Passages: A Farewell from Marilyn & Dan
From the start, Rural Intelligence was an experiment. Our goal to create an online culture-and-lifestyle magazine that would unite four counties in three states was and remains, as far as we know, unique. We are proud of the work we’ve done and that we’ve succeeded in fostering a sense of community across state and county lines among full- and part-time residents, as well as visitors. We’ve immensely enjoyed chronicling the extraordinary people and places that make our neck of the woods so special.
Now, at the end of our fourth summer, despite a record number of advertisers and a still-growing readership, we remain a tenuous business. So, the time has come for us to step back and get some perspective on the world beyond the Hudson Valley, the Berkshires, and the Litchfield Hills and on Rural Intelligence—what it is and, just possibly, what it could be again someday. We honestly do not know if RI has a future. What we do know, and apologize for, is that we leave behind disappointed contributors, readers, and advertisers (who, if they’ve paid in advance, will receive refunds). For Labor Day weekend, we will refresh the home page one last time with golden oldies. Thereafter, Rural Intelligence will remain online as is, so that anyone can continue to access the hundreds of stories and thousands of photographs in our archive.
It has been our great honor and pleasure to be part of your lives. We’ve given this our all for the past three-and-a-half years. Thank you for making us feel that it’s been worthwhile.
We’ll miss you.
—Marilyn Bethany and Dan Shaw for Rural Intelligence
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 08/21/11 at 06:59 AM • Permalink
20 Questions for ‘Money and Power’ Author William D. Cohan
When RI last chatted with William D. Cohan, he had just published House of Cards, his New York Times best seller about the fall of Bear Stearns. Now he’s written another insider account of Wall Street greed called Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World (Doubleday; $30.50). Excerpted in the May issue of Vanity Fair, the book has been called “the frankest, most detailed, most human assessment of the bank to date” by BusinessWeek, which says “Money and Power suggests the bank does possess a few special powers, starting with its remarkable ability to convince some of the world’s smartest young people that touting stocks, sniffing out arbitrage opportunities, and shaking down corporate clients amount to a noble calling.”
As a journalist-turned-investment-banker-turned-journalist again, Cohan enjoys engaging with his readers, and he will be reading from his book, answering questions and signing copies as a benefit for the Berkhsire Taconic Community Foundation at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, at the Stissing House in Pine Plains. The event is being sponsored by Hammertown Barn, which is selling copies of the book in advance and at the door if they don’t sell out. Here, Cohan shares with RI how he works and relaxes on weekends at his home in Ancramdale.
1. Why did you choose to buy a house in the Hudson Valley?
It’s a beautiful area 100 miles from New York City.
2. What’s the first thing you do when you arrive from the city?
Walk around the property, see what has changed from the week before and inhale the smell of manure on the fields.
3. What’s your favorite way to spend a Friday night?
Dnner at Mercato in Red Hook or No. 9 in Millerton (or any restaurant associated with Mario Batali.)
4. What’s your favorite way to spend a Sunday morning?
Having a cup of tea, hanging out with my family.
5. Where’s you favorite spot for bargain hunting?
I don’t think it’s there anymore but Spag’s, in Shrewsbury, Massachsuetts, outside of Worcester.
6. Where do you go for a self indulgent splurge?
Paris . . .
7. What’s your favorite one-hour drive from your house?
Great Barrington, Rhinebeck, Hudson, Bash Bish Falls.
8. What do you like most about country life?
Sitting around the fire with friends, having a beer or a glass of wine, and catching up.
9. What’s your favorite bookstore or bookstores?
Oblong in Millerton and Rhinebeck; Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT
10. What’s your favorite hardware store and/or garden center?
Duel’s in Pine Plains—it has a great smell; the Millerton Agway.
11. Who do you trust to recommend wines?
I am a craft beer drinker—I like Ommegang Brewery, Cooperstown; Sacketts Harbor Brewery; Dogfish Ale.
12. Who are your local heroes?
Art Bassin, who’s the head of the board of supervisors in Ancram, NY.
13. What newspapers or blogs do you read every day?
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Mediaite.com, The Financial Times.
14. Where and when do you write?
In my New York City apartment, in the kitchen of our home in Accramdale . . . anywhere there is a WiFi connection. I approach writing like a job: Get up, have some tea and write . . .
15. Where’s your favorite place for live performance?
Radio City Music Hall, Town Hall, Beacon Theatre, SPAC, the Mahaiwe.
16. What’s are your favorite not-for-profit organizations?
American Farmland Trust, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Columbia Land Conservancy, New Yorkers for Parks.
17. Do you think Hudson Valley real estate is a safe investment?
I do but more important it is a beautiful place to live, learn and share with your children and family.
18. What are you most looking forward to doing this summer?
Relaxing at the farm.
