Thursday, September 02, 2010

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Girls Gone Wild at the Goshen Agricultural Fair

Celia McGee, a journalist who has been spending weekends in Goshen, CT, for many years, reports from the fairgrounds:

The Goshen Fair, held every Labor Day Weekend at the Goshen Agricultural Society fairgrounds in Litchfield County, is famous for its view of the Litchfield Hills, its dairy barn, its democratic approach to fried dough and locavore food concessions, and, in the more recent of its 98 years, the design of its annual poster. Displaying old-fashioned images of farm animals or implements taken from vintage prints or photographs crowned by a band of color with the fair’s logo, dates and location, it’s the work of Goshen resident Virginia “Ginny” Anstett. A director of the Agricultural Society, founder of Poetry Book Design studio,  and a graphic-design graduate of the Yale University School of Art, she has seen her designs migrate to the fair-book cover, T-shirts, print advertisements and admissions coupons. This year’s has engendered double- and triple-takes. Surely, that’s a guy with long hair holding one end of the steel blade in the illustration from a crosscut-sawing contest? Or, is it a woman?

Her hair is shorter now, but that’s definitely Shannon Strong in the picture. Known to fairgoers as the championship lumberjill from Warren, CT, she’s been competing at Goshen and nationwide since she was 15; in 2003 she attended the world championships in New Zealand as a member of the U.S. women’s team. Ginny Anstett said she wasn’t looking for the fair’s first female icon—she and Ann Booth, the fair secretary, wanted 2010 to feature wood-cutting.  “My uncle Kenny [Anstett] was in charge of that department for 30 years,” she said, “and I used to hang out with my cousins at the competitions. The Strongs were always there.”

Shannon Strong has a business card, “Still Goin’Strong/Professional Lumberjill and Personal Trainer.” She started her timber training with her father, Cal Strong, a former Mr. Connecticut, body-builder and award-winning woodsman when she was 11, but , she said, “I started watching from my baby carriage.” Seated in the living room of the trophy-filled house she and her husband and competition partner, Harvey Gereg, spent seven years building on the site of an old stone quarry, her dad, she added,  “will be at Goshen—he’s 78 and still does the springboard chop.”

Her opinion of the fair-program cover is favorable—“wait, there’s a poster?! T-shirts?!”— because “it shows good technique,” she said. “The chips are flying off, and Harvey and I have good form.” The man in the middle is Mark Bovat, a judge. Shannon and Harvey competed together first, got married later. “I figured if we could Jack and Jill together, we could be together,” she said. She also toured with Timber Tina’s World Champion Lumberjills out of Fryeburg, Maine. She’s won at ax-throwing, log rolling, chopping, and the crosscut. She orders her competition axes from Tuatahi, in New Zealand, and has her Canadian crosscut saws filed by Jim Taylor in Redding, California. “I built a special box to ship them in,” she said.

She’s had a busy summer, returning to the Woodsmen’s Field Days world championships in Boonville, N.Y. now that her house and its hand-built practice range are finished, completing her personal trainer certification requirements, and preparing for her second year coaching the University of Connecticut’s three-year-old co-ed Timber Team. The hand-eye coordination and athletic skills required, she said, as well as the lumber sport’s frontier-style history, appeal to a wide array of students, including the growing number of forestry, natural resources and environmental studies majors. She’s started taking team members with her on demonstrations at high schools around the state that double as recruiting sessions. 

Ginny Anstett—who studied at Yale under the famous modernist Paul Rand—is also keeping another eye on the next generation. She is a member of the Goshen Agricultural Society’s scholarship committee, and is instrumental in helping award the $1,500 prize. She hopes the future will encourage poets, too, and her website offers a Poet of the Month page. Next up is Honor Moore.

Shannon Strong will be front and center at the woodcutting contest dedicated this year to the memory of announcer and contestant Pete Chepulis, who died in the Kleen Energy power plant explosion in Middletown in February.  Her Goshen Fair food of choice? “The chef’s salad from Ray and Lorry LeMaire’s Twin Pines Farm booth,” she said. “People laugh when I tell them that, but it’s got the homemade cheese, and they make it for me right there.”—C.M.

