together as well.

Haider’s view of fostering shared values for the common good includes increasing awareness and appreciation of where we live. Opening on October 1 is “Field Work,” Thomas Sarrantonio’s masterly plein air paintings of local landscapes. Later this fall, Vernon Byron will be utilizing Unison’s second location at 9 Paradies Lane, where he will be building a wigwam-like structure in remembrance of the displacement of the Lenape and other first nations peoples from their lands.

The responsibilities Haider has taken on at Unison are many. They importantly include planning and presenting performance events, as well as creating and supervising educational programs for adults and children. This fall’s programming includes a set of monthly First Friday Open Mics; Unison Arts Academy Movie Lab afterschool classes for students in third through sixth grades; a performance by singer, songwriter, musician, and composer Marc Von Em on October 22; and guitarist David Rogers on November 5.

On November 12, singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright is performing a concert to benefit Unison’s programming.

With a very small staff and a coterie of dedicated volunteers and interns, Haider has a lot on his plate. He notes that he needs to increase his focus on the performing arts and maintain his vital fundraising efforts, while, most importantly, building an infrastructure that will sustain Unison for years to come. To that end, he is in the process of helping to add new members to Unison’s board and panel of advisors. Noted artist Jean-Marc Superville Sovak has joined the board. Other luminaries, such as Guggenheim Fellow Phyllis Chen, and Alex Peh, a celebrated pianist and composer and 2021 Fulbright Global Scholar, are supporting Haider’s efforts in ways that will be announced in detail later this fall. Simon Draper, well known as the creator of Habitat for Artists, is also lending his support as is Dan Rigney, former president of Beacon Arts.

Another important focus of Haider’s vision centers on Unison’s 9 Paradies Lane location, which is being utilized for two-month-long artist’s residencies. Applications for 2023 residencies are currently being considered. With the residency program, Haider is primarily concerned with fostering artists’ in-depth thinking about their art, its relation to place, and its function in the grander scheme of things; as well as the audience’s perception and consideration of the “small d” democratic truths artists’ emergent, site-responsive works convey through the processes and actualities of their making. “That’s my bag,” Haider proclaims to a visitor. “It’s always been my bag!”

Robert Beck's Reversible Reactions is part of "Owning Earth," a sculpture exhibition curated by Tal Beery that is on view in Unison’s sculpture garden through October 31.

Thomas Sarrantonio's 34 Field Painting, July 11 2022 is on display at Unison through December 4, part of his solo exhibition "Field Work."

2022 Fall Arts Preview

We’re going to call this fall’s cultural season No Caveats. After two-and-a-half years of artists and organizers working tirelessly to find safe and innovative ways to keep the cultural traditions of the region alive, we seem to be (mostly) done with the pandemic. This has allowed arts programmers and curators to do what they do best, rather than craft public health protocols. This has led to the most robust autumn season in memory, with a profusion of indoor and outdoor happenings across the region. We are happy to celebrate the return of some of our favorite seasonal events like O+ Festival in Kingston (headlined this year by hometown indie rockers Mercury Rev), the Woodstock Invitational Luthier’s Showcase, and the Sheep and Wool Festival at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds. This year also marks some premier events, like a screening of Deep Listening, a featurelength documentary about the experimental music icon Pauline Oliveros at EMPAC and the staging of “The Lifespan of a Fact” at Shadowland Stages. Who knows what may happen vis-a-vis COVID and indoor events this winter, so gather ye cultural rosebuds while ye may.

FilmColumbia Festival at the Crandell Theatre October 21-30. Held at the historic Crandell Theatre in Chatham, FilmColumbia is an annual 10-day festival of world-class films that includes works from major studios, independent and international filmmakers, documentaries, animated features, and short children’s films. This season features Sony Picture Classics 30th anniversary with Living, with Bill Nighy starring in the British remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 samurailess masterpiece Ikuru and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with a talkback with James Schamus and SPC copresident Michael Barker. Highlights also include Whale starring Brendon Frazer and directed by Darren Aronofsky; The Son starring Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, and Anthony Hopkins; and more.

Gare St. Lazare Ireland presents “The Beckett Trilogy” Hudson Hall November 4-5. Irish theater company Gare St. Lazare Ireland is internationally revered as the foremost interpreters of native literary genius Samuel Beckett, garnering universal accolades for their solo productions of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s prose. The troupe tramps to Hudson Hall for this two-night engagement of evening-length theatrical renditions of Beckett’s novels Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. Featuring excerpts from each novel, Gare St. Lazare’s preeminent Beckett interpreters Conor Lovett and director Judy Hegarty Lovett will offer profound solo performances that embody this existential trinity of his works.

Field + Supply Fall MRKT at Hutton Brickyards

October 7–9. Founded in 2014 by interior designer Brad Ford, this curated makers’ market is back in-person at Hutton Brickyards in Kingston. Over 200 hand-picked vendors will be at the pet- and kid-friendly modern take on an arts and crafts fair. Smaller items including essential oil room sprays from Gestures and soaps from J. M. Generals will be available. Found My Animal will be selling its bespoke dog collars. Splurge on exquisite knives from Jay Morgan Handcraft, furniture from Sawkille Co., and sensuous ceramics from M Quan Studio. Shoppers can snack on culinary creations, sip craft cocktails, and browse to live music throughout the weekend.

“The Lifespan of a Fact” at Shadowland Stages

October 7–23. This one is for the media nerds out there.

Based on a true story, it tracks the interpersonal dynamics between a writer loose with the truth and a fact checker with the bit in his teeth. A sinking literary magazine hopes an article by prominent essayist John D’Agata will changes its fortunes. Fresh out of Harvard, Jim Fingal is assigned to fact check the piece. When not everything checks out, Fingal and D’Agata go head to head as hard facts battle against emotional truths in a high-stakes and hilarious verbal showdown.

“Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes” at the Bridge Street Theater

October 13-23. Here making its premiere this month at Catskills’ Bridge Street Theater is a new play by Hannah Moscovitch, the winner of the 2021 Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award for English-Language Drama. In the story, an acclaimed novelist and a star professor named Jon is racked with guilt when he finds himself becoming attracted to Annie, one of his students, after his third marriage falls apart. The 19-year-old student is a big fan of Jon’s work and just happens to live right down the street. Their mutual admiration grows, the sexual tension escalates, and the archetypal student-teacher romance gets turned on its head.

Sheep & Wool Festival

October 15–16. Located at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, the 41st New York State Sheep and Wool Festival is offering a hybrid event this year. Attend in person sheep and goat shows, author talks, and see who will take home a ribbon in this year’s fleece to shawl fiber competition, where three teams spin and weave fibers to make a shawl from start to finish. There are multiple yarnrelated products to peruse, including handmade portable spinning wheels from Athena Spinning, yarn from the sheep at Bay Haven Short Tails, and ceramic beads and buttons from Lisa Peters ART. Farm tours and workshops on yarn making will be offered virtually.

Kevin James at UPAC

November 6. Comedian Kevin James comes to Kingston for this rare regional evening of standup comedy at the Ulster Performing Arts Center. The star and producer of the long-running CBS-TV smash comedy series “The King of Queens,” the Emmy-nominated James also starred in the CBS sitcom “Kevin Can Wait”; the Netflix standup specials “Sweat the Small Stuff” and “Never Don’t Give Up” and feature “True Memoirs of an International Assassin.”