19. What three things do you always do with house guests?
Go to Hammertown Barn, go out to dinner, go to a maple syrup farm.
20. Is there a difference between investment bankers who have weekend houses in the Hudson Valley and those with houses in the Hamptons?
Yes there are differences. There is no “scene” upstate where bankers or other professionals feel the need to preen and show off like they do during the week. I’m not sure the same can be said for bankers in the Hamptons.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 05/17/11 at 10:24 PM • Permalink
RIP Jack Stern: The Retired Rabbi Who Wasn’t Retiring
You did not need to know that Jack Stern had been a great rabbi to know that he was a holy man. When he moved to Great Barrington full time in 1991 (after retiring as the senior rabbi at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY), he became involved with Construct Inc., the organization that provides comprehensive housing, support and educational services to anyone in the Southern Berkshire reigon who has lost his or her home or who lacks financial resources to maintain safe, decent and affordable housing. Every year, Construct prevents 600 households from becoming homeless, serves about 11,000 meals and shelters an average of 45 people. Rabbi Stern had been eagerly looking forward to this year’s annual Mayfest fundrasier for Construct because the board had decided that it wanted to build an addition to one of its shelters and name it Priscilla’s Room after his late wife, Priscilla Rudin Stern. Alas, Jack Stern died suddenly on April 14 at the age of 84, and now the Mayfest will also be a memorial to him, and so will every dollar donated for Priscilla’s Room.
“I never thought of him as a rabbi—I thought of him as just Jack,” says Construct board member Barbara Schulman, who is one of the organizers of the massive benefit at Eisner Camp that features food from 30 local restaurants and music by The Leisure Class. “He didn’t play up the rabbi thing.” But, in fact, he was a macher, who served as president from 1986 to 1988 of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which is considered to be the organized rabbinate of Reform Judaism in the United States.
His passionate involvement with a secular organization like Construct was typical of reform rabbis of his generation, according to Rabbi Deborah Zecher, who worked with him as a junior rabbi in Scarsdale and then became his rabbi at Hevreh in Great Barrington, where he could be found in the pews on Friday nights when he was not traveling. “The reform movement was founded on this passionate call for social justice and repairing the world, and he was all about that,” she says, noting that he went down to Mississippi in 1963 to march for civil rights and was one of the early champions of women joining the rabbinate.
He was also a social butterfly who enjoyed his martinis and who seemed to remember the names of everyone he’d ever met. “And once you met Jack, you did not forget him. His looks were distinct,” says Zecher. (When he bar-mitzvahed me in 1973, he was already completely white-haired and he seemed like a mystical figure conjured up by Marc Chagall.) “And he was all over the place,” says Zecher. “He was always around.” At his funeral in Scarsdale, his friend and neighbor Albert Vorspan described how they could not go to a Berkshire restaurant without Stern’s being mobbed by well-wishers. Said Vorspan: “He was a rock star.”
“I called him the Pearl Mesta of the Berkshires” says Marcia Soltes, who lives in Stockbridge and was the wife of two rabbis. “Wherever I went, he was the center of attention. He was very ecumenical. He was curious about everyone. He was fully engaged. And perhaps his own struggles [a childhood illness confined him to a wheelchair for a year when he was five and left him with one leg shorter than the other and permanent limp] made him more sensitive to the challenges other faced. He had a natural empathy.”
And though Construct is a non-sectarian organization, its connection to the reform Jews of the Berkshires is very strong. “Did you know that Construct has its office and its transitional home in the building that was once Hevreh’s home?” says Rabbi Zecher (with Stern, left) who’s as gregarious as her mentor and moonlights as a cabaret singer who’ll be performing her show “Confessions of A Mondern Mom” in Pittsfield on May 7 & 8.) “It was a three family house that we gutted and made our sanctuary, classroom and offices. Construct bought the building from us in 1999 when we moved. It was a sacred place for us, and it is still a sacred place.”
Construct Mayfest Honoring Jack Stern
Monday, May 9 @ 5:30 p.m.
Eisner Camp
53 Brookside Road, Great Barrington, MA
Tickets $75
Related Posts:
“Charity Begins at Home for Construct Inc” (May 11, 2010)
“Charity Calls on Cooks’ Night Off: Restaurants Rally for Construct Inc” (May 12, 2009)
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/28/11 at 08:37 AM • Permalink
Broadway is Bittersweet for Litchfield’s Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer on the terrace of his New York apartment on April 8, 2011.
