http://ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/index/ Your guide to Rural Living en dan.shaw@att.net Copyright 2008 2008-05-09T21:37:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_theatre/theatre_barrington_stage_company_finds_itself_a_second_home/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_theatre/theatre_barrington_stage_company_finds_itself_a_second_home/#When:21:37:00Z Barrington Stage Company, which has a beautifully renovated 500-seat theater (with great leg room) in downtown Pittsfield, has finally found a semi-permanent home for its Stage II productions. BSC has signed a five year-lease for the VFW Hall on Linden Street and invested $20,000 to turn it into what BSC artistic director Julianne Boyd calls “my dream Stage II space for us.” Boyd has managed to put on first rate theater in unlikely spots over the years: In 2004, she produced The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in the cafeteria of the Mount Everett Regional School in Sheffield, and for the last two summers she has presented new musicals in the cinder-block basement of the Pittsfield Athenaeum. The first production at the new space will be I Am My Own Wife—the Pulitzer=Prize winning play about an East German transvestite who eludes the Nazis&mdashBSC will continue its long-standing policy of offering reduced-price tickets ($15 or $20) for the first two previews of every show. A new innovation this year is a “Pay What You Can” performance for audiences under 35 (with a $5 minimum.) “We really want to attract new audiences and make sure theater is accessible to everyone.” says Boyd. Theatre 2008-05-09T21:37:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_movies/movie_intelligence1/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_movies/movie_intelligence1/#When:11:28:00Z Following are the films currently showing in our region, listed in order of their Metacritic score.* For a synopsis of the film and excerpts from the reviews that led to the score, click on the Metascore next to the film title. For show times, click on the theater name in the Movie Theaters directory at right. . . Metascore/film title/(theaters) 91 No Country for Old Men (Images) 81 Black Orpheus (Mahaiwe) 79 The Visitor (Triplex, Spectrum, Upstate) 78 The Counterfeiters (Images, Spectrum) 78 Iron Man (Cinerom, Fairview, Moviehouse, Regal Berkshire) 72 Priceless (Triplex, Spectrum) 71 Young@Heart (Spectrum, Upstate) 68 Redbelt (Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire, Spectrum) 67 In Bruges (Spectrum) 67 Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Canaan Colonial, Cinerom, Crandell, Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire, Spectrum) 57 Smart People (Spectrum) 57 Forbidden Kingdom (Fairview) 56 Leatherheads (Hudson Movieplex) 56 Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (Cinerom, Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire) 56 Then She Found Me (Triplex) 55 Baby Mama (Cinerom, Regal Berkshire, Spectrum, Triplex) 55 Nim’s Island (Canaan Colonial, Cinerom, Fairview, Regal Berkshire) 48 21 (Gilson, Hudson Movieplex) 44 What Happens In Vegas (Cinerom, Fairview, Regal Berkshire) 42 The Bucket List (Gilson) 40 Speed Racer (Cinerom, Hudson Movieplex, Moviehouse, Regal Berkshire) 37 Made of Honor (Cinerom, Regal Berkshire) 34 Prom Night (Hudson Movieplex) *Metacritic is a site that weighs film reviews from dozens of sources, averaging the results to achieve a score—the closer to 100, the more positive the reviews. Movies 2008-05-09T11:28:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/news_the_return_of_the_farmers_markets/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/news_the_return_of_the_farmers_markets/#When:12:16:00Z Across our region, several of the major farmer’s market are back in business for the season. What might you find this weekend? Various lettuces, spring mix, mesclun, arugula, kale, chard, broccoli rabe, asparagus, rhubarb, peas, mushrooms, spring garlic and herbs. You can also shop for milk, cheese, poultry, meat, fish, honey, maple syrup, wine, flowers, bread, pickles, jams, pies.  There will also be lots of bedding plants for your garden and cut flowers. Every farmer may not show up the first weekend. In Hudson, they are calling it a “soft” opening, but promise that at least 20 vendors will be on hand by June 14. The Rhinebeck market is celebrating Mother’s Day by giving away free seedlings to all mothers compliments of the River Garden Flower Farm in Catskill, NY. Great Barrington Farmers’ Market At the historic train station behind Town Hall. May 10 - October 25 Saturdays: 9 AM - 1 PM   Hudson Farmers’ Market 6th and Columbia Streets May 10 - November 22 Saturdays: 9 AM - 1 PM   Kent Farmers’ Market On the Kent Green May 10 - October Saturdays: 9 AM - noon Lenox Farmers’ Market 55 Pittsfield Road (Route 7) at Aspinwell May 9 - October 17 Fridays: 2 -6 PM   Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market Rhinbeck Municipal Parking Lot on East Market Street May 11 - Thanksgiving Sundays: 10 AM - 2 PM New day! May 29 - October 9 Thursdays:  3 - 7 PM   Sheffield Farmer’s Market New location! Massini’s lot, 1/2 mile north of town center on Route 7 May 9 - October 10 Fridays: 3:30 - 6:30 News 2008-05-08T12:16:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/a_new_bbq_joint_by_the_housatonic/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/a_new_bbq_joint_by_the_housatonic/#When:01:55:01Z Vicki Halliday grew up in Texas, and her good ole girl attitude is reflected in Smokin Barbecue, the West Cornwall restaurant that she co-owns with her friend Dan Evans.  Less than a hundred yards from a prime fishing and canoeing stretch of the Housatonic River, Smokin Barbecue is the type of joint where you can arrive in your waders or wet clothes, and sit down to a draft beer and baby back or country style ribs (in two sizes: $12.95 or $19.95), which come with a choice of a side such as potato salad or baked beans.  The greenest thing on the menu at Smokin Barbecue is coleslaw, and Halliday says that she’s not planning to make changes any time soon.  “This is my idea of a real barbecue place,” she says in a Texan twang, which means no reservations and no credit cards, either. There are old fashioned pinball machines to help pass the time if you have to wait. “Most kids who come in have never seen them before,” says Halliday. “They get a real kick out of them.” The search for the right barbecue sauce for the ribs was easy, because it was Dan’s homemade sauce that inspired the restaurant in the first place. And it’s a picture of Dan dressed as an aborigine (at a Halloween party several years ago at Mohawk Mountain) that became the label for Dangerous Dan’s Sauce, which is for sale at the restaurant ($6.50) as well as local markets. “We started bottling the sauce last year in Russ’s kitchen,” explains Halliday, referring to Russ Sawicki, who owns the nearby Wandering Moose restaurant. “And people went crazy for it. People use the sauce to spice up Bloody Marys and meatballs, and vegetarians put it on tofu. They use it for the damndest things.” 9 Railroad Street; 860.248-3127 Thursdays (after Memorial Day) 5 - 11 Fridays 4 - 11 Saturdays noon - 11 Sundays noon - 5 Cash only News 2008-05-08T01:55:01-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_shopping/the_fishman_cometh/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_shopping/the_fishman_cometh/#When:16:30:00Z During the go-go Reagan years, even dropouts had clearly defined goals and strategies for achieving them.  Only 28 when, as an MIT research director and a prospective PhD candidate, Matt Rubiner decided to bail on academia, he took comfort in the knowledge that he was still young enough to retool.  “I asked myself, ‘What else could I approach in this academic way?’ Wine, of course, but I wasn’t really that interested in it.” Cheese, on the other hand, felt right.  So in 1992, Rubiner took a job with Fromage Kitchen in Cambridge, MA. His timing was perfect.  While he was learning the business, the nation’s economic boom converged with the Atkins diet and the artisanal food movement to make America safe for luxury cheese.  Soon, over cocktails, corporate lawyers were asking Wall Streeters, “Is this farmstead?” and “Was that one made from raw milk?” Matt Rubiner, who, by then, was Mr. Cheese was on his way. # “It smells like Europe in here,” my friend Dan says as we step inside Rubiners, the luxury cheese and specialty food emporium on Main Street in Great Barrington.  When I tell Rubiner this, he is pleased.  “My grandfather owned groceries stores.  He always taught me, whenever you walk into a food store, close your eyes and breathe in deeply.  Do you smell bread baking?  Proscuitto being cut?  That’s good.  Do you smell floor cleaner?  That’s not good.” By May 2004, Matt had hung his shingle, Rubiner’s Cheesemongers & Grocers, on an elegant former bank in Great Barrington.  A few months later, he opened a small café in back.  “A shop as expensive as ours is bound to be viewed as elitist,” he says.  “I wanted to give people another reason to come here.  We had to complete the adventure.” But from the start he knew that a little café like his could never support a highly-trained staff.  “The restaurant business is not to be entered lightly,” he says.  “Our goal was to have a simple café.  We were betting that simple preparation coupled with extreme quality—not just eggs with salt, but eggs that had been laid that morning with fleur de sel—would trump technique.  And it worked.” Today Rubi’s café may be the most egalitarian restaurant in the Berkshires—investment bankers and ladies-who-lunch sit next to ratty parking lot kids, all parties pleased to be there and all eating exactly the same stuff. Ever intent on shortening the distance between the producer and the consumer, Matt Rubiner’s latest mission is his march to the sea.  In an introductory e-mail to prospective customers of Rubiner’s Pre-order Fishmongers, he confessed, “I am an incompetent cooker of fish…my grilled tuna tastes like Chicken-of-the-Sea.” Finally, he concludes, “Maybe I’m just not getting good fish.” In fact, he already had contacted a couple of suppliers in Portland, Maine, one of whom told him, “Fine, but you have to buy like our chef customers,” meaning superstars like Daniel Boulud, Eric Ripert, Charlie Trotter, and Barbara Lynch.  In some instances, that meant finding a customer willing to tangle with a whole fish, such as an 18-pound Alaskan king salmon ($25.95 per pound) or a 10-15 pound hake ($7.95 per pound).  The response to his e-mail was encouraging.  And so it came to pass that, here, in the mountains of Western Massachusetts, we now can buy Maine periwinkles ($6.50 per pound) and halibut cheeks ($21.95 per pound)—cheeks so fresh that yesterday morning they were still living next door to a swimming halibut’s teeth.  Expensive?  Not when you compare it to filling up the tank and driving to the Cape.  Place telephone or e-mail orders on Wednesday before 5 pm and pick up on Friday after 12 noon.  If that’s too inconvenient, Rubiner can arrange for home delivery, even across county and state lines, for “a nominal fee.” All orders must be secured with a credit card. 264 Main Street, Great Barrington; 413.528.0488 Shopping 2008-05-07T16:30:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_art/art_this_weekend/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_art/art_this_weekend/#When:12:48:00Z To celebrate the new season, Joie de Livres, the well appointed bookstore in Salisbury, CT, that also serves as a gallery and de facto salon, will premiere Spring Awakening, a group show of botanical paintings and photographs (such as Mariana Cook’s Thistle, above) on Saturday, May 10.  The show runs through June 21. In addition to the hanging works by twenty painters and photographers, including Edward Steichen, Tricia Wright,and Jim Osman, signed first editions of books by three of the artists will be featured.  