A timeless icon just got a modern refresh. Villa Venezia is back and better than ever with reimagined ballrooms, elegant updates, and flexible layouts that fit everything from an intimate dinner to a 300-guest celebration. It’s the classic Hudson Valley venue you’ve always loved— with a few stunning new surprises.
One
thebarnatvillavenezia.com villaveneziany.com |
2278 Goshen Turnpike Middletown, New York 845-692-3300
Cozy Countryside Charm, Elevated for Your Big Day
Looking for that perfect mix of cozy countryside vibes and elevated elegance? The Barn at Villa Venezia has you covered. Nestled in the scenic Hudson Valley, it’s a peaceful retreat with modern touches, top-tier service, and that signature Villa Venezia hospitality. Think twinkle lights, rolling hills, and unforgettable moments—all in one stunning space.
Fotos by Cheryl
Photos by MB
Molly, resident Dalmatian at the FASNY Museum of Firefighting in Hudson—and winner of the Chronogram Readers’ Choice Award for Local Celebrity.
Photo: David McIntyre
COMMUNITY PAGES, PAGE 50
DEPARTMENTS
6 On the Cover
Farraday Cage is a whole-house installation by street artist RAE BK at a remote location in Kerhonkson.
8 Esteemed Reader
Jason Stern reflects on beginnings, endings, and conscious transformation.
10 Editor’s Note
Brian K. Mahoney confronts control, Catholic guilt, and creative risk in improv class.
PROFILE
14 Catskill Community Theatre Reopens
After years in the dark, Catskill’s Community Theatre reopens with a $2.4 million restoration, reviving Main Street with films, concerts, and the “Spirit of ’76” festival.
FOOD & DRINK
18 Drew Nieporent Wasn’t Trying to be Difficult
From Tribeca Grill to Nobu, Drew Nieporent has spent 40 years reinventing New York dining—mixing brilliance, ego, and a knack for turning restaurants into legends.
20 Sips and Bites: Fall Food Pop-Ups
Hudson Valley pop-ups this fall feature bento, tamales, pizza, burgers, oysters, cocktails, and more.
HOME
26 Punk Rock Thoreau
In Ellenville, Andrew Faust and Adriana Magana’s permaculture homestead doubles as classroom, lab, and movement— reimagining home, resilience, and community sustainability.
HEALTH & WELLNESS
36 Dreamlines Across Continents: Sacred Bridge
Menla Retreat Center hosts Yawanawa spiritual leaders and Tibetan teachers for a cultural convergence of music, ritual, and ancestral healing traditions in early October.
COMMUNITY
PAGES
40 Hudson: Rewriting the Future in Real Time
Hudson’s identity is forged in conflict—gravel truck disputes, political upheaval, meme satire, and development battles—yet its contradictions fuel a magnetic allure, blending art, culture, and commerce into a vibrant, unruly city constantly reinventing itself.
50 Hudson Pop-Up Portraits by David McIntyre
9 25
Isadora Duncan International Institute Dancers at Mills Mansion in Staatsburg.
Photo: Maggie Salamone
GUIDE, PAGE 68
RURAL INTELLIGENCE
58 Shore Thing: The Cliff House at the Prospect Egremont’s restored Cliff House at the Prospect pairs lakeside views with chef Damian Evangelous’s confident, produceforward menu—where local ingredients, simplicity, and thoughtful hospitality create refined-yet-relaxed dining.
ARTS
60 Music
Michael Wiener reviews Keepers of the Flame by Gwen Laster and New Muse 4Tet. Tristan Geary reviews Intertwined by Orheard. Michael Eck reviews Get to Somwhere by Lisa Michelle Anderson. Plus listening recommendations from Bongos bassist Rob Norris.
61 Books
Anne Pyburn Craig reviews Our Last Resort by Clemence Michallon, a stylish thriller set at a posh resort in the Utah desert. Plus short reviews of Be the Poem: Living Beyond Fear by Bettina “Poet Gold” Wilkerson; Including the Preiphery: Personal Essays by Roselee Blooston; Aftermath by Jeffrey Milstein; The Reluctant Flirt by Jennifer Probst; and Foreclosure Gothic by Harris Lahti.
62 Poetry
Poems by Elise Bruce-Grey, Jennifer Howse, Billy Internicola, Terri Kayden, John Kiersten, Robert P. Langdon, Zalman
Malone, Emly Murnane, Ze’ev Willy Neumann, Irene O’Garden, Veronica O’Keefe Ruoff, Jim Savio, Mariam Amalia Shepard, Alan Silverman. Edited by Phillip X Levine.
THE GUIDE
64 Shadowland Stages presents “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” a poignant one-woman play tracing the sex therapist’s extraordinary life.
65 Basilica Hudson celebrates 15 years and SoundScape’s 10th with a darkly adventurous festival of music, art, literature, and community.
67 Live Music: Big Star Quintet, Bartees Strange, Arkai, Mum, Cowboy Junkies, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
68 “Isadora Duncan in the Theater of Love and War” brings the legacy of the modern dance icon to the Woodstock Playhouse.
71 Short List: It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley; “Julius Caesar” on Bannerman Island, Elizabeth Gilbert; Rhinebeck Porchfest; Greater Mysteries at the Widow Jane Mine, and more.
72 Listings of art exhibits across the region, including Jean Shin at the Dorsky Museum, Christian Marclay at Hudson Hall, and H. James Hoff at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum.
HOROSCOPES
76 A Decisive and Exacting Eclipse Season
Cory Nakasue reveals what the stars have in store for us.
PARTING SHOT
80 Insectopolis
Peter Kuper’s graphic novel Insectopolis imagines insects inheriting libraries, history, and humanity’s abandoned world.
The Architecture of Control RAE BK’s
Faraday Cage in Kerhonkson
RAE BK has never been one for the white-cube life. The Brooklyn-based street artist built his reputation in unpermitted spaces—sidewalk installations, guerrilla sculptures, durational performances in storefront windows—where art rubs shoulders with the city’s ambient chaos. It’s fitting that his latest, largest project to date lives not in a museum but in a soon-to-be-demolished 1,200-square-foot ranch house on Samsonville Road in Kerhonkson.
Faraday Cage transforms the home’s seven rooms into an immersive meditation on isolation, political drift, and the coping rituals people invent when reality gets too heavy. It’s part sanctuary, part mental prison. RAE spent a year and a half conceiving the work, nine months of it on-site, scavenging materials from Craigslist and beyond, soldering circuit boards with the remote guidance of a technician in Pakistan, and assembling a cast of animatronic stand-ins for human contact.
The title nods to the electromagnetic shielding device, a metaphor for blocking signals—literal and ideological. “I was thinking about the state of our politics and society now, and how your location influences that,” RAE says. “As an urban artist, what would it be like to move up here, isolate myself, and be around people that, as a whole, aren’t as liberal? Would I be one of those people?”
The work imagines a white male protagonist who has lost his family—whether through changed values or other ruptures—and retreated into a rural compound. The figures in the house, each in their own tableau, are his imagined replacements for human contact. In one room, animatronic family members fuss with games and meals, their repetitive motions serving as stand-ins for real conversation. In another, a kitchen scene drifts toward estrangement, each figure absorbed in its own screen, the idea of connection present only as residue.
Some spaces probe the influence of media and the comfort of conspiracy. In one room, a mannequin in a USA tracksuit slouches before a wall of a dozen TVs streaming news, podcasts, and political punditry. Above him, a news ticker flips from “Breaking News” to “Broken News.” RAE describes him as someone whose isolation has made him “more guarded, more self-reliant, even a bit paranoid.” The constant stream of information, he notes, can feel “both like a lifeline and a threat.”
Other rooms lean toward self-reliance fantasies. A greenhouse tucked into a repurposed shower grows vegetables under lights, underscoring themes of survival and withdrawal from unstable systems. Another room houses a collection of firearms, leavened by a bright plastic Super Soaker—a wink to RAE’s instinct for
undercutting menace with humor.
The installation isn’t limited to the interior. On a visit last month just before the installation’s opening on August 16, RAE was finishing painting the exterior—roof and all—metallic silver, turning the house into a gleaming box in the woods, a literal Faraday cage. That deadline is also when the installation will close; after that, the house will be razed.
Working in Kerhonkson has pushed RAE into new territory. Known for urban interventions like Word of Mouth—a full-scale artistic takeover of a bodega on the Lower East Side—and the month he lived in a storefront window, he’s now staging his work in a rural context where drop-in visitors are more likely to be selling aluminum siding than gallery-hopping. Still, he’s kept the door open—literally. A roadside sign invites passersby to stop in.
“It’s the same approach,” he says. “I want the work accessible for the everyday person. Living in a window in the city, you’d walk by on your way to work—that’s still street art to me. Here, it’s a house just sitting there. If someone sees the sign, they can come in.”
Two of the rooms function as traditional gallery spaces, showing RAE’s paintings and sculptures—work that’s for sale, along with a scattering of drawings as well as silkscreened vintage jackets and T-shirts.
For all its themes of disconnection, Faraday Cage is deeply personal. It’s about what happens in the absence of human touch, about how isolation can harden into ideology, about the rituals—some tender, some toxic—that fill the gap. And it’s about the stubborn, sometimes absurd labor of making art in the face of indifference.
RAE’s work has always blurred boundaries: public and private, art and life, earnestness and satire. In Kerhonkson, he’s built not just an installation, but a world, and invited us inside before the bulldozers come at the end of November.
Faraday Cage will be exhibited at 1049 Samsonville Road in Kerhonkson on Saturdays and Sundays from 12-6pm through November 30. The exhibition contains mature content and is recommended for those 16 and older.
—Brian K. Mahoney
Two rooms in the house containing RAE BK’s immersive installation Faraday Cage, which will be exhibited in Kerhonkson through the end of Novmeber.
EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian K. Mahoney brian.mahoney@chronogram.com
CREATIVE DIRECTOR David C. Perry david.perry@chronogram.com
DIGITAL EDITOR Marie Doyon marie.doyon@chronogram.com
ARTS EDITOR Peter Aaron music@chronogram.com
HOME EDITOR Mary Angeles Armstrong home@chronogram.com
POETRY EDITOR Phillip X Levine poetry@chronogram.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Anne Pyburn Craig apcraig@chronogram.com
contributors
Winona Barton-Ballentine, Michael Eck, Tristan Geary, Michael Greenhouse, Maya Horowitz, Jamie Larson, David McIntyre, Cory Nakasue, Sparrow, Michael Wiener
PUBLISHING
COFOUNDER Jason Stern jason.stern@chronogram.com
COFOUNDER & CEO Amara Projansky amara.projansky@chronogram.com
The latest intel on new restaurants, bars, shops, and things to do. Delivered straight to your inbox. Your Hudson Valley Cheat Sheet
Sign up today chronogram.com/newsletter
The largest selection of On-Running in the area
esteemed reader by
Jason Stern
How to begin?
I don’t know. Not knowing is a good place to begin.
First of all I come to stillness. I see that I am not still. Not yet. So I wait. A space appears approximately at the center of a triangle formed by the points of my cerebellum, sacrum, and solar plexus. My attention is drawn there and rests. A moment of stillness. A beginning.
77 Partition St, Saugerties, NY | 845-246-4381 montanosshoestore.com
Mon-Thurs & Sat 9:15–5pm, Fri 9:15–7pm
Helping Families and Professionals work and stay in the U.S.
Immigration Attorney - 6 Eliza Street, Beacon, NY
http://www.beaconimmigration.net +1 845-288-2435
11 West Market Street, Rhinebeck NY l @shoeshedrbk 845.901.3462 or 845.516.5163
shoeshedrbk@gmail.com
The last days of summer have arrived. The evening song of the cicadas and crickets grows quiet. The air doesn’t vibrate at the same electric frequency as it did at the start of August. A faint scent of fall and a subtle chill descends. It is the beginning of the end of a cycle.
Twenty years ago, I wrote a column that was an ode to my first gray hair. I sang its praises and heralded its coming. In the intervening time, I fathered and nurtured two children. Now they are mostly grown. And my head is full of gray.
A cycle begins again, the last cycle of life.
The first cycle was to grow up, to raise myself. I learned to exercise my nature and design. I fell in love, broke hearts, and suffered broken hearts. I weathered fits of triumph and depression and spent more energy than was necessary simply because I had the energy to spend. So much was squandered, wasted, and yet some of the energy engaged with real work, and I created something in myself and things in the world.
The second cycle was a rebirth, and I learned to love. It began with the love of a dog, which took me by surprise. He was run over by a tow truck and I discovered that I loved him. I sold my motorcycle to pay the surgeon. My dog lived another day to chase squirrels across busy roads. But the deed was done—the conception of a love real enough to sacrifice myself.
And then the child was born and his aura was bigger than the house. I was in awe. I danced with him in my arms and sang him to sleep in the middle of the night while his mother rested from nursing. I had been born again with his birth. What followed was a sweet honeymoon of infancy, replete with all the treasure accompanying our new life.
Then came the work of tending toddlers. The constant demand tempered my love and tested my temper. I had to work on myself in the face of the terrible twos. I was a provider and the most important thing I could provide was to work on myself in the company of my children, in the vortex of our shared atmosphere. We grew together.
The next period was like crossing a desert. Sure there were periodic and predictable oases, but there were long periods of simply putting one foot in front of the other. Taking out the garbage and doing the dishes and driving the kids to school. And watching the children go through phases of emptiness and fullness, cycles of death and rebirth, molting and shedding of skins that enabled them to become more resiliently themselves.
With each change in the being of the children I went through a change also. I had to be vigilant to notice that a new approach was needed as they became more independent, and required wider boundaries, subtler forms of guidance. They needed enough freedom to fail, to drink so much they vomited, to drive fast enough to skid off the road and crash, to fall in love so hard their hearts broke. They needed to find their limits for themselves.
Now the cycles of growth in the life of the children are slowing. They are mature, and can no longer depend on automatic development for initiation. I hope their appetite for growth is strong and they will begin to initiate themselves through conscious labor and intentional suffering.
I have relied on my children’s cycles for my own initiations in the second turning of the wheel of my life. Being party to these cycles of transformation transformed me also. And now something new is needed.
I watched my children go away, and felt grief. Not because they were leaving, but because grief is the natural and correct response to separation. This is a kind of death. And a rebirth.
Now I once again have to initiate myself in this last cycle, the remaining time until my body undergoes the sacred process of dying.
I see a quickening of interest, a sense of a need that’s inviting service, a larger sphere for becoming able to love.
A cycle begins again, the last cycle of life.
How to begin?
I don’t know. Not knowing is a good place to begin.
Jason Stern will give three introductory talks on inner work September 15, 22, and 29 respectively, titled: Gurdjieff: Essential Practices of Inner Work for a Time of Transition; A Taste for What is Real: Cures for the Disease of Suggestibility; How to Help Our Children: Working on Ourselves for Those We Care for Most. More information at Harmoniousdevelopment.org.
A NEW CENTER FOR ADVANCED CARE IN WESTCHESTER.
OPENING IN SEPTEMBER.
NewYork-Presbyterian The One
• World-class doctors from Columbia
• 90+ specialties including cardiology, neurosciences, women’s health, men’s health, oncology and pediatrics
• State-of-the-art facility with innovative technology, including on-site radiology and rehabilitation services
NOW BOOKING APPOINTMENTS
NYP.ORG/THEONE FIND A DOCTOR
by Brian K. Mahoney
Yes, and then No
An Improv Journey
Ishowed up for my first improv class at 6pm on the dot. Not early—because that might involve small talk or standing awkwardly in a half-empty room. Not late—because I’m not rude. (Lateness is a form of narcissistic personality disorder, an unconscious assertion of status, importance, or special rules. Beware the chronically tardy.) Punctuality is how I keep the chaos of life at bay. Board meetings, dinner with friends, dentist appointments—I like to arrive exactly when things are meant to begin.
The class was held in a nondescript community arts center. Two rows of chairs had been set up. There might well have been an Al-Anon meeting in the time slot before us. I took a seat between a woman in her 70s and a woman in her 30s and made no effort to speak to either of them.
Our instructor, Sam, introduced herself and laid out the basic ground rules: no politics, no profanity, no sexual innuendo. Basically, no fun. She gave a bit of background about her own improv journey, then got us all on our feet in a circle—holding hands. I stood there, vibrating with the energy of a man doing something very stupid on purpose.
We went around the room and said why we were there. The 30-something next to me—Jen— looked terrified and said as much. She worked in PR and wanted to challenge herself. The older woman on my other side said she’d acted in her younger years and was trying to rediscover that part of herself.
When it was my turn, I said I was a magazine editor and spent most of my day telling people no, sending out polite but firm emails that boil down to “thanks but no thanks.” I wanted to try saying “yes, and” for once.
Circle of Awkward Energy
That first level of improv class—Level 1—was four three-hour sessions. That’s it. But within those 12 hours, Sam laid out the ethos of improv: Say yes, strive to make your scene partner a star, trust the moment, and let go of control. Don’t try to be funny—try to be present. The laughs come when people commit to the absurdity with
sincerity. Improv isn’t about performing a script. It’s about discovering one in real time, together, by listening deeply and responding honestly. It’s less like writing a play and more like walking into the woods without a map and agreeing no one’s to blame when you get lost. (Which is crazy to me—someone is always to blame.)
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was I really the kind of person who does improv? Who flaps his arms and shouts gibberish in a circle with strangers on a Monday night? I looked around the room, trying to figure out if these were my people or if I’d accidentally joined a cult that worshipped the god of Awkward Energy. Part of me thought, maybe this is my tribe. Another part thought, maybe my tribe is at home on the couch watching “The Bear.”
After Level 1 was over I had to decide: Go deeper or walk away. I wasn’t sure I liked improv or that it liked me. But I chose to move on to Level 2. Because I’d made a deal with myself: I was going to perform in front of an audience. I give speeches pretty regularly, and I’m comfortable holding space in front of a room—but never without a script. I wanted to know what it would feel like to go up there empty-handed, armed with nothing but panic and a wry smile.
Level 2 was four more sessions, building toward a live show. Most of the time was spent learning new games. The other bit was technical: how to stand, how to enter and exit, how to not completely tank the scene for your partner. There was a bit of a summer camp vibe: We were in it together, sweaty and trying, and looking to one another for cues on what was working, and the esprit de corp of our fledgling troupe.
My classmates were a delightfully improbable group. Howie, a bald man in his 40s with great comic timing. Don, a Gen X Google employee who invited everyone to the crossword construction night he hosted at a local bar. His wife, Elizabeth, a geologist from England with an air of quiet erudition. Karen, a sharp and funny lawyer. Rob, a mulleted musician in a Hawaiian shirt. Cindy, a retired
high school Spanish teacher with kind eyes. James, a tall, Jersey-born 20-something with the golden retriever energy of a handsome man who’s never had to do much thinking. Dave, a DMV investigator who told me he carries a gun. Thomas, a mini Kenny Loggins lookalike. And me.
We played games that made no sense—passing invisible balls, tossing made-up noises around the circle, stomping and yelling nonsense in unison. I didn’t understand what we were doing most of the time, but I went along with it. There was something freeing about it. Maybe even useful. I began to notice when my body tensed before a scene, when I reached for a clever line instead of a true one, when I backed away from vulnerability in favor of control.
Then the day of the performance arrived.
That morning, Lee Anne was working at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, where she’s the manager. John Scurti—“Rescue Me,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”—stopped by, as he does from time to time. He’s friendly with Lee Anne. When she told him I was doing improv that night and feeling nervous, he said, “There’s nothing to worry about. An actor’s greatest fear is forgetting their lines. That’s not an issue in improv.”
And he was right. Technically.
Dreaming in French
I was cast in two scenes: Slide Show and Sing It! I should say, in my defense—or maybe in confession—that cheating isn’t exactly new to me. I’ve cheated at many things in my life: card games, Monopoly (be the banker, obviously), countless tests. I was good at cheating. I had systems. Peripheral vision like a hawk. Strategic seat choices. Whispered signals. But I didn’t cheat because I was lazy (well, not only because I was lazy). I cheated because of how I was raised. I went to Catholic school, where high marks weren’t just rewarded—they were demanded. There was no talk of process or effort or “learning.” You either got the grade or you didn’t. This wasn’t Montessori finger painting. This was:
I stood there, vibrating with the energy of a man doing something very stupid on purpose.
Write the correct answer in the correct box or disappoint God, your parents, and the ghost of every nun who ever taught long division.
In my freshman year of high school, I was placed in the honors track. A mistake, it turned out. My ability to cheat on standardized tests far outpaced my ability to do actual academic work. I suddenly found myself among the brightest kids in the school—the ones who would go on to be valedictorians, Ivy Leaguers, TED Talkers. And they all cheated. Constantly. Casually. Elegantly. They passed answers during tests with coded eye movements. They kept textbooks open in partially unzipped book bags. They developed little systems and mnemonic triggers and fingertip tap codes to get from a 97 to a 100. They weren’t salvaging failure. They were polishing perfection.