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Posted by Dan Shaw on 08/31/10 at 10:09 AM • Permalink

Who Needs Disneyworld? We Have County Fairs

It’s the season for the annual county and country fairs, and they can be schizophrenic affairs—earnest agricultural competitions side by side with scary rides and schlock. The carnival side of the Dutchess County Fair is Coney Island-in-the-country, featuring the usual games of chance along with a petting zoo that has a penned-in camel and a small race course where baby pigs compete.  On the 4-H side, you will see teenagers taking naps with their cows, sheep shearing demonstrations, displays of blue ribbon dahlias and a long line for milkshakes made with Dutchess County milk. On the midway, there’s every imaginable type of fried food and sausage sandwich. The organizers have thoughtfully recrucited the redoubtable Migliorelli Farm to have a tent as you exit the fair, so you can satisfy your craving for fruits and vegetables with heirloom and cherry tomatoes, peaches and plums, as well as leeks celery and cucumbers, which have all been grown in nearby Tivoli, NY. 

Dutchess County Fair
Rhinebeck, NY
August 24 - 29
 
Cummington Fair
Cummington, MA
August 26 -  29

Columbia County Fair
Chatham, NY
September 1 - 6
 
The Blandford Fair
Blandford, MA
September 3 - 6
 
Goshen Fair
Goshen, CT
September 4 - 6
 
While most of us take going to these fairs for granted, there are many youngsters who cannot afford to attend and the Dutchess Fair has the Ideal Country Holiday program which sponsors nearly 1,000 children every year. Click here to donate. For a look at this year’s Dutchess County Fair, scroll down this page
 

The food booths are graphic and caloric marvels.

A 4-H teen naps with his cows.

The petting zoo features a camel.

Sheep shearing is a county fair tradition.

It’s not that difficult to win a big stuffed animal.

A rural game of chance.

What’s a fair without funnel cakes?

Farming remains the raison d’être of country fairs . . .

. . . and silly games are de rigueur.

Prize-winning dahlias.

The ultimate in fried food.

Final stop before going home: The Migliorelli Farm tent.

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Posted by Dan Shaw on 08/24/10 at 08:41 AM • Permalink

Festival Frenzy: A Weekend of Music & Happenings

 
No matter where you go this weekend—from Wassaic to North Adams, from Norfolk to Annandale-on-Hudson—you will find a one-of-a-kind festival. If it sounds too good to be true, it is because there is no way to take advantage of everything that is going on in our neck of the woods. Here’s our tip sheet for the weekend.
 
 
 
Wilco Solid Sound Festival
Where: MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA

When: August 13 - 15

Who: WILCO, the thinking person’s favorite indie-alternative band, is not only playing at MASS MoCA but curating an entire weekend of the arts that takes place mostly on the MASS MoCA campus (with the larger performances presented at nearby Joe Thompson Field) include a comedy cabaret, family-friendly events including Story Pirates and Bread and Puppet theater, interactive music installations, a film series, yoga class, full access to the galleries at MASS MoCA, and a stellar roster of indie bands as well as a performance by the legendary Mavis Staples.

Why: Because MASS MoCA has become more than a cutting-edge contemporary art museum, it has become a multidisciplinary venue that celebrates innovation in all of the arts, and North Adams is a pedestrian-friendly, welcoming locale for a gathering of hipsters and aesthetes of all ages, and the city is pulling out all the stops to puts its best foot forward.

Click here for more details.
 
The Wassaic Project
Where: Maxon Mills and the Luther Barn in Wassaic, NY (a half mile south of the train station.)

When: August 12 - 15

Who: Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Elan Bogarin and Jeff Barnett-Winsby have curated a free festival that focuses on community engagement and facilitates artists and participants to exhibit, discuss, and connect with art, each other and the surrounding community in a rural village. While the festival attracts a large number of artists and music-lovers from Brooklyn who arrive by train and camp outside the Luther Barn, it also reaches out to the full-time local population and on Thursday, August 12, the Wassaic Project will kick off with a free Community Night from 5 - 7 p.m. to celebrate the work of artists from Dutchess and Litchfield Counties: Jeff Barnett-Winsby, Richard Deon, Ryan Frank, Hendon, Henry Klimowicz, Jesse Laliberte, Virginia Lavado, Phyllis Nauts, Francesca Palombo, Camilo Rojas, Safety & Wonder, Rachel Schapira, Matthew Slaats, Craig Wickwire, and Bowie Zunino. A 50/50 raffle will benefit the Wassaic Fire Department. There will 27 bands playing over the weekend, including several stars of the New American folk scene. The lineup includes the Luyas, She Keeps Bees, and Red Rooster.