Photographer Benjamin Swett’s latest, the acclaimed Route 22, documents the 300-mile highway that connects Manhattan and Montreal.  Through Swett’s lens, this familiar artery is rendered unseemly, its tattoo and Off-Track Betting parlors scarcely more vital than the long-abandoned diners and detritus of defunct industry. Close at Hand, the recent book of Mariana Cook (whose photograph Thistle appears here) is a departure from her usual portraiture.  In it, she examines the power of the camera to imbue the familiar—objects that are close at hand—with poignance and mystery, a theme similar to that explored in Susan Paulsen’s, Tomatoes on the Back Porch. Opening reception, May 10, 4 - 7 7 Academy Street, Salisbury; 860.435.2332   On Saturday night, The Hudson Opera House presents a group exhibition, DRESS.  Nine artists--Karen Bamonte, Mimi Czajka Graminski (who is also co-curator), Kathy Feighery, Bibiana & Maya Matheis,T anya Marcuse, Sarah Martinez, Lise Poirier (the other co-curator), Carla Shapiro (whose work appears here), and Regan Stacey--explore the relationship between apparel and art.  The exhibition will be on display at the Opera House through June 7th. Along with the necessity to cover herself, clothing has traditionally provided women, in particular, with a means of creative expression, a way of selling herself, as well as a way of announcing actual or aspired to tribal affiliation. This exhibit explores that complex role.  Opening reception, May 10, 6 - 8 327 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.822.1438   Save the Date Saturday and Sunday May 17 & 18 Tickets are now on sale for Artscape, a tour of 14 artists’ studios in Columbia Counties. Seeing art in the environment in which it was created is a very different experience from seeing it in an immaculate gallery or museum.  The spaces often enhance your engagement with and understanding of the work.  And, as a bonus, you get to travel the back roads of beautiful Columbia County now, when it’s looking so lovely in its new spring dress.  Artscape Studio Tour, $25 per person (less 10% for members of the Columbia County Council on the Arts) Art 2008-05-06T12:48:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/foodies_unite_to_help_their_neighbors/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/foodies_unite_to_help_their_neighbors/#When:02:23:00Z Some two dozen restaurants, caterers, bakers and wine shops donated a buffet feast for Monday night’s Mayfest benefit for Construct Inc, which provides homeless prevention and supportive housing services for people with low to moderate incomes in the Southern Berkshires.  The event was sponsored by the South Council of the Berkshire Board of Realtors. Guests chatted with their favorite local chefs who had set up tasting tables outdoors under a big tent and inside the elegantly rustic Crissey Farm catering hall at Jennifer House Commons.   Klara Sotonova and Jefferson D. Diller served macaroons, hazelnut kolaches and mini hazelnut tortes from Klara’s Gourmet Cookies.   MayFest co-chairman Elaine Silberstein with historic preservation advocate Barbara Timken; Berkshire Property Agents co-founder Tim Lovett with landscape architect Shaun Grover.   Actress Annette Miller, who opens this month in The Ladies Man at Shakespeare & Company, with playwright Jodi Rothe, who wrote Martha Mitchell Calling, a play that Miller has starred in several times; Construct board member Linda Hebert with Anita Schilling.   Maggie Merelle, co-owner of the bistro Rouge in West Stockbridge, with Jen Harvey-Montano, co-founder of Berkshire Property Agents.   Graphic designer Jennifer Clark with Max Dannis , the owner of Local 111 in Philmont, NY. Maniraj Singh & Ravejeet Singh Chahal, whose father, “Puma,” owns the Aroma Bar & Grill n Great Barington. Parties 2008-05-06T02:23:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/mothers_day_the_rural_intelligence_gift_guide/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/mothers_day_the_rural_intelligence_gift_guide/#When:12:08:00Z Mother’s come in all sizes, shapes, and persuasions.  Whether yours is an earth mother, a soccer mom, the Queen Mum, as modern as MOMA or as comfortable as an old slipper, the perfect gift for her lies close at hand; no shipping required.  Some thoughts… Early-blooming, bird-pleasing Shad is native to our region.  It also has fabulous fall foliage, making it a gift that delivers three seasons a year; year after year; $75-$575 Windy Hill Farm Nursery,787 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington; 413.298.3217     Lynne Bragonier is one of those brilliant retailers who believe that style and value are synonymous—so most things in her housewares-and-clothing shop look more expensive than they are. This environmentally-friendly, hypoallergenic bamboo T-shirt ($50) feels like silk and goes in the washer and dryer. Agapanthus, 329 Main Street, Lakeville, CT; 860.435.8900     Swedish country is the bent of this shop, but these garden accessories are made in this country from recycled materials. Large (31” x 27") Parthenon bird feeder $600, small Parthenon $450, church birdhouse $325 Hedstrom & Judd, 401 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.671.6131     You may want to take mom with you to Red Hook to pick out her flowers at Battenfeld’s Farm—one of the leading wholesale growers of anemones in the world—because it’s like stepping back in time. The “shop” is run on the honor system so you leave your money in a box and you can snoop around the old greenhouses where acres of anemones are always in bloom. Battenfeld’s, Route 199, Red Hook, NY; 845.758.8018     If you don’t tell Mom this wire cupola garden ornament is a reproduction; she’ll never guess, $218 Pine Cone Hill, 55 Pittsfield Road, Lenox; 413.637.1996       Aline Sosne knows how to make high fashion work for the Berkshires.  If your mother does too, she’ll love this all-weather jacket by Issey Miyake, $1535 Tanglewool, 28 Walker Street, Lenox; 413.637.0900     The perfect bag for the outfit above; so striking, yet so spare, the MaxxNY patent bowler, $168 de Marchin, 620 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.828.3918     Shana Lee hand-forges all of the sterling silver jewelry in her Hudson jewelry store herself; necklaces (top) $264, (middle) $210, (bottom, with turquoise and ruby), $170 Shana Lee, 521 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.828.8789     Is there anything more difficult to find then a good-looking featherlight raincoat that you can wear on a hot muggy day?  The stylish minds behind Paper Trail in Rhinebeck carry a selection of toppers ($245 - $310) made of Tyvek— yes, that same water-and-wind resistant material that builders use to protect wood against moisture. Paper Trail, Montgomery Row, Rhinebeck, NY; 845.876.8060     When they were little, sisters Nina and Sophia played store.  Now they’re at it again, and the fun they’re having shows.  Throw cushion printed with a detail of Ingres’s Odalisque, $135 MIX, 438 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.828,1707     My blogging buddy Gina Hyams tipped me off to Hammertown Barn’s astonishing line of lightweight, indestructible Melamine dishes and serving platters (size shown, $25) that look like Italian hand-painted pottery. Hammertown Barn, 3201 Route 199, Pine Plains; 518.398.7075; Hammertown Store, Montgomery Row, Rhinebeck NY; 845.876.1450; Hammertown Store, 325 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington, 413.528.7766     This six-year-old shop specializes in important, contemporary jewelry from top designers around the world.  The 18 karat gold hanger earrings, $425 Ornamentum, 306.5 Warren Street, Hudson 518.671.6770     She’ll never misplace them again; this checkbook cover, $24, and passport cover, $22, are so bright, they’ll find her. Pine Cone Hill, 55 Pittsfield Road, Lenox; 413.637.1996     Joan Cornell designs her own jewelry and also carries reproductions of some of the best stuff in the highest-end Fifth Avenue stores. Aficionadas like your mother will recognize the source for this Italian-made cuff of 18 karat gold with 18 karat white gold appliques set with fine white diamonds, $15,500.  They’ll also recognize that its price is a trifle in comparison to the original. Jewelz, 51 Church Street, Lenox; 413.637.5022     Sheila Chefetz, an internationally recognized authority on the history of table settings, has a world-class collection right in her shop.  For asparagus loving mothers, antique French Limoges asparagus plates, $175 - $325 each; individual sterling silver asparagus holders, $65 - $95; asparagus servers, $345 - $495; and an autographed and gift-wrapped copy of Chefetz’s Antiques for the Table, $37.95. Country Dining Room, 178 Main Street, Great Barrington; 413.528.5050     If you’re a Francophile, you probably know about Basic French in Red Hook, a small storefront which carries an idiosyncratic assortment of imported linens, lotions, children’s clothes, and tableware. The store is so tiny that, if you want to see what their wonderful all-weather deck chairs ($135) look like open, you have to take them out to the sidewalk. Basic French, 5 East Market Street, Red Hook, NY; 845.758.0399     Karen Allen has moved across Railroad Street into a larger space. Now, in addition to her signature patterned cashmere handknits, you’ll find such delights as this beaded evening bag, $95 Karen Allen Fiber Arts, 8 Railroad Street, Great Barrington; 513.528.8555     These unpolished glass eggs have the subtle coloring and light-capturing properties of beach glass.  At $4, $5, $6 each, you can afford to buy enough to fill a bowl. Kosa, 502 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.828.6620     To prove her claim that this apron is sexy, we asked owner Dena Moran to slip it on.  Yup; gives a whole new dimension to the concept of being tied to Mother’s apron strings. $60 Olde Hudson, 434 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.828.6923     The first artisanal maple syrup of the season from Mead’s Farm in Canaan, CT (which taps trees in Norfolk, CT, and Southfield, MA, as well) is available at Millerton Market ($14.95). In addition to using the syrup on pancakes and oatmeal, Robin Helfand, Millerton Market’s owner, likes to pair it with Peter Stephanopolis’s hand-made goat’s milk yogurt. Millerton Market, 21 Main St, Millerton, NY; 518.789.6677 Shopping 2008-05-05T12:08:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/oaxacan_night_at_the_southfield_store/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/oaxacan_night_at_the_southfield_store/#When:11:42:00Z The Berkshire Babe was in heaven. “Wow!” she said. “This is the best mole I’ve ever had—it’s sweet, smoky, spicy, with layers of flavors. It gets better with every bite.” The mole, which was served with an astonishingly juicy and flavorful pork tenderloin ($20), is on the menu every Thursday when the Southfield Store has its Oaxacan Night. Since last year, the Southfield Store—an old general store that was gentrified in restrained Martha Stewart-style by a previous owner—has been owned by Peter Platt and Meredith Kennard of the redoubtable Old Inn on the Green. Now, they’ve let their chef—Gustavo A. Perez who worked with Peter at Wheatleigh years ago—cook the food of his native state on Thursday nights. “It’s hard to find real Mexican food in the Berkshires,” says Perez, who makes every taco and tostado to order. “That’s why the food comes out slow, but I think it’s worth it,” he says. It certainly is. Waiting is part of the experience. With only six tables and a no reservation policy, the Southfield Store is not for Type A personalities. There is a small bar and full liquor service so you can have a margarita or a glass of wine during the inevitable wait. But if you check your attitude at the door, you can enjoy home-style food that is plated as if it were haute cuisine. Everything we had on our first visit made us happy: Crispy fish tacos ($9), chicken tamales with tomato sauce ($8), Quesadlila Oaxacan Style with queso fresco and mushrooms ($8) and tostados topped with quesillo ($8). The Berkshire Babe’s boyfriend vowed to return next Thursday to try the Pozole, Ensalada with Cactus leaves and Chile Releno.  “But I’m not sure I want you to tell anybody about this place,” he said.   The Southfield Store 163 Main Street, Southfield MA; 413.229.5050 Breakfast & Lunch: Monday - Saturday, 7 AM - 5:30PM, Sunday Brunch 8 AM - 2 PM Dinner: Thursday - Sunday, 5:30 - 9 News 2008-05-02T11:42:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_movies/preview_berkshire_international_film_festival/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_movies/preview_berkshire_international_film_festival/#When:21:46:00Z If you play “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” with Kelley Vickery, it’s pretty certain she will win. As the founder and director of the 3rd annual Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF), she’s watched almost every one of the actor’s 60 films to prepare the tribute to him that will take place at the Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington on Friday May 16. “He’s had such an amazing career when you think about it--beginning with Animal House and Diner through Apollo 13 and The Woodsman,” she says. “I really like the idea of honoring someone with a connection to our region.” (Bacon and his wife, actress Krya Sedgwicl [above] have long had a house in Sharon, CT, and his band, the Bacon Brothers, often gives benefit concerts in the region.) Vickery has managed to organize a world-class festival with a hometown sensibility. For instance, she’s arranged for Douglas Trumbull of Southfield, MA, who created the special effects for the groundbreaking Blade Runner in 1982, to speak before a screening of the new digital edition (trailer below) of director Ridley Scott’s cult classic on Sunday May 18. “He’s one of the legends in his field,” says Vickery. “He has a wonderful presentation that he’ll do.” She’s excited that BIFF’s finale will be Frozen River—the story of an upstate New York woman who smuggles illegal immigrants from Canada into the United States through a Mohawk Indian Reservation—which was written and directed by Courtney Hunt of Chatham, NY. A film festival, she explains, is about celebrating films you might not normally get to see as well as schmoozing and networking. She has worked hard to make BIFF serious and fun, glamorous and accessible. “I just got permission to close down Railroad Street on opening night,” she says. “We’re going to have a free dance party on the street from 9 P.M. to midnight with a local Brazilian band, Berkshire Bateria. And if it rains, we’ll have it in Pearl’s." Other parties and dinners are only open to ticket-holders who’ve purchased the $250 or $500 passes, which are still available. BIFF has already sold out all of its $100 movies-only passes, which is why now is the time to buy tickets for individual films before they sell out, too. “We’re developing a reputation,” she says. “Seventy percent of our sales are to people from outside the Berkshires.” A mother of three—Kaitlin, 14, Andrew, 12, and Jack, 10—Vickery enjoys taking her children to to Tanglewood and Jacob’s Pillow, but felt that there was a gap in their cultural education, which was one of the inspirations for the festival.  “We have so much dance, theater and music in the Berkshires and I thought that movies deserved to be celebrated too,” she says, adding that the affordability of tickets ($10) makes BIFF family friendly.  Indeed, BIFF reaches out to the community all year long and hosts a free 11 AM screening at The Triplex on the first Sunday of every month. (This Sunday’s film is the documentary Single about the 100 million unmarried adults in the U.S., and the filmmakers will host a Q&A after the screening.) The weekend before Memorial Day has turned out to be ideal time for the event. “The summer crowds have not yet shown up so the restaurants and shops are happy for the extra business,” she says. “It’s really become the kick-off for the cultural season.” Movies 2008-05-01T21:46:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/rules_for_living_the_faulkner_14/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/rules_for_living_the_faulkner_14/#When:21:43:00Z Many interior designers, when pressed for useful advice, will say, “It’s impossible to generalize--there are no hard and fast rules.” Not Frank Faulkner.  An artist who also practices interior design (he says) by default or (we say) by popular demand, Faulkner speaks of his sideline in maxims, as though he were patiently relating for the umpteenth time the formula for a perfect vinaigrette.  The other thing Frank Faulkner does all the time is buy and sell houses in Hudson, his first in 1982, well ahead of the pack, for $35,000.  Presently living with his partner Philip Kesinger in his fourteenth, on 5th Street, he has recently purchased his fifteenth, on 4th.  True to form, he claims he’s not sure he ever wants to leave his present address for the new one, which (as always, when he first buys them) is a wreck.  But if past performance is any indication, the magical place you see here will be on the block before the paint on the new one is dry.  So to preserve #14 for posterity, we asked Faulkner to reduce what he’s done there to a list of rules, one for each house in Hudson he’s loved and left--the Faulkner 14. Rule 1 Make it a Pavilion; Add French Doors . “This was the last cheap house in Hudson--an old carriage house with nasty metal awnings and an attached garage lined with baby blue vinyl.  I thought I might use it as a painting studio.  I didn’t have it inspected before I bought it, then afterward I discovered the sills were totally rotted--just another in my succession of Mr. Wrongs.  Since I had to rebuild the whole thing, I thought why not make it a pavilion.  In 18th-century France, court etiquette was so murderous that nobles had to have a place to get away.  So they built modest (by palace standards) pavilions.  These little pleasure palaces outside of Versailles are like lanterns--you can see through them from front to back--and their classical layout tells you how to move through them.  Every house I do, I think of as a pavilion.” . Rule 2 Bring in Light and Life . “They are the two most important things a room can have.  Sunshine, breezes, plants, books, of course, but also sparkle--mirrors, candles--lend vitality.” . Rules 3 & 4 . Curtains Should Blend . “Curtains should match the color of the wall as closely as possible.  The cheaper the fabric, the better, so they can be very full.  And they should always be unlined.  I usually do them out of muslin with brass grommets at the top, so I can hang them from a simple rod with white plastic shower rings.  I always tell myself the rings are ivory.” .  Treasure Threadbare Rugs . “I am a member of a confederation called The Rotten Rug Society.  Nothing is more hideous than a new Oriental rug or a brightly colored one.” The painting is Faulkner’s Cold Sun. . Rules 5 & 6 . Upholstery Should be Anonymous . “What’s interesting here is the Mark Beard painting and the board-room photographs, not the chairs.  As a rule, upholstered furniture should be the least eye-catching thing in a room.  And I nearly always slipcover it.  I like slipcovers to be a little baggy--they should look as if the housekeeper ran them up in her spare time.” Use Color Cautiously . “I love color but I use it very respectfully.  Generally, I employ a huge range of non-color colors that go from the whitest whites to the darkest darks and everything in between.” .  Rule 7 . Trust Symmetry . “When you shop, look for pairs.  If perfect symmetry isn’t possible, then aim for balance by using things of equal volume.” . Rules 8 & 9 . Mix the Humble with the Refined . “I like Mark Hampton’s maxim, ‘If it looks good, it is good.’ I’d just as soon take a piece of junk and tart it up as buy an expensive antique.  I’ll often spend as much as $40 a weekend at Mark’s Antiques or at Dan the Man’s Flea Market [both on Warren Street, Hudson], and I’ll find things that give me more joy then an antique with the highest provenance.  If I do have something good, I’ll put something humble next to it, to de-glaze the good thing--make it less pompous.  This sepia print was in Hudson Antiques Center for at least two years.  I finally bought it and hung it over this rather good Biedermeier chest of drawers.  I can’t tell you the number of decorators who’ve since asked to buy it from me.  Yet it sat there for two years, unloved and unwanted, for no money.” . Distrust New Wood . “I don’t like wood that isn’t old, dark or distressed--for anything; furniture, floors.  I hate floors that get sanded, then covered with orange polyurethane.  I paint floors unless they are very dark or very light, as in our kitchen, like scrubbed Swedish pine.” . Rule 10 . Nothing is Sacred--Paint it, Strip it, Bleach it! . “When I found this Gothic cupboard in a flea market, it had a starved dark brown varnish finish.  I’ve painted it, over the years, white, gray-green, several shades of red (you’ll never see me use a clear, true red--I like orange-reds, corals) and, finally, as it is now, black-overlay with some red showing through.  I sometimes buy good quality department store lamps in lacquered brass or bronze, then bring them home, prime them with Bin, and gesso them.” [Bin is a primer available at hardware stores; Gesso, the thick white material artist’s use to prime canvasses, is available at art supply stores.] . Rule 11 . Play with Scale . “The dealers I most respect--Vince Mulford in Hudson, Michael Trapp in West Cornwall--have an incredible understanding of scale. It’s an instinct: Nothing’s more fun than an overscaled piece of furniture when it’s right, yet I’ve bought huge sofas and had to get rid of them. Even if you’ve spent a lot of money for something, if it doesn’t work, throw it out. Otherwise, it holds the entire room hostage.” . Rule 12 . Spend as Little as Possible on Kitchens and Bathrooms . “Fancy kitchens depress me.  I think kitchens and baths should be simple and utilitarian.” . Rule 13 . If It’s Gloomy, Paint it Gray . “When we finally got it all stripped down, there was a little bit of gloom.  You can’t force cheer just by painting everything yellow, it never works, so throughout the house, I painted all the walls gray [Benjamin Moore’s ‘Nimbus’], and used the same color cut by half with white on the ceiling and the woodwork. The floors are also painted gray [Benjamin Moore’s ‘Shadow’] On furniture, I like to use a Walmart flat latex in a color they call Aluminum that is the perfect French gray.” . Rule 14 . Collect Busts . “They’re classical and whimsical at the same time.  And I love plaster as a material--in nearly every room, there’s some object that’s made of plaster, and often it will be a bust. This wrestler is by the same artist, Mark Beard, who did the painting of the fencer in the living room.” Nesting 2008-04-30T21:43:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/shopping_our_lady_of_lamps/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/shopping_our_lady_of_lamps/#When:01:53:00Z We all know someone who grows lettuce for a living and people who spin their own wool, blow glass or bake bread the old-time, labor-intensive way, fashioning a career by keeping craft and tradition alive. When you first walk into Susan Schneider’s lamp shop in Millerton, you wouldn’t immediately put her into this category. But if you peer over the counter into her workshop, you will see something you may have never seen before—stacks of “naked” lamp shades. “I make every shade myself,” says Schneider, who approaches making lampshades like a milliner, consulting with clients about shape, proportion and trims. “You can’t have a plain shade. It’s like having a plain hat.” So how did a nice Jewish girl from Teaneck, New Jersey, end up as the Lamp Lady of one of the “ten coolest towns in America” (as Millerton was dubbed by Budget Travel.) “I was an antiques dealer and I got into lighting and I could never find shades I liked, so I decided to make them myself,” she says. This was before the Internet, and she could not find any books or instruction manuals for how to make a lamp shade. “So I took them apart to see how they were made, and I taught myself how to make lampshades.” She discovered that her high-school geometry came in handy. “You need π for an arc, but I don’t often make arcs anymore,” she says, explaining that a friend uncovered a cache of 8,000 lampshade patterns in a storage locker in Utah, which Schneider snatched up. “What luck!,” says Schneider. “It cost me more to ship them than to buy them.” While lampshades are her specialty, Shandell’s (the name comes from her Hebrew name, which means “pretty") is a full-service shop and she can transform almost any object or antique (vintage wallpaper rolls, balustrades, vases, iron strap hinges) into lamp or sconces. She will rewire existing lamps, too. “I use cloth cords,” she says, noting that she considers them a subtle status symbol. “I rarely use plastic. In the 19th century, cords were exposed because they were a sign that you could have electricity.”    