If you think Larry Kramer’s seminal 1985 AIDS play, The Normal Heart (which will open on Broadway on April 27), is strictly a period piece, think again. Yes, it is set 30 years ago, when a mysterious disease is killing gay men, and the panic tearing through the homosexual community is of little concern to politicians, the medical establishment or the mainstream media. Yes, a style reporter at The New York Times is adamantly and paradoxically in the closet even though he has fallen in love with a loud-mouth gay activist (Kramer’s theatrical alter-ego). Yes, the banker who is elected to lead an organization devoted to taking care of people with the disease is unabashedly homophobic (“My boss doesn’t know and he hates gays. He keeps telling me fag jokes and I keep laughing at them,” the banker says.) Yes, there was so little information about the disease that it was feared it could be transmitted by a simple kiss. (It can’t.)
Yes, the times have changed. But the HIV/AIDS epidemic remains tragically with us. While 12,000 had died of AIDS by the summer of 1985, the total number of deaths in the United States from AIDS is more than 576,000 (as of 2007), according to the Centers for Disease Control. Today in this country, more than 18,000 people still die of AIDS annually, and more than 56,000 people get newly infected every year.
“The play is not really a world ago,” says Kramer, a part-time Litchfield County resident, whose impassioned drama is timeless because it’s essentially about love and friendship during a time of crisis. “There are so many things still wrong. You don’t read about it anymore, but it is still a plague. I plan to hand out a fact sheet at every performance.” Kramer laments that homosexuals are second class citizens in the United States. “We still don’t have real marriages,” he says bitterly, referring to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Kramer, who is 75, has longed believed in monogamy. He was castigated for his 1978 novel, Faggots, a satire that warned of the emotional hazards of promiscuity in the carefree, pre-AIDS era. “I was a pariah and then I was a seer,” he says. When you witness Kramer and his longtime partner, David Webster, graciously welcoming a diverse crowd of some 200 to their annual Fourth of July cookout overlooking Lake Waramaug in Litchfield County, it’s hard to imagine that he was once the most controversial figure in the gay community. Educated at Yale and so unapologetically bourgeois that his “high tech” Greenwich Village apartment was featured in The New York Times Magazine in 1974 (the Litchfield house has been in Architectural Digest), Kramer was arguably the angriest man in America in the 1980s. He was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT-UP, the organization that staged noisy protests, sit-ins and die-ins, demanding that the government make preventing and finding a cure for HIV/AIDS a priority. “We showed how a small group of activists could make a huge difference,” he says. “All of the drugs now available were possible because of the efforts of ACT- UP.”
Now he is a lion in winter, working away on a massive book about the history of homosexuality in America. “So many of our presidents have been gay,” he says, relishing his role as provocateur. “Not only Lincoln, but Washington and Hamilton, too.” The living room of his apartment has become his office with two enormous Apple computers surrounded by stacks and walls of books. “I wish I could go up to our house in Connecticut to work on it, but I don’t like to be alone and David travels too much,” he says. “But we are hoping to spend the whole summer there.” He bought the Litchfield house in 1995, after spending summers in both the Hamptons and Fire Island. “Connecticut is much prettier, and we don’t have the social competitiveness,” he says. “It took a lot of courage to go to Fire Island. People don’t remember that. You had to go on show and be prepared to be looked at by a lot of people. And that took a sort of courage. That’s why everyone took so many drugs. It made it easier.”
In New York, he lives in the same rent-stabilzied apartment featured in the Times with a terrace overlooking Washington Square Park. He is kept busy getting ready for opening night of The Normal Heart, which begins previews on April 19. “All my doctors are coming and I want them to have good seats!” he says. (The original production ran Off Broadway for 294 performances at the Public Theatre.) The show had a one-night-only Broadway debut last fall at a star-studded benefit reading. “The producer Darryl Roth decided that it deserved a real run, but we had trouble finding an available theater,” he says. The two most crucial parts in the play—Kramer’s alter ego, Ned Weeks, and his lover, Felix Turner—are being played by the same actors from the fall reading: Joe Mantello and John Benjamin Hickey (who happens to have a weekend house near Kramer’s in Salisbury, CT.) Kramer is extremely pleased that Ellen Barkin will be playing the heroic wheelchair-bound Dr. Emma Brookner. “She’s one of the great under-appreciated actresses,” he says.
Still, the Broadway run (and the anxiety of a possible Tony nomination) is bittersweet, and he hopes that it will be an opportunity to introduce a younger generation to their patrimony. “They don’t seem to want to know that there is a gay history or about the generation that died,” he says sadly. “The thing about the play is that it brings back so many memories. As wrong as it sounds, it was great fun. It wrapped us in a wonderful blanket of togetherness. I made many good friends because of GMHC and ACT-UP. Of course, many of them are dead.” Amazingly, he worries about being reviewed. “Facing the critics all over again is hard on the insides,” he says. “It’s funny to have to go through all of this again at this age.”