James made his feature film debut in 2005 in Columbia Pictures’ Hitch starring opposite Will Smith, and starred alongside Adam Sandler in Pixels, Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry John Mulaney at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center November 10. Emmy- and WGA award-winning writer, actor, and comedian John Mulaney pays Poughkeepsie a pitstop on his “From Scratch” tour, which has sold out venues around the country. Mulaney, who began writing for “Saturday Night Live” in 2008, created memorable characters such as Stefon with Bill Hader and appeared as a “Weekend Update” correspondent, has himself hosted “SNL” five times. He has also written for IFC’s “Documentary Now!” and Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” on which he voices the character of Andrew. In December 2019, his critically acclaimed and Emmy-nominated musical variety special “John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch” debuted on Netflix.

“I’m Not a Comedian, I’m Lenny Bruce” at the Mahawie Theater October 14–15. Critically acclaimed actor Ronnie Marmo brings his one-man show, directed by Joe Mantegna, to Great Barrington for two nights this fall. “I’m Not a Comedian” chronicles the life and death of Bruce, one of the greatest stand-ups of all time, from his early material to his numerous arrests on obscenity charges and accidental drug overdose in 1966. With free speech under fire in school censorship battles across the country, Bruce’s championing of the First Amendment is more relevant than ever.

Above: Ronnie Marmo plays Lenny Bruce at the Mahaiwe. Opposite, from above: Akira Kurosawa's Ikuru, screens as part of FilmColumbia; Gare St. Lazare Ireland performs Beckett's plays at Hudson Hall.

COMING SOON!

Opening to the Public

Sun. Oct 16, 2022 • 11-6pm

Including fine jewelry, antiques, collectables, handmade clothing, art, pottery, etc.

PLUS

Richard Gamache

retrospective painting exhibition Oct 16 - Nov 20, 2022

Back Gallery: Jane St Annex inside The Newberry Artisan Market 236 Main St, Saugerties, NY, 12477

Newberry Artisan Market Hours: Thurs-Sun 11-6pm Updates on our Instagram, Facebook, website www.newberryartisanmarket.com

Lucid Dreaming Minigolf October 8 at O+ Festival; October 29 at Wassaic Project. Our pick for most fun event this fall. A roaming, existential, and artful putt-putt experience, Lucid Dream Minigolf aims to spark a sense of delight and playfulness creating an immersive storytelling experience that uses the medium of minigolf as performance theater and interactive narrative. Follow along with the story of the Swamp Monster—a bioluminescent pet alligator flushed down the toilet by a neglectful owner in Manhattan who then swam their way up the Hudson in search of refuge—as you play the course.

Limon Dance Company at the Egg October 21. Modern dance company Limon Dance has been at the forefront of the medium since 1946, when it was formed by famed Mexican dancer and choreographer Jose Limon. Celebrated for its technical mastery, dramatic expression, and expansive yet nuanced movement in classic works as well as new commissions from contemporary choreographers, the ensemble exhibits the timelessness of Limon’s work and vision through the lens of its current artistic director, Dante Puleio. This event at the Egg in Albany is part of the “Dance in Albany” performance series, a joint venture of the Egg and the UAlbany Performing Arts Center.

Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase

October 21-23. Now in its 11th year the Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase will once again be held at the Bearsville Theater Center. Described as an “alternative guitar show,” the three-day summit features fine, contemporary, handmade acoustic guitars and stringed musical instruments shown by their creators. The intimate gathering for the international community of acoustic stringed-instrument builders, players, collectors and enthusiasts is considered the leading event of its type in North America. The weekend promises continuous live music including luthier miniconcerts, demos, and special appearances during show hours, and is highlighted by the String Sampler Concert of acoustic music at the Woodstock Playhouse on October 22.

Tracy Morgan at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater

October 27. Funnyman Tracy Morgan was active in standup comedy, movies, and TV before he became a “Saturday Night Live” cast member, but it was his time with that show (1996-2003) that established him as a major entertainer and led to his Emmy-nominated role on the NBC sitcom “30 Rock” (2006-2013). Currently, the Bronx-born, Brooklyn-raised actor-comedian stars in NBC’s “The Last O.G.” Morgan will light up the laughs when his “No Disrespect” standup tour takes him to the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater in Peekskill for this uproarious night.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” at the Denizen Theater Through October 30. “But why does his heart not stop beating?!” Edgar Allan Poe’s immortal tale of madness and murder makes the perfect performance to take in as a tricky treat this Halloween season. First published in 1843, the yarn is related by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator’s sanity while simultaneously describing a murder that the narrator committed. The black-box Denizen Theater, adjacent to New Paltz’s Water Street Market, is staging this production of the sinister short story that’s overseen by director Andy Gaukel with Sean Meehan.

Fall for Art in Kingston November 5–11. Fall for Art is celebrating 26 years with its third virtual juried art show and sale. Landscape photography by John Fischer, whimsical ceramics of Brian Recchia, elegant jewelry from Mary Elwyn, and Justin Love’s colorful surrealist paintings are just some of the types of art available for purchase. Hosted by the Jewish Federation of Ulster County since 1997, proceeds from the event support the artists, Federation causes, and regional nonprofits, including the Hudson Valley Food Bank and Circle of Friends for the Dying

EVENTS

“Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros” at EMPAC October 9. Globally influential Kingston composer Pauline Oliveros passed away in 2016, but her legacy continues to reverberate through the galaxy. How appropriate for EMPAC to host this special preview of Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros, director Daniel Weintraub’s new feature-length documentary on the experimental icon, given that she was a long-time faculty member at the facility on RPI’s Troy campus. The film combines rare archival footage with intimate interviews that illuminate Oliveros’s radical experiments with sound, technology, and philosophy that define her life of listening. A Q&A with Daniel Weintraub and Oliveros’s partner IONE will follow the screening.

“Right Before I Go” at the Woodstock Playhouse October 5-6. Written by and starring Stan Zimmerman (“Gilmore Girls,” “The Golden Girls,” “Roseanne”), the new play “Right Before I Go” centers on suicide awareness, focusing on the struggles of people from all walks of life who have died from suicide. The story brings to life the last words of letters written by individuals who were lost to suicide; included are texts by celebrities, veterans, children, and those identifying as LGBTQ who experienced a range of mental health calamities, as well as those who have survived suicide attempts. Also starring are Virginia Madsen and Zimmerman’s fellow “Gilmore Girls” actors Shelly Cole and Nick Holmes.

“Art” at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston October 13–23. Yasmina Reza’s Tony and Pulitzer Prizewinning drama from 1994 is being staged by Voice Theater at their new home in Kingston. The play centers around three friends, one of whom buys an expensive modernist painting that is completely white. The painting, first a cause of tension between the men, then becomes an instrument through which the friends reveal their true feelings about each other. The cast includes: Robert Langdon Lloyd as Marc, Neil Howard as Serge, and John Gazzale as Yvan. The production is directed by Shauna Kanter.

—Peter Aaron & Brian K. Mahoney

From top: Lucid Dreaming Minigolf will be at the Wassaic Project and the O+ Festival; Pauline Oliveros doc Deep Listening screens at EMPAC; Virginia Madsen stars in "Right Before I Go" at the Woodstock Playhouse; Voice Theater stages "Art" at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston.

Kingston O+ Festival

October 7-9. Among this year’s bands and solo acts at Kingston’s returning O+ Festival are Mercury Rev, Kimbra, Louis Prima and the Witnesses, Mirah, Bitch, Tsunami Bomb, Morgan O’Kane, Chinua Hawk Music, Adult Mom, Joey Eppard, Miles Francis, Roxiny, Sam Kogon, Denitia, and many more. In sum, over 40 bands will perform at various spaces around the Ulster County seat during the festival this year. A full schedule of musical performers, comedians, artists, literary salon participants, and wellness practitioners is viewable online. $30-$60. Opositivefestival.org

!!!