Mid-century gourd lamps, $750 for the pair without shades; a selection of antique Mexican pottery, $225 and up, is ready to be turned into lamps.   Schneider uses handmade papers, vintage wallpaper, silk, fabric and wood for her shades. You can recognize a Shandell’s shade by the contrasting trim or seams.  Indeed, you usually need to be working with a decorator to find someone to design and make custom lampshades, which is why Schneider is such a treasure. (A shade for an average size table lamp begins at about $150.) But not everything in her store is custom made: She keeps a large supply of small shades for sconces and chandeliers ($40), and she’s lately started using vintage sporting prints for tissue box covers ($48), which she hand trims in copper tape.  “I’ve sold hundreds of them,” says Schneider, who makes them all herself in the back of the store.  “That’s why I am not open every day. I need time in the studio. People are always blown away that I make everything myself.” Shandell’s carries a wide array of new and vintage finials, which begin at $5.   Vintage wood and brass wallpaper rollers, $500 and up, make unique lamp bases.   Shandell’s 34 Main Street, Millerton, NY; 518-789-6603 Thursday - Saturday 11 AM - 5 PM or by appointment. Shopping 2008-04-30T01:53:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/shakespeare_company_celebrates_the_bards_birthday/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/shakespeare_company_celebrates_the_bards_birthday/#When:12:15:00Z Shakespeare & Company celebrated the Bard’s 444th birthday in Lenox on Wednesday night with a party and performance that featured excerpts from the company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which has traveled 20,000 miles this winter to play before more than 40,000 students. There were also scenes from two plays that will premiere this summer: Bad Dates by Theresa Rebeck and The Goatwoman of Corvis County by Christine Whitley.  There was music by a young indie band from Albany, Citizen Genet, that did a rock and roll version of “Willow,” the traditional English song from Othello. And in inimitable and irreverent Shakespeare & Company fashion, managing director Nicholas Puma Jr. led the audience in an old-fashioned-sing along of Cole Porter’s wickedly witty “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” from Kiss Me, Kate. Journalist Bess Hochstein with Nicholas Puma Jr, Shakespeare & Company’s managing director; Sophia Garder, the theater company’s manager, wore a costume to sell raffle tickets during the reception. Pam Johnson with Christopher Sink, the former managing director of Shakespeare & Company, and John MacClaren, the director of administration and finance for Bard College at Simon’s Rock; Writer Judy Linscott with Sarah O’Connell of Salisbury Bank and Ann Usher of Crane & Co. Cooking teacher Pooja Karina with accordionist and clown Heather Fisch; Jean Wolfersteig and Lois Walsh who teaches art at Marist College. The BIFFMA Bunch: Gary Hill, the Church Street Gallery’s Denise Ulick, photographer Kevin Sprague and Berkshire International Film Festival founder Kelley Vickery Parties 2008-04-25T12:15:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/realtors_rebuild_together/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/realtors_rebuild_together/#When:10:48:00Z Starr Place was the setting on Thursday evening of a benefit pour for the Dutchess County branch of Rebuilding Together, a national organization that lends a hand (and more) to those who cannot properly maintain their homes.  This year in Dutchess alone, over 100 sponsors and contributors and more than 500 volunteers will rehabilitate twenty-six houses (market value of their cumulative contribution, a cool $300,000).  At Thursday’s gathering, real estate brokers and agents paid for the privilege of schmoozing with their competition.  As the evening’s organizer Julia Crowley of Paula Redmond in Pine Plains explained, “If you’re going to do deals together, it’s helps if you already know each other.” “Competing” associate brokers Victoria Hoyt and Ann Dyal Broker Gary DiMauro with clients Deborah and Russell Frehling; Assemblyman Molinaro liaison and Rebuilding Together board member Harold Ramsey with Jake Dunn Starr Place owner Lawrence Henry Bank with the evening’s organizer Julia Crowley and restaurant manager Arlin Smith; realtors Gail Saucier, Tecia Poulas, and Stephanie Winne Parties 2008-04-25T10:48:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_music/leon_botstein_conducts/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_music/leon_botstein_conducts/#When:21:18:01Z “At best, most college presidents are running something that is somewhere between a faltering corporation and a hotel,” Leon Botstein once said.  Leon Botstein has spent the past 33 proving that he’s the exception to the rule. As the president of Bard College since 1975, he has not only remade Bard into one of the country’s best liberal arts colleges but also redefined the role of the college president by holding down a second job as music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra.  This weekend at the Sosnoff Theater at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, he’ll be conducting Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915, Jean Sibelisu’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47, and Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30. Music 2008-04-24T21:18:01-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/earth_day_plant_sale_april_25_27/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/earth_day_plant_sale_april_25_27/#When:19:08:00Z You don’t have to live in Connecticut to take advantage of the Earth Day Plant Sale sponsored by the Northwest Conservation District at the Goshen Fair Grounds this weekend. This annual fund-raising event benefits the non-profit group dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of local natural resources. There are things you probably can’t find at your local garden center, like bare-root seedling of Balsam Fir, Norway Spruce and White Pine ($30 for a bundle of 25).  There are ornamental shrubs such as white forsythia ($20 for a 2-gallon container) and non-invasives such as ‘Northwind’ Switch grass ($20 for a 2-gallon container), and groundcovers such as periwinkle ($40 for 100 bare root plants).  For a full list of what’s for sale Click here. A spokeswoman for the district advises shopping early on Friday (9 AM to 6 PM) for the best selection. Shopping 2008-04-24T19:08:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_books/books_the_soundtrack_of_our_lives/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_books/books_the_soundtrack_of_our_lives/#When:13:48:00Z Women of a certain age will recall the famous “click” moment, identified and immortalized in 1971 by Jane O’Reilly in the preview issue of Ms. magazine--that nano-second in which a woman becomes a feminist, invariably as a reaction to a stinging sexist insult.  But perhaps less clearly remembered was an earlier rash of clicks, marking the moment when each in a generation of young women began to question, among other things, the price of sexual innocence.  These clicks may have been harder to hear as they often were triggered by (and, thus, drowned out by) a particularly stirring moment in a song, quite probably written by one of the three autobiographical songwriters whose lives are chronicled in a new book, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--and the Journey of a Generation.  Written by Sheila Weller and published by Simon & Schuster just last week, Girls Like Us... has already secured a spot on The New York Times Hardback Non-Fiction Bestseller List (#7, with, as they say in Billboard, a bullet), Weller’s third book to do so.  Girls Like Us... is a hybrid: a triple biography, a page-turner, and a fascinating and painstakingly wrought work of social history.  Weller and her husband, the writer John Kelly, author of The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time, live and write part-time in Berkshire County. Rural Intelligence: In your book, you use the biographies—and the autobiographical lyrics--of three singer/songwriters to make sense of a period in American feminist history that is not easy to explain: the messy, compass-less transition from traditional values, through sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, to liberation, or whatever you choose to call the relatively tidy accommodation we’ve reached today.  Please describe the process of coming up with this complex idea? Sheila Weller:  I just always wanted to write this book! Certainly ever since I read Sara Davidson’s nail-on-the-head Loose Change, I first thought, Why didn’t I think of this? and then: I’ll do something like this later...when more time has passed. Perhaps every generation is solipsistic, but there was something about having gone through the unique wind tunnel of the ‘60s—where so many of us went, overnight, from being luncheon-suited, teased-hair girls-who-were-going-to-get-engaged-right-after-college to...well, to People Who Could Never Run For President—that was instantly one of those One-day-I-HAVE-to-write-about-this experiences. And, indeed, the more years that passed since those halcyon days we were a little too stupid to know we might NOT have survived (there’s a Tangier jail cell out there somewhere with my name on it that by some fluke of luck I just missed inhabiting....), the more you do see, as you so well put it, the “tidy accommodations” that you made. As the years rolled on, I kept waiting nervously for the book in that once-familiar genre (that started with Mary McCarthy’s The Group and ended, by my count, with Barbara Raskin’s Hot Flashes--and had Loose Change and Alice Adams’s Superior Women in between--that expressed ‘60s women in early middle age (a horrible term that we only freely use now since we’re actually past it ). Luckily, it didn’t come out. People seemed to have forgotten about that three-or-four-women-going-through-time convention. (Maybe “Sex and the City” used up all the air.) At the same time, I started noticing that younger people had the era all wrong. I remember, for example, that Renee Zellwegger movie [Down With Love] where she went from being a Doris Day, headbanded early ‘60s type to a power-suit feminist. I thought, Whoa! People are missing a whole era—when girls turned into chicks (term worn proudly, not as insult). In 2000 I started working among young women, at Self and then Glamour magazine. My sister, a lawyer (and a compatriot during the great crazy years), also worked among younger women, and we noticed a tantalizing difference--they were instantly “together:” (to use the old term), demanding and making good money, married to nice, sensible guys (no crazy drug dealer boyfriends...), albeit with discreet tattoos, etc.  