The Normal Heart
The Golden Theatre
252 West 45th Street, New York, NY
April 19 - July 3
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/14/11 at 07:39 AM • Permalink
20 Questions for Author Frank Delaney of Kent, CT
In literary circles, Frank Delaney is best known as a best-selling novelist and radio and television interviewer. In the Rural Intelligence region, he’s known as a bon vivant and husband of the exuberant novelist Diane Meier. Delaney’s latest novel, The Matchmaker of Kenmare, is a love story set during World War II in his native Ireland. “Delaney’s brand of Irish fabulism is still a delight to read,” said Kirkus Reviews of his new book. “The novel burnishes this veteran writer’s reputation as a consummate storyteller. One of the best fictional wartime couples animates veteran Delaney’s darkly wistful novel. On Saturday, March 12, at 2 p.m., Delaney will be reading and signing copies of his book at the Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington, CT.
1. How did you end up moving to Kent?
Cherchez la femme, the French would say - “seek the woman”! Diane and I had been friends for a decade and more; we had always liked each other enormously and had met several times before romance pranced in. When it did—she had an old house in Kent, Ct., I had an old house in Somerset, England; but she had a dog, a German short-haired pointer name of Coco, too old for the risk of quarantine—so I moved to the U.S. of A.
2. What’s your favorite way to spend a Friday night?
It used to be playing cards, with friends or strangers; now it’s watching old movies, preferably 1939 - which is what Diane likes to do.
3. What’s your favorite way to spend a Sunday morning?
If I’m not working (and I often am) it’s choring at home, attacking the pleasingly mundane tasks that have to be done, and by which I preserve my sanity.
4. Where’s you favorite spot for bargain hunting?
Woodbury’s good, though maybe not for bargains; I like Johnsons in Millerton and have picked up some terrific stuff there. And with my mild addiction to lamps of all kinds, I also like Shandells in Millerton, inventive and eclectic; and Michael Trapp’s cave of majestic exotica in Cornwall. And, of course, Joan Osofsky‘s inimitable Hammertown Barn.
5. Where do you go for a self indulgent splurge?Hah! Easy-peasy to answer this one: Jonathan Derwin’s R. Derwin Clothiers in Litchfield. Jonathan is in himself a total delight; he has splendid taste, is endlessly supportive and interested, and the shop is engagingly laid out. And J. Seitz in New Preston, where Ron Leal now adds his outstanding renown to a shop in which it’s virtually impossible NOT to buy something.
6. What’s your favorite one-hour drive from your house?One-hour drive? There are so many. Lake Waramaug is too near to qualify: I think the Rhinebeck corridor along the Hudson must be the most alluring - beautiful in most weathers.
7. What’s your favorite historical site?
In the world? Delphi in Greece. In the United States? The Independence area of Philadelphia. In Connecticut? Kent has a deep and interesting history, and it’s now getting carefully preserved and brought to life again.
8. What three things do you alway do with house guests?
Feed them. Talk, talk, talk with them. Let them fall asleep by the pool.
9. What’s your favorite bookstore or bookstores?
Again, easy: Fran Kielty’s The Hickory Stick in Washington CT. She reads so accurately that you can always trust her recommendations, and the (beautifully run) shop has a compelling atmosphere. And her husband, Michael Keilty, is one of Connecticut’s - and America’s - most remarkable men, a man so rounded in his knowledge, practices and his perceptions that he would certainly have been a Founding Father had he been around back in the day.
10. What’s your favorite hardware store and/or garden center?
During all the construction work we’ve undertaken we’ve been relying on Northwest Lumber in Cornwall, but for the everyday essentials we would be lost and adrift without Kent TrueValue Hardware.
11. Where do you shop for clothes?
See my answer to Question. 5 above - R. Derwin & Son Man’s Shop in Litchfield - marvelous range, comforting and exciting all at once.
12. Who do you trust to recommend wines?
Bill Fore at County Wines in New Preston; Jo Kimball in Sharon - their selections are among the best I’ve seen in years especially, and in both cases, their claret petits chateaux and the lesser-known but outstanding Spanish labels. And Ira, encyclopdaedically knowledgeable, at Kent Wine & Spirits.”
13. Who are your local heroes?
Without hesitation, the Kent Volunteer Firefighters. And all such volunteer firefighters in Litchfield County.
14. What newspapers or blogs do you read every day?
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC News, Irish Times, Scotsman, Le Monde -—all online and sometimes, for sport and politics, Corriere Della Sera.
15. Where and when do you write?
Two locations: my study in our Kent barn; and the New York office.
16. Where’s your favorite place for live performance?
The Olivier, the largest of the three auditoria in the Royal National Theater, London; the auditorium in Epiadurus on which it is based (though I think that Epidaurus has the better acoustic print); the two Roman amphitheaters in Arles and Nimes, France.
17. Who are your favorite local authors?
Diane Meier; Edmund Morris.
18.What’s your favorite small-town tradition in Kent?