And I’m convinced the teachers knew but they looked the other way. These were their stars. Their track record. Their college placement stats. These were kids who were going places. What was a little tactical dishonesty between champions?
This was the moral weather I grew up in. This was the playbook I brought with me into improv.
So when I wrote a song before the performance—a song called “Dreaming in French,” about a horny neighbor crushing on the new topless French emigre on his block—and then carefully steered the scene to set up a cue for that exact song, I wasn’t breaking a rule. I was following an old instinct.
The game was called Sing It! One of us asked the audience for a manual labor job (someone shouted, “boxing items on an assembly line”). The
four of us began miming conveyor belt drudgery. Sam, offstage, would ring a bell when she heard a line that seemed like it wanted to be a song. That was the premise.
So I said, “Hey, did I tell you guys I’ve been studying French?”
Sam rang the bell instantly, just like I hoped she would. I stepped forward, shuffled my feet, and snapped my fingers like the washedup lounge singer I would never be, and sang “Dreaming in French”:
I got this neighbor Brigitte she just moved onto my street Brigitte is topless a lot man she’s really so hot tres chaud—that’s French—for hot
And now I’m dreaming in French Brigitte has got me dreaming in French I don’t know how long this dream will last but I’m dreaming in French. Français, mais oui.
It landed. Got laughs. Got applause. People told me afterward how brave I was. But it wasn’t bravery. It wasn’t even improv. It was muscle memory: anticipate, control, avoid risk. Make it look spontaneous but know the ending before you begin. It was a habit born in a classroom where failure meant shame and success meant safety— no matter how you got there.
And I walked offstage feeling…relieved. I hadn’t failed. I’d nailed it. As has always been expected of me. Cheat to win. Still works.
Exit, Pursued by Panic
Some people run a marathon and fall in love with distance running. Others cross the finish line, thank their knees, and never sign up again. I’m the second kind. I did the work. I showed up for every class. I tried. I failed a little. I performed in front of friends and strangers. And I stepped offstage with a better understanding of how much I crave control—and how deeply weird it feels to let go of it.
I couldn’t have done it without the troupe. Truly. They had my back from the first awkward circle to the final blackout. We were a ragtag bunch— lawyers, geologists, coders, musicians, DMV agents, dreamers—and we were all, unmistakably, beginners. Baby swimmers tossed into the deep end. And yet, no one sank. We splashed, flailed, floated, and cheered for one another like it mattered—because it did. Every goofy premise, every cracked punchline, every scene that nosedived, and somehow stuck the landing: we made those moments together. Their support never wavered. They would have done anything to help me succeed—and they did. That’s the thing I’ll miss the most. Not the games. Not the laughs. The feeling of being buoyed by others.
Improv, at its best, asks you to trust. Trust your partner. Trust the moment. Trust that you can build something out of thin air. That’s not my comfort zone. I’m not sure it ever will be. But I glimpsed it. And that might be enough.
If nothing else, it reminded me what it feels like to be bad at something. To start from zero. To do something awkward and unpolished and real. And to do it in community.
Yes, and—I’m out.
Chronogram Readers’ Choice Awards 2025
Hudson House & Distillery, August 14
Four hundred of the Hudson Valley’s finest— business owners, bakers, brewers, yoga teachers, tattoo artists, vintners, visionaries— gathered at Hudson House & Distillery in West Park on August 14 to toast themselves and each other. It was our first time under our new banner: Chronogram Readers’ Choice Awards. You may remember the “Chronogrammies.” So did the Recording Academy. They sent us a cease-and-desist letter last fall. Yes, the Grammys. Turns out they own “-ammies.” We pivoted. We rebranded. And the people still showed up to celebrate.
DJ Dave Leonard got every rump in the room shaking. Astrologer Kathryn Andren offered cosmic counsel to anyone via her tarot deck. The poets of Little Histories clacked away on typewriters, handing out bespoke verses like party favors. On the patio, with the Hudson River unscrolling beneath the late-summer sky, conversations buzzed and cocktails clinked. Some businesses rolled deep—shout-out to Hudson Valley Ambition, Creature Comforts Animal Hospital, Farmers Choice Dispensary, JFK Elementary, and the rest of the spirited squads that turned the night into a hometown
pep rally. Speaking of Farmers Choice, thanks for sponsoring our photo booth, which documented much joy, glitter, and feather boas. And deep gratitude to Charles Ferri, Paul Seres, and the team at Hudson House for hosting us with such panache.
Here’s what the night celebrated: Over 800 businesses across the Hudson Valley, recognized by their communities as the best at what they do. Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to everyone who made the evening a reminder of why we love this region: It knows how to work hard, play hard, and dance harder.
Photos: Paramount Photo Booths
Blockbuster Sequel
The Renovated Catskill Community Theatre Reopens
By Peter Aaron
In 1976, Dog Day Afternoon was one of the season’s biggest box office smashes. Nominated for seven Golden Globes, the Oscar-winning dark comedy about a botched bank robbery and starring a rising young Al Pacino grossed nearly $56 million—over $280 million in today’s money. Among the numerous small-town movie houses where the film appeared during its successful first run was the Community Theatre, in the very center of downtown Catskill. And now, nearly half a century later, Dog Day Afternoon, the first movie to be shown when the converted upstairs space was opened in 1976, is set to return to that same space’s screen: On September 12 it will be the first film shown at the newly renovated historic cinema, kicking off the “Spirit of ’76” film festival that will mark the location’s longawaited reopening.
“This place was the heartbeat of Main Street for so many years, and it’s going to be so great to see it come back,” says Ben Fain, whose Nice and Weird LLC redevelopment firm took over the property and is overseeing the massive building’s—19,000 square feet, with 500 seats
in the cavernous main theater and 300 in the upstairs room—extensive overhaul, which is estimated at $2.4 million and is being funded in part by grants from New York State’s Restore New York and Downtown Revitalization Incentive programs.
Grand Premiere
Constructed as a vaudeville theater at the turn of the previous century, the facility was rebuilt after a 1910s fire and reopened in the 1920s via the community-driven effort that inspired its name. Introducing movies to its entertainment programming in the 1940s, for decades it operated as the cultural hub of Catskill, its vibrant neon marquee radiating as the beacon that beckoned wide-eyed customers from around the largely rural area to enter. Once inside, they’d look up to marvel at the grand theater’s soaring ceilings and the rest of its breathtakingly opulent interior before losing themselves in a bit of Golden Age Hollywood escapism. It was an era when a night at the movies was a happening that saw whole families dressed their best and mingling with
their neighbors to talk about whatever film they’d just seen, local life, and world events. But, like so many other small-town movie palaces of old, the Community Theatre fell into decline and disuse as television, cable, and home video arose. Despite the adverse advent of streaming services in recent years, there were efforts to bring the place back to life, but Covid brought the momentum to a standstill.
Enter Fain, who with his company launched the local spaces that currently house Left Bank Ciders and Hemlock bar and reopened the shuttered former Catskill Community Center as a yoga studio; his Hudson projects include Kitty’s Market and Restaurant, Grapefruit Wines, and wedding venue The Caboose, while the creation of a Hudson waterfront branch of the organic/ sustainable Hawthorne Valley Farm Store is planned to begin next year.
“The theater’s old owner wanted to renovate and reopen it himself, but after a few years he decided to look for someone to hand it off to,” Fain explains. “I really wanted to be part of it.”
Previously based in Brooklyn, Fain resettled in
The Catskill Community is set to repoen on September 5. Dog Day Afternoon screens on September 12.
Catskill in 2016 and guides Nice and Weird with a focus on green and renewable energy via carbon-neutral renovations to existing structures. “I don’t consider myself a developer,” the former sculptor says. “I come from an art background and I kind of fell into [restoration projects] through my day job, which was rehabbing buildings in the city.”
Restarting the historically attentive restoration got underway last year using local contractors, and Fain brought in Kim Bucci and Ray Pirkle of design group Ramshackle Studio, who own Rivertown Lodge in Hudson and Camptown hotel in Leeds, to revamp the concessions counter and bathrooms and design a new lobby bar, cafe, and lounge area where the theater plans to host occasional small-scale musical performances. In addition to screening films in both cinema spaces, the larger downstairs room will also be the site of auditorium-level concerts and other live events.
Drive-In Force
To oversee the theater’s programming and dayto-day operations and help with the renovation work, Fain is partnering with the nonprofit Community Presents. The nonprofit was founded by Greg Mills, Sydney Schutte, and Brian Whitney, the same team behind the successful revival of the Hi-Way Drive-In and the Kingston Film Foundation. “For a film lover like me, it was manna from heaven,” says Mills about Fain’s offering him the management position at the Community, where he and Shutte plan to program a mix of first-run and Hollywood blockbuster films in the main theater and arthouse, indie, foreign, and repertory films in the smaller second-floor room. “It’s been tireless work with the construction process, but it’s really important to make sure things are done right historically, for the theater itself and its place within the village, while also bringing in the modern film projection and sound-system technology and the other updates that we need to have.” In addition to adding various ADAcompliant elements, Fain, Mills, and their crew have refinished and beautified the structure inside and out, bringing it back to its original glory by restoring the original plasterwork; repainting the walls and fixtures; updating the electrical systems; relocating and expanding the restrooms; laying down new, period-appropriate carpeting; and mending its iconic lighted marquee, among the dozens of other items on their ongoing schedule of repairs. Planned for 2026 and 2027 are more audio and lighting upgrades to the main theater room’s system and the installation of new dressing rooms below the stage’s storied orchestra pit and a stage-adjacent green room for performers. The calendar of films and events was still being determined at the time of this writing, but Mills says the theater will be open five days a week to start.
“We’re excited,” says Liam Singer, who owns and operates nearby music venue the Avalon
Lounge. As the former owner of the Hi-Lo coffeehouse on Main Street (now occupied by Cafe Joust), Singer was one of the initial leaders of Catskill’s long-awaited revitalization, and he sees the Community’s plans to book live music as complementing, rather than competing with, what he does at his club. “The level of bands they plan to have in the main room over there would be too big for the Avalon, so it’s great that those bands will now have place to play in Catskill. With the opening of the theater, it really feels like the last missing piece of the nightlife puzzle has been found. With Avalon and the restaurants and other bars that are already here, now people will be able to also see a movie or a bigger concert and really have a night out. It’s an anchor.”
Up and Down and Back Up Again
Catskill’s rebirth has been hard-won and filled with many frustrating fits and starts. Founded in 1788, the creekside Greene County seat experienced an economic boom in 1800 but suffered its first big downturn in 1825 when the recently completed Erie Canal began detouring trade away from the town. It rebounded in the 1850s as a sightseeing gateway to the Catskill Mountains and their newly built resorts; during the late 19th century tourism and local industry saw the town prosper until the Great Depression. World War II manufacturing led to economic prosperity that lasted until the 1980s industrial exodus and the subsequent crack epidemic set in during the 1990s. The openings of the Foreland art studio complex and the Lumberyard Center for Dance and Performing Arts in respectively,
2021 and 2018, were part of a wave that seemed poised to bring Catskill back from the precipice—until Covid reared its ugly head to kneecap that progress, bringing about the loss of the Lumberyard and other promising businesses. But now, with the combination of a postpandemic reemergence and its neighbor Hudson’s prohibitive, ever-rising costs of real estate and rentals, Catskill, with its growing, walkable Main Street landscape of tidy-but-wallet-friendly shops and eateries, is fast becoming the place to be. And, visually as well as spiritually, the Catskill Community Theatre looks set to retake its place as the town’s glowing crown jewel.
“Greg and I both feel an enormous responsibility to the history of this place,” Fain says. “While the work has been going on, it seems like we’re always stopping each other, stepping back to look at things while we’re working on them and ask, ‘Does this seem right?’ It’s like we’re constantly challenging each other to make sure we’re staying loyal to the theater’s aesthetic while we get it ready to operate at a 21st-century level. Maybe we agonize too much about that stuff. [Laughs.] But it’s totally worth it.”
The Catskill Community Theatre will officially reopen to the public on September 5 at 4pm with a ribbon cutting ceremony on the theater’s main stage. Guests are invited to walk through the space, enjoy free popcorn and drinks, and explore recent renovations. Dog Day Afternoon will show in the theater’s upstairs screening room on September 12. See website for screening times, ticket information, and a schedule of films and events.
Facebook.com/thecommunitytheatre.
Ben Fain and Greg Mills oversaw the renovation of the Catskill Commuity Theatre.
With domestic travel on the rise this year, more people are choosing regional getaways and day trips, and bringing their dogs along.
Nestled in the Great Western Catskills, Delaware County’s rolling farmland, mountain views, and picturesque small towns offer an ideal mix of outdoor exploration and hospitality for travelers with dogs.
From scenic trails that welcome canine companions to pup-friendly restaurants with water bowls at the ready, it’s easy to include four-legged friends in Delaware County fun.
Accommodations
The county’s warm welcome extends to canine guests, with accommodations that make staying the night with a dog easy, typically for a small fee.
The upscale log cabins at West Branch Angler Resort in Hancock are tucked into 200 private acres, with a three-mile stretch of riverfront on the West Branch of the Delaware—great for a peaceful morning walk amid mountain scenery. In Stamford, The Vine on Main is a modern dog-friendly motel experience with upscale charm. Steps from Main Street, the boutique motel also gives visitors easy access to a nearby nature reserve to start or end the day. In the heart of Hobart Book Village, the Book Village Inn happily accommodates dogs. Guests at this boutique Victorian inn can also take their pups to explore the surrounding Catskill Scenic Trail, located just minutes away.
Restaurants and Craft Beverage Destinations
Many Delaware County eateries with plenty of outdoor seating typically embrace dogs as part of the family.
Wayside Cider in Andes has a rustic courtyard where visitors can sip cider and nosh on seasonal small plates while their leashed dogs doze under the table. In Stamford, the Mountain Dog Cafe lives up to its name. Visitors can stop by this cozy spot for coffee and pastries or sandwiches and enjoy breakfast with their dogs by their side. The Hamden Inn & Lounge—a renovated 1850s inn beneath Hamden’s towering pines—has an outdoor dining area where leashed dogs are welcome while their owners enjoy globally influenced farm-to-table comfort food.
Recreation
From rail trails to mountain lakes, Delaware County’s great outdoors
beckon both two- and four-legged adventurers alike.
The Catskill Scenic Trail, a 26-mile former railway bed that runs from Roxbury to Bloomville, offers a flat, gravel path that winds through rolling farmland and along riverbanks. In Delhi, the SUNY Delhi Outdoor Education Center offers a 40-acre public park of meadows and forests with about 2.5 miles of looping trails that meander beside the Little Delaware River—an ideal spot for dogs to get out some energy. For secluded scenery, head to Bear Spring Mountain Campground & Day Use Area in Downsville. Set in the Catskills Forest Preserve, Bear Spring has 24 miles of multi-use trails through hardwood forest where well-behaved, leashed dogs are welcome to roam. For those looking to experience a bit of the region’s rich history, head to Arkville to hop on one of the Delaware & Ulster Railroad’s open-air cars for a scenic train ride through the mountains—no tickets for pups required.
Shopping
Even retail therapy in Delaware County comes with pet-friendly perks.
In Sidney, The Houndstooth Bakery & Boutique caters to the county’s furriest residents and their owners. Billed as “the health food store for pets,” this Main Street shop offers all-natural, premium pet foods, freshly baked treats, and an array of toys and accessories. In Hobart Book Village, More Good Books welcomes bibliophiles and dogs alike. Leashed dogs can accompany their owners to browse the shelves of used and rare books as well as vinyl records.
Tips for Dog-Friendly Outings
Traveling with a dog can be a blast, but a little preparation ensures it stays fun for everyone. Local etiquette calls for dogs to be leashed in parks and on trails for wildlife and livestock protection, and the comfort of other visitors. Savvy dog owners pack the essentials: collapsible water bowls, extra waste bags, towels for muddy paws, and an extra leash. It’s always wise to call ahead or check online for any specific pet policies at lodging and dining spots.
From trail walks under dazzling autumn leaves to lazy mornings at a sidewalk cafe, a trip to Delaware County offers plenty of opportunity for shared adventures, and all the effort pays off seeing dear Fido curled up by the fire after a day full of adventures.
Greatwesterncatskills.com
Delaware County is for the Dogs
Top: Catskill Scenic Trail. Photo: Lisa Wisely Bottom: Book Village Inn. Photo: Teresa & Leonard
Drew Nieporent Wasn’t Trying To Be Difficult
FROM MONTRACHET TO NOBU AND BEYOND
By Michael Greenhouse
Difficult? You bet. Trailblazers usually are. Over his 40-year-career, Drew Nieporent has created and operated some 40 restaurants, including three of the most lauded and popular dining destinations in New York City: Nobu, Tribeca Grill, and Montrachet. More than that, Nieporent has helped to reshape the New York restaurant scene, redefining how and where New Yorkers eat.
These days, Nieporent is taking a moment to reflect, having written a memoir, I’m Not Trying to Be Difficult: Stories from the Restaurant Trenches (Grand Central Publishing), that will come out September 23. We sat down at his home in Piermont overlooking the Hudson River and immediately delved into his origins as a restaurant guy.
“I have my parents to thank,” he says. “My father worked for the New York State Liquor Authority helping restaurant owners get their liquor licenses, and our family was welcomed at pretty much every place in New York City. My mother was a big influence, too. She was an actress earlier in her life, and she loved the restaurant scene. To her, it was like going to the theater. I picked up on that and gravitated to
restaurants immediately. By the time I was eight or nine, I was hooked.”
Nieporent grew up in Manhattan and went to Stuyvesant High School, a few blocks from his family’s apartment in Peter Cooper Village.
For college, he went upstate to the prestigious Cornell School of Hotel Management. “Cornell was a whole new experience for me,” he says. “I met people from all over the world. And I got an opportunity to go overseas for the first time, serving food on a Norwegian cruise ship that was going to ports all over the world.”
At the time, Drew knew next to nothing about food service. “My first day on the ship, I was the only one out of 60 waiters wearing a blue shirt. Everybody else was in white. To go back and forth to the kitchen, we had to take an escalator carrying a heavy tray, and I could barely carry mine. I’m lucky I didn’t kill anyone,” he says.
Despite the first-day mishaps, being one of the few English speakers on a boat full of Americans worked in his favor. “I got along great with the guests,” he says. “I went back to Cornell with much more confidence and knew I had a future in this business.”
Chefs Gerard Boyer, Paul Bocuse, and Paul Prudhomme with Drew Nieporent.
The “Le’s and the La’s”
After four years at Cornell, Nieporent headed back to New York City, where he got work at one of the biggest and buzziest restaurants in town—Maxwell’s Plum, owned by the theatrical Warner LeRoy, the son of Mervyn LeRoy, the Hollywood mogul who produced The Wizard of Oz. From there he went to another major LeRoy establishment, Tavern on the Green. And from there, he worked for two years as a captain at several of the city’s great French temples of gastronomy, which Drew describes in his book as a tour of the “Le’s and the La’s.”
“It was a fantastic learning experience,” he says. “I worked with some legendary chefs and learned so much about fine food. But very often the staff I was supervising hated me. As an American, I was an outsider in their European world, and they expressed their feelings by playing pranks on me.”
Such as? “As a captain, it was my job to sauce certain dishes after they were set in front of the guest. The waiter would hand me the sauceboat, and I’d go into my fancy service routine and find out he’d handed me a fork instead of a spoon. I made sure the guests didn’t know what was happening,
but I’d find ways to get revenge on the waiter.”
For the guests, the experience could be intimidating and exclusive. The menus were all in French, and only one of them would have the prices listed on it. Back then you’d give that one to a man at the table, never a woman. He was expected to order the wine, and of course pay for the meal.”
When it was time for Nieporent to open his own restaurant, he had something very different in mind. He envisioned a French restaurant that was serious about the food and wine but casual about everything else. The restaurant he opened in 1985, Montrachet, had no dress code for the guests. The wait staff wore black shirts, not white. The menus were in English. The wine was from France and California. Montrachet’s first chef, David Bouley, was classically trained but took a radically different approach to traditional French cooking. “In 1985, no one was cooking like Bouley,” says Nieporent. “We served great food that didn’t use heavy creams and sauces. It was a sensation.”
He also located Montrachet downtown, in Tribeca, which at the time was not a food destination. “It had untapped potential, and the real estate was much less expensive than Uptown,
so I could offer our customers real value,” he says. Indeed, the prix-fixe three-course dinner was $16.
Less than seven weeks after it opened, Montrachet received a glowing three-star review from the New York Times, and the restaurant was an instant hit. “Suddenly, I could have filled Yankee Stadium!” says Nieporent. “The phone was ringing off the hook. I had to recruit my mother to help us out.”
That’s when Robert DeNiro came along, and things really got interesting for Nieporent. “Bob lived in the neighborhood and wanted to see what the fuss was all about,” he says. “He loved the place and started coming in regularly, and we got to know each other.”