November 18. This one’s for the dancers. Brooklyn disco-rock band !!! (pronounced “Chk Chk Chk”; the name was inspired by the clicking sounds made in the Jul’hoan language spoken by the San people of South Africa, in which an exclamation point refers to a “chk” sound) was formed in Sacramento, California, in 1996 by hardcore vocalist Nic Offer. The group’s booty-bustin’ sound fuses funky bass and house beats with synth-y soul, electronica, ’80s new wave pop, and indie rock. The unit shakes up the Bearsville Theater on November 18 at 7:30pm. $25, $30. Bearsvilletheater.com

Darlene Love

December 11. It’s the holiday season for real when 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Darlene Love is making the rounds. Love first hit the pop world as the lead singer of the Phil Spector-produced trio the Blossoms, who were credited as the Crystals on 1962’s history-making hit “He’s a Rebel”; her solo recording of the same year’s “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” also credited to the Crystals, was another smash. She found a whole new generation of fans in the 1990s via her annual Christmas appearances on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” Love brings the yuletide cheer to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel on December 11 at 7pm. $74-$144. Bethelwoodscenter.org

Concerts

Trombone Shorty

November 1. Festival favorite Trombone Shorty stands tall among New Orleans’s greatest musical ambassadors, taking the hot, deep jazz of his and the music’s birthplace around the world to fresh, young audiences and keeping the jubilee going. An actor, producer, and philanthropist as well as an incredible musician, the trombonist, who was born Troy Andrews in 1986, has worked with some of the biggest names in jazz, rock, funk, hip hop, and pop. He cracks the Egg in Albany on November 1 at 8pm. $49.50-$79.50. Theegg.org

Above: Trombone Shorty Top: Mercury Rev and Kimbra headline the O+ Festival in Kingston

Fall ’22 Art Exhibitions

FEVERED IMAGINATION

Exhibit inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart Oct 1–Oct 30 at Denizen Theatre Gallery in New Paltz. Opening reception 5pm-7pm on Oct 1.

VERDANT

Currently on view at Robibero Winery (and virtually) until Nov 2. Live auction: https://roostarts.betterworld.org/auctions/verdant

EVOCATIVE ABSTRACTIONS

New paintings by Marcy Bernstein at Gardiner Library until Nov 30. Artist reception 4pm–6pm on October 23.

TINY ROOST @ GARDINER LIBRARY

An innovative outdoor installation by Dawn Bisio entitled “FLOW: Racism: NO”. October/November. Jean Tansey “The Choiceless & The Voiceless”. Artist meet and greet 4pm-6pm October 23.

SEARCH

Roost Studios is actively seeking a part time Executive Director to help lead our next phase of community and organizational growth. For more information, please email us at gallery@roostcoop.org.

roostcoop.org

A Hudson Valley Non-Profit Arts Cooperative

Boston Typewriter Orchestra

October 1. “The band started after we heard a friend of ours had unsuccessfully tried to pick up a lady at a bar with the dubious line ‘I play in the Boston Typewriter Orchestra,’” Brendan Quigley, the group’s cofounder, explained to Chronogram in 2020. “When we heard that story, we took it as a challenge to make that happen.” And so they did, assembling an ensemble that, yes, uses typewriters to make music. The BTO plays TurnPark in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on October 1 at 2pm. $20. Turnpark.com

Rufus Wainwright

October 2. Unfollow the Rules is Hudson Valley native son Rufus Wainwright’s first album in seven years. Although his family roots are in folk music, the Grammynominated, Juno Award-winning singersongwriter draws more from Great American Songbook composers, opera music, and Broadway and cabaret performers. His previous studio album, 2016’s Take All My Loves, is comprised of nine adaptations of Shakespeare’s sonnets. This concert by the singer, pianist, and guitarist finds him in the lavish environment of Tarrytown Music Hall on October 2 at 7pm. $44-$79. Tarrytownmusichall.org

Minibeast

October 8. Based in New England, the rocking, experimental Minibeast is led by Peter Prescott, a founding member of the influential Boston postpunk bands Mission of Burma, the Volcano Suns, and Kustomized. “We greatly accept influences from Fela Kuti, Can, and the Stooges,” reads the trio’s Bandcamp bio, while NPR’s #NowPlaying described the group’s 2022 debut album, On Ice, as “an unpredictable sonic swirl that evokes peak-level krautrock like Amon

Düül II more than any algorithmic postrock.” Minibeast mauls Tubby’s in Kingston with Telescoping opening at 7pm. $10. Tubbyskingston.com

Ani DiFranco

November 11. The musical conscience of a generation, singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco will make her much-awaited return to our region with this upstate evening. Her most recent studio album is 2021’s Revolutionary Love, but she’s currently touring on this year’s 25th anniversary edition reissue of her beloved live album Living in Clip (both sets were released on her own Righteous Babe Records label). DiFranco’s 2019 memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream (Viking Books), made the New York Times Top 10 best-seller list. She comes to Troy Savings Bank Hall on November 11 at 7:30pm. $39.50-$54.50. Troymusichall.org

Al Bilali Soudan

October 15. Al Bilali Soudan’s moniker is an ancient name for the group’s home city of Timbuktu, Mali. Their traditional repertoire is played on the Tuareg stringed instrument known as the tehardent (AKA ngoni) and the calabash, a percussion instrument. In his review of the band’s 2020 album, Tombouctou, Robert Christgau writes, “should you instead suspect that this noisy, indelicate stuff is the roughest African music ever recorded, that’s because you haven’t heard their [self-titled] 2012 debut. A-.” They play the Half Moon in Hudson on October 15 at 8:30pm. $10. The-half-moon.square.site

Top: Boston Typewriter Orchestra

Right: Ani DiFranco

Concerts

From 19th-century scientific and portrait photography to avant-garde and conceptual photography; from Minimalist, Pop Art, and Op Art printmaking to experimental bookmaking and photography in the 21st century, this dynamic exhibition explores how artists embrace, reject, and reclaim the grid. By altering perception, they offer new ways of seeing.

August 20through December 22, 2022

Benjamin

Ben Wigfall, 1993, by Nancy Donskoj

Gurus are out of fashion. Millions of Americans do yoga, many practice meditation, but no one seems to be searching for a bearded wise man to guide their lives (perhaps because many famous gurus of the 1970s were revealed to be charlatans). Brilliant Disguise: The Samadhi of K. C. Tewari is not about a Perfect Master, however, but a rarer figure: the perfect disciple. Brilliant Disguise, directed by David Silver, will be shown at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston on October 23. The screening will be followed by Krishna Das speaking about his experiences with Tewari.

Richard Alpert was the assistant to Timothy Leary in his groundbreaking LSD research at Harvard University in the mid-1960s. After Harvard booted them both out, Alpert wandered to India, where he met Neem Karoli Baba, a grizzled sage who showed him truths beyond those offered by lysergic acid. Under his new name, Ram Dass, Alpert wrote Be Here Now, a memoir of his transformation, which became an instant New Age classic. Westerners began following the trail he blazed, to his guru’s ashram. There they met K. C. Tewari.

Tewari was notable because he often fell into samadhi, a mystic state in which breathing and blood flow appear to cease. (There is no measurable pulse.)

Presumably this rapture is accompanied by ecstatic bliss, but those who experience it—including Tewari— are usually too modest to reveal their inner experience.

Born in Uttar Pradesh in 1921, Tewari became a wannabe yogi, wandering around with Neem Karoli Baba (also known as “Maharaji”). Tewari’s intention was to be a celibate monk, but one day while he and Maharaji were staying at a household in the town of Haldwani, the guru announced that his disciple should marry Krishna, the daughter of the household. For two days, the two spiritualists argued, but finally—of course—the guru won. Ultimately, Tewari was a “householder,” with three children; he worked as headmaster of a school at Nainital, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Tewari once casually remarked to an American friend that his samadhis only began after his marriage.