The parades - Firemen’s and Memorial Day; I love the way American small towns run themselves; and their decency and modesty are on show in such parades.
19. What’s your secret for coping with winter?
Wrap up warm. Shut up about it. And work.
20. What are you most looking forward to doing this summer?
Getting my garage to rights, thus having a workbench up and running. And seeing Diane enjoying the pool!
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 02/28/11 at 05:39 PM • Permalink
A Birthday Celebration for W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois, Atlanta University, 1909*
By Kathryn Matthews
“One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder….”—W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903
This month, the Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail (AAHT) pays tribute to one of the most prominent African American leaders of the 20th century: William Edward Burghardt “W.E.B.” Du Bois (1868-1963).
Born February 23, and raised in Great Barrington, Du Bois was a ground-breaking sociologist, prolific author, and outspoken civil rights activist, who helped create the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and, as editor, guided its magazine, The Crisis. He was a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance and is considered the father of Pan-Africanism. He was also a vocal environmental activist, whose causes included the Housatonic River.
Until recent years, however, few people—even those who live in Great Barrington—knew that Du Bois came from—and had a lifelong affinity and love for—the Berkshires.
Du Bois Walking Tour
● The W.E.B. Du Bois Birth Site (Walk 100 yards up Church Street; to the right): The house no longer exists, but a bronzed plaque marks the location.
● Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church (9 Elm Court): First founded as a society in 1870, of which Du Bois was once a member, the building, which opened in 1887, is the oldest Black church in the Berkshires. As a teenage reporter for the Springfield Republican and New York Globe, Du Bois frequently wrote about the Clinton community. Now listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, Clinton has been instrumental in promoting Black history and the legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois.
● Great Barrington Town Hall (334 Main Street): As a young, local correspondent for the New York Globe, Du Bois covered meetings here .
● First Congregational Church (251 Main Street): One of four churches that assisted with Du Bois’ college tuition.
● Mahaiwe Cemetery (South Main Street, Route 7 at the corner of Silver Street): An historic market denotes the burial site of Du Bois’ wife, Nina, and his children, Burghardt and Yolande.
● The W.E.B. Du Bois Mural (Off Railroad Street; Taconic parking lot): First painted by young artists from The Railroad Street Youth Project in 2003, this mural, which depicts Du Bois’ life, was revised and repainted in 2010.
● The Boyhood Homesite (At the junction of Route 23 and Route 71; Open May - Oct, 413.528.3391): Du Bois’ maternal ancestral home and where he lived from the ages of 2 to 6.
In large part, this was because of the politics of the 1950s and 1960s, says Rachel Fletcher, founder and co-director of the AAHT and a founder of Friends of the Du Bois Homesite. Despite Du Bois’ many accomplishments, he was viewed in his later years as a Black radical for his justifiably scathing criticism of U.S. race relations and for his association with various left-wing causes, which drew the attention of the FBI. In 1961, at the age of 93, Du Bois took a final political stand by joining the Communist party, and, a year later, moved to Ghana, where he died in 1963.
Du Bois’ leftist politics overshadowed his scholarly achievements, turning him into a controversial figure, whom, mainstream America—including his hometown—eschewed. But the 21st century residents of Great Barrington—an eclectic mix of locals, weekenders, retirees and younger people—are receptive to learning about Du Bois, says Bernard Drew, a local historian who has authored several books on African American history, including Dr. Du Bois Rebuilds his Dream House (Attic Revivals Press, 2006).
This change in attitude may also be attributable to the efforts of the AAHT, whose mission is to celebrate trailblazing black Americans—the ordinary and the famous—of the Upper Housatonic Valley and to preserve important African American sites in the Berkshires and northwest Connecticut.
The town has also rediscovered its native son through an annual Du Bois birthday celebration, hosted since 2001 by Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, where Du Bois attended meetings as a boy. “The black population in Great Barrington is small, just 3%, but Clinton’s tribute is a well-attended event, drawing a diverse audience (approximately 80% of whom are not black) of locals and visitors from New York and Boston,” says Fletcher. This Saturday, February 19th, at 2pm, Clinton A.M.E. Church hosts a Du Bois gospel birthday tribute. Free, and open to the public, the program features the Women of Faith Ensemble, a music ministry of St. John’s Congregational Church in Springfield, followed by refreshments.
The month-long AAHT 143rd Du Bois birthday celebration honors him as an educator. “He is regarded as one of the most important intellectuals that America has ever produced,” says Fletcher.
From an early age, Du Bois believed that education was key to achieving social justice. At a time when most students, irrespective of their race, left school after the eighth grade, Du Bois attended Great Barrington High School—the only Black student in his class—graduating at the age of 15. The community supported his educational endeavors: when Du Bois wanted to go to Fisk College, a black liberal arts college in Nashville, four churches helped pay for his tuition. After time spent teaching in the rural South, he decided to pursue advanced studies and, in 1895, he became the first African American to receive a Ph.D from Harvard.