Even the hippest-- most purple-haired--of them got...engaged! with a...ring! and bridesmaids!  It was illuminating to see the quirks and landmarks of our own generation (female-wing) against the bas relief of this other one we were thrust among. I wrote other books..true crimes [Marrying the Hangman, Raging Heart, Saint of Circumstance], a memoir [Dancing at Ciro’s]...but I kept thinking of this one. And of course the music and personae of Carole, Joni and Carly were the soundtrack of those thoughts. They were middle class girls, too. There were aspects of each of their lives which we all knew about, and of course their music, that resonated as a counterpart-across-the-celebrity-divide to ours. One day--this is true; the Berkshires part!--in early 2002..it was winter—I took a walk down Beech Plain Road in Sandisfield, and it literally just came to me. To write an intertwined biography of these three women but more in the manner of The Group and Loose Change than a standard music biography. I came back to the house and called my sister--Liz Weller is her name. And I said, What do you think? And she said: That’s IT. It took me a full year to write and rewrite the proposal to convince my agent, Ellen Levine (from airy conception to concrete proposal is a long journey, as every writer knows) but once she was convinced, oh, man!, was she convinced. I sold the book at a kind of mini-auction in May 2003.  I’d already started doing interviews, but now I carpet-bombed the territory, looking for interviews. So it took six years from conception, five from contract. And a house re-mortgaging in between! R.I.: Did you ever consider anyone other than Carole, Carly and Joni? If so, who, and why didn’t she make the cut? S.W.: Actually, I did. I considered Linda Ronstadt for about two days. A, she provided geographical (Southwest) and some ethnic (she’s half Hispanic) diversity (and, by the way: yes, the white-girl-ness of the book did bother me; my sense was that the African American experience was so much more momentous during that span of years, it was another order of significance from my little-white-girls); she Was There. (I remember loving “Different Drum” in summer ‘67); she was key in the Lucy’s El Adobe L.A. social scene, the Troubadour bar scene...and she had interesting lovers. (Jerry Brown...Albert Brooks...George Lucas. In fact, she, more than the others “dated”—to use a crass word - “up,” as women were supposed to do.) But Linda didn’t write her own songs, she only sang others’ songs. And four women were just too many. She also didn’t have quite the...pathos and complexity, nor nearly the significance of the others. Writ large over the book, also, is Laura Nyro, who was evanescent, extraordinary. For a lot of reasons I didn’t consider her (there was already a biography, her life was too private, etc.), but SHE was the one whose music I felt the most kinship with, back then. R.I.: I always thought it was Janis Joplin who closed the deal.  Girls heard her sing, “Piece of My Heart,” and promptly changed their mailing addresses to their boyfriends’ fraternity houses. S.W.: Interesting. I would have said Grace Slick. I remember girls wanting to be like Grace but not like Janis. Also, Janis was more extreme. I wasn’t choosing extreme girls; I was going for girls you could have turned to in a Bloomingdale’s fitting room and said, “how does this look?” R.I.: When you were growing up in Beverly Hills were you aware that just a few miles east in Laurel Canyon there was a creative/social zeitgeist occurring among rock musicians comparable to the between-the-wars Paris of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast? S.W.: I’d already left BH for NYC by the time that was going on but my sister lived there and I visited and, yes, we were, envying, aware. When I was growing up in LA, Laurel Canyon was, indeed, always a bohemian place. R.I.: “Grim and dour” is how you describe the household in which Joni Mitchell’s illegitimate daughter grew up.  But didn’t Joni herself grow up in just such a household, feeling every bit as alienated from her birth parents as her child did from the couple who adopted her? Isn’t that how the household of every rebellious child feels; “grim and dour”? S.W.: Oh, dear, if I said that (via a source) that was probably a little mean. Kilauren’s adoptive parents were bookish and not at all charismatic. And, yes, it matches a bit the relationship that Joni had with her extremely proper parents. In fact, Kilauren was SO much Joni’s daughter—down to the modeling, down to the loving of clothes—it does show you the impact of genes. I don’t know if every rebellious child feels she’s from a grim and dour family. (The rebellious girls I grew up with in BH would say their parents were materialistic and had “plastic” values, but weren’t necessarily grim.) but that’s certainly a good backdrop to rebel against. R.I.: What if Brad MacMath hadn’t dumped pregnant Joni?  Wouldn’t she have been forced to face the same dilemma—the demands and constraints of motherhood vs giving vent to her immense narcissism-fueled creativity?  S.W.:  That’s a great question. I think she would have dumped him. She was never madly in love with him, according to my sources. They may have married, quickly--because Myrtle [Joni’s mother] was the biggest stumbling block; her disapproval would have been seismic--but it wouldn’t have lasted. One way or another, she would have ended up with a green card and in NY.  “Narcissism-fueled creativity”: well put! R.I.: Joni is the one whose actions are the most mysterious to me; the hardest one to like.  Do you agree? If so, do you think it’s because she is the greatest artist of the three?  Does genius like hers get in the way of like-ability?  Do we care when the genius is a man if he’s likeable or even good to his kids? S.W.:  Hmmm… I got so into her I felt I “knew” her, you know? The reflexive need to bolt, to relinquish, while knowing it was considered aberrant...all the pain at her damned idiosyncracy that “River” expresses.  But, yes, she’s not only objectively at a higher level of artistry than the other two (though they have equal, compensating merits—there is one Joni album, “Court and Spark”...oh, and maybe a couple of cuts from “Hejira,” that I would ever listen to driving around in the car; it isn’t bouyant, elegiac music...) , but, just as important, she quite obviously considered herself an artist so early on, a self-definition that intensified with time. Despite living in, of all places, Bel Air, she is the one who is avant garde. Genius and likeability...again, interesting. I think many fans like her because they want to like her—they love her and respect her so very much, they over-champion her, and every wound she feels, they feel, too. And there’s something superficially very pleasing about Joni—her femininity, the cornsilk hair. But her ego is..whoa! And, indeed, we take it for granted that a brilliant male musician or artist has a big fat obnoxious ego. (BTW, people who’ve recorded with her—like Russ Kunkel—say she is a pleasure to work with. “Humble.") R.I.: Of all the troubling behavior you describe in this book, you seem most perplexed by Carole King’s choice to live for several years under relatively primitive conditions in the wilds of Idaho with a succession of (by any measure) unsuitable men.  Is it possible that she suffered the men just to get that life?  It has its virtues: Idaho is, after all, very beautiful, and the nice thing about having goats to milk, etc, is you always know exactly what is expected of you next. S.W.:  Eventually she took great pleasure in the life. Cynthia Weil says, “Carole was always a hippie at heart,” but close friends say she was very depressed during those years, and she herself has said she was hiding...that the city (and the reviewers) had become the frightening creatures in the woods, while the woods became safe. I loved the adventurousness and unexpectedness of Carole’s choices in those two husbands. They were the biggest stretch that any of the women made. And if you listen to Carole’s beautiful and completely underrated “Welcome Home” (the song, not the album), you hear the beauty in her finding herself in a life so different than the one she was born in. R.I.:  There’s a thread that runs through all three of these women’s stories, and his name is James Taylor.  Did you know from the outset that he had played a vital role in each of these women’s lives—lover of two, colleague of all three, his own wife, perhaps most ambivalently, since he never really respected her work?  (Nor did he take pains to hide the fact; Sweet Baby James, indeed!) Do you know what his objections were to her work?  Does he address it in his own autobiography? S.W.:  I definitely knew he had been with Joni and, yes, I knew that he and Carole were such close musical friends (I didn’t realize the whole nexus at the beginning). Why didn’t he respect Carly’s work? He probably thought it slick, or standards-based. Also, he was, especially during his drug taking years (and there was a long stretch of them), so narcissistic, he wasn’t going to take much interest in her work. He didn’t write an autobiography; Timothy White wrote an authorized biography, Long Ago and Far Away. It was not very illuminating, overall. R.I.: All three of these women have had more romantic opportunities deeper into middle age than most women do yet today all three of them, grandmothers in their 60s, live alone.  Do you think this is a coincidence?  If not, do you have a theory as to why? S.W.: Yes, all three live alone. Indeed. And, yes, they had more opportunities longer than other women; fame and charisma extend opportunities for women. I think Joni would have definitely ended up alone. She is solitary and quirky. Carly was very unhappy when her second marriage really finally ended (and she has a boyfriend now). Carole, I think probably is the example of someone who was so richly domestic for so long--four kids, starting very young--that she is happy to live alone, with abundant family around her. R.I.: You’ve said that Carly Simon was the only one of the three who cooperated with you.  But in the end, I think you’ve done a great service to all three of these women; if nothing else, by offering an objective description to their children of the circumstances that led their mothers to make some of the pain-inducing choices they did. Have you heard from any of them?  Do you hope/expect to? S.W.: THANK YOU, Marilyn! I have not heard from the other two.  Carly loves the book and has been very supportive, but I know enough about Carole to know that anything written about her personal life she will automatically not like. However, I am enormously gratified by a review that’s coming up Sunday in the Times Book Review. Stephanie Zacharek gave me a nice mixed review (started off, like Maslin did, with the girding-herself-against-Baby-Boom-corniness but then relaxed and was relieved) that then veered into an almost couldn’t-help-herself, full-throated paean to the significance and brilliance of Carole. That gratifies because, at the very beginning of the process, I sat with Carole’s close and protective manager and told her I wanted to do this book partly because young women don’t know enough about Carole King, don’t know how important she was/is. The manager agreed and that is why initial blessing for the book (rescinded after they found out I was asking questions other than just about music) was given. Well, this review--by a young (42 is young to me) woman, with its ecstatic singling out of Carole--was the completion of my promise. As for Joni, she is notoriously prickly and has been known to find a negative in even worshipful reviews of her. That said, she also hates bullshit. She recently said she wanted to be viewed at eye level. I think I did that. And as I was writing the chapter (seven, I think...) of her and her jazz drummer boyfriends, and meeting Georgia O’Keefe and driving across the country in the red wig and fake name...I thought: Something tells me that, as much as she might try to hate this book, she will, when she reads that chapter, have to admit: “She got me.” R.I.: Where in the Berkshires do you live?  