Why: Because it’s rare a rare opportunity to be surrounded by hundreds of young artists and feed off their creative energy. Last year, RI witnessed a joyful coming together of weekenders, transplants and locals of all ages.

Click here for more details.
 
 
Norfolk ArtsWave!
Where: Norfolk, CT

When: August 13 - 15

Who: Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Edmund Morris, best-selling author Simon Winchester, NPR’s Anne Garrels, the Tokyo String Quartet. Grammy-winner Suzy Boggus are among the artists converging on Norfolk this weekend. Already the summer home of the Yale School of Music, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Infinity Hall & Bistro, the tiny town on the Massachusetts border has long been known as a haven for intellectuals and contributors to The New Yorker.

Why:  With an old-fashioned village green and an architecturally stunning public library along with Great Mountain Forest and Haystack Mountain State Park, Norfolk epitomizes rural intelligence. Most events are free but some require reservations, and a few you’ll have to buy tickets for.

Click here for more details.
 
 

7th Annual West Stockbridge Zucchini Festival
Where: West Stockbridge, MA

When: Saturday, August 14, 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. (rain or shine)

Who: David Grover, the Berkshire Bateria and the Eagle’s stage band, local restaurateurs such as Scott Cole of Caffe Pomo d’Oro and the Merelles of Rouge will be participating in a day of eating and playing all centered on the humble zucchini.

Why: Because it’s an eclectic day featuring a Zucchini Catapult and Zucchini Decorating that reflects West Stockbridge’s quirky charm. And there are fireworks after dark.

Click here for more details.
 
 
Music Mountain Family Festival
Where: Falls Village, CT

When: Saturday, August 14, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Who: There’s a lot more than the usual chamber music and jazz when Music Mountain holds its 5th annual free family festival featuring stilt dancers and live puppets from Mortal Beasts & Deities, the Off Beats African drumming circle, Kenn Morr’s folk/rock band, an excerpt from TriArt’s Oklahoma! and ballerinas from the Nutmeg Dance Conservatory.

Why: Because 80-year-old Music Mountain needs to develop a new generation of music lovers, and there’s something magical about the mountaintop campus and acoustically perfect Gordon Hall, which was constructed from a Sears Roebcuk kit. And it’s a lovely spot for a picnic or eating burgers prepared by the Falls Village Volunteer Fire Department.

Click here for more details.
 
 
Bard Music Festival: Berg and His World
Where: Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

When: August 13 - 15 & 20 - 22

Who: Leonard Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra explore the work of Alban Berg (1885- 1935), the radical modernist composer.

Why: Because there’s no better place to listen to music than the Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, and there is no more scholarly conductor than Leonard Botstein, the visionary president of the college, who is an educator who loves to perform.

Click here for more details.

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Posted by Dan Shaw on 08/10/10 at 09:02 AM • Permalink

Walk on Over: The 2nd Annual Hillsdale Historic House Tour

If, like us, you could do with a little less driving in your life, you’ll be happy to know that the second annual Hillsdale Historic House Tour is a pedestrian-friendly event: All of the buildings are on a 1/4 mile stretch of Cold Water Street, which has three of the oldest houses in the hamlet and 16 other buildings that helped win National Historic Register status for the neighborhood. “Cold Water Street is ideal for our historic house tour,  because so many architectural styles from the 1800’s through the early 1900’s are represented on this one short street,” says tour chairman Matthew White. “The exteriors of all the houses have retained their period looks. Some owners have updated the interiors while others have kept or restored original elements.”

For the July 31 house tour, which benefits the Hillsdale Preservation Committee, at least four of the houses will be open to visitors, as will a Queen Anne-style building that has been a law office continuously since it was built in 1892; visitors will see the law library, maps and other records that have stayed with the building each time it has been sold to another lawyer.  In addition, several long time residents of Hillsdale will be on hand to talk about the history of the houses, the street and the town.