Of course, balancing yogic bliss with family life can be tricky. In Indian culture, one must wait for the father before sitting down to dinner. Often Tewari would be in samadhi, while the rest of the family was starving! Maharaji taught his wife how to bring K. C. back from a trance state: whisper “Ram Ram” into his year, and if that didn’t work, use a spoon to pry his tongue from the top of his mouth. Unfortunately, while doing so,

Don’t Tewari `Bout A Thing

BRILLIANT DISGUISE

October 23, 7pm at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston Presented by Upstate Films, Upstatefilms.org

she once knocked out a couple of his teeth. Later he gave those teeth to one of Maharaji’s disciples, Radha Baum. “I still have those teeth,” she admits, in Brilliant Disguise

The day before Maharaji died in 1973, he told Tewari: “Take care of the Western disciples.” A guru is a father figure, but K. C. was more like the world’s greatest uncle.

Tewari visited the US three times. Once, during the 1970s, Krishna Das, the well-known yogic singer, was taking Tewari to an acupuncturist on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Walking down the street, they were surrounded by porn movies and drug dealers. Krishna Das was deeply embarrassed to be polluting the mind of a saint. K. C.’s wife whispered something in her husband’s ear, and Krishna Das asked what she said. “She said it’s like Heaven here,” K. C. revealed. “All your desires are fulfilled.”

One forgets, even if you know them well, that yogis are not “religious,” as we use the term. They aren’t Episcopalian ministers. They are closer in spirit to drunken hobos (though they drink an invisible liquor few others have tasted).

Indian spiritual seeker K. C. Tewari is the subject of David Silver's documentary Brilliant Disguise

Creative Connections

Cornell Creative Arts Center in Kingston Offers

Accessible Arts Programming for All

In April of 2020, after three years of planning and construction, the Cornell Creative Arts Center (CCAC) officially opened its doors on Cornell Street in Kingston—right as the region ground to a halt at the start of the pandemic. The timing could not have been more unlucky. As it turned out though, there was perhaps no organization better prepared to clear the hurdles of the pandemic over the next two years than the CCAC.

The CCAC’s entire mission is to provide inclusive, accessible, multi-disciplinary arts opportunities to all members of the community, regardless of ability. “We take access to the arts seriously,” says CCAC Director Shanna NigroGonzalez. “With all of the barriers that presented with the COVID pandemic, we needed to think outside of the box to engage our community.”

The CCAC got to work rolling out a robust weekly schedule of virtual classes that included everything from adaptive dance to chair-based yoga to visual art workshops for both beginning and advanced artists. It also piloted a program that brought professional artists and supportive staff directly to individuals for in-home art classes, providing those without the ability or means to safely get out of their homes the

opportunity to engage in creative expression. The initiative has been so successful that the CCAC expects to make it a permanent offering, and extend the program to more people this fall.

In late 2020 and 2021 as restrictions eased and in-person programming returned in full force, the CCAC was finally able to ramp up its 12,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility and began providing the accessible community arts space that Kingston needed.

Now on offer are a wide variety of in-person art, dance, and movement classes, which take place in its dedicated art classroom, ceramics studio, and movement studio. Artists getting serious about their clay craft can purchase monthly ceramics memberships, which includes key card access during business hours and use of the studio, tools, and glazes, and access to kiln services.

This fall, the CCAC also launched art classes at a new satellite location in Ellenville to expand arts access to children in rural communities. The initiative was spearheaded by Nigro-Gonzalez, whose prior community work as a program manager for Population Health and Ellenville’s Rural Health Network was recognized by former

State Senator Jen Metzger and the Cornell Cooperative Extension.

As part of an effort to connect the arts to everyday life, the center also developed a program that blends ceramics with the culinary arts. For a previous two-part workshop focused on fermentation, participants created their own fermentation crocks in the ceramics studio, then learned how to ferment vegetables. This month, students will make ramen for their new noodle bowls and later this winter there will be a gingerbread house workshop.

For those who prefer to enjoy art rather than making it themselves, the newest exhibition at the CCAC’s art gallery is sure to delight.

“Holograms: Dimensions in Light,” is a guest show from New York City’s HoloCenter, an organization dedicated to the holographic arts, which is calling the CCAC its home away from home while it relocates permanently to Kingston.

“We’re so excited to show the work of worldrenowned holographic artists here in our space,” says Nigro-Gonzalez. The exhibition will be on view through October 31.

“Of Objects and Shadows / De Objetos y Sombras” at Center for Photography at Woodstock

Through December 31. A group exhibition of emerging Latino artists living and working upstate, including recent and former participants of the Center for Photography at Woodstock’s artist-in-residence program. Curated by Qiana Mestrich, this exhibition considers the political, spiritual, and cultural allusions in their photographic depictions of objects and (their) shadows. Featured artists in this exhibition are Genesis Baez (Puerto Rico/ USA), Nydia Blas (Panama/USA), William Camargo (Mexico/USA), Steven Molina Contreras (El Salvador), Zoraida Lopez-Diago (Panama/USA), and Qiana Mestrich (Panama/USA).

“Holograms: Dimensions in Light” at Cornell Creative Arts Center

Through October 31. New York City’s HoloCenter, an organization dedicated to the holographic arts, has temporarily moved into the Cornell Creative Arts Center while it relocates permanently to Kingston. “Holograms: Dimensions in Light” features work from the center’s 23-year history, including art by those at the forefront of holographic media: Rudie Berkhout, Betsy Connors, Melissa Crenshaw, Jacques Desbiens, Eva Davidova, Matthew Gantt, Linda Law, Sam Moree, Martina Mrongovius, August Muth, Ikuo Nakamura, Ana Maria Nicholson, and Dan Schweitzer. These 3-D photographs possess a spectral quality that seemingly connects to the spirit world via technology and are quite unlike anything else on view this season.

Exhibitions

Top: The Silver Woman by Nydia Blas, from the exhibition "Of Objects and Shadows / De Objetos y Sombras" at Center For Photography at Woodstock.

Right: Materialization, a laser transmission hologram by Ikuo Nakamura from the exhibition "Holograms: Dimensions in Light" at Cornell Creative Arts Center.

“Kurt Seligmann: Beyond the Quotidian” at the Kurt Seligmann Center

October 14–November 30. A Swiss-American Surrealist, Kurt Seligmann (1900-1962) was one of the first in the movement to emigrate from Europe to the US in the 1930s. This exhibition presents the juxtaposition of the mysteries of the subconscious embedded in ordinary domestic life through the catalyzing setting of the Seligmann homestead in Sugar Loaf. Through the lens of the Seligmann homestead, these works, together with various ephemera, photos, and other artifacts, present an understanding of the artist as depicted through the trivialities of everydayness.

“Sowing Seeds of Emptiness” at Garrison Art Center

Through November 6. Jayoung Yoon is a South Korean-born, New York-based artist whose primary medium is her own hair. Her work—which employs lengths of hair crossed and woven together to create semi-transparent sculptural forms and two-dimensional geometric images—draws upon the mind-matter phenomenon, exploring memory, perception, and bodily sensations. The delicate and tactile nature of the medium demands attention and presence to work that can shift as a result of subtle changes in airflow.

“Robert Bordo” at Foreland

October 15–November 27. Bortolami Gallery takes over Foreland’s largest gallery space in Catskill to present new and past works by renowned painter Robert Bordo. The New York-based, CanadianAmerican artist is known for paintings positioned between representation and abstraction that blend modernist formal concerns with postmodern approaches to image, subject matter, and metaphor. Bordo’s ultimate subject may be painting itself and his body of work a conversation between its various forms and functions.