How long have you lived here?  What do you like about it? S.W.: We live in Sandisfield, the most rustic part...geographically huge, only about 750 people. Bought the house in October 1995.  Love it. The difficult winters (brings out the macho in you), the satisfaction in beating back the forest and clearing a hard-fought half acre at a time, the unique characters in our ‘hood’ (come see the famous fence made of old mattress springs on Bob Never-Left-the-Nineteenth-Century Minery’s property), the great neighbors, the nice guys at Terranova (it’s more deli than general store—that’s the vibe—even though it’s in the woods), Monterey Beach in August, the white clapboard Congregationalist churches and the proud history of abolitionism.  The anti-Hampton-ness. Everything. Books 2008-04-24T13:48:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_theatre/the_plays_the_thing_summer_theater_camps/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_theatre/the_plays_the_thing_summer_theater_camps/#When:02:02:00Z “Hey kids, let’s put on a show in the barn” was OK in Mickey Rooney’s day, but it’s no longer what kids in the country say if they love theater. Instead, they say, “Mom, can I go to camp?” Fortunately, many of the theater companies in our region offer summer classes and workshops, and they are filling up quickly. Here’s a round-up of what’s being offered. (If we’ve omitted a nearby theater-oriented day camp, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post so we can add it to the list)   Kidsact! @ Barrington Stage Company Great Barrington & Pittsfield, MA; 413-499-5446 x118 Ages 8 - 15:  Three-week session in Great Barrington (July 7 - 25)/ Three-week session in Pittsfield (Aug 4 - Aug 22) $500   Summertime Classes @ Berkshire Theatre Festival Stockbridge, MA’ 413-298-5536 x19 Ages 7- 9:  One week session (Aug 11-15) $180 Ages 10 -12: One week session (July 14 -18) $180 Ages 11-14:  One-week session (July 7 - 11) $180   Kids on Stage @ Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck Rhinebeck, NY; 845-876-3088 x12 Ages 11 - 15: Two sessions (July 7 - 25 & Aug 4 - 22) $500. Ages 7 -10: Four one-week sessions (July 7-11; 14-18; August 4-8; August 11-15*) $200 Ages 5-7:  Two session ( June 30- July 3 & July 28-August 1*) $200 *Class filled: wait list only Theatre 2008-04-23T02:02:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_recipes/beyond_chopped_liver_gigis_chicken_liver_pate/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_recipes/beyond_chopped_liver_gigis_chicken_liver_pate/#When:19:22:00Z The other day I took a drive out to Gigi’s Market at Greig Farm, which is tucked away half a mile off Route 9 in Red Hook. For lunch, I ordered the Bianca Skizza, a flatbread “pizza” that’s an intoxicating combination of figs, Coach Farm goat cheese, arugula and white truffle oil ($10.50). Paired with a salad dressed in gossamer sherry shallot vinaigrette, it’s a great lunch for two.  Everything was so delicious that I decided to buy some prepared food to take home, and the lasagna Bolognese and Tuscan style Minestrone were both superb, savory and satisfying. But it was the Chicken Liver Pâté that was a revelation—creamy, tangy with a hint of fruit. I expected a refined version of the chopped liver from the Jewish delis of my childhood, but Gigi’s version tastes like it’s made by an Italian grandmother instead of a Kosher one.  When I asked for the recipe, I discovered the three secret ingredients (which were not used back in the shtetls of Eastern Europe) that make this pâté so divine: heavy cream, orange zest, and truffle oil.  For those of us who don’t live close enough to shop regularly at Gigi’s, this recipe is truly a prize. Make the pate ahead as the flavors will only get better, about 2 days and up until 2 weeks. Serve spread onto croutes with cornichons. 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 medium shallot, chopped 1 lb chicken livers, rinsed and drained 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves 1 cup white wine such as a dry Riesling, Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc 1 cup heavy cream 1 navel orange 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice ½ teaspoon truffle oil, optional Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper • Heat olive oil in large skillet over moderately high heat, until hot but not smoking and cook shallots, stirring, until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Add chicken livers, with thyme and cook, stirring, 4 minutes. Add wine and simmer, until reduced by two-thirds, about 8 minutes. Stir in heavy cream and simmer until reduced by half, about 10 minutes more (chicken livers will be cooked through at this point).  • Transfer mixture to a food processor and finely grate the zest of the orange with a micro plane or with the small holes of a hand held grater into the processor. Blend chicken liver mixture with lemon juice and truffle oil until smooth. • Strain mixture through a fine sieve set over a bowl and season pate with salt and pepper to taste. Chill pate until cooled and thickened. • Transfer pate to a serving bowl or spread on croutes and serve with cornichons. Makes about 3 cups Recipes 2008-04-22T19:22:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/hands_on_stone_walls_and_stone_or_brick_paving/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/hands_on_stone_walls_and_stone_or_brick_paving/#When:13:17:00Z Nothing classes up a property like a bit of stone hardscape.  It is that rarity in design--a thing that is at once humble and grand (indoors, a fine old wood floor makes a similar contribution).  This Saturday (or, in case of rain, Sunday), at the Berkshire Botanical Garden, Mark Mendel (left), the master mason with Monterey Masonry will give a hands-on workshop on the basics of building stone walls.  After teaching us how to evaluate stone, then plan and layout a freestanding wall, Mendel will demonstrate cutting and fitting.  Then students will apply what they have just learned by helping to build a garden wall. In the afternoon, Mendel will continue with another program that focuses on flatwork--paths, terraces, edging, walkways--and his range of materials will now extend to include brick.  After instruction in how to evaluate a project and choose the best material for it, students will participate in the construction of a patterned brick terrace.  Pre-registration required Saturday, April 26 (or, in case of rain, Sunday, April 27) Morning workshop (9 a.m. - 1 p.m):  “Stone Walls for the Garden” Afternoon workshop (2 p.m. - 5 p.m.):  “Paving with Brick and Stone” Half day, $50 ($45 for Botanical Gardens members); full day, $90 ($81 for members) Dress: outdoor work clothes, heavy-duty gloves, and safety glasses. Berkshire Botanical Gardens Intersection Routes 102 & 183; Stockbridge; 413.298.3926 Nesting 2008-04-22T13:17:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/ruralroadtrips_section/ruralroadtrips_articles_excursions/family_outing_how_to_rescue_a_rainy_saturday/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/ruralroadtrips_section/ruralroadtrips_articles_excursions/family_outing_how_to_rescue_a_rainy_saturday/#When:18:04:00Z There’s a virulent strain of shack wackiness that befalls families on rainy Saturdays--no golf, no gardening, no outdoor play; just a lot of under-employed, highly-combustible togetherness.  Before things get out of hand, consider this: Pittsfield. You heard me. Pittsfield, as it happens, is at an idyllic mid-point in its acclaimed renaissance.  It has a good, kid-friendly museum, greatly enhanced through a recent infusion of cash.  It also has sophisticated art galleries, restaurants and boutiques.  But it still has its innocence and enough traces of its past to feel authentic.  And it has not yet turned that fateful corner where upscale blandness bumps headlong into inconvenience—rents so high there’s no one left to mend your shoes.  There are two kinds of family outings: entirely kid-centric, which, in the long run, benefit no one, or the sort where everyone gets some time to do what they want. For the latter, we offer a range of options--several cultural/educational activities, a bit of sport, some interesting shopping, and a reasonably civilized-but-not-too-expensive or patience-taxing lunch.  Since everything we recommend is on the main thoroughfare of Pittsfield (conveniently called South Street south of the town green; North Street to the north), there’s no need for a fixed itinerary.  Let the mood of the group tell you when to tarry and when to move on. The Berkshire Museum 39 South Street; 413.443.7171 ext. 10 Monday - Saturday, 10 – 5, Sundays noon to 5 This museum works hard to keep kids stimulated and engaged.  There’s plenty to interest grown-ups here, too, but this Saturday, April 19, the focus will be on Earth Day.  Visitors may explore green technology, learn about local environmental groups, make paper, and create inventions out of recycled materials. A variety of family activities, as well as lectures and a film for adults, will be offered. Puppeteer Meredyth Babcock of Marmalade Productions will perform in the galleries from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. At 11:30 a.m., Ross Robertson, associate Editor of What Is Enlightenment? Magazine, will give the talk A Brighter Shade of Green: Rebooting Environmentalism for the 21st Century. At 2 p.m., Maria Sangiolo will perform songs from her latest CD, Under the Mystic Sea, in a program that teaches children to respect the planet and the creatures of the sea. At 4:30 p.m., the Berkshire Museum’s Little Cinema will screen the documentary, Manufactured Landscapes (2006, 80 minutes). Tickets to the Maria Sangiolo performance are $10 adults, $7 children 3-18 ($5/$3 members). All other Earth Day activities are free with Berkshire Museum admission. usbluesware 141 North Street; 413 442-5533 A perfect Armani pantsuit ($200), a new Ralph Lauren alligator belt with a sterling silver buckle ($25), Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Farragamo—usbluesware specializes in “pre-owned” but virtually new designer clothes plus a few cannily selected lines of new, inexpensive women’s wear.  At any given moment, a certain percentage of their stock is out of sight, as it’s being auctioned to an international audience of fashion fans via E-Bay.  What doesn’t sell rotates back to a space the owners Linda Mitchell and Giora Witkowski call “the warehouse”—actually a spacious and attractive retail store (shown above).  What we get that E-Bay customers don’t:  Linda, a fashion expert who seems to know just how every customer ought to dress. The Garden 148 North Street; 413.442.9088 Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 6; Sunday noon - 5 Their website is hosted by MySpace, okay?  So, if you want your son to think you’re, like, really, really cool, take him here.  In addition to the latest in hip-hop footwear, The Garden carries state-of-the-art skate- and ski-boards.  While your little man is lost in dreams of coolness and derring do, you can take a quick refresher course in what’s happening on that front these days. Candle Lanes 255 North Street (2nd floor; above the Indian restaurant); 413.447.9640 Monday – Saturday 10 – 10; Sunday noon - 10 This isn’t bowling; it’s candlepin, an old-fashioned game played with a 4-inch-diameter ball that weighs less than three pounds, just one of several things that make this sport ideal for little ones.  Another: there is no such thing as a perfect game--the world record is 245 out of a possible 300.  Judging from this photograph, which appeared in the Berkshire Eagle in 1973, the atmosphere at Candle Lanes hasn’t changed much since George Aslan and his father Anton bought the place from the original owner, universally remembered as Mr. Daury.  