Department of Corrections
Jim Reardon’s letter to the editor about June’s “Better Blooms” article.
Parting Shot: Norm Magnusson
Norm Magnusson’s mock historical markers will be installed in Ridgefield, Connecticut for the exhibition, “On This Site Stood,” through August 12.
Cassandra in a Party Dress
Martha Beall Mitchell was known for her coruscating gift of gab. But her unbridled Southern charm barely camouflaged a sly intelligence that was neither expected nor tolerated in Washington wives.
Conversation of the Birds
Perhaps science doesn’t take the topic seriously, but David Rothenberg has devoted his career to listening to nature in a musical way.
Shared Enchantment
On August 24 and 25 from 7 to 11pm (raindate August 26), Arm-of-the-Sea will present its seventh annual “Esopus Creek Puppet Suite” at Tina Chorvas Waterfront Park in Saugerties.
Poem: Lunch
Just the other side of the fence, a yard cat hides In the ditch along side the dirt road and paws The tall grass.
Poem: No More Bees
I want to stick my head into a patch of daffodils and do whatever the bees do to pollinate the earth.
Poem: In the Second World
Lucas isinUruguaywithhisgirlfriend,trying hishandatwriting andsays hehasathousandnewideaseachmorning
Poem: On Yet Another Birthday
each year when i take it out of its velvet-lined box to play and replay my father’s message
Poem: Repeat
He has the brightest eyes. That’s what people say when I show them pictures. You should see them when they’re closed, I think.
Poem: Lullaby for Letting Go
False because it was conjured by A two-year-old mind, Straining to have One Defining Moment By which to live her life.
Poem: A Perfect Match
She smirked unpleasantly at the irony of the situation. We are just pawns in this important decision of our lives.
Portfolio: Sarah Mecklem
Sarah Greer Mecklem is an artist whose life and career have always been intricately intertwined with the history and—more importantly—the experience of the Hudson Valley.
The Writing on the Wall
As a postwar phenomenon, graffiti parallels the rise of street toughs and gangs. Its present form began in the late sixties, and became known as part of hip hop culture by the mid ’70s.
Blinded by Frankenscience
The idea for “Mothers of Invention” began in 2002, after Laura Poe read an article about GMO food “and the crazy, crazy things going on.”
Where’s Your Data?
After more than $50 million spent on testing and cleaning so far, the question is whether students will be exposed to that contamination, and, if so, how it will affect them.
Mediterranean Oasis
The beauty and distinctiveness of Serevan lies in its historical charm and architectural finesse—living, breathing entities that have been gently cultivated by an Armenian from Tehran, chef and proprietor Serge Madikians.
On the Cover
Jessica Houston traveled to the Greek island of Paros in 1992 to study writing—and instead began an affair with art that has enraptured her since.
Lucid Dreaming
“Bivouac” takes a witty, somewhat arch approach to art, inventiveness, and imagined survivalism, while “Paths: Real and Imagined” gravitates toward an archetypal/metaphorical reading of its stated theme.
Editor’s Note: Enter the Wau Wau
Before the final chorus had settled across the packed house at Bard’s Spiegeltent on that balmy July evening, the Sisters had stripped (each other) to their underwear in an acrobatic burlesque that was part Pilobolus, part hilarity, part Scores, part blasphemy.
Ellenville Awakens
According to those people who are keeping Ellenville’s blood pumping, it’s time to find a new way to try and wake their village up. And the Ellenville Area Arts Alliance, or EA3, is hoping to be the solution.
CD Review: Samuel Claiborne
Samuel Claiborne has certainly had no shortage of pain and spiritual trials from which to draw for the sparse, fathomless, and profoundly moving solo piano improvisations in _The Annunciation_.
The Possible Dream
Richard Rothbard and his wife, Joanna, who is also an artist, manage American Art Marketing out of their rustic home in the Orange County town of Slate Hill.
CD Review: Dead Unicorn
Dead Unicorn tears through the material with a gleeful malevolence reminiscent of early Killing Joke.
CD Review: Artie Traum
Artie Traum’s all-star local band—Levin, drummer Gary Burke, pianist Warren Bernhardt and special guests like John Sebastian —lead us on an invigorating tour of Americana.
Back to the Future
This is TONTO, which, at a height of five feet and occupying 300 square feet, is the world’s largest analog synthesizer and the very one played by Stevie Wonder.
Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit
Dan Millman, former world-champion athlete, university coach, martial arts instructor, and college professor is perhaps best known for his multimillion-selling autobiographical novel, _Way of the Peaceful Warrior_.
Summer Reading Round-up for Kids
Susan Krawitz and Nina Shengold offer their picks for picture books, poetry, and young adult titles.
Masked Angel
Since 1984, Angel’s reverb-laden sound has found its home with six-string kings Los Straitjackets, a quartet whose members, for reasons that remain mysterious, wear Mexican wrestling masks when they perform.
Days of Plays
Not long after winning her Pulitzer, Parks undertook a project that is bringing her subversive and quirky humor right to the leafy hills of western Massachusetts.