It turns out DeNiro had more than a good meal in mind. He had his eye on an old factory building a couple of blocks from Montrachet, and he wanted to convert it to a film center with a large, 150-seat restaurant on the ground floor. He approached Nieporent about the restaurant project, and a fruitful, 35-year partnership was born.
The restaurant, Tribeca Grill, was not just Nieporent’s biggest project to date; it was a big event in the city, with DeNiro the headliner and
Robert DeNiro dining at Montrachet.
Clockwise from top left: Inside the kitchen at Montrachet. Nieporent with then Senator Barack Obama. Nieporent and David Bouley.
several more celebrity partners in supporting roles, including Sean Penn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Christopher Walken, and Bill Murray. When the Grill opened in 1990, there were paparazzi lined up on the street, scoping out the stars. It remained a hotspot for 35 years until the curtain finally came down in March 2025.
In 1994, the partners launched their biggest culinary phenomenon—Nobu. In the world of Japanese restaurants, Nobu changed everything. Chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s cuisine was bold and innovative, incorporating ingredients and ideas from South America. The first Nobu in New York, developed under Nieporent’s supervision, was dynamic and theatrical—a far cry from the traditional sushi bar. “All of a sudden, sushi was fun,” says Nieporent. “And we struck lightning.” That’s for sure. Nobu is now a global brand, with 56 restaurants worldwide.
For most of his career, Nieporent has had an office in Tribeca, but he was seldom in it. With two mobile phones in hand, he roamed his corner of Tribeca day and night, overseeing his evergrowing neighborhood empire. When the phone rang, he’d answer, “Headquarters!” If you walked around the neighborhood with Nieporent, there’s a good chance you’d see someone recognize him and shout: “Hey, it’s the mayor of Tribeca!”
His impact has reached well beyond Tribeca, too. For 14 years, he ran a restaurant in San Francisco with another set of celebrity investors that included Francis Ford Coppola and Robin Williams. He is a partner in Nobu London and travels there regularly. His company, Myriad Restaurant Group, has launched many restaurants around the country and, for the last 12 years, has operated the Daily Burger in Madison Square Garden.
Along the way, Nieporent has helped launch and further the careers of dozens of chefs and frontof-the-house managers, many of whom are now leading figures in the culinary world. He also lends his support to industry stalwarts like the James Beard Foundation, Cornell, and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park. In 2019, he received the CIA’s highest honor, the Augie award, which recognizes the most accomplished people in the industry. “I love the CIA,” he says. “I’ve seen it grow by leaps and bounds, and it’s now recognized as the premier culinary school in the country. It’s an important part of what makes the Hudson Valley such a great area.”
The Difficult Restaurateur
Aside from the accolades, over his long career, Nieporent has also gotten a reputation for being
a bit difficult, as his memoir makes clear. He has confronted food writers who he felt had wronged him. He has called guests who didn’t show up for a reservation. “I’d ask them what they did for a living,” says Nieporent. “Oh, you’re a dentist? How would you feel if I made an appointment at your office and didn’t show up?” He has argued with esteemed architects who, he felt, didn’t know much about restaurant design. He has faced down grouchy guests. Once, when a man complained about his table, Nieporent said: “Sir, you make the table. The table doesn’t make you.” Nieporent doesn’t deny he has earned his reputation for being difficult, though he’d like to explain. “This is a tough business and it’s getting tougher. Do you know how hard it is to open a restaurant and keep it open?” he says. “You need to have a strong will and a strong ego, and I have both. And I’ve never been afraid to speak my mind—to anyone. I really don’t mean to be difficult, but sometimes, well…”
As we were parting, I asked him: “Are you done being difficult?” To which he replied: “I’m winding things down, as you know. But I’m still fired up about the projects we have going. We’ll see…” We’ll see? There’s no way Drew Nieporent is done feeding people—and stirring up a bit of trouble along the way.
Nieporent dining outside Tribeca Grill.
Join the Fun
sips & bites
FALL FOOD POP-UPS
Hudson Valley food pop-ups continue through fall at venues throughout the region from farms and orchards to breweries. Below is a curated roundup of late summer and early fall pop-ups to savor. Head to Chronogram.com for a more comprehensive list.
Hibino Day by Day
Chef Yasuyo Hibino’s bento box pop-up Hibino Day by Day offers onigiri and fresh maki multiple times a week at a variety of locations. Each Monday, Hibino is at Little King in Beacon from 11:30am-2:30pm, and every other Tuesday at Cold Spring’s Marbled Meat Shop from 11:30am-2:30pm. Hibino will also offer her rotating weekly menus, with onigiri offerings like kimchi tuna and salted plum, mini pork belly, or chicken maki rolls, at the Cold Spring Farmers’ Market, 10am-1pm, through October.
Misto
at Arrowood Farms on September 11-14 and October 9-12. Eat Church is also at the Flying Goose Tavern in Kerhonkson from Wednesday to Saturday, 4-9pm, on the first, third, and fourth week of each month through October.
Suenos Catskills
Tamales are a labor of love, and Suenos Catskills has plenty of both to go around. The family-owned business serves tamales and salsa out of Sunshine Colony through October, Tuesdays and Fridays from 5-9pm and Saturdays from 12-9pm, and Sunday, 10am-2pm.The pop-up’s signature tamale flavors include pork, broccolini and epazote, and poblano and cheese. Keep an eye out for weekend specials.
Catskill Cocktail Club
Catskill Cocktail Club will continue its weekly residency at the Startlite Motel in Kerhonkson each Friday and Saturday evening through September 26, 5-10pm, shakin’ and stirrin’ up craft bevvies. September food partners are Hecho por Julia, Oyster Party, Diego Taqueria, and Forno Rossi.
Ogle Bogle
Digging into delicious, local food on a balmy evening to the tune of live music is peak Hudson Valley. Misto, with its a Brazilian-Ukrainian fusion, will run its burger night pop-ups on Rose Hill Farm on most Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays through the end of September. They offer up juicy and flavorful beef, salmon, or vegetarian patties with gluten-free buns available and hyperlocal ingredients.
Oyster Party
This New York City-based raw bar pops up across the Hudson Valley at breweries, farms, and markets with its signature freshly shucked oysters and lobster rolls. Each weekend, they serve food at Backbar in Hudson from Friday to Sunday, 12-7pm. They’ll also be at Starlite Motel on September 12-13 and Rose Hill Farm Saturdays and Sundays September 13-28.
Supreme Soft Serve
Chocolate and vanilla simply aren’t enough flavors for soft serve, so this inventive ice cream truck has flavors like blueberry lavender champagne sorbet in addition to the classics that so many love. Supreme Soft Serve will be at Rose Hill Farm on Sundays through September, plus October 3-5 and 24-26; as well as at the Greenhouse Cidery in Chatham on September 13 and October 11 for Flannel Fest.
Eat Church
Inspired by the immigrants that he grew up around, Mark Turcotte imbues a Southeast Asian flavor, like Malaysian rendang or Vietnamese banh mi to Eat Church’s rotating menu. Turcotte will be
With her food pop-up Ogle Bogle, June Lee brings Korean mountain cuisine to a Hudson Valley setting, using locally grown ingredients to create distinctive, rotating, veggie-forward menus. Ogle Bogle will be at the Kingston Farmers’ Market on September 6, October 4, and November 1; at Rose Hill Farm on October 11; and at West Kill Supply October 24-26.
Mommo
The authentic Neapolitan pizzas on Mommo’s ever-rotating menu include marinated yellow tomatoes, baked black olives, mozzarella, Sicilian anchovies and oregano, lemon zest, and olive oil; ramp pesto, pastured sausage and mozzarella; and truffle, burrata, prosciutto di Parma, mozzarella, and provolone. Mommo will park their pizza truck at Rose Hill Farm on September 6, 20, 21, 27, 28 and October 4; at Millbrook Winery on September 7; at Slow Fox Farm on September 13 and 14 and October 11, 12, and 19; and at Hutton Brickyards on October 17.
Four Corners
Chef David Israelow, formerly of Michelin-starred One White Street, is slated to open Four Corners in Chatham in 2026. Expect seasonal, farm-totable menus inspired by Hudson Valley bounty, and in the meantime, pop-up dinners building buzz across Columbia, Dutchess, Berkshire, and Litchfield counties. So far, Israelow is slated to pop up at Isola in Kinderhook on September 28 with a four-course meal for $90 and an optional $40 wine pairing. Stay tuned for future dates.
—Marie Doyon
Wirecutter just named our chocolates one of the 13 best boxed chocolates of 2025!
Dining Guide
It’s no secret that dining in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, and Berkshires is one of our favorite pursuits—and yours, too!
Our quarterly Dining Guide is a spotlight for noteworthy offerings ranging from the brand new eateries on the block to those well-loved spots that keep their fans coming back for seconds.
Want to get the latest scoop on restaurants every week? Sign up for Chronogram’s email newsletter. Every Friday, you’ll find the deets on recent openings and in-depth stories on food and craft beverage that you’ve been craving.
Rooted in seasonality and locally sourced ingredients, Panacea aims to nourish the soul. Chef-owners Jacob Somers and Khendum Namgyal run a full scratch kitchen featuring fresh seafood, housemade pasta, and creative mains paired with signature craft cocktails. Family friendly with a rustic farm-to-table setting, the enchanting garden patio and two dining rooms make Panacea the perfect place to host an event. Now open Thursday–Monday, with daily Happy Hour 5–6pm.
Juice + Cafe
7501 North Broadway, Red Hook; Blissredhook.com
Come and experience Bliss! Bliss Juice + Cafe is a beautiful oasis offering an exciting, good-for-you vibe, and nourishment that will make anyone crave their next Bliss fix. The cafe sources organic, local ingredients to create its signature cold-pressed juices, smoothies, smoothie bowls, grab-and-go salads, made-to-order breakfast and lunch cafe items, organic locally roasted coffee and espresso drinks, fresh bakery items, and more. Vegan and gluten-free options are plentiful. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 8am-4pm.
Bliss
Punk Rock Thoreau BUILDING A MOVEMENT IN ELLENVILLE
By Mary Angeles Armstrong
Most people think of home as four walls and a roof. For Andrew Faust and Adriana Magana, that myopic view is the problem. Permaculture educators and consultants, the two have dedicated their livelihoods—and their 14-acre property—to modeling a more expansive concept of home. They founded and designed their Center for Bioregional Living in Warwarsing, which is part residence and part classroom, to unapologetically challenge how we think about shelter and what it means to live well. “Permaculture design is systems design,” explains Magana of the ethos behind the evolving live/work project the couple began in 2011. “Everything is connected. Our goal is to broaden the lens of ‘home’ to better understand how systems interrelate, how this world works, and come up with new solutions.”
But before Faust can show me around, he is momentarily waylaid. A former student, one of thousands who have graduated from the permaculture courses the couple hold onsite as well as in Brooklyn and in Vermont, has stopped by for some help. “We’ve never been focused on this place as solely our home,” says Faust of the 1,800-square-foot brick ranch flanked by rain tanks, a biodigester, and various natural workshops and sheds scattered across the former hay farm. “It’s always been a place where people can learn.” For Faust and Magana, home is what happens when you refuse to live small.
Above: When Andrew Faust and Adriana Magana moved to Ellenville in 2011 they searched for a home they could sustainably adapt rather than build from scratch. Since moving in, they’ve transformed the property to catch and store water and energy onsite and creatively re-design the landscape for resilience.
Opposite: Inside, the couple kept things simple. The interior was in good shape, but they replaced the fireplace insert with a wood stove which functions as the home’s main heat source. “A basic permaculture principle is ‘work creates work’” explains Magana. “The more things you add or space you clear will potentially create more work for yourself. So, before getting to that point, it’s always best to go back to the first principle—do nothing and then observe.”
Photos by Winona Barton-Ballentine
Rooted in Nature. Reimagined for Living.
A Whimsical Woodstock Retreat with Soul
Just minutes from Woodstock Village, this private twoacre compound includes a renovated three-bedroom main house, a finished guest cabin, and a reimagined modern barn used for gatherings, yoga, and music. The main home features vaulted ceilings, handmade Moroccan tile, soapstone counters, and a cozy wood stove. A stream, pond, and wild edibles like ramps and strawberries enrich the land, while old-growth trees offer privacy and shade. Peaceful, creative, and oneof-a-kind—this is Hudson Valley living with soul, just two hours from NYC.
241 Silver Hollow Road, Woodstock, New York
$1,595,000 USD • 3 Beds • 2 Acres
In the backyard, the couple have planted a mix of apple trees, blueberry bushes, edible nut trees, and raised garden beds.
The screened-in back porch has a kitchen, lounging, and dining area. Faust added a bio-digester system which collects household sewage in a concrete tank adjacent to the porch. Inside the anaerobic tank, bacteria digest the waste and produce bio-gas—which then fuels the summer kitchen’s stove.
“Diversity equals resilience, not monoculture,” says Faust.
It ’s a beautiful day to wander the land. Set on a quiet backroad, the property is surrounded by a mix of agricultural land and woodscape—a kaleidoscope of greens under a blue summer sky. Dwarfing the three-bedroom house, the former front lawn turned mini-meadow is a riot of bright red butterfly weed, yellow coreopsis, and purple coneflowers. Out back, galvanized metal garden beds teem with last of the spring lettuces and the first summer squash and beans.
Mature oaks provide deep shade for the home’s south face, and strands of Chinese chestnuts, pecans, and hickories will be harvested in fall.
Walking through the idyllic setting abounding with food and maximized resources, it ’s easy to shrug off the idea of catastrophe. Permaculture can be beautiful but “ it designs for disaster,” explains Faust. “If you aren’t thinking about how to live in a manner that’s adapted for the present system collapsing, then you aren’t really paying attention to how vulnerable, fragile, and unethical the present system is.”
Faust has some strong opinions and an uncompromising view on what constitutes ethical living. Whether you think our present system is on the verge of collapse or not, the home Faust and Magana have built rises to face the present moment. “ We live on a planet in outer space that’s rocketing around the Sun at 67,000-miles-per hour so things are going to happen that actually are very unpredictable,” says Faust. “ There’s volcanoes, there’s
meteors, it ’s an incredibly dynamic system. Permaculture is basically adapting to how the planet works.”
The Path to Right Livelihood
The seeds of Faust ’s commitment to ecological living were planted during his childhood in Pennsylvania. “My parents had strong ethical views, which led them to join a Quaker community,” says Faust. “ The tradition emphasized nonparticipation in things that are unethical.” He attended an alternative high school, and studied Latin and Greek with a tutor in his free time. His study of classical civilizations sparked an interest into the reoccurring patterns that confound cultures—especially deforestation. “It ’ s one of the major mistakes that many cultures have made that we don’t seem to learn from,” explains Faust. As part of his studies, he lived with a clan of Romani people who traveled in horse-drawn carts, traveling through Greece for 10 weeks. “It really showed me what a good life I could live without much stuff,” he says.
However, it was his father ’s death from cancer while he was at university that focused his life’s work. “I began to understand the toxic legacy of industrialization and how much cancer is a result of pollution,” he reflects. This loss, combined with his strong sense of ethics, sparked his vocation. “Right livelihood is an important concept for me as an educator,” he explains. “ We have an ethical obligation
to create livelihoods that have ecological and social integrity to them. If we’re not doing that, we’re abdicating our moral responsibility to ourselves and the world.”
After his father’s death, Faust spent the next eight years in West Virginia’s mountains, building a fully off-grid, strawbale home and educational center, a project that would be the basis for his PhD dissertation in 1999. He then moved to Brooklyn—where he taught urban permaculture design certification courses and met Magana.
Banging the DIY Drum
Magana spent her childhood in the San Diego area exploring the mountains and beaches, often on horseback. “I was always outside as a kid,” she says. “And I had many mentors who taught me to grow my own garden, harvest food, and land-based practical skills.” Coming from a family of musicians, Magana took up the drums and spent five years touring with the band Crash Worship before settling in New York City where she played drums for Hungry March Band and started the popular underground performance venue Happy Birthday Hideout.
Magana’s introduction to permaculture came through her experience squatting on the Lower East Side in the ‘90s. “Both squatting and permaculture have the same DIY ethics—taking care of your community and meeting your
own needs by learning skills and mutual aid,” says Magana. “Permaculture offered philosophical avenues to reimagine our man-made world. It was a great gift.”
Put on Your Permaculture Goggles
When the couple began house hunting in 2011, their criteria went far beyond conventional real estate considerations. They were searching for a property that could serve their larger mission of creating a home and demonstration site accessible to students and others interested in whole-systems design. “ We specifically came because of the proximity to New York City,” says Faust. “ We wanted to have hands-on courses teaching permaculture design and ecological literacy. We also liked the creative community up here.”
Faust didn’t want to start from scratch, again. “I spent eight years building and living in West Virginia,” he explains. “It was formative, but once was enough. I wasn’t going to do that again.” Instead, they looked for properties they could adapt. “We put our ‘permaculture goggles’ on,” says Faust. “ That meant we were looking for southern exposure, proper drainage, easy access, and good bones and framing.” The property also needed the right mix of woods and meadow. Though conventional, their 1950s three-bedroom, twobath ranch was built by a jeweler who incorporated quality materials throughout the construction. “ We liked the natural
“Incorporating multiple functions from a single element is an essential part of permaculture,” says Faust. A corner of the family’s living and dining room is also Faust’s office. He is primarily an educator—teaching permaculture workshops onsite, as well as throughout the Northeast. However, he also conducts property analysis helping homeowners assess for permaculture possibilities as well as consults on building projects.
Imagine endless possibilities
When realizing a unique vision for your clients, turn to Marvin Ultimate windows and doors for their design flexibility, flawless detailing, and premium performance. Their handcrafted beauty is immediately evident, and their impact is powerful across the architectural spectrum. The result of relentless refinement, these are premium products with nearly endless possibilities for your most ambitious projects.
Imagine endless possibilities
Imagine endless possibilities
When realizing a unique vision for your clients, turn to Marvin Ultimate windows and doors for their design flexibility, flawless detailing, and premium performance. Their handcrafted beauty is immediately evident, and their impact is powerful across the architectural spectrum. The result of relentless refinement, these are premium products with nearly endless possibilities for your most ambitious projects.
When realizing a unique vision for your clients, turn to Marvin Ultimate windows and doors for their design flexibility, flawless detailing, and premium performance. Their handcrafted beauty is immediately evident, and their impact is powerful across the architectural spectrum. The result of relentless refinement, these are premium products with nearly endless possibilities for your most ambitious projects.
“ When you create and that take you certainly Marvin create these
Charlie Principal,
“ When create that
“ When you have the ability to create and sculpt environments that take advantage of light, you certainly want to do that. Marvin gives us the tools to create these wonderful spaces.”
Charlie Simmons, Principal, Charlie & Co. Design Ltd
We share your passion.®
WE IMPROVE OUR CLIENTS' LIVES BY IMPROVING THEIR LIVING SPACES
We’re not your typical kitchen and bath company. We’re a full-service design firm that crafts functional, beautiful spaces tailored to each client’s lifestyle and vision.
We take time to truly understand your needs, listening closely, sweating every detail, and designing with purpose. The result is a space that feels intentional, elevated, and uniquely you.
A Forest Of Choice.
A Forest
A Forest Of Choice.
Choice.
The broadest selection of the biggest trees and plants in the Hudson Valley.
The broadest selection of the biggest trees and plants in the Hudson Valley.
The broadest selection of the biggest trees and plants in the Hudson Valley.
The broadest selection of the biggest trees and plants in the Hudson Valley.
A Forest Of Choice.
A Forest Of Choice.
9W & Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY (845) 338-4936 AugustineNursery.com
& Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY (845) 338-4936 AugustineNursery.com
9W & Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY (845) 338-4936 AugustineNursery.com
9W & Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY (845) 338-4936 AugustineNursery.com
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm
Spring Hours: Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm
Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm
9W & Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY AugustineNursery.com Spring Hours: Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and
Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm
8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm
9W & Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY (845) 338-4936 AugustineNursery.com
Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm
Above: Adjacent to the home, the property’s 16 acres serve as a living laboratory where Faust teaches handson permaculture workshops. Since the center’s founding Faust, Magana, and their students have constructed multiple outbuildings, experimenting with straw bale building techniques, passive solar design, gray water collection, and offgrid energy sources.
Right: One of the first structures Faust constructed onsite was the carport, on the property’s highest point. “A main concept in permaculture is successfully catching and holding energy at the highest point in a system,” explains Faust. “We added the 1,500-square-foot rain tank so we can gravity feed water at optimal passive pressure. The carport roof also has grid-tied solar panels which power the whole house.” By utilizing locally sourced rough cut hemlock, Faust was able to design the carport from 17foot rafters to hold up the solar array.
wood-paneled interior, the local brick, and the stone fireplace at the home’s center,” says Faust. “ There was also copper and high-quality metals throughout. The home was in good shape.” Along the western edge, a wide, screened-in porch is elevated over the garden. “It adds lots of potential to the house,” says Faust. “In summer we cook and eat out here. Also, we’re able to host dining events, classes, and guests.”
