The Man, The Myth, The Canvas

Katherine Airs’ canvas is 5-foot-10 and weighs 145 pounds. She’s a painter who uses one particular human being as her body-painting canvas. A guy named Michael. She transforms his fair skin with acrylic paints and photographs him in his birthday suit. On Saturday, August 13, her gallery of Michael’s images opens in Hudson. Airs first…

Sunflower Art Festival

Sunflower Art Festival is a locally-sourced community festival held for one day each August on the grounds of Tuthilltown Distillery in Gardiner. It promises to be the perfect day trip for the whole family.

O+ Festival

“Follow your dreams” is the ideal, all-encouraging mantra promoted in our society. But what if following your dreams interferes with your access to health care? This is the case for many artists and musicians who can’t afford health insurance. Even though our current health care system may be flawed. There is a place where artists…

Garden Street Mural Restoration

Public art advocate Franc Palaia has not only saved Dutchess County’s largest mural but has revived it as well. Poughkeepsie’s 45 feet tall and 75 feet wide Garden Street Mural is a highlight of Palaia’s Guided Walking Tour of Public Art in Poughkeepsie. In 1990, Ed Loedy’s nondescript stucco wall of his three story building…

Horoscopes: Aries

(March 20-April 19) Much of what’s been shocking the world for the past few months involves your birth sign or your primary planet, Mars. This may be resulting in change, clarity, or some chaos. You may know that the great astrological event of our era—Uranus conjunct Eris—is happening in Aries. For its part, Mars, on…

Small, Practical, Persistent Steps Get a Boost

Dear Chronogram Reader: Earlier this morning was the Aquarius Full Moon just after 5:26 am EDT. If you’ve been noticing a sense of pressure or a deadlocked situation (especially between the beliefs or needs of a group and yours as an individual), you should sense it easing off today. As Eric Francis describes in this…

Horoscopes: Sagittarius

(November 22-December 22) Powerful forces of change are at work in your life. They point to one thing, which is the need for flexibility. Sagittarius is the most interesting blend of broad, sweeping vision (skipping the fine points) and total obsession over every last detail. You may be leaning toward the control/detail side of the…

Horoscopes: Aquarius

(January 20-February 19) You can afford to sidestep controversy and conflict. In fact, you would be wise to do so—and to invest your energy in more productive things. You might want to keep that skill close to the top of your personal tool kit this month. You will find that if you use your diplomatic…

Poem: Bedford Square

Well I’m packing suitcases again Vacating a flat, this container of square footage Precisely the size of my optimism, Which fortunately coincides with this city, Where the very breeze is civilized— A safe haven for one whose every day has always constituted some indignation of time and place; My fated problem of falling in love…

Super-Virgo: Mercury Retrograde and Eclipse Season

Dear Chronogram Reader: We’ve entered the season of solar Virgo, and it has some real flair this year. The Sun entered Virgo on Monday, joining the lunar North Node, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury—setting the stage for summer to wind down by opening up a space of unusual potential. First, a note about some Virgo basics.…

Horoscopes: Capricorn

(December 22-January 20) Pay close attention to your level of anxiety as the next few weeks unfold. Indeed, it would be wise of you to invest a little extra time and space into your inner life, whatever that means to you. Sagittarius, the sign right before yours, is the one that relates to your inner…

Poem: Springfield

I long to run wild in the bend leading to Springfield run pass tall dark trees filled with tangerines and grapefruits leap over little gully and trenches jump muddy hill wet from over night rain dip under sharp cane leaf and out run any lizard till I reach the guava trees I shout dada and…

Summer Hoot

This “pay-what-you-want” three-day volunteer built music festival at the Ashokan Center in Olivebridge is from Friday, August 26 through Sunday, August 28. There will be two stages and over 20 music acts including performances by Baby States, Simi Stone, Tracy Bonham. Black smith demonstrations, kids workshops and hikes to the Cathedral Gorge are just some…

Horoscopes: Taurus

(April 19-May 20) What the world needs is stability, though what most people don’t recognize is that they must bring this to the equation of life themselves. Consistency is something that grows from the inside out. It’s up to you to provide that in your life and, to some extent, in those of the people…

Poem: Our Lamppost

We fell in love with each other, Hitting our heads as we hit the ground, Leaving us confused and greatly naive. Our confusion only made our love stronger, Our cigarettes more damaging, Our alcohol more destructive. We got drunk quicker, Spent our nights under fairly dim lamppost lights, Never thinking to check the watches on…