He became a professor at Atlanta University, where he taught history and economics between 1897 and 1910, later returning in 1934 to head its sociology department for 10 years.
Though he died on another continent, Great Barrington remained in his thoughts throughout his life, says Fletcher, adding: “He loved the New England landscape and culture. His first wife and two children are buried here, and he had a deep emotional connection with his maternal ancestral homesite, where he lived as a young boy.”
Though the house no longer exists, the Boyhood Homesite represents sacred ground to Du Bois’ admirers. Fletcher recalls one visitor from Farleigh Dickenson, who came to Great Barrington and, literally, kissed the ground where Du Bois lived.
In that pilgrim’s eyes, says Fletcher, “Du Bois was only a hero.”
W.E.B. Du Bois 10th Annual Birthday Celebration
Clinton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
9 Elm Street, Great Barrington,
Saturday, February 19th: 2 - 4 p.m.
Free; RSVP required 413.229.2668
Friends of the Du Bois Homesite: 413.528.3391
*Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. DuBois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst
For a complete schedule of Du Bois birthday celebration events in the Berkshire region, click here.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 02/16/11 at 11:54 AM • Permalink
20 Questions for ‘Playdate’ Author Thelma Adams
Thelma Adams‘s just published novel, Playdate (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press) is more than a comedy of manners about living the good life in Southern California. It’s an affectionate and empathetic portrait of a house husband, whose dirty little secret is how much he loves staying home and caring for his daughter. If you’ve ever wondered how a stay-at-home dad can be so content, Playdate offers a view into his secret world. Adams, the film critic for US Weekly, lives in Hyde Park, NY, with her husband, Ranald Adams, a solution architect for HP, and their two children, Trevor, 15, and Elizabeth, 11. She will be reading at Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, on Saturday, January 29 at 7:30 p.m. Although her book is set in her native California, it’s clear from her answers to our 20 Questions that she’s lost her heart to the Hudson Valley.
1. How did you choose to move from Brooklyn to Hyde Park?
We fell in love with a house and the surrounding land. We have nearly 15 acres on the Fall Kill with a bridge over the water leading to what was once a hunting lodge. I watched my husband walk the land and I knew he was home, and that I was there with him. It’s convenience to the Poughkeepsie Metro North station for my twice-weekly round-trips to see movies in Manhattan for Us Weekly didn’t hurt.
2. Where and when do you write?
I’m a morning writer. I write at my desk on the sunny southern side of our bedroom on my cherry red HP Mini.
3. What’s your favorite way to spend a Sunday morning?
Writing! I sit at my desk looking south over the landscape—wild turkeys do their flamboyant mating dance, a red fox pads into the circle of the driveway, deer flash by. I see my peonies in bloom, or icicles hanging off the edge of the roof sparkling in wintry light. Meanwhile, the rest of the house sleeps; our Maine Coon cat, Sherlock, slips into the warm spot I’ve left on the bed beside my husband. Then my husband wakes up, too, and begins making grits and eggs, his Sunday ritual.
4. What’s your favorite way to spend a Friday night?
Watching BBC mysteries on the big screen TV sitting beside my husband, draped in cats with the kids playing peacefully in their rooms.
5. Where’s you favorite spot for bargain hunting?
I love the Hyde Park Antiques Center. The most beautiful piece in my dining room is a hand-carved chest that I looked at for months there, falling in love every time I saw it, until finally I made them an offer they could refuse but didn’t. Now it’s ours. I still mourn the ebony Chinoiserie dining room set I didn’t buy—but I would have needed a second dining room to house it.
6. Where do you go for a self indulgent splurge? The best massage I’ve ever had in the Hudson Valley was from Michelle Christopherson, It was physical and spiritual, completely therapeutic—and the biggest treat for me.
7. What’s your favorite one-hour drive from your house?
I love driving north to Hudson and dreaming of buying a big spread in Columbia County with livestock. I love the farms, the view of the Catskills to the west, and then arriving to shop antiques and boutiques, browse books at The Spotty Dog Books and Ale on Warren Street (I found an August Sander photography book there for my husband’s Christmas present), meet friends and savor the architecture.
8. What’s your favorite historical site?
I’m torn: Vanderbilt or Olana? Olana or Vanderbilt? OK: Vanderbilt because I walk the grounds all the time. I love the view of the Hudson— and it has a fantastic gift shop I browse as a reward for climbing the big hill from Bard Rock. Although, I do find the Olana interiors inspirational, and the vistas incomparable. Thank you, Mr. Church.
9. What three things do you alway do with house guests?
We’re very bad in this regard: we stay close to home. My husband cooks big meals. We watch DVD’s from our enormous collection. And we sit on our screened porch with cocktails and watch the light change over the Fall Kill, hoping the Great Blue Heron will make an appearance, and the muskrats will be frisky.