The landscape also suited their purpose: The home was positioned at the property ’s high point, it had southern exposure for passive solar gain, and plenty of former hay fields that could be reforested or used as a laboratory to experiment with new permaculture building techniques and materials.
Perpetual Harvest
After moving in, one of their first projects was harvesting the rain. “ We began by adding a 1,500-gallon rain tank filled by the house’s gutters,” Faust says. By positioning the tank high on the property, they catch and hold water for optimal gravity-fed pressure. Faust also built a carport from locally harvested, rough-cut hemlock serving multiple functions— providing car coverage while supporting both an additional rain tank and a grid-tied solar array large enough to power the entire house as well as an electric vehicle.
Faust then installed a biodigester off the screened-in porch. The concrete tank collects the home’s sewage and
then, with the help of some enzymes, converts the waste back into fuel for their summer kitchen. The bio-digester has proved to be a functional waste-to-energy system and a teaching tool for students. “What I’m doing at my own site is research and development for things that I thendo on build-outs and consultations for clients,” Faust explains.
Out back, they transformed the former farm into an educational demonstration site. A straw-bale cabin in one field was a hands-on natural building experience; an outdoor classroom in another is central to Faust ’s classes, and a cob oven is the site of community meals. These structures serve as living laboratories where students learn natural building techniques while creating self-sustaining infrastructure. Faust and Magana have created something much larger than their 14-acre living laboratory and home—they ’ ve created a growing community of enthusiasts and home service professional committed, and equipped, to build a sustainable future. That future is growing from one of permaculture’s most foundational aspects. “ The permaculture movement is not about setting people up to isolate themselves on a homestead,” says Faust. “ This is about redesigning the whole Northeastern corridor for self-reliance and sustainability.”
“Permaculture is about building community,” Magana adds. “At the end of the day, it ’s all about relationships.”
Faust and the couple’s daughter Juniper (and their goats) walk the path between their backyard and the Center for Bioregional Living. Part of the couple’s motivation in establishing the center was creating a space to demonstrate permaculture principles in real time. “I’ve taught thousands of people who come and visit on an informal basis,” says Faust. “If someone wants to come and get hands-on experience with gardening, working with trees, or natural building we do workshop projects onsite and have connections to other permaculture and natural building projects in the community.”
Dreamlines Across Continents
Sacred Bridge Retreat at Menla
By Anne Pyburn Craig
Wisdom keepers from the Amazon and Himalayas are gathering at Menla this fall, bridging ancestral traditions to weave a healing vision for the Earth.
Long before the internet, we were profoundly connected to each other and to every other facet of the natural world—an awareness that’s only growing in importance as global well-being faces a wide range of threats, and as we learn more about the mechanics of mycorrhiza (the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plant roots), the quirks of quantum physics, and the annals of the ancients. An October event at the Menla Retreat and Dewa Spa in Phoenicia brings this truth home at an unprecedented level, allowing visitors a glimpse of the all-that-is-and-ever-was in the company of Amazonian spiritual leaders and Tibetan teachers.
“Sacred Bridge: Uniting the Heart of the Amazon and the Peaks of the Himalayas” will bring together nine Yawanawa spiritual leaders from the Brazilian Amazon and respected Tibetan elders and teachers for a rare and powerful cultural convergence of prayer, music, ritual, and ancestral wisdom from October 2 to October 5. They’ll be sharing traditional music and dance, sacred singing, fire ceremonies, ancestral stories, prayers, rituals, and more—customs that were long known only within the heart of the jungle or on the isolated mountain peaks of the onetime Hermit Kingdom.
“Mukavaini, a prophecy of the Yawanawa people, speaks of this time—when people of different traditions come together not to become the same, but to learn from one another. These alliances are more than symbolic—they are a healing force for the Earth. Each of us is a part of this prophecy,” says Jordao Souza, who began his journey with the Yawanawa people in 2009, studying ancestral plant medicine and Indigenous wisdom under revered healer Paje Tata. Souza cofounded the Nipeihu Sanctuary in Bahia, Brazil, a healing and research center of ancestral plant medicine. At the Menla event, he’ll be collaborating with nine Yawanawa leaders and their Tibetan counterparts to bring their cultures together to share direct experience of a way of life rooted in spirit. Participants will get to join in sweat lodge purification ceremonies and experience the art, body art and face painting that Tibetans and Yawanawa use to help themselves transcend ordinary level-one reality, and gain insight into medicinal plants and healing traditions.
“I’ve been working with the Yanawana in the Amazon for almost 20 years and with Tibetans for longer than that,” says Lynn Schauwecker, Menla’s managing director, “and there are so
many similarities between these people, which has always fascinated me. Both have this lineage of the dream life. In the Amazon, they dream about a specific plant; it comes in their dreams, and then they go out and find it. And the next day, someone gets bitten by a rare snake, or they get some weird skin disease, and the plant actually treats it. Both cultures have very sophisticated healing arts and science—I’ve seen people healed from not just physical ailments, but spiritual and emotional ones using plant medicine.”
Despite the pressures of modernity and, in the case of the Tibetans, exile, both cultures are preserving core traditions. “The Tibetans were exiled, and part of the effect was that their traditional wisdom spread all over the world,” says Schauwecker. “In the Amazon, oral traditions that had almost died out are actually strengthening through the next generations, which is pretty amazing that that’s happening. These are cultures developed over thousands of years, in very challenging settings, and this is the first time these nine people have journeyed from the Amazon to come together with Tibetans and share that here in North America.”
Tibetans have been sharing their healing arts and folkways at Menla since 2002, when the
Raute is sacred jewelry crafted by women of the Yawanawa tribe.
257 Main Street, New Paltz 845-743-6878 wellnessembodiedcenter.com
Take Back Your Health
with Acupuncture, Detox, Nutrition, Herbal Medicine, Biofeedback, Bioenergetics, Frequency Healing
Specializing in Nervous System Balancing, Gut/Digestive Disorders, Hormone Balancing, Migraines, Pain/Injury, Neurological Disorders, Skin Issues
Dr. Erika S. Gabriello DACM L.Ac www.holisticnaturalmedicine.com 347.988.0178 | 169 Main Street, New Paltz
property at the foot Panther Mountain—believed by some geologists to be the site of a long-ago meteor strike—was donated to Tibet House US, which had been founded in 1987 by Robert Thurman as part of the 14th Dalai Lama’s plan for preserving Tibetan culture worldwide. Guests at individual and group retreats experience a variety of classes, yoga, meditation, wellness and fitness programs, nature experiences, and Buddhist teachings on a wide range of subjects. There’s also an unstructured “create your own getaway” option in which guests can book an eco-friendly guest room (choices range from a remodeled 200-year-old barn with a fireplace and pool table to luxury king suites in Kathmandu House), enjoy the vegan/vegetarian cuisine and artesian spring water, and explore the property’s 300-acre wilderness and educational offerings at will. The Dewa Spa specializes in rare Tibetan therapies, as well as offering a full menu of Eastern and Western massage therapies and services, Ayurvedic treatments, herbal baths, saunas, and steam rooms; day guests are welcome to book treatments on an a la carte basis or come by to take a look around after stopping at the front desk to say hello.
The Yawanawa, about 1,200 of whom live along the Rio Gregorio in the Brazilian state of Acre, were first contacted by non-Indigenous folk in the 19th century and struggled to fend off rubber barons and missionaries, becoming the first Indigenous group to win formal recognition of their territory from the Brazilian government. Their ways of eating, singing, and healing stretch far back beyond recorded history; recent prophecies have led them both to form alliances with other peoples and to welcome women into shamanic practice as full participants, while staying true to the principles that have served them through the centuries.
HIGH SOCIETY
The culture of cannabis, from Chronogram The latest on industry news, restorative justice initiatives, community impact, dispensary openings, cultivation tips, and more.
Schauwecker emphasizes that the cultural wisdom that will be shared through evocative, accessible music, dance, storytelling, discussion, and ritual is not intended for a select group of esoteric experts or practitioners but for all of us “who feel called to walk in harmony, open their hearts, and help weave a living tapestry of remembrance, joy, and connection. I really want this to be like a family gathering,” she says. “There’s such richness in this dialogue, in sharing their culture and their healing arts and their medicines with each other,” Schauwecker says. “That’s why it’s called the Sacred Bridge; it’s like this invisible cord that links these two cultures, which I believe is strengthening things across the world, weaving a healing. This will be a gathering of hope, bringing light to the reality that even though all this other stuff is going on, there are actually very positive things happening for the coming generations. Just as hate and fear can spread, joy and hope have a ripple effect.”
The family-friendly event will be held October 2 to October 5 at the Menla Retreat and Dewa Spa in Phoenicia. For more information and reservations: Menla.org.
Khenpo Tashi Rinpoche will be sharing Tibetan wisdom at Menla in October.
A City Rewrites Its Future in Real Time Hudson
By Jamie Larson Photos by David McIntyre
Hudson is a city constantly reinventing itself by committee. The unending din of passionate socio-political argument has, over recent decades, reforged the 19th-century-whaling-port-turned-bluecollar-factory town, first into an antiques mecca at the turn of this century, then an arts hub, and now—a kind of mishmash, boho-chic, progressive playground, where commerce and culture blend into an overwhelming but vibrant tourism spectacle. All of it layered on top of a fiercely territorial and opinionated populace that seems to both love and hate the place in equal measure.
Rife with political turmoil, skyrocketing cultural clout, and a growing chorus of civic voices clashing over development, Hudson is living through one of the most consequential and charged chapters in its modern history. But for some reason it seems the conflict, the unease, the contradictions, are actually the secret sauce that makes Hudson so appealing for those looking to visit or live in a place that still feels real.
The Ouroboros of Local Governance
One of the most contentious arguments Hudson is having with itself presently revolves around gravel truck traffic at the city’s deep water port on the Hudson River. The ongoing dispute over A. Colarusso & Sons’ truck access to the dock entered a pivotal new stage this summer, as the operator is reapplying for a special use permit. The city has become divided between those who wish to put conditions on the dusty, smoggy, loud activity in the South Bay, and those who feel Colarusso’s past work to get the trucks off a route through the city’s most underserved neighborhood was concession enough.
At Basilica Hudson, cofounders Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone run a popular arts and event space in a former factory across the railroad tracks from the port. “The waterfront is our front yard,” says Auf der Maur, who has been raising alarm about the environmental impact of the dock activity for years. “We are stewards of it, not spectators.”
Above: Sunflowers in bloom at the Farm at Miller's Crossing.
Opposite, top: Fighters training at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park.
Opposite bottom: Jnoah Bokaer performing at Twin Barns at the Staats House.
Developer Ben Fain, who has big plans for the waterfront district, including a new Hawthorne Valley-run supermarket, a hotel, and much needed housing, says he loves Hudson but the volume of the gravel shipping activity is a serious impediment to his investment. He says the waterfront is “the shared soul of the city.”
It’s a soul Hudson’s mayor will be tasked with defending, but come November that may not be the job of incumbent Kamal Johnson. The once-celebrated progressive homegrown wunderkind is now viewed by many in his own party as an establishment insider.
Recently a Hudson building was tagged with antiJohnson messages accusing him of questionable ties to the city’s largest property owner, Eric Galloway and his Galvan Foundation, the mayor’s landlord. Johnson posted photos on Instagram of himself smiling in front of the graffiti before it was removed.
In June, Johnson lost the Democratic primary to Joe Ferris, a newcomer who has made sharp critiques of opaque city processes. The primary didn’t end the race, however. Johnson remains on the ballot on the Working Families Party line, and Peter Spear, an independent candidate, is gaining momentum with his regular walkand-talk Instagram policy videos. Meanwhile, Republican Lloyd Koedding, known for his winsomely disheveled
look and eccentric, hand-scrawled policy missives, has become something of an anarchic meme for a discontented electorate.
Speaking of Memes
While it’s normal to see big-name celebrities in Hudson— it’s not uncommon to find yourself in a coffee shop staring at the saddle-brown forehead and gleaming white teeth of Walton Goggins—perhaps the most popular local presence is the Hudson Wail, an anonymous Instagram account posting memes that skewer the city’s foibles. The Wail, whoever they may be, clearly has an encyclopedic understanding of Hudson history and political systems, and manages to thread a difficult needle; being critical, caring, and funny all at the same time. “I think that the beauty is in the balance,” they say. “Make fun of everyone. You don’t have to beat people over the head with your ideas. If you bring attention to things, rational people come to their own conclusions. People interpret my stuff in different ways and I like that.”
Bard College and the Galvan Gift
In a surprise turn of events, Bard College has recently waded into the city’s messy real estate development waters, a quagmire filled with plans and projects undergoing intense public scrutiny. Bard is undergoing a due diligence process to
Antonio Delgado campaigning for governor at Seventh Street Park.
Opposite: Michael Agunbiade performing at the Blue Buffoon Comedy Showcase at Park Theater on August 1.
Mark Allen in character as Leopold Chatwell at Green Street Studios, where he "broadcasts" HUDTV, a community access station.
Members of Hudson’s vibrant Bangladeshi community gather together, reflecting the city’s growing Bengali presence and cultural life.
Artist Myron Polenberg and Linda Mussmann of Time and Space Limited in his studio. "Everything's Personal," an exhibition of new work by Polenberg, opens on September 6 at Time and Space Limited.
assess a major gift of dozens of properties from the Galvan Foundation, a developer whose footprint and tactics in Hudson have long been both influential and controversial.
The portfolio includes a mix of commercial, residential, and public-use buildings, among them the Hudson Area Library, community spaces, and housing units. The announcement triggered a swift response. Ferris called it “the opportunity for a new chapter in Hudson,” suggesting it could present a chance to align local development with civic partnership rather than private control. At the same time, the Hudson/Catskill Housing Coalition urged an “immediate pause on the transaction until transparent, public conversations take place.”
If it proceeds, Bard will become a major player in Hudson’s physical and civic landscape, inheriting stewardship of some of the city’s most vital community landmarks. As with the waterfront debate, residents are left to wrestle with questions of ownership, influence, and the public good.
Culture with Consequence
Political theater may be fundamental to Hudson’s identity but so too is regular theater, dance, music, and art in all its forms. At Hudson Hall, the historic opera house-turnedcultural hub, the fall season will bring chamber concerts, avant-garde performances, and residencies that merge
art with civic conversation. Down by the dusty docks, Basilica Hudson fills its cavernous space with experimental programming, from the return of SoundScape (September 19-20) to an expanded Farm & Flea (November 21-23) making it as much an arts showcase as a marketplace.
Other spaces, like the gritty and uncompromising Time & Space Limited, keep Hudson’s artistic edge sharp with independent films, radical theater, and public forums. Along Warren Street, galleries such as Carrie Haddad, Susan Eley Fine Art, Turley, Limner, and Front Room present everything from conceptual installations to finely crafted painting and sculpture. Together, these venues, and many others, create a cultural ecosystem where art is never just background decoration, but an active force in shaping the culture.
Creative Commerce and Cuisine
This summer saw the long-awaited reopening of the Hudson Diner, a stainless steel temple to greasy spoon Americana. A collaboration between Ashley Berman of Mel the Bakery and Brent Young of the Meat Hook, the project reclaims a beloved uptown landmark (once the Diamond Street Diner, then Grazin’) with new energy and old-school charm.
“It’s the dream, right?” Berman says. “We wanted to keep that neighborhood feel while adding something beautiful, respectful, and really delicious.”
The menu is hearty, smart, and built on local sourcing. Think Greek-style half chickens, chop steak, grass-fed burgers, fried shrimp, decadent desserts, and cocktails. “We weren’t trying to make it retro. We wanted to make it real,” says Berman, who’s the business half of the Mel the Bakery team with baker Nora Allen. Opening here less than two years ago, Mel has itself already become an addictive, glutinous landmark.
Down by the river, across from the Amtrak train station, Hudson’s vital umbilicus to Manhattan, Kitty’s, has become a staple business as well—a cafe, specialty grocer, and inventive restaurant serving dishes from Vietnamese-coffee glazed crullers to beef cheek ragu.
Choices for fine dining options have never been as robust here as they are now. Swoon Kitchenbar is celebrating its 20th anniversary and still stuns with its seasonal, elegant menus, and Wm. Farmer & Sons, a swanky inn and restaurant, is a style guide for contemporary Hudson’s upscale rustic aesthetic. As is The Maker, with its luxuriously manicured hotel, lounge, restaurant, and gym.
The culinary scene in Hudson is refreshingly diverse, too. Once the new kid in town, after almost 10 years and a couple James Beard Award nominations, Lil’ Deb’s Oasis has become a tropical, queer, performance art shrine to gorgeous gay gastronomy. Little Rico,serves up soulful Puerto Rican classics in approachable and surprisingly healthy ways, and a small wave of high-quality Mexican restaurants including Casa Latina, La Mision, and El Sabor de Oaxaca add traditional, subregional flavors to the mix, providing spaces to celebrate the local hispanic community.
There’s also been a bit of a beer boom in recent years, with four breweries setting up shop. Return Brewing, Upper Depot Brewing Co., Union Street Brewing Co, and Hudson Brewing Company have turned Hudson beer into a cottage industry, each bringing distinctive styles, seasonal releases, and spaces for events.
Hudson’s retail life mirrors its cultural one—historic, creative, and constantly shifting. Longtime fixtures like Lili and Loo, with its worldly homewares, and the ever-eclectic Five and Diamond vintage shop still draw loyal customers and curious newcomers. John Doe Records, run by founder Dan Seward, remains an offbeat, sweaty sanctuary for vinyl obsessives and all the weird, old heads who put Hudson on the map in the first place.
The antiques business that pulled the city out of the economic doldrums post 9/11 still thrives too. Stair Galleries’ high-profile auctions, which have featured estates from Joan Didion to Keith Richards, have long been major events, and stalwarts like Arenskjold Antiques, Neven & Neven Moderne, and the White Whale are just a few of the shops that color the city with both high-style and rusty-rustic patinated ambiance.
Even as demographics shift and rents rise, the blend of oldguard dealers and new-wave entrepreneurs keeps the streetscape as checkered as the city’s history. Here, commerce isn’t just about what’s bought and sold, it’s about what endures.
There is a mythic romantic quality to Hudson that’s hard to define. Even now, as the city appears more civilized than ever, it retains its ungovernable spirit just below the surface. According to the Hudson Wail, “the cracks in the sidewalks aren’t the flaw, they’re the story.”
Top: A perfrormer at the Sankofa Black Arts and Cultural Festival and Parade at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park.
Middle: The patio at Backbar on Warren Street.
Bottom: Neverstill Wines vintner and owner Christy Counts at the Neverstill tasting room on Warren Street.
223 County Route 20, Hudson, NY (818) 980-3166 | salonpf@gmail.com
Fresh-roasted weekly, Hudson Roastery’s nine co ee varietals range from single-origin selections to signature blends. Experience exceptional co ee alongside chef-inspired breakfast and lunch, artisan pastry, and conversations that create great connection.
Pop-Up
by David McIntyre
Hudson
Portraits
Thanks to all who joined us at Creative Legion in Hudson during our residency there in early August.
Join us at Klocke Estate, 2554 County Route 27 in Hudson, on September 9 from 5:30 to 7:30pm for our September issue launch party.
Middle row: James McPartland, sandwich connoisseur and Kelsey Masters, project manager with Phoebe; Myron Polenberg, artist; Aaron Murray
filmmaker and Grace Murray Vazquez, executive vice-president of strategy at Fohr.
Inset: Emel
Opposite: Hilary Jane Gluck, artist.
Top row: Holly Tanner, Columbia County Clerk; Thomas Burke and Christopher Johnstone co-owners of Burkestone Estate; Lauren Tanner, Creative Legion; Matt Trent, lifestyle management and Hudson Home.
Vazquez,
Bottom row: Rabbi Mendel Kremer; Sam Katz, Creative Legion; Michael Ritter, corporate finance; Peter Spear, Future Hudson; Rudy Huston, founding partner of TriHudson Realty and Riverbend Dispensary owner.
Mosley, fitness professional with Tristin Thomas.
Top row: Anneice Cousin, executive director, Beautiful Racket Hudson; Brandon Gamm, self-employed/PRIXEL; Melissa Hougland, partner Creative Legion; Charlie Brassard, Mahar Real Estate; Chad Weckler, artist.
Middle row: Jason Foster, builder; Jessica Wallen, Hudson Development Corporation; Kevin Meehan, owner/operator of Neighbor Running; Jim Denney and Amy Ilias; Gretchen Kelly, artist.
Bottom row: Joe Ferris, Democratic candidate for mayor; Jonathan Lerner, writer; Lily Cordelia, somatic therapist; Louis DeCrosta, L. A. Painting; Luca Pearl Khosrova, Catskill Photo Studio.
Inset: Jason Morrow, president and founder, The Public Option with Kirsten and Jane Morrow.