“A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” at Thomas Cole Historic Site and Mass MoCA

Through November 27 at Thomas Cole and January 1 at Mass MoCA. Using sculpture as a starting point, Marc Swanson’s work is infused with a sense of macabre, camp, mourning, foreboding, and a dark sense of humor. His installations are at times grand in scale and conceptual prowess, combining elements of diorama, stage design, taxidermy, and funeral service aesthetics to reflect on the disastrous effects of the climate crisis and its parallels with the AIDS crisis. For Swanson, the shrinking sublimity of the natural world recalls the nightclub scene of his youth, and with that the dwindling of spaces for which a feeling of belonging and where unchecked, wild self-expression is possible.

“Man Saves Shark” at Garage Gallery

October 8–30. Beacon-based sculptor Emil Alzamora has achieved international renown exploring the boundaries and meaning of the human form in his work. His sculptures of the human form are beautiful grotesques that reveal hidden meanings in their distortion. “Man Saves Shark” is Alzamora’s first foray into the intersection of humans and the animal kingdom—and we’re very much here for it. He’s made sharks cuddly. The exhibit’s centerpiece at Beacon’s Garage Gallery, Man Saves Shark, is as sensual a depiction of two beings as Rodin’s The Kiss

“A Spell is a Map to What is Meant for You” at Fridman Gallery

Through October 30. Alisa Sikelianos-Carter’s mixed-media works on paper explore connections between Black ancestry, power, intuition, and the divine at Fridman Gallery in Beacon. Her work engages closely with texture—hard ground, velvety gouache, glittery mica, and other luminescent materials—mapping the diversity of the color black and of the Black experience. SikelianosCarter creates devotional objects that assert that Black features are a manifestation of a sacred and divine technology that has served as a means of survival, both physically and metaphysically.

“Richard Segalman: Contemporary American Impressionist” at Woodstock Artists Association & Museum

October 14–December 31. Richard Segalman (1934–2021) is best known for his light-filled large-scale paintings of women on the beach clothed in voluminous dresses, showcasing masterful painterly technique. This retrospective, curated by WAAM’s Executive Director Nicole Goldberg spans Segalman’s six-decade career and features 24 works of art including oil paintings, watercolors, pastels, drawings, and monotypes. The works are drawn from regionally based collectors, the artist’s estate, and WAAM’s permanent collection.

—Brian K. Mahoney and Natasha Chuk

Top: Maquette for Man Saves Shark by Emil Alzamora at Garage Gallery.

Bottom: At Work by Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, part of the exhibition “A Spell is a Map to What is Meant for You” at Fridman Gallery.

Photo by Alon Koppel Photography

Exhibitions

art exhibits

510 WARREN ST GALLERY

510 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

"Paul Nueckel: Recent Work." Through October 30.

ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM

258 MAIN STREET, RIDGEFIELD, CT

“52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone.” The exhibition celebrates the 51st anniversary of the historic exhibition “Twenty Six Contemporary Women Artists,” curated by Lucy R. Lippard and presented at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 1971. “52 Artists” will showcase work by the artists included in the original 1971 exhibition, alongside a new roster of twenty-six female identifying or nonbinary emerging artists that were born in or after 1980, tracking the evolution of feminist art practices over the past five decades. Through January 8, 2023.

ART GALLERY 71

71 EAST MARKET STREET, RHINEBECK “Wendy Sheasby.” Paintings. October 1-31.

ART OMI

1405 COUNTY ROUTE 22, GHENT

"Allana Clarke: A Particular Fantasy." Construc tions using materials such as sugar, cocoa butter and hair-bonding glue to construct works that confront histories of colonialism and West ern standards of beauty. October 8-January 8

ART POD 66

66 ROCK CITY ROAD, WOODSTOCK

“Loving Light and Eye in the Sky.” Digital prints on canvas by Carmela Tal Baron. Through November 30.

BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

5 WEST STOCKBRIDGE ROAD, STOCKBRIDGE, MA

“Symbiosis.” Group show curated by Beth Rudin deWoody. Through October 28.

BEVIER HOUSE MUSUEM

2682 ROUTE 209, KINGSTON

“Art Colonies of Ulster County: Elverhoj, Crag smoor, and Byrdcliffe.” Major exhibition featur ing the arts and crafts of three important Ulster County art colonies—Elverhoj, Cragsmoor, and Byrdcliffe. Through October 31.

CALVIN GRIMM STUDIO GALLERY

14 LION’S WAY, SHADY

“Forty Abstract Expressionist Paintings Span ning Six Decades.” Calvin Grimm retrospective. October 1-30.

CAROL COREY FINE ART

6 NORTH MAIN STREET, KENT, CT

“Bouquet.” Paintings of flowers by Shelley Reed. Through October 16.

“In Season.” Diptychs by Daisy Craddock. Through October 16.

“Difference City.” Polychrome carved wood sculptures by J. C. Fontanive. October 22-November 27.

CARRIE HADADAD GALLERY

622 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Big Little Color.” Donise English, Gina Occhio grosso, Vincent Pomillo, and Stephen Walling. October 7-November 27.

CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AT WOODSTOCK

474 BROADWAY, KINGSTON

“Of Objects and Shadows / De Objetos y Sombras.” Group exhibition of Latino artists living and working upstate, curated by Qiana Mestrich, featuring Genesis Baez, Nydia Blas, William Camargo, Steven Molina Contreras, Zoraida Lopez-Diago, and Qiana Mestrich. Through December 31.

CHESTERWOOD

4 WILLIAMSVILLE ROAD, STOCKBRIDGE, MA

“Elemental Matters: The Sculpture of Jonathan Prince.” Twelve large-scale works sited through out the landscape at Chesterwood. Through October 24.

“Fire & Ice.” Sculptures by Natalie Tyler. Through October 31.

CLOVE + CREEK

73 BROADWAY, KINGSTON “Mountains.” Paintings by Steven Weinberg. Through October 31.

CRAGSMOOR FREE LIBRARY

355 CRAGSMOOR ROAD, CRAGSMOOR “The John Evans Family (1765-1997).” Docu ments and photographs of the Evans family. Through November 30.

DASH GALLERY

253 WALL STREET, KINGSTON "VIP The photography of Rose Hartman." Images from the Studio 54 days and many fashion, art and cinema personalities. October 14-December 31.

FORELAND 111 WATER STREET, CATSKILL “Robert Bordo.” Paintings. October 15-Novem ber 27.

FRANCES LEHMAN LOEB ART CENTER VASSAR COLLEFE, POUGHKEEPSIE “On the Grid: Ways of Seeing in Print.” Photographs, prints, artist’s books, and printed sculptures from the Loeb's permanent collection. Through December 22.

FRIDMAN GALLERY 475 MAIN STREET, BEACON “A Spell is a Map to What is Meant for You.” New work by Alisa Sikelianos-Carter. Through October 30.

GALLERY 40 40 CANNON STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE "Beware the Basilisk (and a Bunch of Other Things Too)." The fantastical paintings of K. P. Devlin. October 1-31.

GALLI-CURCI THEATRE 801 MAIN STREET, MARGARETVILLE "AMR Artists & Coats of Many Colors Exhibition." Through October 16.

GARAGE GALLERY 17 CHURCH STREET, BEACON “Man Saves Shark.” Sculptures by Emil Alzamora. October 8-30.

GARRISON ART CENTER 23 GARRISON'S LANDING, GARRISON “Sowing Seeds of Emptiness.” Hair embroider ies by Jayoung Yoon. Through November 6.

GEARY CONTEMPORARY

34 MAIN STREET, MILLERTON “Lethe-Wards.” Sculpture by William Corwin. October 16-December 18.

GREEN KILL

229 GREENKILL AVENUE, KINGSTON “Edward Berskie, Karen Capobianco, Wayne Montecalvo.” Paintings and prints. Through October 29.