Prices, too, seem to be caught in a time warp: A family of four can play one string (game) for $12, (shoe rental, $1.50), and indulge in steamed hotdogs that cost just a buck apiece. Little House East side of North Street for the moment; open 24/7 At the entrance to a parking lot a couple of doors south of Dottie’s restaurant stands a curious structure with walls of plank and twig.  It appears to be a booth or a kiosk but, in fact, it is a sculpture, Little House to Honor a Request for Poems, by Gene and Susan Flores.  Up close, you notice how well made it is, but when you open the door puzzlement turns to awe.  Inside (top photograph), the light forms horizontal stripes—like in a corn crib or a tobacco barn--that play against the horizontal siding.  It is a poetic space, designed to inspire poetic thoughts.  In the middle is a small metal desk and chair, plus paper and pens.  You are invited to write a poem and clip it to one of the strings that hang, clothesline-like, along the walls.  Soon, the poems will be in an exhibition at the Ferrin Gallery, and assembled into a book.  Then Little House will move to another town. Museum Facsimiles 429 North Street; 413 499 1818 Monday - Friday 12 - 5; Saturday 10 - 5 You don’t know how much you miss the look of letterpress printing until you see it again, and then you’ll want it back in your life.  From the outside Museum Facsimiles looks like an attractive gift shop with a lot of greeting cards.  In fact, it is the wholesale outlet for an extraordinary printing and custom-framing concern owned by photographer Ken Green and his wife Laurie, a graphic designer.  Be sure to bring all your stuff that needs to be framed; they do custom-work for wholesale prices. And there’s a spectacular line of organic cotton baby clothes—think Bonpoint, at a fraction—and a little 8’ x 14’ art gallery that features the work of local artists. . . Ferrin Gallery 437 North Street; 413.442.1622 Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 5 Not all art galleries are alike, any more than all children are.  You know your own—they can either handle being in a gallery, or they can’t.  But if they can, Ferrin Gallery, one of the country’s top ceramic art and sculpture galleries, is an interesting choice.  Like everywhere else, the work shown here varies from show to show, but there’s a consistent thread of humor (for a child, the most inviting portal into any art form) and several recent exhibitions have featured exquisitely crafted ceramics that were subversively hilarious.  Any kid who gets The Simpsons would respond to this work. Burger 297 North Street; 413.997.9797 Monday - Thursday 11:30 - 8; Friday & Saturday 11:30 - 9 Closed Sunday There are dozens of places to eat in Pittsfield, lots of them kid friendly—Dotties for coffee and sandwiches, Panchos for burritos, The Lantern for diner food--but Burger stands out as a something-for-everyone destination.  The burgers here run the gambit from a modest ¼ pound classic ($3.99) to an extravagant ½ pounder made of ground wagyu beef ($14.99).  Fries ($2.99 - $3.99), are available in every know permutation—Idaho, cheese or chili-cheese-topped, sweet potato, eggplant; dirty or clean.  Milkshakes may be virginal ($4.99-$5.99) or spiked--the Spotted Cow ($8.99) combines vanilla vodka with Oreos and vanilla ice cream. (?!) The space is large and clean, and on a rainy Saturday, it’s unlikely your offspring will be any worse behaved than anyone else’s.  Always a comfort. Excursions 2008-04-17T18:04:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/a_farewell_sale_in_hudson/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_shopping/a_farewell_sale_in_hudson/#When:16:49:00Z One of the more lighthearted and eclectic assemblages of vintage furniture and antiques on Warren Street could be found at the Colette booth at the Hudson Supermarket. Now Colette’s owner Haylie Ellis is moving to Sante Fe and she doesn’t want to pack everything up so the clearance sale (April 18, 19 and 20) means great bargain hunting with all furniture discounted 50% .  If you don’t find what you’re looking for at Colette, you might want to take a drive down Route 9 to the Dutchess County Fairgrounds for the enormous Flea Market at Rhinebeck, which runs Saturday, April 19, from 9 - 4, and Sunday, April 20, from 9 - 3. Colette’s corner of the Hudson Supermarket (above and below) at 310 Warren Street in Hudson. The sale runs from noon to 6 PM on Friday & Sunday, till 7 PM on Saturday Shopping 2008-04-17T16:49:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/a_little_house_with_a_big_heart/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/a_little_house_with_a_big_heart/#When:12:14:00Z When you visit Kimberly Rock and Eric Haggard’s doll-sized house on Main Street in Falls Village, it’s immediately apparent that they’re a child-centered family. The grandest room in their 1840s eyebrow colonial is their daughters’ playroom, an addition they built for Jessy, 5, and Jordan, 3.  Like many busy, doting parents in the digital age, they obsessively document their children’s lives, downloading thousands of images that rarely find their way out of their computer’s hard drive and into photo albums or picture frames. Ironically, Kimberly and Eric own a company called Pulp Products that designs and manufactures winsome photo albums and scrap books (but you know what they say about the shoemaker’s children . . .) Now, Kimberly and Eric have started a business that makes it convenient to creatively custom frame your digital photos without breaking the bank (or leaving your house). They call their company Real Memories, because their mission is to help people commemorate and celebrate life’s joyous moments. “We think our website will help Jordan and Jessy painting at an Offi chalkboard table in their playroom. people connect to the people they love,” says Kimberly. “It’s especially good for sending gifts to grandparents, aunts, uncles, bridesmaids.” A year in development, Real Memories was designed to be as personalized as a website can be. Once you upload your photo, you choose the size of the picture and mat and then you select from one of two dozen wooden frame styles. Then your picture is printed, matted, assembled and gift-wrapped at the Real Memories factory in downtown Torrington, CT. “Other companies will frame your photos but no one else gives you this many options for personalization,” says Eric, noting that you can add a custom caption—elegantly letter-pressed in gold or silver—to any mat for $4.50. Their belief that small details make all the difference is evident in the way they renovated and decorated their house, adding a stone wall and white picket fence that enhance its historic character.  Alas, there was little to save on the inside. “We basically gutted it, and we did almost everything ourselves” says Kimberly. “The first day we owned it Eric took a crowbar and started knocking down walls.” And what began as a weekend house for two stressed-out New Yorkers evolved into a full-time residence for a family of four. “That’s why we had to build the playroom. There are only two bedroom upstairs and the girls’ is so tiny that they sleep in bunk beds.” The center of the house is the kitchen, which bridges the cozy, autumnal living room and the airy, pastel playroom. The kitchen has dark wood cabinets and walls of pale yellow wainscoting that are hung with the children’s artwork, along with a large painting, Tuscan Table, by Eric’s mother, Marijune, who now divides her time between Seattle and Mexico. The breakfast nook is piled with colorful pillows that make it a comfy place to hang out with a cup of tea or take a nap. Around the corner, there’s a bathroom with a clawfoot tub, which makes it possible for Kimberly to make dinner and bathe the girls at the same time. “Eric thought of that,” she says. “It is such a small house that we had to use every inch creatively. He designed it so the girls could run around the house in circles. and we used to let them ride their tricycles around the house when the weather was bad.” Now that’s what you call giving your children real memories. The girls’ artwork is hung with clothespins on a wire line from Ikea on the kitchen walls.. The jaunty block-printed linen pendant shade is from Room & Board The kitchen island is one giant cutting board made of end-grain cherry. They splurged on a Viking stove and hood. “We cook for our kids almost every night,” says Kimberly, who has a serious Guido’s habit. The Haggards planned ahead so when the girls start getting homework, they will have a cheerful corner to work. The antique cupboard hides the television. The walls of the skylit playroom are painted Pale Sea Mist by Benjamin Moore. The rag rug came from the Rhinebeck Antiques Fair The long table in the living room was purchased at an antiques fair in Kinderhook and it came with a story; the seller said it had been his family’s wheat threshing table back in Wisconsin. The Haggards found the fireplace mantle at Keystone, in Hudson. “I spent 20 hours sanding and refnishing it with Bree Wax,” says Kimberly. A REAL DEAL Real Memories is offering Rural Intelligence readers a 15% discount on orders. Enter code: Intro15rm Nesting 2008-04-16T12:14:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_realestate/wake_up_and_smell_the_bargains/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_realestate/wake_up_and_smell_the_bargains/#When:19:09:01Z “Back in the early 90s, there were properties that went as bargains,” says Pat Best principal broker at Best & Cavallaro in Salisbury, CT, “and a lot of people, including myself, missed some buying opportunities.  This feels a lot like that.” Chuck Bartolo of Beach and Bartolo in Columbia County echoes the sentiment: “This may be the best opportunity I’ve ever seen.  The investment value of everything else is in question.  What could be safer than good solid earth and clean air, two hours from mid-town Manhattan?  If I had more liquid assets....” His voice trails off wistfully.  Timothy Lovett of Berkshire Property Agents in Great Barrington says, “It’s a good time to buy because prices have adjusted, sellers are much more willing to negotiate, interest rates are very low, and banks are eager to work with good, qualified buyers.” With prices down, inventory up and interest rates low, even real estate brokers, with their (usually) decades-long perspective on the market, are wishing they could buy.  Caveat: (and this is spoken like a mantra), “But you have to be prepared to hang onto the property for at least five years.” So we posed a question: If you were in a position to go bargain hunting yourself right now, which properties would you buy?  Understandably, some preferred to keep that information to themselves (and their customers).  But for those who saw the challenge as interesting, we set some ground rules: pick any three from your Multiple Listing Service, but, in the interests of fairness, only one can be your own listing.  [For those unfamiliar with how the Multiple Listing Services works, any broker or agent within a county can show any property listed on that county’s MLS, regardless of who the listing broker is.] 246 Silvernail Road, Chatham; 19th-century house; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths; $399,999 Chuck Bartolo: “This property (exterior, top) is extremely private and has nice views.  It’s been completely updated and beautifully landscaped. There are two barns and a built-in fieldstone barbeque.  Two years ago, it would have been in the $500,000 range.” Listing broker: The Kinderhook Group 1 Walden Road, Canaan; 5,000 square feet; 4 bedrooms, 4 baths; $895,000 Chuck Bartolo: It’s new construction on nine acres with fabulous Berkshire views.  A house of this quality costs $250-a-square-foot to build.  