10. What’s your favorite bookstore?
I love Oblong Books. It’s my local independent and I’m sticking by it.
11. What’s your favorite hardware store and/or garden center?
I love The Phantom Gardener in Rhinebeck and strolling through the shrubs. I’m a sucker for hydrangeas. They have great practical workshops, too. Prune on!
12. Where do you shop for clothes?
I love Present Perfect, the Rhinebeck consignment shop. I got a terrific Paul Smith tweed men’s blazer there in the fall for myself—then gave it to my son. (OK: it looks better on him.)
13. Who do you trust to recommend wines? The folks at Clinton Vineyards in Clinton Corners. I’m all about the Peach Gala. When we first moved to the Hudson Valley from NY and felt flush, we bought a case.
14. Who are your local heroes?
Lynne Ryan, the wife of CIA president Tim Ryan. To me, she’s like the Sandra Bullock character in The Blind Side, always giving of herself. And, at Christmas, she throws down the best competitive gingerbread-house making party. I also adore the actress Melissa Leo, who lives on the other side of the river, along with the great women of the Rosendale Theater Collective, Nicole Quinn and Sophia Raab-Downs. Couple Meira Blaustein & Laurent Rejto make up the spine of The Woodstock Film Festival.
15. What newspapers or blogs do you read every day?
I’m a devoted Poughkeepsie Journal reader and, of course, Rural Intelligence. I’m also a Hammertown junkie.
16. Where’s your favorite place for live performance?
The Fisher Center at Bard. It’s a jewel box of a theater wrapped in a Frank Gehry crushed beer can.
17. Where’s your favorite place for breakfast?
Coffee at Bread Alone in Rhinebeck to eavesdrop on the regulars discussing real estate and local politics.
18. What’s your favorite movie theater?
I love Upstate Films for art house fare, but for a night at the movies with the kids I’m crazy about the Roosevelt Cinemas on Route 9 in Hyde Park. It’s locally owned and operated and a fantastic bargain. It’s where I catch up on movies that I missed for my job as US Weekly film critic. The last movie I saw there was Burlesque, a total guilty pleasure!
19. What’s the best celebrity sighting you’ve had in the Hudson Valley?
I saw the wonderful Up in the Air actress Vera Farmiga buying textile supplies at the Sheep and Wool Festival at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds.
20. What are you most looking forward to doing this spring?
Welcoming the big thaw—and the first crocus!
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 01/26/11 at 02:43 PM • Permalink
A Landscape for Dreamers: 57 Acres in Great Barrington
Depending on your personal history and point of view, the abandoned Barrington Fairgrounds on Route 7 (across from Guido’s) is an eyesore or an opportunity, an overgrown lot or a field of dreams. It was only 16 years ago that a tornado tore through town and destroyed most of the buildings, which were then rebuilt and briefly used again for the annual agricultural fair and horse races. (See photos below.) “I remember it well,” says Deborah Levinson, the agent for the 57.3 acre parcel that is listed with Berkshire Property Agents. “There were tractor pulls and fried dough, and people would come from far away.” (In fact, according to ESPN, the faigrounds once attracted a crowd of more than 27,000 for a race.)
“We’ve just put the property on the market again at a new lower price,” says Levinson. “It’s $1.9 million for commercial space in the heart of Great Barrington.” A few years ago, there were developers with big plans to build a hotel and convention center, according to Levinson, but the property includes wetlands and a 100-year floodplain so only about four acres can be built on. “You would probably have to build any new structures on piers,” she says. As a resident of Great Barrington, Levinson is hoping that some civic-minded investors come together to create a mixed-use development that focuses on recreation. “We could have a flea market like Brimfield here. We could have a permanent place for our farmers’ market and possibly for agriculture, too. The Housatonic RiverWalk could be extended. This could be our version of Sheep Meadow. I would really like to bring together people with a like-minded vision to purchase this property.”
Berkshire Property Agents
12 Railroad Street, Great Barrington, MA; 413.429.1910
An aerial view of the site along the Housatonic River.
A ghost town within walking distance of downtown.
The forlorn buildings were rebuilt in the 1990s.
The grandstand calls out for a visionary architect.
The site off Route 7 has knockout views of the hills and the river.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 01/05/11 at 08:40 PM • Permalink
RI’s Second Annual Holiday Poem
Deck the Halls and Share the Bounty
Greetings friends in Litchfield County.
Hark to folks who hail from Dutchess,
And Columbians, as much as,
Those from Berkshire, self-possessed,
We share a land, for which we’re blessed.
Not just in this festive season,
But year ‘round, and with good reason.
We crash your parties to take a pic,
And chronicle your every tic.