HESSEL MUSEUM OF ART/CCS BARD BARD COLLEGE, ANNANDALE-ONHUDSON

“Black Melancholia.” Featuring artists from the late 19th Century through present day, including Ain Bailey, Sargent Johnson, Augusta Savage, Lorna Simpson, and Charisse Pearlina Weston. Through October 16.

“Dara Birnbaum: Reaction.” First US retrospec tive of groundbreaking video artist. Through November 7.

“Martine Syms: Grio College.” Recent and never-before-seen video works that interrogate digital media’s influence on our lives and explore representations of Blackness and its relationship to vernacular, feminist thought, and radical traditions. Through November 7.

HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WOODSTOCK

20 COMEAU DRIVE, WOODSTOCK

“Making Woodstock Home, Artist William H. Arlt (1868-1950).” Through October 30.

HOLLAND TUNNEL GALLERY

46 CHAMBERS STREET, NEWBURGH

“Matter of Fact.” Paintings by Thornton Willis and sculpture by Bix Lye. October 1-November 6.

HUDSON MILLINER ART SALON

415 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Calendar Project.” Oil paintings by Sandra Koponen from 2022. Through October 15.

HUDSON HALL

327 WARREN STREET, HUDSON “Enigmatic Artists of the Hudson Valley.” Work by Lois Guarino, Stan Lichens, and Pete Mauney. Through November 20.

HV MOCA

1701 MAIN STREET, PEEKSKILL “Address: Earth.” Group exhibition curated by Bibiana Huang Matheis. Through October 30.

JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY: THE SCHOOL

25 BROAD STREET, KINDERHOOK “Stressed World.” Works by El Anatsui, Shimon Attie, Radcliffe Bailey, Yoan Capote, Nick Cave, Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu, Gehard Demetz, Pierre Dorion, Paterson Ewen, Vibha Galhotra, Barkley L. Hendricks, Hayv Kahraman, Anton Kannemeyer, Lyne Lapointe, Deborah Luster, Tyler Mitchell, Meleko Mokgosi, Adi Nes, Jackie Nickerson, Odili Donald Odita, Gordon Parks, Garnett Puett, Claudette Schreuders, Malick Sidibé, Paul Anthony Smith, Michael Snow, Hank Willis Thomas, Carlos Vega, Andy Warhol, Leslie Wayne and Carrie Mae Weems. Through December 3.

JANE ST. ART CENTER

11 JANE STREET, SAUGERTIES

“Black.” Debra Priestly solo exhibition. Through October 23.

JDJ | THE ICE HOUSE GARRISON

“Soft Folds.”Coiled, gathered, and unstretched paintings on canvas by Susan Weil. Through November 13.

KLEINERT/JAMES ARTS CENTER

34 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

“Arriving at Byrdcliffe.” History, nature, and legacy of the Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts colony. Work by Milton Avery, Philip Guston, and others. October 8-November 20.

KNAUS GALLERY & WINE BAR

76 VINEYARD AVENUE, HIGHLAND

"Milestones: Artworks by Helen Gutfreund & Caroline Hopenwasser." October 1-30.

LABSPACE

2642 NY ROUTE 23, HILLSDALE “Magic Mirror.” Paintings, ceramics, and sculp ture by Susan Carr. October 1-November 27.

A detail from I Am The Emptiness, an installation by Jayoung Yoon, part of the exhibtion "Sowing Seeds of Emptiness" at Garrison Art Center.

art

THE LACE MILL GALLERIES

165 CORNELL STREET, KINGSTON

"Head Lines and Other Events: Selected Works by John Hampshire." Drawings by John Hampshire. October-29.

LIFEBRIDGE SANCTUARY

333 MOUNTAIN ROAD, ROSENDALE.

“Impressions of India: Surrendering to the Journey.” Photographs of contemporary India by Mary Anne Erickson. Through January 31.

LOCKWOOD GALLERY

747 ROUTE 28, KINGSTON

“Behaving Badly: Smoking, Drinking, Cursing.” Beth Caspar, Mike Cockrill, Brian Fekete, Greg Haberny, Patrice Lorenz, Norm Magnussen, Meryl Meisler, Melissa Styern, Melissa Schlo bohm, Aaron Dunn, and Peter Tierney. Through October 8.

MAGAZZINO ITALIAN ART

2700 ROUTE 9, COLD SPRING

“Gilardi: Tappeto-Natura.” Piero Gilardi’s Tappeto-Natura (Nature-Carpets). Curated by Elena Re. Through January 9.

MANITOGA

584 ROUTE 9D, GARRISON

“Formfantasma at Manitoga’s Dragon Rock: Designing Nature.” Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of the Italian design duo Formafantasma will present a selection of works in dialogue with the house, studio, and surrounding landscape at Manitoga. In collaboration with Magazzino Italian Art. Through November 14.

MARK GRUBER GALLERY

NEW PALTZ PLAZA, NEW PALTZ “Moments.” Sue Barrasi and Marlene Wiedenbaum. September 10-November 5.

MASS MOCA

1040 MASS MOCA WAY, NORTH ADAMS, MA

“Marc Swanson: A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco.” Exhibition curated by Denise Markonish, in conjunction with an exhibition at Thomas Cole Historic Site July 16-November 27. Through January 1.

MICHAEL ROBBINS SHOWROOM

212 MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN

“The Heart is a Home.” Works by Linda Fogel, David Fogel, Benjamin Kress, and Lutz Bacher. Curated by Olga Dekalo and staged with furniture by Michael Robbins. Through October 15.

MIKEL HUNTER

533 WARREN ST, HUDSON

“Sensual Ambivalence.” Oil paintings by Terry Rodgers. Through December 24.

MONTGOMERY ROW SECOND LEVEL

6423 MONTGOMERY STREET, RHINEBECK

“In Sync.” Work by Claudia Gorman and Basha Ruth Nelson. Through October 30.

MOTHER GALLERY

1154 NORTH AVENUE, BEACON

“Belief in a Disenchanted World.” Work by Kadar Brock and Lee Hunter. October 8-December 10.

MOTHER-IN-LAW’S

140 CHURCH AVENUE, GERMANTOWN

“The Future Never Spoke.” Work by Thomas Broadbent, Beth Dary, Jessica Hargreaves, and Kathleen Vance. Through October 23.

MOTT PROJECTS

16 LIVINGSTON STREET, CATSKILL "David Hanes." October 7-23.

OLIVE FREE LIBRARY

4033 ROUTE 28A, WEST SHOKAN “Hudson Valley Watercolors.” Group show curated by Staats Fasoldt. Through November 5.

PALMER GALLERY

VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE

“LongReach Arts 40th Birthday Exhibition.” Hudson Valley arts cooperative member exhibi tion of 17 artists. Through October 20.

PAMELA SALISBURY GALLERY

362 1/2 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Still Life and the Poetry of Place.” Exhibition of paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture, and video installation. Through October 9.

PELHAM ART CENTER

155 FIFTH AVENUE, PELHAM “Ultralight Beam.” Sunny Allis, Angelica Bergamini, Claire Buckley, Susan Carr, Joan Di Lieto & Thunderfox, Ala Ebtekar, Gabriel Mills, Sarah Renzi-Sanders, Christina Saj, Chris Watts. Curated by Rebecca Mills. Through October 30.

POUGHKEEPSIE TROLLEY BARN

489 MAIN STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE “Wonderland.” Group show curated by Allison M. Glenn and the youth curatorial at the Art Effect. Through October 20.