Opposite: Top row: Tom McGill, artist and gallery owner, Circle 46 Gallery; Alix Becker, grower/owner, Farmstead Hudson Valley.
Bottom row: Jessica Scott, realtor with Lolly; Peter Myers, School Life Media.
Top row: Stella Yoon, executive director, CREATE Council on the Arts; Robert Honeywell, attorney/Claverack Town Board candidate; Bethany Richardson, acupuncturist, founder Enliven Health & Wellness; Shanan Magee, Park Theater Hudson; Sophia Taylor, copywriter/author.
Middle row: Michael Hoy, Camphill Hudson; Kamal Johnson, mayor of the city of Hudson with Asia Johnson; Eric Wolf, artist; Nicole Keegan, owner/instructor at Pilates Hudson and Gary Keegan, cabinet maker with Maeve Keegan; Sarah Dibben, owner Supernatural Coffee and Hudson Sloop Club member.
Bottom row: Tony Machado, architect/designer and Mark Strieter, landscape architect; Christy Counts, owner of Neverstill Wines; Kathleen Vance and Daniel Aycock, directors of Front Room Gallery with Ada Aycock; Cynthia Stephens, writer and Ian Thompson, retired woodwork designer.
Inset: Margaret Morris, Hudson Council Member; Carolyn Keogh, director of Education and Public Programs at The Olana Partnership and Lakshmi Subramanian, AVP of Strategy and Member Experience at UNFCU with George Bailey, professional dog.
Opposite: Lloyd Koedding, Republican candidate for mayor.
Guide to Columbia County
Ensconced by the beauty of the Berkshires and the Catskills, Columbia County is home to rolling farmland and a thriving arts, cultural, and restaurant scene, nourished by easily accessible train and highway routes and the energy of its dynamic county seat in Hudson.
Old Dutch Inn
8 Broad Street, Kinderhook (518) 203-3347
Theolddutchinn.com
Experience unparalleled rural refinement at Old Dutch Inn. With nine king and queen guest rooms, all with ensuite baths featuring marble finishes and select rooms with cast iron soaking tubs, Old Dutch Inn defines Upper Hudson Valley luxury lodging. Named Outstanding Small Property of the Year by the NYS Tourism & Hospitality Association.
Roe Jan Brewing
32 Anthony Street, Hillsdale; (518) 303-8080; Roejanbrewing.com
This beautifully restored historic building is a must-visit, where every detail invites guests to unwind and connect. Enjoy exceptional craft beers that balance tradition and innovation, and savor hearty pub fare made with love in the open kitchen. And don’t miss the weekend lineup of live regional music—the perfect soundtrack to any evening. Whether gathering with friends or family, guests are sure to feel part of something special. Roe Jan Brewing is where craft and community connect! Check out the menu and calendar of events at Roejanbrewing.com. Reservations are accepted for parties of six or more. Call (518) 303-8080 to reserve.
Home Range Winery
146 Flints Crossing Road, Canaan (518) 610-6821
Homerangewinery.com
Open May to November, Home Range Winery takes pride in growing and cultivating sustenance from the land, while also maintaining a scenic and quite idyllic homestead. Handmade, small batch quantities, created with enthusiasm and a little bit of fun, lend to wines they are proud to share with friends.
The Nature Institute
20 May Hill Road, Ghent (518) 672-0116 Natureinstitute.org
Learning new ways of seeing and a deepening experience of nature—that’s what participants can expect from talks, workshops, and trainings dedicated to holistic science in dialogue with nature in the hilly fields and woodlands of Ghent. Check out The Nature Institute’s publications and calendar of events on their website.
Woodlife Farm Market
36 Old Route 20, New Lebanon; (518) 938-1209; Woodlifefarmmarket.com
Located in New Lebanon, Woodlife Farm Market is a vibrant year-round stop for farm-fresh food, local provisions, and family-friendly events. Enjoy sandwiches, salads, and comfort food from the Woodlife Kitchen, plus local beer and spirits. Shop seasonal produce, baked goods, and pantry staples, then unwind outdoors with views of open fields, tranquil ponds, and scenic trails. With live music, BBQs, and community gatherings throughout the year, Woodlife is the perfect place to eat, shop, explore, and connect. Now booking private events and offering custom catering, Woodlife brings fresh flavor and warm hospitality to every occasion.
Bill Arning Exhibitions / Hudson Valley
17 Broad Street, Kinderhook; Billarning.com
Gallerist Bill Arning is known for curating early exhibitions of celebrated artists like Marilyn Minter, Glenn Ligon, Cady Noland, Felix GonzalezTorres, Gary Simmons, Mary Weatherford, and John Currin. Today, BAE’s exhibition program extends the curatorial values of his first exhibitions in 1984 at White Columns, prioritizing the interweaving of work that challenges convention with a respect for the profound positive effects that result from visual pleasure. Actively mixing artists based in the Hudson Valley with sympathetic makers from around the world, BAE has become a cherished go-to gallery for those looking for the most stimulating art being made today.
Nestled on the banks of the Hudson River and former home to indigenous communities, enslaved people, Palatines, and generations of the Livingston family, Clermont welcomes visitors with its sweeping vistas and intriguing, often untold stories. With gentle walking trails, panoramic views of the river and mountains, meticulously restored gardens, and tours of the 250-yearold historic mansion, there is something for everyone in this 500-acre park. Connect with nature on a guided Bird Walk or enjoy the sweet scent of autumn with Forest Bathing. Take a journey into the realm of the unknown with Legends by Candlelight Halloween Ghost Encounters. To plan a fall adventure and learn more about upcoming events visit Friendsofclermont.org
Clarion Concerts in Columbia County
Clarionconcerts.org
68 years strong in the Hudson Valley! Clarion Concerts has been presenting world-class chamber music in the Hudson Valley for nearly 70 years. The Clarion of today is committed to presenting music performed or composed by artists of color. They also provide local students with access to renowned artists and repertoire that span classical masterworks and bold new works. Join them for traditional, as well as boundarybreaking, performances curated by Artistic Director, Melissa White. Check the website for scheduling and tickets.
FilmColumbia 2025
Crandelltheatre.org/filmcolumbia
Every fall, the acclaimed FilmColumbia festival previews the best of soonto-be released domestic and international films for 10 days at Chatham’s historic Crandell Theatre. This year’s 25th anniversary festival runs October 17–26 and will feature 50+ expertly curated films and talkbacks with filmmakers and stars. Best of all, FilmColumbia’s opening day will coincide with the official reopening of a newly renovated and restored Crandell. Avatar: Fire and Ash actor Stephen Lang will be honored at the festival’s storied Kick-Off Party during opening weekend. FC2025 tickets go on sale to the general public on October 11. Crandell members receive advance access to discounted tickets.
FC benefactor Jack Shear, former honoree Director James Ivory, actor Stephen Lang, and FC Co-Executive Director and Co-Artistic Director Peter Biskind.
Photo by Dario Acosta
rural intelligence
Shore Thing
The Cliff House at the Prospect
B y Jamie Larson
The first course at the Cliff House in Egremont is fresh air. As you walk the crushed white stone path, the atmosphere is laced with the smell of nature and the relaxed energy radiating off Prospect Lake, over which the restaurant’s dining room dangles. Not too high up. Just enough to feel like you’re floating through the natural setting—lush green shores and water sparkling like a disco ball in the evening sun.
The Cliff House is a part of Prospect, the new boutique resort with 49 modern Scandinavianstyle cabins, a pool, spa and lakeside activities. Originally built in 1876 as a lake-viewing platform, the structure later transformed into a popular tavern and gathering place before falling into disuse over the last century. Now, following a meticulous restoration led by the founders of Alander Construction, Prospect and the Cliff House make for an arresting destination.
The dining room is a mix of Nordic wooden minimalism and a few plush, floral flourishes. “We want guests to feel connected to the outdoors, but still cozy and well served,” says Lannon Killea, service manager. Naturally finished walls, thick beams, and enormous windows bring the outside in.
But the striking ambiance would all be for naught if not for, what turned out to be, a culinary experience as pleasant and refreshing as the summer breeze. The plant-based appetizers made it
immediately clear Chef Damian Evangelous was speaking to us. And what his dishes had to say was confident and distinct.
The rainbow carrots starter grabbed our attention immediately. Delicate in appearance, the perfectly cooked multicolored gems, under a blanket of pea shoots were elevated to the rafters by an electrifying buttermilk dressing, spiked with the allium richness of nigella seeds ($15).
“The menu is about sharing great local ingredients in an accessible-yet-surprising way,” Killea adds. That philosophy becomes exceedingly clear across the menu.
Killea praised Evangelous and his sharp kitchen crew but was also quick to acknowledge that the quality of the menu and service wouldn’t exist without local hospitality icon Nancy Thomas, cofounder of Mezze Hospitality Group. “Nancy guided the program from day one—she led the design, launched it. It’s her touch you feel in every dish,” he says. With decades of experience building local restaurants and hotel food programs, Killea says Thomas is behind it all.
While the Cliff House speaks, it’s not a treatise. It’s a conversation between the kitchen and the land, led by a team that understands when to “embrace technical cooking” and when to “stay out of the way of really good ingredients,” as Killea put it. Evangelous brings a culinary sensibility shaped by time in the kitchens of Spain’s Basque region,
Northern California, and Boston.
To start, guests are invited to graze on fish croquettes with charred scallion aioli ($7) and toasted rosemary almonds ($8). Small plates let produce shine with understated flair. Along with the carrots, beets and grapes are paired with almonds and salty sheep’s milk ricotta salata ($15) to great effect. Sunderland asparagus—served with hazelnuts, parsnip, and fines herbs ($15)— echoes the restaurant’s mission of letting produce lead protein.
Horseradish-brightened steak tartare with cucumber, dill, creme fraiche, and toast ($19) exemplifies the house style: confident, focused, unfussy. Mains include a striped bass entree served with flageolets, favas, squash, and a standout salsa verde made divine by the surprisingly nutty punctuation of toasted sunflower seeds ($34). For a restaurant that’s only been open a month, the kitchen’s rhythm is already quite sharp. “They’re starting to really have a creative mind meld,” Killea says of the back of house crew. “People are upping each other’s game.”
Roasted chicken from La Belle Farms ($30) arrives with broccolini and a tarragon-leek jus; a vegetarian stroganoff layers Tivoli mushrooms and Swiss chard over black pepper-dressed egg noodles ($29). Spring lamb stew, full of texture and warmth, comes with fregola, cauliflower, and orange ($32), while an eight-ounce Prime New
At the Cliff House in Egremont, plates of vibrant produce-forward fare arrive in a dining room suspended above Prospect Lake. Chef Damian Evangelous’s confident, terroir-driven menu is matched by a Nordic-inspired interior where natural textures and towering windows dissolve the boundary between indoors and out.
York strip with brown beech mushrooms and fingerlings in sauce Diane anchors the menu at $42.
Dessert options are short and sweet: a strawberry-rhubarb almond cake with chantilly ($10), a dark chocolate pudding with burnt cinnamon crunch ($10), and a rotating sorbet ($8).
Killea sees each dish as part of a larger hospitality arc: “It’s the view, the plates, the energy—all curated—and Nancy’s fingerprints are on every part.”
Cliff House’s beverage menu is as thoughtfully curated as its food. “It’s a relatively short list, but everything’s very intentional,” says Killea. “We wanted everything to feel layered and dynamic, even if it’s playful. There’s a subtle throughline to it all, with the setting in mind.”
Signature cocktails include the Cappaletti Spritz—a bright, herbaceous blend of Cappaletti, col fondo sparkling wine, soda, olive, and orange ($16); and the Rhubarb Gimlet, balancing London dry gin, lemon, and housemade rhubarb syrup ($16). The Delores del Rio leans tropical and spicy with passionfruit, tequila, jalapeno, and lime ($16), while the Mezcamaro brings smoky intrigue with mezcal, amaro, and orange bitters ($16).
A robust non-alcoholic list ensures inclusivity, with drinks like The Prospect—a basil seed fizz flavored with citrus oleo and palo santo ($12)— and the Tumerickey, a zesty and earthy tonic of turmeric, pineapple, and lime ($12).
Wines by the glass lean natural and European, including a refreshing Txakoli Rosato from Ameztoi in Spain ($18), and a bright Vermentino from California’s Monte Rio Cellars ($16).
In the Berkshires, a restaurant with a view is not rare—but the Cliff House is. It isn’t a showy stage; it’s a quietly curated retreat where a chef and his team have composed an experience grounded in nature and shaped by people with confident intent.
Rural Intelligence covers the cultural and community life of the Berkshires, Columbia County, northern Dutchess County, and northwest Connecticut, with a focus on arts, food, events, and the people who make the region vibrant, creative and connected. Ruralintellignce.com.
Tapas & Pizza Award Winning Wine List
65 Church Street Lenox, MA 01240
413-637-9171 www.bravalenox.com
Tapas & Pizza Award Winning Wine List 65 Church Street Lenox, MA 01240 413-637-9171 www.bravalenox.com
david sedaris
josh blue
grand opening celebration
pat metheny berserker tour dream box / moondial tour
ann hampton callaway
guy davis, terry a la berry, drag bingo & more!
Great Barrington, MA • 413-528-0100 • mahaiwe.org
Gwen Laster and New Muse 4Tet Keepers of the Flame (Independent)
Evolutionary, entropic improvisation is deployed fluidly on Keepers of the Flame, summoning tonal imagery of almost synesthetic vividness—channeling the grief, loss, and injustice that has relentlessly, insidiously pervaded the African American diaspora and remains, infuriatingly, an inescapable part of the Black American experience and its fabric. Burdened by this oppressive history, Keepers is mournful, even lugubrious at times—with a transcendent arc. Violist Melanie Dyer and cellist Teddy Rankin Parker are cocredited as composers alongside Beacon-based bandleader, composer, and violinist Gwen Laster, forming an imposing triad with riveting support by percussionist Andrew Drury, who swerves intuitively between punctuating, resoundingly primal bass drum and delicately nuanced tom and snare textures and is subtly authoritative throughout. These tracks bleed into each other like movements in a suite: discrete, yet holistically engaged and symphonic. Keepers is laden with bop’s effervescence, but bluegrass seeps into its fabric, too. “Drishti” is a tone poem gone scherzo, a jocular contrast to the somber, contemplative pair of opening tracks. It’s chimeric: at once a strings-enlaced hootenanny, languid hoedown, and freewheeling jam evoking Manhattan’s ’70s loft jazz scene. “Asamondo’s” MENASA-esque exoticism has a sultriness not heard elsewhere on the record. “Shoreline” stills Keepers’s fulminating tumult but also embodies its elusive dichotomies, its measured, hushed outer layers are a barely contained mask for its roiling, agitated essence, which recalls John Cage. Darkly elegiac, its fleeting-yet-pronounced moments of negative space leave room for Laster to enter the frame, murmuring imploringly with an incantatory presence that oscillates between resting comfortably, undulating mellifluously within the music’s contours, and jarring it loose from its moorings.
Overheard Intertwined (Dromedary Records)
Intertwined, the debut album of Kingstonbased indie-rock band Overheard, maintains a quiet intensity. There are moments of thrashing grandeur, such as on the track “Home,” an eerieyet-nostalgic song that begins with a haunting, echoey guitar, but ends in a cacophonous breakdown, putting the “rock” in indie-rock. The opening track “Return” builds from jangly guitar and in-the-pocket drums into a budding crescendo with welling drums from Kenny Hauptman, and introduces Erin BarthDwyer’s voice, full of refined enunciation and soaring, almost operatic vibrato. “Time on a Good Day,” is a rounded electric bass musing dotted with delicate harmonics. A quivering cello and timpani-like drums complete the almost orchestral arrangement. “This Time” digs into a pendulous 6/8 rhythm, glued together with a spidery electric guitar with a Mac DeMarco-like tone. This is not a one-chord rock band: Overheard are all about layered textures, multi-chapter arrangements, and cliffhanger endings tied together with Barth-Dwyer’s classic, wideranging voice. Just when you think she’s hit her top note, she goes higher.
Tristan Geary
—Michael Wiener
Lisa Michelle Anderson Get to Somewhere (Independent)
There’s not a lot of meat on the songs of Berkshires-based Lisa Michelle Anderson’s Get to Somewhere, but since when has that been a prerequisite in pop music? With its county-fair cover art, the disc is unabashedly a summer record, loaded with laidback, country-tinged numbers tailor-made for evenings when the light hangs long in the sky. With tracks like the winking “Goin’ Where Joni Went” and “Devil on My Back,” Somewhere plays like a bantamweight take on Amy Speace’s Songs for Bright Street, albeit without that closet classic’s edgy drive. Anderson’s tendency to sing behind the beat is a delicious artistic move, keeping the listener leaning forward. Gently produced in Western Massachusetts by Johnny Irion, Somewhere boasts, particularly on the title track, instrumentation just right for Anderson’s mellow grooves and softly smoky voice, while his lead guitar adds welcome teeth atop loping rhythms.
—Michael Eck
SOUND CHECK | Rob Norris
Each month we ask a member of the community to tell us what music they’ve been digging.
We have such a great music scene here in the Hudson Valley and I go to lots of shows. Recent standouts are Femi Kuti at Assembly, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp at Opus 40 (a great place for outdoor shows on a summer evening), Mabe Fratti (a revelation for me) at Unicorn Bar, my dear friends the Feelies at the Bearsville Theater, Geese at Tubby’s, and the Jayhawks at the Bearsville Theater.
Being part of the Rosendale Theatre Music Fan Series, I get to see each new music documentary at the theater. I also stream a lot of music documentaries and as of late have really enjoyed Love in Bright Landscapes: The Story of David McComb of the Triffids; From Straight to Bizarre: Zappa, Beefheart, Alice Cooper, LA’s
Lunatic Fringe; Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis; and Have You Got It Yet?: The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd
I am also active with my band the Bongos, who put out two albums this summer: The Shroud of Touring: Live in 1985 and the 31-track 40th-anniversary edition of Beat Hotel. Last, but not least, there’s Bibi and Rob, my duo with my long-time collaborator, singer and guitarist Bibi Farber. We just released our second single, “Smile Transmitter,” to celebrate Bibi’s years as a stilt-walking entertainer!
Rob Norris is the founding bassist of the Bongos and a member of Hudson Valley bands Tulula! and Bibi and Rob. He lives in Accord. Facebook.com/TheBongosOfficial; Rosendaletheatre.org/series/music-fan-series.
In her new poetry collection, Poet Gold goes from crafting an ode to waiting for spring in “this little spring game” one minute and describing how the sound of a van hitting human flesh sounds the same as a bag of chips being crumpled the next. The former Dutchess County Poet Laureate fills pages upon pages with stories of her history with the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that left her wheelchair bound. Still, she persists and insists that the reader do as well. “I’m going to ask of you/to be poetry,” she says, before turning her life into just that.
Including the Periphery: Personal Essays
Roselee Blooston
APPRENTICE HOUSE PRESS, 2025, $20
This kaleidoscopic collection of essays documents Blooston’s puberty, career, loss, friendship, health, and dating. A teacher from Red Hook, Blooston begins her collection with her early childhood, then dwells on the death of her husband before delving into life on her own.
“The W Word,” chronicles her complicated relationship with the word “widow.” She writes about how much she despised being the widow after her husband’s death, hating to use the word but never finding a proper substitute for it. But, as years pass, she begins to reckon with being the widow, and even to embrace it. Each essay follows a similar narrative: a discussion of her hardships, and a triumphant ending in which she overcomes them.
Aftermath
Jeffrey Milstein
JEFFREY MILSTEIN, 2025, $65
In January of this year, while fires burned in Los Angeles, acclaimed Kingston photographer Jeffrey Milstein seized the chance to turn the tragedy into something greater: a book showing the emotional and immediate impact of climate change. The second the fires were extinguished, Milstein found himself in a helicopter, doors removed, photographing aerial shots of the affected sites of Eaton/ Altadena, Palisades, and Malibu. His close-up shots reveal the true tragedy of the fires: houses burned, toys left behind, and barbecues charred mid-family cookout. The end of the book features side-by-side photos, taken a year apart, showing how these fires, and the climate crisis that caused them, changed these beloved neighborhoods.
Reluctant Flirt
Jennifer Probst BLUE BOX PRESS, 2025, $19.44
In Hudson Valley resident Jennifer Probst’s new romance novel, love and duty come head to head. Desperate for an escape after discovering her husband’s affair, Sierra Lourde heads to New York City and spends one drunken night with the handsome Kane Masterson. The morning after, Sierra flees for the Outer Banks, where, over time, she reinvents herself as the owner of Flirt, a trendy boutique. However, a developer with plans to bulldoze her boutique’s building soon threatens her newfound peace. And there’s another catch. The developer is the same man she left behind in New York. Now, Kane has to make a decision: Save his career by going through with the project, or risk everything for another chance at love with Sierra.