Visitors can also tour an 1828 Federal home built onto the front of what is believed to be a late 1700’s farmhouse. The 1855 Greek Revival on the tour appears from the street to be a large single family home with four floor-to-ceiling windows framing a center door with sidelights, but it’s actually a cleverly disguised two family house.  The 1867 Gothic Revival on the tour retains many original features on the outside while the interior has been updated for modern life. A brochure created for the tour will detail all the historic buildings on the street, which include excellent examples of Gothic Revival and Second Empire architecture. At the end of the street, visitors can wander the gardens of what was originally the parsonage of the Presbyterian church that was built in 1858 in the Greek Revival style.

Hillsdale Historic House Tour
Saturday, July 31; 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tickets: $20
Tickets available at B&G Wine & Gourmet and at Passiflora in Hillsdale.
Day-of ticket sales at 57 Cold Water Street.

On the day of the tour select Hillsdale area restaurants, including the Swiss Hutte, Mt. Washington House, Hillsdale Country Diner and Hillsdale House, will offer a discount to patrons showing their Hillsdale Historic House Tour ticket, as will Neumann Fine Art,  B&G Wines and Passiflora.

Also this weekend in Hillsdale:
Laura Pensiero’s book launch;  openings at the Hessel Museum and Paper Trail; tea dances at Wilderstein or galas for Bard Summerscape—are usually the founders of Rural Intelligence.
 
 
Paper Trail
What does it mean that the chicest store in town specializes in greeting cards, notebooks, stationery and wrapping paper? It means that the people of Rhinebeck still send hand-written thank you notes and wrap their own gifts when they go to a birthday party. Expatriate New Yorkers Maureen Missner and Serine Hastings have built a business that is as popular with locals as with weekenders, and they have an intimate relationship with their clientele as they help design wedding invitations and birth announcements.  “You celebrate life’s occasions in the stationery business,” explains the effervescent Missner. The store also sells jewelry, home accessories, all manner of paper goods, and mounts exhibitions by paper artists such as Ramon Lascano and Linda Filley. 6423 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck; 845.876.8050
 
 
A.L. Stickle
Where do the owners of Paper Trail like to shop? They love Stickle’s variety store, which is the quintessential small town 5 & 10—an indie version of the once ubiquitous Woolworth’s. Like his grandparents before him, Matt Stickle sells all sorts of useful, everyday things in the same manner they’ve been sold for six decades.  “People like that everything here is not packed in plastic and hung on pegboards,” he says. “They like that we display things in open bins and that they can pick up and touch a suede brush or a single pencil.”  They like that almost everything is something that you actually need, whether it is a new harp for a lamp, fishing line, a shower cap, or a skein of yarn. And they like that Stickle’s is the anti-CVS, the anti-Walmart.
13 East Market Street, Rhinebeck; 845.876.3206
 
 
Bard College
There are so many things to love and admire about Bard College: The contemporary Hessel Museum of Art whose current exhibition is At Home/Not At Home: Works from the Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg; the Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts which is currently host to the Summerscape festival or performing arts;  and the Spiegeltent, the alternative cabaret and disco that brings urban nightlife to the bucolic college campus each summer.  With seriousness and savoir faire, Bard consistently produces world-class cultural events.
Annandale-on-Hudson
 
 
Bubby’s Burritos
It’s hard to know whether urban sophisticates who are used to ordering every imaginable type of takeout food at any imaginable time of day or night will appreciate the discrete charms of Bubby’s Burrito cart. But this adorable little trailer serves amazingly authentic burritos and quesadillas in the most unpretentious fashion, which suits locals and weekenders just fine.
Route 199
 
 
 
Hyde Park
Is it Hillary Clinton’s deep identification with Eleanor Roosevelt that brought Chelsea Clinton’s wedding to a town just a few miles north of Val-Kill, the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site?  One could certainly spend more than a day in Hyde Park visiting Springwood, the Franklin D. Roosevelt estate, and the FDR Library, as well as visiting the Vanderbilt Estate and eating at one of the five restaurants at the Culinary Institute of America.
 