It’s work that’s fun and sometimes hard,
Much like this bumbling greeting card.
Imagine living in a place,
That lacked the merry Stuart Chase?
Don’t reel in horror, we won’t fool ye,
He’s ours for good ‘cause his wife Julie,
Would not stand for any lark,
That took her from the splendid Clark.
Shakers quiver, though ought not fear,
Hancock’s safe under Ellen Spear.
Mother Ann would be astounded,
And her flock no less confounded,
To learn that morals stern and chaste
Don’t last; what does is their great taste.
To the thesps at Shakespeare, et al.
A standing ovation and a curtain call.
To Ms. Packer, still on board,
In wig and costume, wielding sword.
Now Tony Simotes counts the gold,
All’s well that ends well, as Will foretold.
To Ghent filmmaker James A. Shamus,
Another neighbor who’s world famous,
And the Taylors, Kim & James,
Permit us, please, to drop your names.
To Philip Roth and YoYo Ma,
You’re our idea of La De Da.
Give thanks to farmers Whippoorwill
And Kinderhook, who toil and till,
To Dom at Moon upon the Pond,
Of whom we are especially fond,
They sow and seed and do their chores
So we may be good locavores.
Merrymakers, raise your torches,
To N. Fitzpatrick, who owns Porches.
And, too, ye olde Red Lion Inn.
And don’t forget the chef at Fin,
The gang at Guido’s Marketplace,
And Gund who daily saves our Face.
Out with this year, ring in a newbie,
Hail Colin Stair and Glenda Ruby,
Joan K. Davidson and James T. Male,
Gary Shiro, Wasail! Wasail!
Hudson, never rinky dinky,
Is now Hip Central; thanks, Helsinki.
And don’t forget those two smart chums,
Who knew they’d get far more than crumbs,
If they ran for the prom’s Queen and King,
Then won by a landslide; but here’s the thing,
Elders on all sides, though some were dazed,
Behaved like adults, Ellen be praised!
Salisbury, Conn. lost its moor,
When the White Hart Inn locked its door.
Then came Falls Village’s brand new inn,
And S’s loss took on a new spin.
But things are great in most respects,
A once-empty store is now Peter Beck’s.
Rhinebeck proved itself the best,
At playing cards close to its chest.
When rude reporters nosed around,
Did Missner & Hastings stand their ground?
Now Laura at GiGi’s recalls the charms,
Of fat cats staying at the Beekman Arms.
If you crave a taste that’s dazzling,
Hasten to Francois Bizalion.
Cheers Chris Weld, master distiller,
Your Greylock Gin, what a thriller!
For cupcakes small as Christmas lights,
Hightail it up to Barrington Bites.
Regrets? Nah, nary a sorrow,
Nor, we suspect, has Gary di Mauro.
With luck twenty eleven could be the year,
When buyers finally conquer fear,
And trade their tiresome peruse,
For offers no one can refuse.
For whom doth toll the year-end bell?
Adios: Don’t ask; Don’t tell.
Rachel Maddow, take a bow,
She pressed the noble case; and how!
We’ll celebrate at Hudson Pride,
With Trixie Starr close by our side.
While we who sit and wait are vexed,
To see what Maddow takes on next.
With J. Gersten backstage once more,
Williamstown will surely roar.
There’s no stopping Kate Maguire,
She’ll set the Colonial back on fire.
Looking forward, we’re in heaven,
Primed and geared for 2011!
You stalwart friends and loyal readers,
Movers, shakers, opinion leaders,
To all you faithful, we now pray,
Log onto RI every day!
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 12/22/10 at 11:40 AM • Permalink
The 25th Annual Pine Plains Parade of Lights
If you’re going to wait out in the cold for a parade, it better be worth it and the Pine Plains Parade of Lights did not dissapoint. For the past 25 years, the beginning of the Christmas season is heralded by the parade of fire trucks, hay wagons, ambulances and tractors that are covered in holiday lights for a parade down Route 199. “We had more than 50 floats this year,” says Pine Plains Business Association President Ibis Guzman. As the particpants gathered at Stissing Mountain High School, Jorge and Eileen Yajure The Pines bed and breakfast were readying for nearly 200 guests at their annual open house. They had decked their halls with miles of ribbon and evergreen boughs, and set up heaters on the outdoor porch where drinks were served. Guests could listen to Christmas carolers inside, warm themselves by a bonfire outside and admire the gingerbread houses that local residents had made to resemble Pine Plains landmarks, which were being sold off to raise funds for the Pine Plains historical society.
Sol Flower Farm’s Andy Szymanowicz with actor Rick Trabucco and Gomez; Gary Delemeester and Eugenia Zukerman
Hammertown Barn’s Joan Osofsky and Terry Giordana; Lydia & Lori Berliner.
The porch at The Pines.