Stone Carving with Kevin Van Hentenryck

Opus 40 is a magnificent 6.5-acre sculpture park nestled against the backdrop of Overlook Mountain. The entire sculpture, built on an abandoned quarry three stories above ground, with pathways 16 feet below ground, and quarry springs tucked throughout, was carved by one man—Harvey Fite (1903-1976)—who took advantage of a cheap, abundant resource: bluestone. Like Fite,…

Horoscopes: Pisces

(February 19-March 20) Now you must do all the things that no astrology book ever said a Pisces was good at: Exert strong leadership skills, be practical, and focus on clear objectives. It’s time for you to be a taskmaster, which means a master of tasks. And you must do all the things for which…

Horoscopes: Gemini

(May 20-June 21) The more you cling to your reality, the shakier it will seem. If you can hang loose, you’ll find it much easier to adapt. It might seem that your adjustments mainly involve people and their changing needs and desires. In truth this is about you. There are certain outer circumstances, such as…

Poem: The thing is, you see

god has big eyes & he puts them in the mouths of little children & you can do what you will with a child, but one way or another what you will will come back to speak to you when you are old when your hands are arthritic when your knees buckle when your mind…

Esopus Creek Puppet Suite

Puppetry is an ancient art form, over 3,000 years old. Ivory and clay articulated puppets were found in tombs in ancient Egypt. In ancient Greece, Aristotle and Plato referenced puppets in writing. Ceremonial puppets were also used in pre-Columbian Native American cultures. It could be that puppets came before real life actors in theater. Today,…

CD Review: Tall County’s Featherweight

Tall County Featherweight (2015, Independent) Like well-aimed medicine for the digitally addled, Tall County’s music goes straight to the marrow. The Garrison trio’s debut album, Featherweight (which follows a 2012 EP, Shine), features resonator guitar, ukulele, banjo, standup bass, fiddle, and fearlessly intimate vocals, all cut very live in rooms that breathe. Tall County wields all of the…

Poem: Mattering

It sucks to have a dead kid for someone with such a great capacity to enjoy The simple things —a sprig of spearmint in fresh chilled tea —the waggle of a dog’s hello —the rainbow in a water spray Those things are there It’s true And still observed But instantly X-ed out (again and again)…

Horoscopes: Cancer

(June 21-July 22) You may seem to be building your fortunes at the same time you’re dealing with constant uncertainty. In fact you’re standing on more stable ground than you may recognize; what you need to do the most is to keep your priorities in order. Stick close to your core mission and your minimum…

Creation to Completion

When13 women from native communities around the world came together at Menla Mountain Retreat in 2004 to commune and declare their intentions for world peace, they set in motion a wide range of actions. Empowered by a mutual resolve to affect changes for the betterment of their people—and for all humankind and the Earth as…

Nightlife Highlights: Jazz in the Valley Festival

August 21. Watch it, jazz fans, the lineup of this 16-years-and-running festival just might make your heads explode. The day long celebration, which takes place outdoors in the afternoon and evening alongside the Hudson River at beautiful Waryas Park, features a cast to die for: legendary pianists Randy Weston and George Cables, drummer Jimmy Cobb,…

Horoscope: Leo

(July 22-August 23) You are standing at an intersection in your journey through space and time. There are a few ways to look at this: For example, you might take the more challenging route or the easier one. You might choose to be jealous or forgiving. You might choose to deceive, or to tell the…

Tequila Shot

(For Andrew) The bartender wants me to do a tequila shot to celebrate my retirement, but I decline, not wanting to be hung over on my first day of retirement, or worse, to be arrested on the way home for drunken driving and have to start my new life in a deep, deep hole. I…

The First 500 Million Years

“I have learned that what we think is in large measure a function of where we think,” writes Mark C. Taylor in Recovering Place: Reflections on Stone Hill (Columbia University Press, 2014). Taylor, a theology professor at Columbia University, is co-curator of an exhibit at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, inspired by his book.…

Horoscopes: Virgo

(August 23-Septemebr 22) You have spent well over a year stretching into a new idea of who you are, which has not been easy. This has involved learning, absorbing, and evaluating the tendencies of others, and establishing a dependable relationship to your environment. All of this leads back to one experience: existing in an unfamiliar…

Poem: Stomp

(For JJ) The kid’s perched on a rock wall between the sidewalk and a church— two unsaid ends of an invisible spectrum. I picked him up under his armpits to put him there as he bashfully pretended to decline. He looks to his right face lighting up as two ants wander the flat stone shared…