 
 
 
Oblong Books & Music
A box from Amazon.com on the front porch is a badge of shame in the Rural Intelligence region where residents revere and support independent bookstores. Rhinebeck has Oblong, which is run by Dick Hermans and his daugher Suzanna—astute booksellers who support local authors with frequent readings and signings. They have an especially rich assortment of books on the Hudson Valley and New York State at the front of their shop in Rhinebeck. They have another well-stocked outpost in Millerton, NY.
Montgomery Row, Rhinebeck; 845.876.0500
 
 
Warren Kitchen & Cutlery
Located outside the village, Warren Cutlery is a destination that attracts professional chefs, serious home cooks, and students from the Culinary Institute of America down the road in Hyde Park. It carries every imaginable baking pan you could ever want as well as every gadget or small appliance you might need. But it’s knives that give Warren’s “The Edge,” as their slogan boasts; they carry over 1,000 different styles. “If we had more space, we’d have more knives,” says Richard Von Husen, who co-owns the store with a partner, Jim Zitz.  What’s more, you can bring them your old dull knives and they will sharpen them on the spot for a very modest fee.
6934 Route 9, Rhinebeck; 845.876.6208
 
 
Hammertown Barn
Nobody understands better how to furnish a country house than Joan Osofsky (photographed with chef Mario Batali), who opened her first store in Pine Plains some twenty years ago. Since then, she has added shops in Great Barrington and Rhinebeck, which carry a mix of slipcovered furniture, lighting, antiques, Dash & Albert rugs along with all sorts of things you need to set the table for everyday or for company. (Chelsea Clinton is reported to have bought some pillows at the store recently.) Like most Rhinebeck merchants, Osofsky is always ready to lend a hand to worthy causes, and she has been especially generous to the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, which facilitates philanthropy in Berkshire, Columbia, Dutchess and Litchfield Counties.
6420 Montgomery Row, Rhinebeck; 845.876.1450
 
 
Terrapin
Where’s the after party? It could be at Terrapin, which stays open until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, which is outrageous and unheard of in our neck of the woods. The eclectic menu is well-executed so that you can always find something to satisfy your craving such as Thai meaballs in green curry, duck quesadilla, macadamia-nut tempura calamari,  crispy artichokes or a hamburger with a wide range of toppings.
6426 Montgomery Street; 845.876.3330
 
 
 
Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market
Twice voted the best farmers’ market in the Hudson Valley, this Sunday market (10 a.m. - 2 p.m.) is locavore nirvanna, because most of the vendors have farms nearby. Besides a dazzling assortment of fruits and vegetables from venerable farms such as Breezy Hill and Mead Orchards, there’s also cheese (Amazing Real Live Food Co., Nettle Meadow and Old Chatham Sheepherding Company), meat and poultry (Quattro’s Game Farm, Cowberry Crossing Farm)  and prepated foods (Aba’s Falafel and Block Factory Tamales.)
61 East Market Street, Rhinebeck
 
 
Tivoli Mercantile
This Red Hook shop run by stylish local mom Jill Cornillon has a fresh mix of clothes, jewelry and home accessories. It is the exclusive purveyor of Hudson Paint which is the first collection of blackboard paints in a whole range of vibrant colors, which were developed by Cornillon’s husband, Arno Cornillon, an accomplished decorative painter.  This is the archetypal mom-and-pop shop for new ruralists.
5 E. Market Street, Red Hook; 845.758.3229
 
 
 
Mercato
Francesco Buitoni, a scion of the pasta company begun in 1827, and his wife-and-partner, Michele Platt, have turned a typical 19th century Red Hook house into an osteria that is as close to authentic as you can get. The food is so good that famous folk who know Italian food really well (Mario Batalli, Frances Ford Coppola, Mario Cantone) have been spotted dining here cheek by jowl with the locals. The menu changes weekly, highlighting fresh pastas and seasonal, locally grown produce and meats:  Northwind Farms chicken liver bruschetta,with aged balsamic and sage; handmade ravioli filled with Coach Farm ricotta and spinach with brown butter sauce; and whole roasted branzino served with Migliorelli Farm escarole and black beluga lentils. 
61 East Market Street, Red Hook; 845.758.5879
 