Foreclosure Gothic
Harris Lahti
ASTRA HOUSE BOOKS, 2025, $26
The modern-day Hudson Valley gets an American Gothic makeover in Warwick author Harris Lahti’s debut novel. Disillusioned ex-Hollywood actor Vic Greener leaves behind his dreams after falling headfirst for the elusive Heather Roswell and heads to the Hudson Valley to follow in his father’s footsteps: flipping foreclosed houses. The novel blends reality and destabilization. When visiting a house known as the Painted Lady, Vic’s son Junior swears that he saw a random old lady in a room. “A mosaic of wrinkles and fear. Dead, but still alive, this woman,” he says. A provocative insight into the American Dream, the novel tells the story of three generations of men, with unsettling black-and-white photographs strewn between the pages.
—Abilene Adelman
Our Last Resort Clemence Michallon
ALFRED A. KNOPF, 2025, $29
Frida has booked a suite at an upscale resort in the Utah desert to spend some time reconnecting with her mildly estranged brother Gabriel. We first meet her in the wee hours of the morning, contemplating the delight of her surroundings as she slips out for a late-night cigarette on the private patio, and she immediately lets us know that joy is not her typical state of mind.
Frida is an anxiety-ridden wreck, in fact, for all sorts of reasons that will become excruciatingly clear. But in this one post-midnight moment, she dares to drink in her sleeping sibling’s presence and the elegance of their surroundings with something approaching relish—which is shattered, before she’s even had a chance to get a second drag on her smoke, by the realization that she’s not alone. Two of their fellow guests, a wealthy older man and his trophy wife, are caught up in an intense conversation just out of sight.
Instead of ignoring the situation, as some might, Frida butts out her cigarette and scoots out the door of the suite to get closer to the couple, eavesdropping on what turns out to be their argument. She’s already noticed that things aren’t easy between the couple and is compelled to learn a bit more.
Odd? Our narrator is decidedly odd. But as we soon learn, she has her reasons for that. Raised in a cult led by a narcissistic French-born sociopath, she grew up knowing only a tissue of lies and a spider web of restrictions all fashioned to allow one man absolute dominance over the people who live with him on the decaying campus of a former boarding school in an unspecified Hudson Valley town. No one knows who their birth parents are, no one leaves the compound except Emile, and life revolves around his bizarre teachings and rigid rules: beige homemade uniforms, bland vegetarian meals, adults as an undifferentiated class of mothers and another of fathers, and Emile’s long-winded lectures about the sins and danger of the World Out There.
The man she considers her brother is a fellow survivor; they first met trapped in an isolation closet as punishment, clung together after that for comfort, and would eventually find a way out together. Unsurprisingly, it’s been a rocky road, but Frida has a gift for math and Gabriel is an avid student of history and they’ve both managed to cobble together adult lives.
Now, in Utah, they’ve come together to discuss his decision to participate in a documentary about the cult. But when the trophy wife is brutally murdered and the wealthy older man manages to deflect suspicion onto Gabriel, any chance they might have had to sort that issue out is eclipsed by the drama of the moment.
Little by little, Michallon raises the curtain on Frida and Gabriel’s intensely challenging childhood, on what they had to do to survive, to escape, and then to navigate New York City as absolute novices. We come to understand how Frida has imposed a civilized veneer over her feral inner self. The police would much rather pin Trophy Wife’s death on nerdish Gabriel, with his murky past, than try to convict her wealthy, powerful widower.
Gabriel’s behavior has been odd, leaving Frida with unanswered questions about how well she truly knows him, yet she is quite sure that Powerful Widower and not her chosen sibling was the one who bashed Samantha’s head in with a rock. Can she prove it? It’s a problem that will demand all of her feral toughness and hard-won knowledge of human nature.
Meanwhile, Frida has secrets of her own, and is emotionally treading water on the surface of a rough sea indeed. Living in her head will never be easy, and Michallon, a Rhinebeck resident, brings us into that claustrophobic reality and lets us empathize—only to stun with a revelation darker than we ever expected. Desperate people do desperate things, after all.
Stylishly written, replete with sensory detail that brings both posh resort and grubby cult compound to vivid life, Our Last Resort is the sort of book that raises all sorts of unanswerable questions that transcend the outlines of its plot, compelling and fun to read. One might have passed Frida on the wide sidewalks of the avenue, in the restaurant foyer, and never have guessed the secrets of her heart—rendering them comprehensible is a feat that elevates Our Last Resort beyond the bounds of an ordinary thriller into a vivid and unsettling character study.
—Anne Pyburn Craig
Dialogue
Child: Does the moon have a bed?
Mama: The sky is the moon’s bed.
Child: Do you know what the best thing is about Earth?
Mama: No, what is it?
Child: It has delicious toast.
—Zalman Malone (4 years)
This Summer
This summer was even funner, Family and friends, Sales and all, ching ching down the hall! New clothes, new friends, they’re all 10s, Actually can’t wait to walk down those Edson halls, Oldest kids in the school, it’ll be so cool, But, back to summer…every year it gets even funner.
—Mariam Amalia Shepherd (9 years)
Drinking with John Doe and the detective, he’s my friend, closest thing I have to family. Invites me over for Thanksgiving, barbecues. His kids call me Uncle John— yup, they really do. It’s my legal name ’til I’m found—if I’m found.
“Don’t you ever—” Wonder? Who I am? That bothers other people more’n it bothers me. When you got no past, you don’t waste worry on the future either. You’re assuming I used to be somebody, that eventually I’ll be somebody again. Maybe that ain’t true.
“But everyone is somebody.” Not me. I’m Nobody. Like that poem, with the frog. You know it? Well, there we go. You think you’re somebody, but you’re at same bar as Nobody, and he knows a poem you ain’t ever even heard.
—Emily Murnane
Crabapples
On my way to check my tender corn, and pick suggestive raspberries, heavy-hanging crabapples bonk me in the head with billiard ball fruit.
Ouch! Out of my way, Things-Bigger-ThanI-Imagined! I planted quiet, slender, stately maypoles, but Ow! your grabby, laden branches conk me. Quit it, ya big bruisers! Third thunk knocks in sense. Why curse what likes it here? Obstacles themselves bear fruit.
—Irene O’Garden
Figurehead
I positioned myself to lead the way
But when the time came I found myself hardened, inflexible Unable, perhaps unwilling, to change my direction or anyone else’s
As the rocks loom closer with each passing day.
—Elise Bruce-Grey
The Sound of Fire
They stand in a line—thirty-seven people in all
At the front, the husband-father looks down and off to his left
His wife’s oldest friend stands stooped-over at the end of the line
Neck craned—she waits for a sign
At the top of the hour, his vigil over
The husband father turns, and his ghost-smile catches her eye.
High on her toes she reaches for the shoulder of the teenage boy ahead of her Then his hand moves to the shoulder of his married sister
Sister’s falls gentle on the worn coat of the oldest man in the line. He lifts his wrinkled fingers to the shoulder of his great-niece
And so it goes until at last the youngest brother moves his hand with three missing fingers to the shoulder of his brother-in-law
Feeling the familiar claw he mines a deep breath, leans forward, exhales, and pushes the button
The sound of fire is loud in the room
The body of his wife, mother of their children is conveyered into the flames Wrapped in the shroud she embroidered for the occasion
In a shower of late afternoon light falling from the clerestory windows, her body is made ash and some of it rushes up the chimney
One with the wind
One with the light
One with the now approaching night
They say goodbye on the street and scatter in the near dark Though one among them is missing
When something’s lost and something’s gained Love is in the balance
—Jim Savio
The End
If this is it, then we are here together. This may not seem like great solace. It is.
—Alan Silverman
The Punisher
I see him in the rearview mirror coercing the safe distance left between the cars. The two-lane highway is congested for miles but he’s determined to force his way.
He weaves between us switching from the slow and fast lane grabbing any opportunity to advance his agenda. We’re all moving at the same pace but this man needs to fly.
He’s made his way behind me now in the left lane and drives so close that if I stopped, we’d collide. There’s room for him to pass if I pull up a bit. Instead, I keep pace with the car next to me.
He’s flashing his headlights but I remain cool and let him stew for a bit. I see him in my mirror getting angrier, waving his arms. After a moment, I move ahead so he can pass.
He jolts to the next lane, back to mine, then he’s in front of me. His rear window is decaled with a menacing skull, its jaw melting into a vertical American flag, stripes stripped of any color.
Minutes later he’s pressed his way ahead without resistance and I can see him approaching the source of our delay: an accident. My lane begins to move at a faster pace while his crawls.
I approach him stuck in his lane. He looks at me, fury hard on his face. I give him a thumbs up. Then a wink. You win, I mouth and move forward.
—Robert P. Langdon
AMC
Swimming in the placid lake. Judging the loud city kid. He takes out a knife.
The offering.
A large slice of watermelon.
The sweetness of summer. The harshness of judgement.
—Terri Kayden
after summer break the slowest day of classes empty swimming hole
—Jennifer Howse
Mosh Pit
Self conscious at the show, standing in the wrong kind of combat boots,
I met Nicky at the door.
We hung out a lot that year
In part because we both suspected each others’ fathers beat them too.
Pushing our way to the front
Wanting to punch harder with each passing song
And wanting to be hit as well
Again
But this time on purpose
Only knowing how to join games of pain
But also longing to dance
Like we’d seen our sisters do at sleepovers
Touching without a thought lost to sex or lustsuch a clean thing really—
Clean being foreign to us.
Nick took an elbow to the nose
And so we left the pit
With blood streaming down both his nostrils
Dripping down into the biggest grin you ever saw
I might have thought then
“How beautiful he looks now!”
Platonic conquering hero all bruisable flesh and blood like mine
But we both spit and swore instead.
After school we never bothered to keep in touch
Slow learners
Hopeless when it came to making friendship last or dancing without violence
And still waiting for a wiser brother, A manual or morning star
To show us how.
—Billy Internicola
Tearing
I laugh
I cry
I yell
I shout
I get angry
I wipe the tears off my eyes
Then I walk off my anxieties
I go back to my desk
And write with no order or sense
Then I erase and add
Add and erase
You might end up reading it and wipe the tears off your eyes
I’m sorry
It’s just my writing
Not my doing
—Ze’ev Willy Neumann
Late June, After Dark
Our field is ablaze with the fireworks of fireflies.
Our children awake late, still fighting, reading, almost sleeping.
And you— surrounded by city streets, masked attendants, poison pumped into your bloodstream at regular intervals, steady stream of steroids, visitors, virtual phone calls.
You— who just last week whacked weeds, roller-skied, ran intervals while running with me.
Grass grows long, children are fed haphazardly, gratuitously.
They swim, finish school, read, play, build, argue.
We visit you and miss you.
—Veronica O’Keefe Ruoff
peonies in bloom heads almost touching the ground the weight of beauty
—John Kiersten
The Doctor Is In “BECOMING DR. RUTH” AT SHADOWLANDS STAGES IN ELLENVILLE September 19-October 5 Shadowlandstages.org
“She had no inhibitions,” Mark St. Germain says of Dr. Ruth Westheimer. He should know; he wrote “Becoming Dr. Ruth” after many conversations with the renowned sexologist. The play will be at Shadowlands Stages in Ellenville September 19 through October 5. Dr. Ruth lived at least five lives: a child in Nazi Germany, a youth in England, a sniper in Israel, an immigrant in the US, a world-famous sex expert. Of her frank sexual advice, she said: “I can get away with it because I sound like a combination of your grandmother and Sigmund Freud.” The puritanical American mind, it turns out, could only be assuaged by a German-accented, diminutive doctor in her 50s.
Born Karola Ruth Siegel in Wiesenfeld, Germany, in 1928, she left Germany on the Kindertransport when she was 10 years old, part of a massive evacuation bringing children under Nazi rule to Great Britain. She never saw her family again; they all perished in the Holocaust. At the age of 17, Dr. Ruth emigrated to Israel, where she joined the radical Haganah and trained as a
sharpshooter. She was wounded by an exploding shell in the Palestine War of 1947-1949, and almost lost both feet. She came to the US in 1956.
Dr. Ruth had the entrepreneurial talent to find a niche that was unfilled in the United States—though her doctorate was in education, not human sexuality or psychology. She came to prominence in the 1980s with the radio call-in show “Sexually Speaking,” which originated out of WYNY in New York City and quickly drew a national following. When you’ve looked death in the face, human sexuality is not so frightening.
As a result, Dr. Ruth became an `80s celebrity, like Lionel Richie and Rodney Dangerfield.
St. Germain, a resident of Great Barrington, Massachsusetts, has written plays on a number of historical figures: Eleanor Roosevelt, Typhoid Mary, and Homer and Langley Collyer (perhaps the world’s most famous hoarders).
This play grew organically out of a previous work, “Freud’s Last Session.” (That play was made into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Sigmund Freud in 2023.)
Dr. Ruth loved “Freud’s Last Session” when it played off Broadway in 2010, and saw it three times. Backstage, she spoke to the actor who played Freud, Martin Rayner. After hearing her story, Rayner encouraged St. Germain to write a play about the celebrated sex therapist. At first Dr. Ruth discouraged him, so the playwright called her and left a message: “I would never do anything without your participation, so don’t worry about it.” Soon afterwards, he received a message from Dr. Ruth: “Come for coffee tomorrow, 9 o’clock.”
The next morning, after they began speaking, the doctor brought out a pile of books she’d written. “Does this mean we’re doing the play?” St. Germain asked.
“Oh, yes,” Dr. Ruth casually replied.
The playwright read two autobiographies, All in a Lifetime and Musically Speaking: A Life Through Song, and consulted with Dr. Ruth about factual details. “So I finished the play, and I brought it to her house,” St. Germain recounts, “and we were sitting in her kitchen, and she said, ‘Okay, read it to me.’”
“I said, ’I’m not an actor. I’ll bring in an actress.’ ‘No, you read it.’”
He read the entire script, and she made two small corrections, then gave the work her blessing.
This one-woman play is set in Dr. Ruth’s apartment in the German-Jewish enclave of Washington Heights. It’s structured as an intimate monologue with Dr. Ruth packing up belongings and reminiscing about formative moments in her personal and professional life. It’s warm, humorous, and poignant—balancing Dr. Ruth’s trademark frankness about sexuality with deeply moving reflections on resilience and loss. The Shadowland Stages production stars Anne O'Sullivan as Dr. Ruth and is directed by Stephen Nachamie.
"Becoming Dr. Ruth" premiered at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 2012, and has been revived many times since.
St. Germain and Dr. Ruth remained friends; he saw her a few days before she died, last year.
Anne O'Sullivan as Dr. Ruth in a Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park production of "Becoming Dr. Ruth."
Photo: Mikki Schaffner, courtesy of Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park
Amped Up
BASILICA SOUNDSCAPE
CELEBRATES 10 YEARS
September 19-20 Basilicahudson.org
This year marks two milestones for Basilica Hudson: 15 years since the venue’s founding and the 10th anniversary of its signature music festival, Basilica SoundScape, which will return to the waterfront location with a stacked lineup of acts whose artistic accents lean dark, heavy, and creatively challenging.
“I met [Basilica Hudson co-owners] Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone at an event that I was putting on in New York,” recalls SoundScape cocurator Brandon Stousy. “They’d taken over Basilica a few years before, and we struck on the idea of putting on a festival there. Tony really wanted heavy music [to be featured], which I was very much into as well. So in 2013 we did the first one, which was a little tense because we had a late start on organizing it. But we pulled it off, and it went really
well. In the middle of it, a friend of mine turned to me and said, ‘You know, this could really become a thing.’ And it really has, even though of course we lost two years in there when we had to put it on hold because of Covid.”
With its mix of black metal, dark hip hop, ambient, minimalist experimental folk, “reconfigured ’90s dance music,” goth-wave electronica, punk, and other styles, Soundscape’s programming aesthetic is a perfect fit for the shadowy, cavernous environment of Basilica Hudson, an 18,000-square-foot former foundry built in the 1880s. This installment’s roster includes returning faves Deafheaven along with the intriguing firsttimers Billy Woods, Fcukers, Vines, Ho99o9, Maria Sommerville, Soul Blind, Sloppy Jane, Sigrid Lauren and Katelyn Reece Farstad, Yatta, Tiny Vipers, Lucky Break, Nuxx, and Katzin. Assisting Stousy, Stone, and Auf der Maur with the artist-selection process this year is guest curator David Castillo, the former booking agent of Brooklyn nightclub Saint Vitus.
“We try to base the running order on what we feel will work the best in terms of the musical flow, and sometimes it works out that the best-known band is the last one to play on a given night [Fcukers will close the evening on September 19; Deafheaven will finish out September 20],” explains Stousy, a former Pitchfork
staff writer turned cofounder and editor in chief of web journal The Creative Independent. “But the angle of SoundScape is non-hierarchical. We want to be different than festivals like Coachella, where the poster has a few big names at the top and, underneath those, all these other names in tiny print that are hard to even read. And we don’t have a situation where’s there’s competing stages and you have to try to tune out one band while they’re playing in order to hear the one you’re trying to watch.”
Despite its sonically slanted name and first-andforemost focus on music, SoundScape encompasses more than its auditory offerings alone. Visual art, craft food and beverages, zine sellers, and other vendors are also part of the scene, as is night two’s “Readers in the Rafters” segment curated by author Jenn Pelly (NPR, Pitchfork ).
“Our aim with SoundScape is for it to be a place of community,” says Stousy. “For the people who attend to see that discovery is still possible, that they don’t have to rely on algorithms to get their music.”
Tickets are $67.98 for each night or $113.30 for a fullweekend pass. See website for more information.
—Peter Aaron
Deafheaven play Basilica Soundscape on September 20.
Photo: Grywnn
chamber pop
Mum plays Hudson Hall on September 20.
Big Star Quintet
September 5-6 at the Bearsville Theater in Bearsville
After, arguably, the Velvet Underground and the Ramones, Big Star is the foremost example of a band that’s proven far more influential in their afterlife than when they were together. Ignored during their early 1970s existence, the Memphis group pioneered power pop across three sublime studio albums. Founding singer and guitarists Alex Chilton and Chris Bell and bassist Andy Hummell are all gone, but drummer Jody Stephens is keeping the Star shining with this project, which features members of Wilco, the dB’s, and the Posies. (Alejandro Escovedo rocks September 11; Devendra Banhart visits September 12) 7pm. $59.65$91.65.
Arkai
September 7 at the Colony in Woodstock
The Grammy-winning electro-acoustic duo Arkai has played the Met, Carnegie Hall, the Troubadour, and Barbican Centre, and other top venues around the world, appearing with pianist and band leader Jon Batiste and superstar violinist Lindsey Stirling and recording with piano sensation Tony Ann and the Steve Miller Band. Comprised of two Julliard graduates, violinist Jonathan Miron and cellist Philip Sheegog, the genre-straddling twosome advocates strongly for music education in schools and for social causes. (Bruce Molsky picks September 13; Jenna Nicholls ups her new album September 19.) 7pm. $17.46.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
September 13 at Assembly in Kingston
Back to deliver the perfect soundtrack for the revolution, the massive Montreal instrumental chamber rock ensemble returns on its Fall Liberation Tour. “The band has never had a website or social media accounts,” says the manifesto. “It has never made a video. Few rock bands in our 21st century have been as steadfast in trying to let the work speak for itself and maintaining simple rules about minimizing participation in cultures of personality, exposure, access, commodification or cooptation.” Epic it will be. (Castle Rat rips September 4; the Budos Band bumps September 20.) 8pm. $59.55, $65.
Cowboy Junkies
September 19 at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie
When Toronto’s Cowboy Junkies formed in 1985, they developed their signature low-key sound after noise complaints from neighbors brought the police to their garage rehearsal space. “We realized we had to tone down,” says guitarist Michael Timmins. “We began to realize, if we can get down underneath Margo [Timmins, vocalist], the sound will be more effective. We learned to play with less volume.” Three years later, they struck it big with their second album, The Trinity Sessions, and its hit version of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane.” The band’s current tour celebrates their 40th anniversary. 8pm. $49.85$72.40.
Mum
September 20 at Hudson Hall in Hudson Mum makes music that mirrors the landscape of their Icelandic home: stark, aching, windswept chamber pop with a light wash of experimental electronica. Formed in 1997, the band just released their eighth album, History of Silence, and has collaborated with Kylie Minogue, Hauschka, and Brian Eno. The sextet’s (drums, acoustic and electric guitars, cello, keyboards, electronics, bass, trumpet) atmosphere-evoking sound has elicited numerous commissions from international orchestras and festivals, as well as theater and film scores. With Mice Parade. (The Abeo Quartet appears September 14; the Hudson Jazz Festival jams October 3-5.) 7pm. $25.