Nightlife Highlights: WXGC Lodge

August 26-27. Serving Greene and Columbia counties—and beyond, via the World Wide Web—since 2011, community radio station WGXC is a bastion of true variety amid the commercially beholden programming and samey syndication dominating the upstate airwaves. Volunteer-staffed and listener-supported, WGXC relies on donations to remain aloft, which come largely through pledge drives and benefit events.…

An Intimate Evening with Death, Herself

Douglass Truth portrays Dorothy, a meatloaf phobic old waitress in his one-woman play, “An Intimate Evening With Death, Herself.” In the 90-minute play, Dorothy meets Death in a bar. He woos her and the two become the best of pals. 49 days later, Death dies and Dorothy replaces him. A witty, Eddie Izzard-like black comedy…

Horoscopes: Libra

[mage-1] (September 22-October 23) Jupiter will soon be arriving in your sign; that happens on September 9, for the first time in 12 years. Until then, you may feel like you’re stuffed with potential but are having a difficult time expressing any of it. You might be feeling a bit trapped within yourself. I suggest…

Poem: Sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m s wait wtf why

Venus-Saturn-Neptune: Are You Sure About That?

Do you ever find yourself letting beliefs that were handed down to you (such as by your parents or religion) run away with your feelings about who you are in your relationships, or about what counts as ‘success’ in love? Do you sometimes let disappointments in love (and in your financial habits) dictate your beliefs…

Art of Business: 1857 Spirits

From a six-generation family farm in the heart of the Schoharie Valley comes a new beverage sensation: 1857 Spirits. Using potatoes grown in nine feet of rich alluvial soil and spring water from the aquifer that feeds it, young Elias Barber distills three types: a cocktail vodka, a signature sipping vodka with pear and vanilla…

Art of Business: Bearsville Theater

“The single most important thing we’re doing is trying to reach back and project the legacy of [legendary talent manager and entrepreneur] Albert Grossman, who created the compound,” says John Fitzgerald, one of the partners running the Bearsville Theater compound near Woodstock. “The site needed to be integrated; we built the central bluestone courtyard and…

Horoscopes: Scorpio

(October 23-November 22) You seem to be getting yourself moving dependably enough to set some new goals. By necessity, you’ve invested considerable time and energy this year into resolving the past, and addressing some emotional issues. This has added up to one necessary development: being honest with yourself. Why exactly is this such a challenge,…

Art of Business: Holy Dog

Chino of Middletown’s Holy Dog doesn’t have a lot of time to worry about his small restaurant’s Internet presence. “I put my effort into the food, but customers put stuff online for me,” he says. “They supplement my nonexistent tech skills.” And they gobble up his all-beef, preservative-free Hatfield hot dogs, Italian sausages, and kielbasa…

Art of Business: Kaatsbaan International Dance Center

Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, the Hudson Valley’s “cultural park for dance,” was founded in 1990 to afford professional dancers the space and time they couldn’t afford in Manhattan, and often sees former students return again as renowned professionals. “Alexandre Hammoudi was a promising Extreme Ballet student 10 years ago; she’s now an American Ballet Theatre…

Poem: Fazon

A lot of trees were blown down by the hurricane last year and it turned out the mailman was leaving half his penny-savers in the gutter sheet. I knew which one it was— with the lean face and shaggy hair under his ball cap like a neck cloth. I thought it would be a piece…

Art of Business: Adage-NYC

In creating the Source Adage-NYC ambient fragrance line, its designers sought to imbue every aspect of their product with neoclassical style that would transcend cliché, from the signature black glass vessel to the scents within, which incorporate notes like exotic wood, fruit, fine bourbon, and fresh tobacco. “The industry targets women and stops with lavender,…

Poem: Sixteen

I stand before a sink filled with dishes from last night’s teenage heartbreak party daydreaming about quitting my job because poetry and survival don’t dance in the same hall. I may not change the world but I can recover one disappointment at a time, clean-slate the kitchen so those who pass through can get well,…

Shifting Direction Like a Dragonfly

This weekend’s astrology presents an interesting mix of the mental, emotional, visceral and philosophical. The inner landscape has shifted from last week, calling on you to embody your inner dragonfly. Mercury left Leo for Virgo (a sign it rules) last weekend. Mars finally exited Scorpio on Tuesday, and is now retracing its early spring path…

CD Review: Dust Bowl Faeries “Dust Bowl Faeries”

To just explain away the music of Hudson’s Dust Bowl Faeries as simply “dark cabaret” or “gypsy music” would be doing this talented collective and their stunning, eponymous debut a great disservice. Singer-songwriter Ryder Cooley and her band—lap steel player Karen Cole, guitarist Jen DuBois, percussionist JoAnn Stevelos, and keyboardist Sara Ayers—have created a 12-song…


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