 
Montgomery Place
Depending on your orientation, Montgomery Place is an orchard with a wonderful fruit stand or it’s a magnificent historic house. The 380-acre property is an amazingly intact example of Hudson Valley estate life with exquisite gardens and painterly views of the majestic Catskill Mountains across the Hudson River.
Route 9G, Annandale-on-Hudson; 845-758-5461
 
 
 
 
 
Migliorelli Farm Stand
New Yorkers will recognize the name from New York City’s Greenmarkets, and antiques lovers from the corner store on Warren Street in Hudson, NY, but locals shop everyday at the farm stand near the Kingston Rhinecliff Bridge. Since being displaced from their farm in the Bronx in the 1960s when Co-op City was built, the Migliorellis have been sustainably farming in Tivoli, NY, providing home cooks and restaurants with cooking greens, salad greens, root vegetables, corn, tomatoes, garlic, melons, peaches, plums et al. Route 199 and River Road, Rhinebeck
 
 
 
bluecashew Kitchen Pharmacy
With farms and cooking the number one topic of conversation in Rhinebeck, it’s not surprising that the town has more than one stylish place to buy bakeware, cookbooks, appliances, dinnerwear and linens. We’re especially fond of bluecashew because it carries the pottery of our good friend Frances Palmer, which magically makes any flowers or food look more beautiful.
6423 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck; 845.876.1117
 
 
 
 
Rhinecliff Hotel & Restaurant
With very few exceptions, only the grand private estates have unobstructed riverfront views, which is why the recently restored Rhinecliff is such a treasure. Within walking distance of the Amtrak station, the 200-year-old inn has an expansive patio where you can take in the magnificent sunset views that have inspired generations of landscape painters.
4 Grinnell Street, Rhinecliff; 845.876.0590
 
 
 
 
Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck
This is not your typical Rodgers & Hammerstein-oriented community theater. Although it produces classics from time to time, the Center has been on an edgy course lately. It did first rate productions of Rent and Falsettos this winter, and the musical currently on the boards is the campy and erotic Rocky Horror Picture Show. Copyright © Jen Kiaba Photography
661 Route 308, Rhinebeck; 845.876.3080
 
 
 
 
Tivoli
When Rhinebeck begins to feel frenetic, head north ten minutes to the tiny town of Tivoli, which has become a low-key scene on weekends centered around the Madalin Hotel and its airy porch, according to our “Wandering Eye” blogger Carey Maloney. Friday nights get a clubby group of table-hopping, fashionable weekenders.  Saturdays the food-savvy full timers predominate who appreciate that the chef relies on Migliorelli and Montgomery Place (see above) as much as possible for fruits and vegetables.
53 Broadway, Tivoli; 845.757.2100

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Posted by Dan Shaw on 07/22/10 at 05:07 AM • Permalink

The Millbrook Mystique: Inside Fitch’s Corner Horse Trials

Horse shows are a wonderful combination of sport and style, and nowhere are the equestrians more style-conscious than clubby Millbrook, which every year encourages outsiders to attend—for free!— the Fitch’s Corner Hunter Trials Weekend on July 24 & 25. If you admire beautiful, well-groomed, well-trained horses, there will be more than 250 in competition from all over the northeast participating in dressage, cross country jumping through rolling fields, and stadium jumping in an arena. The best in show will receive not only ribbons but also silver trophies from Tiffany & Co.

If you like to people-watch and/or shop, Fitch’s Corner is like no other tent sale in the Rural Intelligence region. Beneath an enormous marquee, 45 vendors will be selling an array of clothing and accessories that range from the practical (Hunter Boot Wellies in jelly bean colors) to the whimsical (big straw hats by Madder Hatters.) In the “Equine Village” section of the tent, riders with deep pockets can order fine French made saddles from Devoucoux and their own custom designed course of jumps from ETB Jumps. If you just happen to like dapper clothing, you will find booths selling Bella Tu’s debut collection of tunics and silk pants for entertaining, Stubbs & Wooten’s fancy footwear suitable for resorts and country clubs, and Robert Redd’s men’s and boys polo shirts in every imaginable color.  And you don’t have to spend a dime to enjoy the vintage and antique cars that will be on display beginning at noon on Sunday.