If you were to try to duplicate it--5,000 square feet, high quality appliances and finishing touches—it would cost $1,000,000 just for the house, and you haven’t bought the land, or put in the road, the well, the septic, or built a garage. The numbers work.” Listing broker: Beach and Bartolo 49 Glenwood Boulevard, Hudson; creatively restored 1850-square-foot 3 bedroom, 2 bath; $189,000. Chuck Bartolo:“This nice little property is in move-in condition--completely redone and restored.  Inside, the rooms are bright, and there’s a brand new kitchen with granite countertops.  The yard backs up to a woods.” Listing broker: Coldwell Banker Bartolotta 264 Main St., Great Barrington; 2610 sq. ft loft condo over Rubiner’s Cheese Mongers; 1 bedroom, 1 bath; $935,000 Tim Lovett: “It’s the best of both world’s--Tribeca in the Berkshires in the most beautiful and coveted building in Great Barrington.  Margaret Brownell [the owner/renovator] did a spectacular job with this building from the ground up.  Although you are in the middle of everything, it’s an incredibly private, airy, beautiful space.  A lot of us move up here to live in the country but we continue to do business.  This loft is either a beautiful place to live, or live/work, or just work.” Listing broker:  Berkshire Property Agents 111 Chestnut Hill Road, Monterey; Secluded, 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths on 72 acres; $599.000 Tim Lovett: “You’re in your own private world here-- at the end of a dirt road, in its own magical hidden hollow, there’s this very private, very cool rugged rustic house. It’s not terribly old but it feels like an old New England farmstead that needs a little freshening up.  It sits on huge acreage in an expensive town.” Listing broker: Gabel Real Estate 43 Pine Crest Hill, South Egremont; Rustic 2 bedrooms, 1 bath on less than 1/2 acre; $297,500 Tim Lovett: “This log cabin, with a big stone fireplace, is in an amazing place--the Adirondacks in the Berkshires.  It’s a unique neighborhood--an old cabin resort on a private, gravel road right behind the shops and restaurants in downtown South Egremont; very cool.  This cabin is in original condition, so there’s no damage to be undone.” Listing broker: Isgood Realty Real Estate 2008-04-15T19:09:01-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/a_garden_blog_for_us/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/handg_section/handg_articles_nesting/a_garden_blog_for_us/#When:23:58:00Z Margaret Roach was planning to finally spend some quality time in her Columbia County garden when she left her executive job at Martha Stewart Omnimedia in New York City and moved to her weekend house this winter. But like her former boss, Roach is apparently indefatigable and ambitious so it’s hard to believe that she only decided to start her gardening blog—which is dedicated to Hudson Valley/Berkshires Zone 5B— a few weeks ago, because A Way To Garden already feels like it’s a website in full bloom.  Of course, Roach was the gardening editor of Martha Stewart Living for ages, and she has both an encyclopedic and instinctive understanding of the gardener’s life. She feels liberated to be writing about gardening again after many years in management positions. “I wanted to bring my garden self back to life,” says Roach, who did not want to blog into a void so she’s started advertising on WKZE. “I’m not exactly sure what motivated me to to do that but I wanted an audience,” she says. The only downside of her new venture is that she is not spending as much time as she planned to in the garden because she’s so busy blogging. “It’s very addictive,” she says. Nesting 2008-04-14T23:58:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_books/bunny_and_me/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_books/bunny_and_me/#When:19:39:00Z It’s rare that the author of a coffee table book on interior design is invited to give readings at public libraries, so it seems noteworthy that Bunny Williams had two readings scheduled at Litchfield County libraries this month.  (If you missed her appearance at the Scoville Memorial Library on April 12, you can hear her at the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village on April 26.) Her text is Bunny Williams’ Point of View (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), which is not your ordinary coffee table book if I do say so myself (and that may sound self-serving since I was Bunny’s cowriter.) Unlike many illustrated books, Point of View was meant to be read; the words really are as important as the pictures. Confidentially, Bunny was nervous about this book because it was the follow-up to her previous book, the enormously popular An Affair With A House, which has sold more than 50,000 copies. Affair was a dreamy book illustrated with photographs of her gardens, dogs, barn, pool house and greenhouse—an intimate, evocative look at the Greek Revival farmhouse where she’s spent weekend for 30 years. She was worried that readers would be disappointed by a book that featured houses she’d decorated for anonymous clients (who value their privacy), so she decided to make the text both personal and practical—a primer on decorating with anecdotes from Bunny’s life. Thus, Point of View is personal in a different sort of way than Affair (though it does include several photographs of her New York apartment and an entire chapter on her new vacation house in the Dominican Republic.) Bunny writes tenderly about her childhood and seems to have a photographic memory for every rug, curtain and bookcase in her childhood home in Charlottesville, VA. The influences on her style include her Aunt Berta whose house was designed for company ("There was always a supply of ham biscuits, cheese straws and thin round tomato sandwiches ready for any guest"); Sister Parish, who was her boss for many years ("If she drew a floor plan it was on the back of a napkin . . .I don’t think she even knew how to open a measuring tape!); Elinor Merrell, who was New York’s leading textiles dealers in the 1960s ("Her five-story townhouse was overflowing with thousands of antique, hand-blocked English chintzes, silk Ikat coats from Turkey, embroideries from Uzbekistan, toile de Jouy panels from France.” Like Bunny herself, the book has a generous spirit. It’s not an ego-trip; she genuinely wants to inspire. As she writes, “I hope that my point of view will help you discover yours.” April 26 Bunny Williams at David M. Hunt Library Falls Village, CT; 860-824-7424 6 PM Books 2008-04-14T19:39:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_art/storefront_artist_project/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_art/storefront_artist_project/#When:13:15:01Z On Saturday, April 12, the Storefront Artist Project in Pittsfield continues to showcase the work of local art faculty with a new exhibit, Jackson, Podmore, Takenaga: 3 from Williams. This show features the work of three highly regarded artists, whose work is sought for exhibits nationwide, who all teach at Williams College.  The universe expressed in Barbara Takenaga’s paintings is one of indeterminate scale. Her intricately patterned abstractions could be views of outer-space or, just as plausibly, something microscopic—a galaxy or a cell.  Some appear to be in motion due to the eye’s involuntary response to small-scale patterns in which certain colors are juxtaposed.  Frank Jackson’s well-crafted canvases are a hybrid of painting and sculpture.  By building up the flat plane with bits of paper, he creates a three-dimensional surface on which he paints bold organic abstractions. In Amy Podemore’s absurdist sculptures (above), human feet sprout roots, objects are clearer in reflection than in “life,” and hunting trophies feature the animal’s hindquarters instead of its head. Founded in 2002, the Storefront Artist Project is dedicated to bringing art into the lives of diverse and under-served populations though innovative exhibitions and by providing publicly visible (as in, empty storefronts), temporary workspace to professional artists. 124 Fenn Street, Pittsfield; 413.442.7201 Art 2008-04-11T13:15:01-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/buying_into_the_farm_its_now_or_never/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/buying_into_the_farm_its_now_or_never/#When:14:44:00Z If you want to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm this summer you don’t have a moment to hesitate: Roxbury Farm in Kinderhook just sold its remaining shares on April 4. In northern Dutchess County, Sisters HIll Farm in Stanfordville is no longer accepting members, and Hearty Roots in Tivoli has a waiting list. Here’s a list of CSAs in our region that as far as we know are still accepting members.  Some of these farms are not certified organic by the USDA even though they use organic farming methods.  But forget labels: these farms allow you to see where your food is grown and get to know the men and women who are feeding you. It’s always better to eat local. If we’ve left out a CSA farm in our region that is still selling shares, please let us know. And if you have tips for how to get the most of a farm share (like how to cook Swiss chard, kale and the other healthy greens that most CSAs grow), please go to the Comments section at the bottom of this post and share your wisdom. Berkshire County Caretaker Farm 1210 Hancock Road Williamstown, MA 413-458-9691 Season: June - February Pick-ups: Tuesday & Friday afternoons; Saturday mornings Share: $365/$565 + $110 per adult per household Farm Girl Farm Pumpkin Hollow Road North. Egremont, MA 413-528-1952 Season: mid-June through mid_November Pick-ups: Tuesday afternoon or Saturday mornings Full-share:  $515; Summer Shares (mid-June - Labor Day): $360 Holiday Farm Holiday Cottage Road Dalton, MA 413-684-0444 Pick-ups: Tuesday or Thursday afternoons; Saturday mornings Season: mid-June - late October Large Share $400; Small Share $225 Indian Line Farm 7 Jug End Road South Egremont, MA 413-528-8301 Pick-ups: Tuesday and Friday afternoons Season: June - November Regular Share: $550; Summer Share (June - Labor Day) $425; Working Share $350 Columbia County 81 Roxbury Road Hudson, NY 518-851-2331 Pick-up: Tuesday afternoons Season: June - October Regular Share $425; Single Share $225 Hawthorne Valley Farm 327 Route 21C Ghent (Harlemville) NY; 518-672-7500 Pick-ups: Thursday afternoons Season: June - November Vegetable Share $440; Fruit and vegetable share $590 Red Oak Farm 1921 Route 9 Stuyvesant, NY 518-799-2052 Pick-ups Tuesdays & Friday Season: May - November Share: $385 16 Summit Street Philmont, NY 518-672-5509 Pick-ups: Tuesday & Friday afternoons; Saturday mornings Season:  June - November Share: $400 Litchfield County Chubby Bunny Farm Undermountain Road Falls Village, CT 860-824-4362 Pick-ups: Tuesday & Friday afternoons Season: June - November Full-share: $575; half-share $325 News 2008-04-09T14:44:00-05:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_books/revisiting_emthings_fall_apart_em_a_fiftieth_year_retrospective/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_books/revisiting_emthings_fall_apart_em_a_fiftieth_year_retrospective/#When:03:14:00Z In 1958 Chinua Achebe, a young African broadcast journalist, published his first novel, Things Fall Apart, a tender portrait of a “strong man” in an Ibo village in Nigeria whose orderly world irreparably unravels when Christian missionaries arrive.  Since its publication, Achebe’s novel has sold over 12 million copies, been translated into more than 50 languages, and been included on countless lists of 100 greatest novels.  Bard College, where Achebe has been the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature since 1990, is sponsoring a series of literary events in honor of the fiftieth anniversary.  On Friday, at the Fisher Center at Bard, a panel including the author, a teacher from Red Hook High School, and academics from Bard, Princeton and Dartmouth, will discuss Things Fall Apart, and try to explain why it is one of the most widely read and influential novels of all time. Fisher Center at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson Friday, April 11, 7 pm; admission free Books 2008-04-09T03:14:00-05:00