THE RE INSTITUTE

1395 BOSTON CORNERS ROAD, MILLERTON

“Axis Powers: Symmetry Paintings”. Paintings by Tom Burckhardt. Through October 29.

REZNY GALLERY

76 PRINCE STREET, KINGSTON “Ernest Withers: The Picture Taker.” Ernest C. Withers (1922-2007) recorded the everyday lives of the Black citizens of Memphis, Tennes see. Through October 23.

SAMUEL DORSKY MUSEUM OF ART

1 HAWK DRIVE, SUNY NEW PALTZ

“The Material, The Thing.” Annual Hudson Valley artists showcase. Through November 6.

“Benjamin Wigfall & Communications Village.” Through December 11.

"For Context: Prints from the Dorsky Collection." Through December 11.

SELIGMANN CENTER FOR THE ARTS

23 WHITE OAK DRIVE, SUGAR LOAF

“Kurt Seligmann: Beyond the Quotidian.” Paintings by the Swiss-American surrealist Kurt Seligmann (1900-1962). October 14-November 25.

SPENCERTOWN ACADEMY ARTS CENTER

790 ROUTE 203, SPENCERTOWN.

“Deeper Than The Skin.” Regional exhibition curated by Paula Bernay of Bernay Fine Art. October 8-November 6.

SUSAN ELEY FINE ART

433 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Ingrained.” Sculptures by Jared Abner and monotypes by Rachel Burgess. Through November 13.

‘T’ SPACE

137 ROUND LAKE ROAD, RHINEBECK

“Pamphlet Architecture: Visions and Experiments in Architecture.” Exhibition showcasing the 40-year history of Pamphlet Architecture. September 4-October 16.

THOMAS COLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

218 SPRING STREET, CATSKILL

“Marc Swanson: A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco.” A companion exhibition to Swanson's installations at Mass MoCA. Through November 27.

THOMPSON GIROUX GALLERY

57 MAIN STREET, CHATHAM

“What Next?” Paintings by Christopher Griffith. September 10-October 8.

“James Christopher Carroll with Matt Drake.” Mixed media artworks. October 15-November 13.

TILLY FOSTER FARM 100 NY-312, BREWSTER

“Tilly Foster Farm Project 2022.” Collaborative Concepts' annual outdoor sculpture exhibition. Through October 30.

TIME AND SPACE LIMITED 434 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON “Nell Painter.” Paintings. Through October 9.

TIVOLI ARTISTS GALLERY

60 BROADWAY, TIVOLI “Small Works Show.” Group show of works no larger than 11” x 14”. Through October 16.

TREMAINE ART GALLERY AT THE HOTCHKISS SCHOOL

11 INTERLAKEN ROAD, LAKEVILLE, CT “Beholding the Landscape.” Landscape watercolor paintings and embroidery by Ellen Moon. Through October 22.

TURLEY GALLERY

98 GREEN STREET, SUITE 2, HUDSON “Creepin While U Sleepin.” Paintings by Devon Clapp. October 8-30. “Whereabouts.” Work by Matt LaFleur and Ruby Palmer. October 8-30.

TURN PARK ART SPACE

2 MOSCOW ROAD, STOCKBRIDGE, MA “New Walls, New Work.” Work by Pamela J. Wallace, Jean Feinberg, and Margaret Saliske. Through October 31. “Proximal Duality.” Graphite drawings and ceramic sculptures by Sergei Isupov. Through October 31.

UNISON ARTS & LEARNING CENTER 68 MOUNTAIN REST ROAD, NEW PALTZ “Field Work.” Landscape Paintings by Tom Sarrantonio. October 1-December 4.

VISITOR CENTER

233 LIBERTY STREET, NEWBURGH "Iena Cruz." One of the most innovative street artists in the world show work done in residence at Visitor Center. October 1-November 15.

WALLKILL RIVER SCHOOL OF ART

232 WARD ST (RTE 17K), MONTGOMERY

“Realism: An Academic Approach.” A group exhibit of works celebrating the art of realism, juried by Tony Conner. Through October 9.

WEST STRAND GALLERY

29 WEST STRAND STREET, KINGSTON

“Photography: Places, Bodies, & Dreams.” Ben Eichert, Sikena Khadija, Carmen Lizardo, Julio Nazario, and Daniel Venture. October 1-November 13.

WIRED GALLERY

11 MOHONK ROAD, HIGH FALLS

“Marilyn Perry: Fluidity.” October 15-23.

WHITE PINES AT BYRDCLIFFE

454 UPPER BYDCLIFFE ROAD, WOODSTOCK

“Shelter.” Outdoor sculpture exhibition organized by Melissa Stickney-Gibson. Works by Dan Devine, Stuart Farmery, Jan Harrison and Alan Baer, Christina Tenaglia, Jared Handelsman, Julian Rose, Suzy Sureck, Huy Bui, Mimi Graminski, Alison McNulty, Erika DeVries, Eileen Power, Wendy Klemperer, Emily Puthoff, Michael Asbill, and Ian Laughlin. Through October 23.

WOODSTOCK ARTISTS ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM

28 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

“Richard Segalman: Contemporary American Impressionist.” Retrospective featuring oil paintings, watercolors, pastels, drawings, and monotypes. October 14-December 31.

“Open Juried Exhibition.” October 14-December 31.

WOODSTOCK SCHOOL OF ART

2470 ROUTE 212, WOODSTOCK

“Woodstock Monoprint Exhibition”. Group exhibition and auction. Through October 8.

The Look by Robert Bordo (oil on canvas over panel, 2016), part of a large-scale exhibition of the artist's work at Foreland.

Horoscopes

By Lorelai Kude

Come on, Feel the Noise

October 2022 is going to be a noisy month. With only five weeks until the Midterm Elections and two diametrically opposed perceptions of reality up for referendum, the cacophony of competing soundbites is inescapable.

Much of October is about recovering from Mercury Retrograde, which ends October 2, though Mercury won’t be back in his preretrograde position until October 17. Mercury meets up again with Jupiter October 12 for the third of three oppositions over the last two months. These two just cannot leave well enough alone!

Mercury in Libra wants Jupiter in Aries to share credit; Jupiter in Aries wants credit where credit is due. Mars in Mercury-ruled Gemini squaring Neptune adds to the confusion! Done deals may need to be renegotiated; closed conversations may be reopened.

Pluto stations direct in Capricorn October 8, on his way to his second direct conjunction with the USA’s natal Pluto in December. The Sun and Venus square Pluto October 19–20 with Mercury opposite Chiron. Outspoken advocates of justice demand acknowledgment. Dramatic class differences and economic disparities become inescapably visible. Saturn stations direct in Aquarius October 23. While some believe communal actions taken for the common good are based on noble principles, others perceive these actions to be authoritarianism. The New Moon / Partial Solar Eclipse in Scorpio on October 25 with the Moon conjunct Venus and opposite Uranus births an entirely new level of enlightened self-interest.

Mars stations retrograde in Gemini October 30 through midJanuary. Opinions and positions change with whiplash speed. As the election approaches, both sides project their worst fears and shadow-sides on to each other. The noise can’t be tuned out, the other choice is to feel it.

As Quiet Riot said: Come on, feel the noise. Sometimes the way around something scary is to go right through it.

ARIES (March 20–April 19)

Planetary ruler Mars continues his march through Gemini during October. The war of words continues, now with your whole heart intent on winning. The Full Moon in Aries October 9 with the Sun opposite in peaceful, partnership-oriented Libra embodies your belief that all is fair in love and war. Mars squares Neptune October 12; confusion over what exactly you’re fighting for ensues, but the trine of the Sun and Venus to Mars October 17-18 dispels doubts. You’ll be doubling back on your commitments and doubling down on your beliefs when Mars in Gemini stations retrograde from October 30 through mid-January.