Field of Dreams
Omi’s newest exhibit, “Bivouac,” turns the concept of art in nature on its head.
Dancing to a Different Drummer
His attitude toward dance as an expression of music is a no-no to most European post-moderns, whose emphasis is on conceptual movement over passionate musicality.
Disarmed By Jazz
A world-class player herself, McPartland’s musician’s point of view and calm demeanor easily disarms guests, who play and talk in a manner that would be unlikely in a different setting.
Planet Waves: Which Way is Reality?
They proposed that the bodies of climate change victims, who they said now number about 150,000 a year, could be rendered into a burnable product, particularly as combustion of fossil fuels sped up ecological disasters.
Horoscopes
You’re holding in your hands vital information about what it means to be stuck, and you’re on the threshold of discovering how you and the people closest to you can get brilliantly unstuck.
Portfolio: Phyllis Galembo
Galembo’s latest work presents large-scale color prints of the masquerade, a centuries-old costumed ceremony she witnessed in the African nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria.
Parting Shot: Sitting Bull
When Sitting Bull drew Self-Portrait in Battle in 1874, two years before the Battle of Little Bighorn, he drew himself not only as he was, but also how he saw himself spiritually.
Dirty Little Secrets
The trip was an “extraordinary rendition,” the transfer of a terror suspect to a foreign country for interrogation—and sometimes torture, human rights activists charge—outside of any legal process.
Beinhart’s Body Politic: Marketplace of Ideas
In the marketplace of ideas the power of big money is kicking ass and rationality is down for the count.
Local Luminary: Megan Whilden
In the two years Megan Whilden’s been Pittsfield’s culture czar, the Colonial Theater has opened and the Barrington Stage Company moved to town.
Conformity or Cooties?
I hope that in the future, the public school system will try harder to cater to students’ individual needs, so that they don’t have to wait until high school to appreciate their talents.
Spraypaint Warriors
They are street artists, whose illicit artwork graces buildings, billboards, and street signs across the region. They intentionally paint on private property and challenge the concept of public art.
CD Review: Super 400
Hailing from that hotbed of rock bands, Poestenkill, New York, long-time Capital area favorite Super 400 has a dazzling new release, 3 and the Beast.
CD Review: The Last Conspirators
Tim Livingston is back with The Last Conspirators, a quartet that brings a welcome, Information Age crunch to the tough, melodic sounds of late ’70s/early ’80s Brit-punk.
CD Review: HuDost
HuDost has a folk quality yet is quite post-modern; the band offers new takes on ancient words and melodies, cross-cultural hybrid transcendental chill-out music with an edge.
Music Together
Music has become something we consume rather than something we create. The truth is that making music and exploring movement is for everyone.
Esteemed Reader
Each of us individually is but a part of a being on a scale so vast as to be incomprehensible.
Editor’s Journal
In New York State, these yellow signs are as common in the suburbs as minivans. The wording on them reads like some macabre poem: PESTICIDE APPLICATION/ DO NOT ENTER/ DO NOT REMOVE/ SIGN FOR 24 HOURS.
Flight to Paris
Like something on the Rue Saint Marc in Paris, Brix is decked out in dark woods, a handcrafted zinc bar, Old World-style paintings on the walls, and cozy tables with burgundy linens.
Book Reviews: Way of Water and Welcome to Camden Falls
Fate, often enough, arrives as a beanball. Down you go, a crumple in the dirt. Then, through the pain and vapors, you see a hissing curveball coming your way. That’s when life gets interesting.
Book Review: A Portrait of Pia
Pia’s story is eminently accessible to young teens. The characters and their dilemmas are drawn with loving detail and the book’s lack of simple resolutions rings of real life.
Silver Sun
If the photographs for which Eve Sonneman is best known can be seen as a kind of visual phenomenology, her oils are forays into the sensual pleasures of light and color.
Rural Electrification
Not only could biogas contribute to our ever-growing demand for electricity, but it might also preserve the rural landscape and the farming way of life.
The Serendipity of a Bean Salad
I was struck. There it stood, like a signpost: the abundant flow of creative energy. Loud and clear it spoke. “The creative process uses every opportunity to create.”
Being Fertile
Don’t let an infertility diagnosis steal your ability to create life. Instead, discover the most creative, whole, healthy person you can be—and you may well make a baby in the process.
Old As the Hills
Part of a burgeoning scene of new, tradition-conscious American acoustic artists, The Hunger Mountain Boys bypass the ill turns country has made in recent times.
The Gospel According to Pinkwater
Daniel Pinkwater’s voice—instantly recognizable to NPR listeners—resonates down the stairwell as he appears, a Hitchcockian silhouette dressed in top-to-toe black with a dusting of pet hair.
Sketches of Monet
No artist epitomizes Impressionism more than Claude Monet. His famous paintings of Paris and the Normandy coast are among painting’s purest celebrations of color and light.
Saving Face
There are alternatives for those seeking a more holistic approach to facial rejuvenation and want to forgo the dramatic change a scalpel promises for a more natural and subtle improvement.