Bartees Strange
September 29 at Autocamp Catskills in Saugerties
The eclectic style of Bartees Strange reflects his nomadic background: Born in the UK to an opera-singer mother and a military father, he was raised in Oklahoma and moved first to Brooklyn, then to Washington, DC. After a spell with post-hardcore band Stay Inside, he cut a pair of self-released EPs before officially debuting with 2020’s locally recorded Live Forever. In 2022 Strange, whose approach mixes indie, electronica, hip-hop, folk, and pop, signed with the influential 4AD label for the acclaimed Farm to Table, which has been hailed for its diverse sound and lyrical depth. 6:30pm. $46.70.
—Peter Aaron
Icelandic
sextet
When Dance Broke Free
“ISADORA DUNCAN IN THE THEATER OF LOVE AND WAR" AT THE WOODSTOCK PLAYHOUSE
September 6 at 7pm Woodstockplayhouse.org
Anyone who has had the slightest bit of dance training (except for Indigenous or ballet), owes American doyenne of dance Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) a debt of gratitude, as it was her pioneering in the art of movement that led to all the modern, jazz, Broadway show, and pop dances that have been created since the 1920s.
Duncan was the first to (literally) let her hair down and cast off the shackles of corsets and high-laced boots on dancing bodies. She danced barelegged and barefoot, wrapped in flowing diaphanous fabrics which prompted her style of freed movement (sometimes scandalous to American audiences), which led to dancing in leotards, tights, and naked skin.
Duncan also studied her own body in mirrors as it moved to the depths we know of today as physiology and kinesiology. What she discovered led her to ways of breaking from restrictive movement to organically developing a physical authenticity never seen before. Duncan’s style, however, stirred such criticism she decided to uproot to where she knew her groundbreaking approach would be better received—Europe, Russia,
Scandinavia, South America, and Egypt.
Later anointed as the “Mother of Modern Dance,” Duncan gave birth to 20th- and 21st-century choreographers as varied in style as Merce Cunningham, Gene Kelly, Martha Graham, Bob Fosse, and Andy Blankenbuehler, whose styles never could have been created if she hadn’t broken the mold of dance.
Choreographers Paul Taylor, Jose Limon, and Bill T. Jones, among others have paid homage to her in various ways, the best known perhaps is Maurice Bejart’s solo “Isadora” for the Bolshoi’s Prima Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya.
As Duncan lived and performed throughout the world, she studied local historical art forms, incorporating some of their essences into her art. She was accepted and feted by prominent people who enabled her financially to create schools of dance for children, who sometimes performed with her. Though not legally adopted, some of Duncan’s dance students took her name and relocated with her when she moved back to the US in 1914 at the onset of World War I, which affected her profoundly. Duncan wove her anger, and resistance to what was happening politically (poor conditions in Russia, violence spreading in several of the countries she had lived in), into choreography and oral proclamations, ultimately giving away her school in France to be used as a hospital for the wounded, even urging Americans to stand up against the war
and help “save Europe from itself.” Perhaps the best known among her acts of resistance was her fiery choreography set to “La Marseillaise.”
“Isadora Duncan in the Theater of Love and War,” created by Jeanne Bresciani, PhD, artist-inresidence and director of education at the Isadora Duncan International Institute (IDII), explores themes of exile, resilience, and sanctuary through nature-based coming-of-age journeys. The program includes a reconstruction of Duncan’s most celebrated choreography—set to excerpts from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony—interwoven with original works by Bresciani inspired by Duncan’s style and set to classical and contemporary music. Archival photographs will be projected throughout the performance, evoking Duncan’s life and times. The cast includes both youth and adult graduates of the IDII, a company that has performed across the US and Europe. IDII was founded by "adopted" daughter Maria-Theresa Duncan and dance historian Kay Bardsley in 1977. The Institute also offers classes in Duncan’s technique in both New York City and the Hudson Valley, all taught by Bresciani.
The Woodstock Playhouse is a fitting venue for its premiere due to the years Duncan spent in the area after returning to the US.
Tickets to “Isadora Duncan in the Theater of Love and War” are $19 for adults and $14 for seniors and children under 12.
—Maya Horowitz
Isadora Duncan International Institute Dancers at Mills Mansion at the Staatsburgh State Historic Site. Photo: Maggie Salamone.
Shorts Galore
September 5 at Maverick Concert Hall, Woodstock
A comic torrent of brevity and wit floods Maverick Concert Hall as Actors & Writers, plus a constellation of friends, unleash “Shorts Galore”—an evening of quickhit theater from some of the Hudson Valley’s sharpest pens. Laura Shaine Cunningham, Davis Hall, Mikhail Horowitz, Adam LeFevre, Nicole Quinn, Nina Shengold, Mark St. Germain, Lori Wilner, and more serve up miniature worlds packed with punchlines, absurdities, and human truths. Each short play is its own amusebouche of character and conflict, performed by the authors themselves and fellow conspirators. Admission is by donation. 6:30pm.
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley
September 10 at the Rosendale Theatre
This intimate screening invites you into the hauntingly beautiful world of singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley (1966-1997) through It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a documentary by Amy Berg that’s been a decade in the making. Featuring rare archival footage, voice messages, and deeply personal interviews—with his mother, former partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, and musical collaborators—the film uncovers the man behind the myth: brilliant, conflicted, and endlessly moving. From the soaring heights of Grace to his unfinished second album, Buckley’s music remains a touchstone for passion and vulnerability. This cinematic tribute captures both his meteoric rise and the enduring spell his songs continue to cast on listeners worldwide. 7pm.
Elizabeth Gilbert: All the Way to the River
September 10 at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie Celebrate the arrival of Elizabeth Gilbert’s deeply personal new memoir, All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, with an evening of conversation and commemoration at the Bardavon in partnership with Oblong Books. Gilbert—author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic—will explore how grief, addiction, and heartbreak became the crucible for healing and spiritual rebirth. Tickets include a copy of the memoir, her first nonfiction work in a decade, and an invitation to witness a storyteller unspooling the most tender, fiercely honest chapters yet. 7pm.
“Julius Caesar” on Bannerman Island
September 11-13
Shakespeare meets Hudson River romance this September, as Hudson Valley Shakespeare transports “Julius Caesar”—directed by Raz Golden and performed by seven actors from its Conservatory Company—to the crumbling grandeur of Bannerman Island. In a brisk, physically charged staging, this political thriller unspools amid ancient ruins and river vistas, interrogating loyalty, ambition, and betrayal with vivid immediacy. At just under 90 minutes, the production is as swift as the boat ride from Beacon. It’s theater not only watched but felt—set within history, on a stage of stone and sky. 6:30pm.
Rhinebeck Porchfest
September 13 in Rhinebeck
On this free, family-friendly Saturday, the village’s porches, lawns, and sidewalks transform into stages in a joyous procession of live music—folk, jazz, rock, singer-songwriters, and more. Wander charming streets as local musicians perform on front steps and lawns. Food trucks, vendors, and neighbors converge in a celebration of sound and community spirit, all in support of the Rhinebeck Park Fund’s Thomas Thompson–Sally Mazzarella Park enhancements. Rain or shine, this day invites you to stroll, listen, and belong. 11am-7pm.
A Life in Song: Tribute to Bill Vanaver
September 14 at UPAC, Kingston
A heartfelt celebration of Bill Vanaver—visionary musician, folklorist, and beloved cofounder of the Vanaver Caravan—unfolds at UPAC. Joining the Caravan’s dancers and youth ensembles, an
The New York Renaissance Faire is an immersive, 16th centurythemed festival where the cast and most guests dress to theme. Courtesy of Sheridan Sechter
extraordinary lineup of friends and collaborators— including Natalie Merchant, Tom Chapin, Guy Davis, David Amram, Tony Trishka, Cole Quest and The City Pickers, Brenda Bufalino, Professor Louie, and others—offer stories, song, and dance in honor of a life spent weaving global traditions into the fabric of community and joy. Proceeds support the Bill Vanaver Memorial Fund, ensuring the music and mentorship he championed continue to resonate.
Greater Mysteries
September 26-27 at Widow Jane Mine in Rosendale
An immersive, sonic rite unspools as Emmy-nominated composer Kelli Scarr unveils Greater Mysteries, a live music project inspired by the mythic descent of Inanna and the ancient Eleusinian initiations. Equal parts concert and ceremony, this living myth transfigures audience and performer into ritual participants, guided through transformation by voice, live instrumentation, and evocative improvisation. Born in a Cretan residency and shaped by Iceland’s raw landscapes, the project bypasses conventional music-industry norms in favor of intuition, experimentation, and sacred exchange. Greater Mysteries invites you not merely to listen, but to journey. 6pm.
Saving Real Organic: Antitrust and Food
September 27 at Churchtown Dairy in Hudson
This one-day gathering unfolds in the storied Round Barn at Churchtown Dairy, drawing thinkers and farmers into a spirited dialogue on reclaiming our food system. TED-style talks by Marion Nestle, Jean-Martin Fortier, Zephyr Teachout, Austin Frerick, and Eliot Coleman explore antitrust, regulatory capture, and the small-farm renaissance. Real Organic farmers Hugh Kent, Emily Oakley, Dave Chapman, and Linley Dixon share their grounded stories. Mid-morning breakout sessions—from PFAS hazards to berry pesticides—unlock conversation. Organic lunch and a walking tour deepen the soil-to-table connection. This isn’t just a conference—it’s a call to farm with integrity. 9am-4pm.
Hudson Valley Garlic Festival
September 27-28 at Cantine Field in Saugerties
A weekend-long celebration of the humble yet heroic garlic—the “stinking rose”—this festival, presented by the Kiwanis Club of Saugerties, turns the village into a fragrant playground of taste and tradition. Expect gourmet garlic at the bustling marketplace, garlic-kissed dishes from sausages to ice cream, chef demos, and
music that bounces from bluegrass to ragtime. Kids can revel in crafts and climbing walls; artists vie for your vote in the poster contest. Proceeds support Kiwanis scholarships, youth programs, and local charities, making this annual harvest party as generous in spirit as it is bold in flavor. 10am-5pm.
Newburgh
Open Studios
September 27-28
This annual, two-day pilgrimage into the heart of Newburgh’s artistic ecosystem invites you behind the studio doors of painters, makers, and visionaries who infuse humble spaces with creativity and craft. Wander historic buildings and unconventional galleries, pause before pop-up exhibitions, and engage directly with artists—unfiltered, untitled, uncommonly alive. Now in its 15th year and dedicated to cofounder Gerardo Castro, the tour pulses with optimism, discovery, and the quiet power of place—one studio, one story, one encounter at a time. 12-6pm.
Oldster Magazine Variety Hour
October 1 at Unicorn Bar, Kingston
Writer and editor Sari Botton celebrates the eve of her 60th birthday with the inaugural “Oldster Magazine Variety Hour,” a live spin-off of her wry, wide-ranging online magazine exploring how we move through time in our ever-changing bodies. The night’s theme, “What I Did for Love,” unfolds through readings, music, and storytelling from Amy Rigby, Chris Wells, Carolita Johnson, Joan Juliet Buck, and Francesca Hoffman. Expect wit, warmth, and a reminder that everyone, at every age, is the oldest they’ve ever been. 8pm.
New York Renaissance Faire
Through October 5 in Tuxedo Park
Step through the gates of the 16th century in Sterling Forest for the 48th annual New York Renaissance Faire. Across 65 forested acres, 20 stages spring to life with jousting knights, mischievous fairies, roving pirates, acrobats, and storytellers. Wander artisan stalls— brimming with handmade armor, glassware, flower crowns, and leathercraft—while lively entertainments swirl around you. Beloved traditions—pub crawls, themed weekends, and culinary indulgences—invite you deeper into the revelry. It’s not just a festival, but an immersive flicker of pre-modern wonder, where the past stirs, the present delights, and fantasy rules.
—Brian K. Mahoney
68 PRINCE STREET GALLERY
68 PRINCE STREET, KINGSTON
“A Break in the Clouds.” Work by Donald Elder, Stuart Farmery, Murray Hochman, Joel Longnecker, Paul Marrocco, and Stephen Niccolls. Through September 28.
1049 SAMSONVILLE ROAD
1049 SAMSONVILLE ROAD, KERHONKSON
“Faraday Cage.” RAE BK’s immersive wholehouse installation. Through November 30.
1053 GALLERY
1053 MAIN STREET, FLEISCHMANNS
“Terraphilia.” Work by Christie Scheele and Lisa Lebofsky. September 13-October 19.
ALBANY INSTITUTE OF HISTORY & ART
125 WASHINGTON AVENUE, ALBANY
“On the Road to Cragsmoor with Charles Courtney Curran.” Through October 13.
“For Liberation and For Life: The Legacy of Black Dimensions in Art.” Group exhibition celebrating volunteer-led group of creatives and activists founded in Schenectady in 1975. Through December 31.
“Jacob Lawrence: Three Series of Prints.” Silkscreen prints. September 6-December 31.
ALBERT SHAHINIAN
FINE ART GALLERY
22 EAST MARKET STREET, RHINEBECK
“Conversations.” New and recent work by Yale Epstein. Through October 26.
ART OMI
1405 COUNTY ROUTE 22, GHENT
“Harold Stevenson: Less Real Than My Routine Fantasy.” Through October 26.
ARTS SOCIETY OF KINGSTON
97 BROADWAY, KINGSTON
“CHBO.” Work by Chris Bowman. September 7-28.
“Ghosts as Visitors.” Work by Susan Kaufman. September 7-28.
ARTYARD KINGSTON
80 SMITH AVENUE, KINGSTON
“Garden of Delights.” Group outdoor sculpture show. Through October 31.
AZART GALLERY
40 MILL HILL ROAD, WOODSTOCK
“Summer Salon.” Work by Lisa Bagley, Courtenay Kusitor, Isabelle Cluchat, Yigal Dongo, and Rick Midler. Through September 30.
BAU GALLERY
506 MAIN STREET, BEACON
“Earthly Delights.” Work by Joan Harmon and Aubrey Roemer.
“Gradually, Then Suddenly.” Group show.
“Dormiveglia.” Work by Anne Harmon. All exhibits September 13-October 5.
THE BEACON BUILDING
427 MAIN STREET, BEACON
“Beacon Reimagined.” Photos by Scott Lerman. Through December 31.
BERNAY FINE ART
296 MAIN STREET, GREAT BARRINGTON, MA
“The Cut Up.” Work by Jason Middlebrook, Conny Goelz Schmitt, Steven Siegel, Gina Occiogrosso, and Reed Anderson. Through September 14.
BILL ARNING EXHIBITIONS
17 BROAD STREET, KINDERHOOK
“On Particular Colors.” Work by Kristen Cliburn, Jade Yumang, Laurel Sparks, Michael Lazarus, and Aaron Holz. Through September 28.
BUSTER LEVI GALLERY
121 MAIN STREET, COLD SPRING
“Making New.” Work by Pat Hickman. September 6-28.
THE CAMPUS
341 ROUTE 217, HUDSON
“Second Annual Summer Group Exhibition.” Group show. Through October 26.
CATSKILL ART SPACE
48 MAIN STREET, LIVINGSTON MANOR
“Bonnie Rychlak.” Sculpture. Through October 25.
“The Dick Gibson Show: Six Paintings.” Work by Jeff Christensen. Through October 25.
“Heidi Schlatter.” Photography, sculpture, and installation. Through October 25.
THE CHURCH
5 MARKET STREET, STAATSBURG
“Unearthing the Light.” Group multimedia exhibition. Through September 14.
CLARK ART INSTITUTE
225 SOUTH STREET, WILLIAMSTOWN, MA
“I Am a Part of Art.” Community Access to the Arts group show. Through September 14.
“Berenice Abbot’s Modern Lens.” Photographs. Through October 5.
“Ground/Work.” Group outdoor sculpture exhibition. Through October 12.
Isamu Noguchi: Landscapes of Times.”
Sculpture. Through October 13.
“A Room of Her Own: Women Artist-Activists in Britain, 1875-1945.” Through September 14.
Trio, H James Hoff, mixed media on hardboard, from the exhibition "H. James Hoff: Drawn to Life" at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum through September 28.
CONVEY/ER/OR GALLERY
299 MAIN STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE
“Echoes in Two Tongues: Honoring Latin American Women.” work by Penny Dell, Elisa Pritzker, Esperanza Crtes, Marielena Ferrer, and Luz Castaneda. Through October 25.
CORNELL CREATIVE ARTS CENTER
129 CORNELL STREET, KINGSTON
“1,218.” Sculpture by Aleksandra Scepanovic. September 1-30.
CPW
25 DEDERICK STREET, KINGSTON
“Everyday Culture: Seven Projects by Documentary Arts.” Four decades of work by Documentary Arts.
“Rahim Fortune: Between a Memory and Me.” Photographs.
“Kinship & Community.” Selections from the Texas African American Photographers Archive. All exhibits September 20-January 11.
DAVID M. HUNT LIBRARY
63 MAIN STREET, FALLS VILLAGE, CONNECTICUT
“Driftlines.” Work by Heather Neilson and Babs Perkins. Through September 12.
DEBORAH MASTERS STUDIO
253 SLATE HILL ROAD, CHATHAM
“Friends of Deborah Masters Three.” Group show. Through September 13.
DIA BEACON
3 BEEKMAN STREET, BEACON
“Mary Heilman: Starry Night.” Through October 13.
DISTORTION SOCIETY
155 MAIN STREET, BEACON
“Threads of Love.” Work by Delvin Lugo, and Amber Mustafic. Through October 4.
EDWARD HOPPER HOUSE
ART CENTER
82 NORTH BROADWAY, NYACK
“Tomokazu Matsuyama: Morning Sun.” Paintings and works on paper by Tomokazu Matsuyama (Matsu). Through October 5.
ELIJAH WHEAT SHOWROOM
195 FRONT STREET, NEWBURGH
“Collateral Magic.” An interactive installation by Johanna Herr. Through September 20.
EXPOSURES GALLERY
1357 KINGS HIGHWAY, SUGAR LOAF
“In the Garden of Eden.” Photographs of Central America by Nick Zungoli. Through December 31.
FRANCES LEHMAN LOEB
ART CENTER
124 RAYMOND AVENUE, POUGHKEEPSIE
“Chronostasia.” Select acquisitions 2020-2025. September 4-February 1.
FENIMORE ART MUSEUM
5798 LAKE ROAD, COOPERSTOWN
“Boundless Spirit: American Folk Art.” Through December 31.
“Exploring Calvin and Hobbes.” September 13-December 31.
FRED J. JOHNSTON HOUSE
MUSEUM & GALLERY
63 MAIN STREET, KINGSTON
“Edward Budney: Photographer.” Photographs of Kingston in the 1950s. Through October 31.
FRONT ROOM GALLERY
205 WARREN STREET, HUDSON
“Seeing in Code.” Drawings and video by Patricia Smith. September 5-October 5.
GALLERY 40
40 CANNON STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE
“Icarus Unbound.” Paintings by John McGiff. September 20-October 26.
“A Secret Chord.” Landscape paintings by Cynthia Dill. September 20-October 26.
GALLERY 495
495 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL
“In This Place Here, We Flesh.” Paintings and mixed media collages by Aineki Traverso, Nkechi Ebubedike, and Shiri Mordechay. Through September 20.
GARNER ARTS CENTER
55 WEST RAILROAD AVENUE, GARNERVILLE
“Resonance.” Paintings and archival work by Paul Kostabi. September 13-October 26.
GARRISON ART CENTER
23 GARRISON’S LANDING, GARRISON
“Axons.” Work by Marieken Cochius. “Remnants and Schemes.” Work by Bill Schuck. Both exhibitions through September 14.
THE GOOD GALLERY
23 SOUTH MAIN STREET, KENT, CT
“Susan Monserud: A Retrospective.” Through September. 13.
GREEN KILL
229 GREENKILL AVENUE, KINGSTON
“Nancy Catandella and Carol Levine.” September 6-October 25.
GRIT WORKS | GRIT GALLERY
115 BROADWAY, NEWBURGH
“Flock.” Paintings by Steven M. Strauss. Through September 20.
HAWK + HIVE
61 MAIN STREET, ANDES.
“Revenant Blues.” Paintings by Zachary Lank. Through September 7.
HESSEL MUSEUM OF ART/ CCS BARD
BARD COLLEGE, ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON
“All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Group for Modern Art.” Arab modern and contemporary art. Through October 19.
HOLLAND TUNNEL GALLERY
46 CHAMBERS STREET, NEWBURGH
“Reclamation: Lost and Found in Newburgh.” Group exhibition curated by Janet Rutkowski and Alexandra Limpert. Through October 26.
HUDSON HALL
327 WARREN STREET, HUDSON
“Christian Marclay.” A solo exhibition of video, photography, printmaking and collage by Christian Marclay. Through October 5.
HUDSON RIVER MUSEUM
511 WARBURTON AVENUE, YONKERS
“Lens on the Hudson: Photographs by Joseph Squillante.” Through October 19.
HUDSON VALLEY MOCA
1701 MAIN STREET, PEEKSKILL
“Conscience of a Nation”. Work by V. L. Cox. Through Sept. 30.