TAURUS (April 19–May 20)

Venus in Libra opposite retrograde Jupiter in Aries October 1 creates ideal conditions for your rededication to strengthening your mind-body connection. Uncovering the root of generational trauma frees both body and soul when Venus opposes Chiron October 10 and trines Saturn October 14. Health is wealth is your truth during the delicious trine of Venus and Mars October 18. The power to release long-lingering habits is activated at the square of Venus to Pluto October 20. The Sun conjuncts Venus for one last kiss before both enter Scorpio October 23. The deeper you go, the higher you get.

GEMINI (May 20–June 21)

Mercury stations Direct in Virgo October 2, proving your authenticity to any doubters. Powerfully communicated thought brings public attention at the trine of Mercury to Pluto October 6. With Mars in Gemini and Mercury entering Libra October 10, ideas are flying fast and furious all around you. Vet them for how useful they are for the greater good when Mercury opposes Chiron October 19. Structure the flow of your creativity when Mercury trines Saturn October 22. You can tell your truth with power and grace when Mercury squares Pluto October 27. Strengthen your secret-keeping skill set when Mercury enters Scorpio October 29.

CANCER (June 21–July 22)

A new relationship is like a precious flower which needs tending. Trim back the dead leaves for optimum growth at the First Quarter Moon in Capricorn October 2. You’re inspired to make a public declaration of your emotional and ideological affinities at the Full Moon in Aries October 9. You can share your truth without violating your privacy. The Last Quarter Moon in Cancer October 17 releases the last lingering remnants of an old habit which is no longer in the best interest of your health and well-being. The New Moon in Scorpio October 25 brings creative insight and inspiration.

LEO (July 22–August 23)

With the Sun in partnership-oriented Libra through most of October, you’re trying the ideal of perfect balance on for size; but does it really fit you? You find yourself disproportionally sensitive to perceived unfairness when the Sun opposes Chiron October 7. “Fair” doesn’t always mean “equal”. The potential for abuse of power is high at the square of the Sun to Pluto October 19. A powerful revelation of what it means to love and be loved with integrity occurs when the Sun conjuncts Venus October 22. The Sun enters Scorpio October 23. Take a deep dive into integrated wholeness.

VIRGO (August 23–September 23)

Mercury in Virgo stations Direct October 2, signalboosting your achievements. For all your natural humility and service-oriented nature, you still deserve to be lauded, especially when Mercury trines Pluto October 6. Reenergized for what comes next, Mercury enters Libra October 10, providing the impetus to attempt to balance idealism with pragmatism. Try to share your most intimate vulnerabilities with your partner when Mercury opposes Chiron October 19 without triggering a self-critical backlash. Your hardearned wisdom pays dividends when Mercury trines

Saturn October 22. Mercury squares Pluto October 27 and enters Scorpio October 29. Your powerfully transformative ideas gain traction.

LIBRA (September 23–October 23)

With Sun and Venus in Libra through October 22, and Mercury entering Libra October 10, you’re poised to shine. Venus opposite Jupiter October 1 supersizes expectations around relationship roles; examine your own preconceptions October 10 with Venus opposite Chiron. The fruits of emotional maturity are sweet when Venus trines Saturn October 14. Get out of your head and into the game October 18 at the romantic trine of Venus and Mars! You have the power when Venus squares Pluto and conjuncts the Sun October 20-22. Use it for good and not for controlling manipulation when Venus enters Scorpio October 23.

PETER AARON

SCORPIO (October 23–November 21)

Mercury trines Pluto October 6, preceding Pluto’s direct station October 8. Your modern planetary ruler is full steam ahead through the final degrees of Capricorn, making you tremendously productive and capable of intensely focused, difficult work.

The Sun and Venus in Libra square Pluto October 19-20, highlighting the dynamic tension between high ideals and powerful pragmatism. Find the happy medium. Both the Sun and Venus enter Scorpio October 23, creating contagiously charismatic energy. The Partial Solar Eclipse during the New Moon in Scorpio October 25 resurrects an old dream; Mercury squares Pluto October 27, demanding you articulate your desire.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22–December 22)

Jupiter’s retrograde continues throughout the month, including a reentry into Pisces from October 28 through the Winter Solstice. This allows you to make up for lost time and climb out of any rabbit holes you’ve fallen into since mid-May. In the meantime, don’t dig yourself in any deeper! Venus in Libra opposite retrograde Jupiter in Aries October 1 brings dumb luck—don’t take credit for it but take advantage of it! You’re tempted to fight the lying liars by becoming a bloviating bully when Mercury opposes retrograde Jupiter October 12; a better tactic is exposing deceit with hard proofs.

CAPRICORN (December 22–January 20)

Attention for your achievements goes public at the First Quarter Moon in Capricorn October 2. General good will and favor towards your ideas prevails at the trine of Venus to Saturn October 14. You’re able to smoothly articulate your ripened vision in a way which is both pure and practical when Mercury trines Saturn October 22. “An overnight success years in the making”, your expert status is the result of a lot of hard work, and well deserved. Saturn in Aquarius stations Direct October 23, preparing you for the next phase of takeoff rocket fuel thrust towards your goal.

AQUARIUS (January 20–February 19)

With your modern planetary ruler Uranus still retrograde in Taurus through mid-January, there’s a feeling of frustration around how seemingly slow your endeavors seem to be progressing. Understand this is merely a perception issue and not the objective reality. A lot of groundwork is being laid, and a lot of energy being gathered, for when your classical planetary ruler Saturn stations direct in Aquarius October 23. Huge obstacles become tiny impediments in the rear-view mirror. Prepare for this massive acceleration by nourishing yourself with proper rest, healthy food, and good self-care. The time to trust your gut is now.

PISCES (February 20–March 19)

With Neptune and the Moon in Pisces October 6-8, you’re feeling more aligned with your authentic self. Mars squares Neptune October 12, challenging self-perception around family identity and ancestral heritage. The sins of the fathers aren’t yours, but neither can they be ignored when they’re affecting real people today. Creative problem-solving ideas emerge at Mercury’s opposition to retrograde Jupiter October 12. If it’s not a win/win, it’s a loss. Jupiter reenters Pisces October 28 during his retrograde cycle, giving you a bit of time—through mid-December— to take another shot at the big prize you’ve been chasing all year.

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YMCA of Kingston and Ulster County 87

Your CBD Store Kingston NY 50

parting shot

Art can be many things, but foremost it’s a vehicle for personal expression. For Columbia Collective, an arts group of young incarcerated artists, it’s a means of conveying creative viewpoints and often urgent messages that otherwise might never be seen. Three of the collective—who go by Marshmallow, Jay, and Juste-A—live at the Brookwood Secure Center for Youth just outside of Hudson. They have collaborated in recent years with artist Maggie Hazen, and an exhibition of their work, curated by Sofia Thieu—“Talking Back: Artists of the Columbia Collective”—was on view at Foreland in Catskill last month. In a booklet accompanying the exhibition, “Listening for love, humor, resurgence, and revolt, how do these artists help us imagine an alternative togetherness and decarcerated future?”

Thecolumbiacollective.com

—Susan Yung

Untitled, Jay, charcoal and colored pencil on paper,

This is where _______ happens.a cure

A lot goes into planning a birthday. Decorations. Cake. Candles. A bouncy house. For Camryn to celebrate hers, she needed a stem cell transplant to cure her Sickle Cell Disease. Yes, cure. We deploy technology, techniques, and talented specialists to deliver advanced Pediatric Care to tens of thousands of children at our Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. Helping kids like Camryn enjoy this birthday. And the next. And the next. Happy birthday, Camryn.

Actual Patient