HUNTING TAVERN MUSEUM
288 MAIN STREET, ANDES
“Calico & Tin Horns.” Group show of work reimagining the Anti-Rent War curated by Jayne Parker. Through October 26.
THE INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF DINNERWARE DESIGN
524 BROADWAY, KINGSTON
“Picnic.” Sixth biennial juried and invitational exhibition depicting scenes of picnics. September 6-January 17.
JACK SHAINMAN: THE SCHOOL
25 BROAD STREET, KINDERHOOK
“General Conditions.” Through November 29.
JANE ST. ART CENTER
11 JANE STREET, SAUGERTIES
“Hidden in Plain Sight.” Work by Shelley McClure Tan. Through September 13.
“I’m in the Studio Tonight Because of You.” Work by Melanie Delgado. Through September 13.
“Marking Time.” Work by Jen Hicks. September 20-October 25.
KINDERHOOK KNITTING MILL
8 HUDSON STREET, KINDERHOOK
“A Time to Build.” Shaker building tools. Through November 2.
KINOSAITO
115 7TH STREET, VERPLANCK
“Kikuo Saito: Reminiscence in Color.” Paintings. Through December 21.
“The Unknown and Its Poetics.” Group show. Through December 21.
KLEINERT/JAMES CENTER FOR THE ARTS
36 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK
Stay Hard, Christian Marclay, collage, from Marclay's solo exhibition at Hudson Hall through October 5.
“Salvage Stories.” Curated by Carol Diamond and Alice Zinnes. Through September 14.
LABSPACE
2642 ROUTE 23, HILLSDALE
“To bring you my love.” Paintings by Susan Carr. September 20-November 16.
THE LACE MILL GALLERIES
165 CORNELL STREET, KINGSTON
“Abstract Trilogy.” Work by Reidunn Fraas, Harriet Livathinos, and Charlotte Tusch. September 6-28.
MAGAZZINO ITALIAN ART
2700 ROUTE 9, COLD SPRING
“Piero Manzoni: Total Space.” Two installations by Piero Manzoni. September 8-March 23.
MARK GRUBER GALLERY
13 NEW PALTZ PLAZA, NEW PALTZ
“The Mythology of Landscape.” Paintings by Kevin Cook. Through October 4.
MASS MOCA
1040 MASS MOCA WAY, NORTH ADAMS, MA
“Just a Dream…” Vincent Valdez retrospective. Through April 5, 2026.
MILLBROOK VINEYARDS
26 WING ROAD, MILLBROOK “Art in the Loft.” Group juried exhibition. Through November 9.
MONUMENT
29 WEST STRAND STREET, KINGSTON “Shelf Show.” Group exhibition. September 19-October 15.
THE MOUNT
2 PLUNKETT STREET, LENOX, MA “Movement.” Annual group outdoor sculpture exhibition. Through Sept. 30.
OLANA STATE HISTORIC SITE
5720 ROUTE 9G, HUDSON
“What’s Missing?” Work by Ellen Harvey and Gabriela Salazar in the landscape. Through November 2.
OLIVE FREE LIBRARY
4033 ROUTE 28A, WEST SHOKAN “Roundish.” Group exhibit. September 20-November 1.
ONE MILE GALLERY
475 ABEEL STREET, KINGSTON “Phantasma.” Group show. Through September 13.
OPUS 40 GALLERY
356 GEORGE SICKLE ROAD, SAUGERTIES “Constructed Paintings and Drawings.” Work by Brian Dickerson. September 6-October 5.
PALMER GALLERY, VASSAR COLLEGE
124 RAYMOND AVENUE, POUGHKEEPSIE “From Petals to Sky.” Work by Ivars Sprogis. August 7-September 6.
The studio of designer Will Van Roden will be open as part of Kingston Art Walk on September 20 and 21.
PHILIP DOUGLAS FINE ART
545 WARREN STREET, HUDSON
“The Stationary Traveler.” Paintings by Farrell Brickhouse. September 6-October 19.
PRIVATE PUBLIC GALLERY
530 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON
“What's That Sound? Everybody Look What's Going Down.” Group show. September 6-October 5.
RE INSTITUTE
1395 BOSTON CORNERS ROAD, MILLERTON
“Double Portrait” and “Perceptions.” Two group shows. Through October 11.
RIVERVIEW RESTAURANT
45 FAIR STREET, COLD SPRING.
“Timeless Beauty Revisited: Morocco 2024.” Photos by Ron Hershey. Through September 11.
ROBIN RICE GALLERY
234 WARREN STREET, HUDSON
“Home.” Work by John Dolan, Jack Dolan, and Michele O’Hana. September 13-October 30.
RUTHANN
453 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL
“Coated/Coded.” Work by George Rodriguez, Richard Saja, and Thomas Spoerndle. Through September 21.
SAMUEL DORSKY MUSEUM OF ART
1 HAWK DRIVE, SUNY NEW PALTZ
“The Arrested Image: Identity through the Lens of Law Enforcement.” Group show at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Through November 2.
“Bodies of Knowledge.” Work by Jean Shin made of textile and communication technologies. September 6-December 7.
BANK ART GALLERY
94 BROADWAY, NEWBURGH
“Empire of the Gods.” Group exhibition of sculpture, painting, and installation. Through October 4.
SEPTEMBER
4 HUDSON STREET, KINDERHOOK
“Psyche.” Work by Ashley Garrett. Through October 12.
SKY HIGH FARM
675 HALL HILL ROAD, PINE PLAINS
“Trees Never End and Houses Never End.” Group show curated by Dan Colen. Through October 31.
THE SPARK OF HUDSON
502 UNION STREET, HUDSON
“Hudson 1997-2003: Portraits by Phyllis Hjorth.” Paintings of Hudson residents. Through December 19.
SPENCERTOWN ACADEMY ARTS CENTER
790 ROUTE 203, SPENCERTOWN
“Art as Memoir: Regional Juried Art Show.” Group show juried by Ian Berry and Sienna Patti. Sept. 27-October 26.
SUNY WESTCHESTER CENTER FOR THE DIGITAL ARTS GALLERY
27 N DIVISION STREET, PEEKSKILL
“Katherina Jesek: Venus in Vectors.” Looped video works and digital prints.
September 2-December 9.
‘T’ SPACE
120 ROUND LAKE ROAD, RHINEBECK
“New Hudson Valley Houses.” Work by Stan Allen, Garrick Ambrose, Steven Holl, Toshiko Mori Architect, and MOS. September 7-December 31.
TAG ARTISTS GALLERY
60 BROADWAY, TIVOLI
“Works of Passion.” Group exhibition. Through September 13.
Studios in Bloom: Art Walk Kingston
On September 20 and 21, Kingston’s studios and galleries will throw open their doors for the 10th annual Art Walk Kingston, showcasing paintings, sculpture, prints, photography, jewelry, and handmade furniture from 200 artists at nearly 50 locations across the city.
Founded in 2016 by photographer Joe Gonzalez and former Arts Mid-Hudson executive director Linda Marston-Reid, the event sprang from a simple question: Why doesn’t Kingston have an open studio tour? A community survey brought an emphatic yes, and the Art Walk was born.
This year’s extras include live jazz in T. R. Gallo Park, giant banners inked and steamrolled by Neighborhood Print Studio, and a student photography show from Gonzalez’s middle school class at the Center for Photography Woodstock.
The walk has become one of the Hudson Valley’s biggest open studio tours, drawing about 200 artists each year. For some, it’s meant more than exposure— curators have discovered new talent, and sales have covered rent for months. “We have a very large arts community here,” says Gonzalez. “Everyone’s here to help each other out.”
Kingston wasn’t always an arts hub. Before the 2010s, political and financial support for the arts was scarce. Former mayors Shayne and T. R. Gallo championed cultural investment, and RUPCO added affordable housing for artists.
Anne Bailey, cofounder of the Midtown Arts District and longtime owner of Bailey Pottery, remembers a city with low morale after IBM left. “Shayne was a great proponent of the arts,” she says. “Artists remind us of who we are. They bring vitality and energy. We burn brightly, and people want to be part of that.”
That spark lit a community effort, and from it, the Kingston Art Walk emerged—a two-day showcase of the city’s creative fire. Artsmidhudson.org/artwalkkingston.
TANJA GRUNNERT SALON
21 PROSPECT AVENUE, HUDSON
“Nicole Cherubini, Susan Jennings, and Michelle Segre.” Sculpture, photography, and painting. Through September 28.
THOMAS COLE HISTORIC SITE
218 SPRING STREET, CATSKILL
“Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora & Contemporary Responses.” Work by the daughter of Thomas Cole. Through November 2.
“On Trees.” Work by Georgia O’Keefe and Thomas Cole. Through December 14.
TIME AND SPACE LIMITED
434 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON
“Everything's Personal.” New work by Myron Polenberg. September 6-October 5.
TREMAINE ART GALLERY AT THE HOTCHKISS SCHOOL
11 INTERLAKEN ROAD, LAKEVILLE, CT
“Adrift.” Selected washi works from 2017-2025 by Daniel Heyman. September 5-October 11.
TURLEY GALLERY
98 GREEN STREET, SUITE 2, HUDSON “Fascinator.” Work by Adam Linn. “Stall.” Site-specific work by Sara Stern. “What You Long For is Real, What You Long For is To Be.” Work by Vickie Pierre. All shows through September 7.
TURN PARK ART SPACE
2 MOSCOW ROAD, STOCKBRIDGE, MA
“Passing Through.” Work by John Clarke. Through October 31.
TYTE GALLERY
3280 FRANKLIN AVE, MILLBROOK
“In Pursuit: Five Artists.” Work by Maxine Davidowitz, John McGiff, Mya Muchineuta, Doug Shippee, and Mimi Young. Through September 7.
“Looking: 21 Ways.” Group show of 21 artists. September 13-November 1.
THE WASSAIC PROJECT
37 FURNACE BANK ROAD, WASSAIC
“So It Goes.” Group show curated by Bowie Zunino, Will Hutnick, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Eve Biddle. Through September 13.
WIRED GALLERY
11 MOHONK ROAD, HIGH FALLS.
“Lost in Translation.” Abstract paintings, drawings, and prints by Roxie Johnson. Through September 14.
“Threshold.” Elisabeth Ladwig's modern surrealist photography. Through September 14.
WOMEN’S STUDIO WORKSHOP
722 BINNEWATER LANE, KINGSTON
“You Deserve Your Flowers.” Ceramics exhibition curated by Lena Chin. Through September 19.
WOODSTOCK ARTISTS
ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM
28 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK.
“Come into Bloom: Flower Paintings from the Permanent Collection.” Through October 5.
“H. James Hoff: Drawn to Life.” A solo exhibition featuring figurative drawings by H. James Hoff. Through September 28.
“Material Alchemy.” Regional group exhibition curated by Jack and Dolly Geary. Through October 5.
WOODSTOCK SCHOOL OF ART
2470 ROUTE 212, WOODSTOCK
“Woodstock School of Art Monoprint Invitational Exhibition.” September 13–October 4.
WOODSTOCK SPA
62 RICKS RD, WOODSTOCK
”SCAPE—Sculpture, Community, Arts, Peace, Environment.” Outdoor sculpture installation curated by Linda Dubilier and Jen Dragon. Through October 19.
—Katie Ondris
Horoscopes
By Cory Nakasue
A Decisive and Exacting Eclipse Season
The month of September is judicious and calculating, especially with two eclipses and multiple planets entering signs known for their intellectual acumen. However, this month is not all hospital corners and spreadsheets. Though decisive, eclipses can leave a lot of mess and emotional overwhelm in their wake. We’re also sure to witness much that doesn’t make any sense as Uranus stations retrograde on September 6.
The first planet to start its judgement calls is Saturn, as it retrogrades back into Pisces on the 1st. What emotional messes need to be reorganized? What dams and bridges need repairing so that we can keep dry during the next deluge? Mercury, entering its home sign and also the sign of its exaltation, Virgo, on the 2nd, will be only too happy to whip things back into tip-top shape. The next two weeks are a great time for editing and streamlining. Get rid of the overflow!
On the 7th, a total lunar eclipse arrives in Pisces. The tide is high! Remember those “emotional messes” I just mentioned? Get your towels ready to sop up the release of suppressed information in the form of feelings.
Mercury enters Libra on the 18th, which signals a time for refining agreements. With Venus entering Virgo the next day, on the 19th, we can expect these agreements to be coldly pragmatic in nature—even in affairs of the heart. Circle the 22 on your calendar as two planetary ingresses signal deep urges to merge. The first is Mars’s entrance into its home sign, all-ornothing Scorpio. Go deep or go home. The Sun’s entrance into Libra (autumnal equinox) on the same day, would rather strive for equality and harmony (at least on the surface).
ARIES (March 20–April 19)
There are parts of you that are too vast and unwieldy to be organized. They are to be felt, processed, and then laid to rest. You’re going through a psychic rinse cycle. You may be tempted to do a closet purge or digestive detox as a metaphorical ritual, but those processes involve analysis and decision-making. Instead, what you’re really being asked to do this month is let go of the judgments of “good” and “bad” and “useful” and “useless.” What does it feel like to fully accept without justifying? What does it feel like to value the loss of control?
TAURUS (April 19–May 20)
Give up trying to curate your audience. Don’t even try to manicure the way you are perceived. I say this not because you are incapable, but because to do so would be terribly unfulfilling. Andy Warhol once said: “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad.” There’s wisdom here for you. When we cater to the tastes that we project upon others, we lose direct self-expression. Lower the stakes when it comes to being validated by others. Give yourself room to enjoy the experience of authentic self-presentation.
Cory Nakasue is an astrology counselor, writer, and teacher. Her podcast, “The Cosmic Dispatch,” is available on streaming platforms. AstrologybyCory.com
GEMINI
(May 20–June 21)
All that work and sacrifice is paying off. It’s time to release a project, or your feelings, out into the world and let the chips fall where they may. You might simply be tired of detailing and micromanaging every thought and emotion that crosses your awareness. In your current situation, it’s time to take your hands off the wheel and trust that you’ll end up exactly where you need to be. There are times for steering, and there are times to simply allow events to be shaped by a symphony of elements. If you hold on too tight, you won’t be able to receive.
CANCER
(June 21–July 22)
You have to let yourself grow. Growth isn’t perfect or symmetrical, and it’s not a destination. It’s quite possible that your old receptacles and tools for measuring your growth have become obsolete. You’ll need a larger, more forgiving container to process, hold, and integrate the bounty of experience coming your way. Your nervous system will have to expand. Otherwise, it might give you some false alarms. It might tell you that you’re “at capacity” when the truth is, it’s elastic. It’s time to stretch it out. You can feel, absorb, believe, and love just a little bit more.
LEO (July 22–August 23)
Is hyper-self-sufficiency a trauma response? This month’s eclipses will highlight your sense of trust in others and yourself. Oftentimes, those that think “people can’t be trusted,” really don’t trust that they, themselves, are worthy of support. They have false notions about which qualities are valuable, and so if they are lacking those qualities, why would anyone want to help them? It’s time to examine your attitudes about self-sufficiency and vulnerability. You may be forced to surrender to someone or something more powerful than you. This would be a fortunate, if uncomfortable, lesson about independence, codependency, and interdependency.
VIRGO (August 23–September 23)
Is it a boundary, or is it avoidance? Everyone can feel strong and clear when they’re not letting anything affect them. When boundaries are flexible and responsive, they help us process the information that’s mirrored back to us from others. Rigid walls, on the other hand, let nothing in or out. Boundaries help us “do the work” that’s so important to Virgo. Sometimes Virgo doesn’t catch its own escapist tendencies, especially when it comes to emotions. Feelings can leave Virgo with a sense of incompetence. It’s time to do the real work of expanding your capacity for emotional discomfort—and self-compassion.
LIBRA (September 23–October 23)
Your body will tell you everything you need to know. It might also tell you some things you didn’t want to know. If it’s true that the body keeps the score, your number is up. There’s a purge that needs to happen now. The things that need to go will make themselves known through your tears, energy levels, and appetites. Take heart that what’s being released are the things getting in the way of healing and wholeness. Be on the lookout for the secret ways that perfectionism sabotages your efforts and how caring excessively for others can mask self-abandonment.
Life in Transition? Plan.
THIRDEYEASSOCIATES
THIRD EYE ASSOCIATES
PARTY
SCORPIO (October 23–November 22)
A chapter may be ending in regard to your personal passions. You might be reaching a turning point in your creative pursuits, parental roles, or relationship to pleasure. You’ll be able to fully embrace this time of discovery if you can let go of real, or imagined, expectations from others. There’s a good chance that you’re afraid of looking irresponsible or selfish to your peers. You do have responsibilities and duties to fulfill, but they cannot overshadow your need to stay connected to your own life force. Let go of the need to hide behind propriety, and start prioritizing inspiration, imagination, and ecstasy.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22–December 22)
This month might be a little soggy for your fiery taste. It will ask you to go deep into your feelings and confront your sense of emotional security. For someone as forward-looking as you are, you might, at the very least, be annoyed with being dragged into the past. What about your living situation, family dynamics, or nervous system patterning is reminding you of your childhood? What role does fantasy, escapism, or confusion play in the situation you find yourself in now? You have the chance to solve an emotional riddle that could catalyze a new direction in life.
CAPRICORN (December 22–January 20)
Nothing is pure. Nothing is personal. Nothing is permanent. While you may strive to behave in perfect accordance with your ideals, the complexity and messiness of humanity has to be engaged with for those ideals to have any real value. Otherwise, they remain abstractions. Forgive yourself and others for a little “impurity.” Adhering perfectly to your ideals doesn’t make you a superior person, it reveals a fear of losing control. The last aphorism in this little fortune cookie horoscope: beliefs change. Whatever you’re on your soapbox about today could change tomorrow. Our beliefs are guidelines, not excuses for tyranny.
AQUARIUS
(January 20–February 19)
No matter how much therapy you do, you will never be perfectly healed, but you can be more integrated. During periods of deep personal work, it can be frustrating to accept that we can never understand ourselves or others in totality. We will never “get rid” of parts of ourselves we deem “bad.” The best we can hope for is changing the relationship we have to the parts of ourselves we experience as problematic. We invite these parts into our sense of who we are, as elements that make us more human and gracious. Instead of eradicating pain-points, grow larger around them.
PISCES
(February 20–March 19)
This month is about an emotional and relational rebirth. You’re realizing that you need new structures, systems, and containers to hold your vast and complex emotions. How do you know when you’ve found a useful receptacle? It won’t inhibit your flow but will gently inform it. It will help your feelings move. It will help you put language to the sensations that seem ineffable. Tools like language, image, and embodiment can keep you from being overly identified and engulfed by waves of emotional signals. Choose who you share yourself with, with discernment. You want mirrors that can help you stay present with a kaleidoscope of sentiment.
Ad Index
1053 Main Street Gallery 69
68 Prince Street 69
Albany Institute of History & Art 69
Albert Shahinian Fine Art .......................75
Great Western Catskills..........................17
Green Cottage ........................................79
H Houst & Son 35
Harmonious Development 79
Herrington’s 31
Historic Huguenot Street 16
Holistic Natural Medicine: Integrative Healing Arts 38
Home Range Winery 56
Hot Water Solutions, Inc. 1
Hotchkiss School 70 Hudson Hall ............................................46
Hudson Milliner Art Salon 49
Hudson River Maritime Museum 16
Hudson Roastery 49
Hudson Valley Garlic Festival 23
Hudson Valley Native Landscaping 35 Hudson Valley Pottery Tour ....................75 Hudson Valley Trailworks 35 J&G Law, LLP 77 Jane St. Art Center
Bugging Out at the Library
Peter Kuper’s Insectopolis: A Natural History
In Peter Kuper’s Insectopolis, the bugs outlive us—and inherit our libraries. While the book starts as an ode to the New York Public Library’s educational exhibitions, it soon takes a turn when an apocalyptic episode clears the streets. Void of humans, the insects of New York head to the Public Library to see its newest exhibit—about the history of insects. With insects as the world’s dominant class, Kuper, a Cold Spring resident, weaves a 400-million-year journey of entomological history.
The insects are full of jabs, puns, and dad jokes. A grasshopper and a cricket spend two whole pages grumbling over the negative connotation given to phrases like “bug out” and “catching a stomach bug.” The insects also
encounter misogyny for the first time, much to their chagrin. One dragonfly is particularly upset at the exhibit’s overemphasis on masculine scientists, loudly declaring that “There’s no ‘king bee.’” The book makes it up to the insects by honoring women naturalists such as Rachel Carson and Maria Sybilla Merian.
Kuper’s witty writing, educational tangents, and fantastical plot happen over detailed drawings that capture the colorful life force of insects. An exhibition of art from Insectopolis is up through September 20 at the Society of Illustrators in New York City. Through both its art and its writing, Insectopolis is a true ode to insects and the environmental resilience they represent.
—Abilene Adelman
An illustration from Peter Kuper’s graphic novel Insectopolis.