“It’s the best, old-fashioned summer destination event—beautiful horses in a beautiful setting and great shopping, too, ” says Fernanda Kellogg, who hosts the trials with her husband, Kirk Henckels, on their 150 acre farm. “You can go everywhere on the property except into my closet or under my bed!” It’s one of those events that always attracts The New York Times’ legendary street-fashion-and-party photographer Bill Cunningham. “It’s a community event, not a celebrity event,” says Kellogg, “but Bette Midler will be here because she is part of our community.”

Fitch’s Corner Horse Trials
July 24 & 25; 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Intersection of Shunpike and N. Mabbettsville Road, Millbrook, NY
Admission free.

Tickets and reservations required for Spectator Luncheon to benefit the Millbrook Rescue Squad and for the Blue Jeans Ball on Saturday night.

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Posted by Dan Shaw on 07/21/10 at 05:58 AM • Permalink

O Say, Can You See Some Fireworks

Funny how fireworks, invented by the Chinese in the 12th century, still inspire more awe and delight than anything Disney (studio and parks divisions combined) has conjured up so far.  This weekend there will be many displays, the big challenge, apart from nabbing a parking spot with a view (despite extra-high parking charges, sanctioned lots fill up fast), is figuring out which display is what night.  The rockets start their red glare at one locale on Friday the 2nd and go off somewhere in our region every evening through Monday the 5th. 

Berkshire County

Shakespeare & Company holds its seventh annual reading of the Declaration of Independence July 4 at 3 p.m. under the tent at the outdoor Rose Footprint Theatre.  That evening, at Tanglewood, also in Lenox, July 4 marks the midpoint in James Taylor and Carole King’s big weekend.  Following the duo’s pyrotechnics on stage, there will be a fireworks display that will also be visible from many locales in the immediate vicinity.  Olivia’s Overlook on the Richmond Road, an obvious choice, is best approached on foot as that small, free lot fills early. 

Pittsfield honors America’s independence, as always, with its legendary 4th of July Parade, which this year is being held on Monday, July 5. The big news (at least from our perspective) is that Rural Intelligence‘s own Dan Shaw will be joining the roster of distinguished judges.  But by 10 a.m. Monday, when the leader strikes up the band, Pittsfield’s fireworks will have already taken place, the night before, on July 4th, after the Colonials 6:30 p.m. game at Wahconah Park.  Since the fireworks don’t begin until the game is over, it’s impossible to give an exact time, but if the game doesn’t go into extra innings, think 9:30ish.

The annual Independence Day Parade in Williamstown steps off from Southworth Street at 11 a.m. on Saturday the 3rd and culminates with a reading of the Declaration of Independence. That same evening at Joe Wolfe Field in North Adams, following the game (SteepleCats v. Vermont Mountaineers), there will be fireworks at approximately 9:30 p.m.
 
Columbia County

There are a couple of really sweet, old-fashioned, unflashy parades during the day on the 4th—The People’s Parade (think antique cars and kids on bikes) in Kinderhook, and the Old Chatham Parade, whose organizers boast that there are, “no celebrities.” (So if you are a celebrity and plan to attend, wear a disguise.) The culmination of Chatham‘s FamilyFest, on Satuday, July 3rd, will be a fireworks display, scheduled for 9:30 p.m.  Clermont State Historic Site in Germantown, home of a Signer of the Declaration, is splitting it’s popular, history-rich celebration in two.  Their Old-Fashioned Independence Day, complete with costumed Revolutionary War re-enactors and fife-and-drum corps, food and games, will take place on the 4th.  But, as the town of Saugerties, across the river, has scheduled its fireworks for Monday night, Clermont, which has a clear view of the Saugerties skies, will also be open on the evening of Monday the 5th from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m.  Farther north in the county, Lebanon Valley Speedway, in New Lebanon will hold it’s display following the races on Saturday the 3rd. 
 
Dutchess County

Poughkeepsie will hold its fireworks celebration on the 4th at about 9 p.m. People can view it for free at Waryas Park, but the best perch is probably the splendid new Walkway Over the Hudson. Those wishing to view it from on high must buy a special $10 wristband, available at various area stores, in order to gain admittance.  Since, for safety, the number of people allowed on the Walkway must be limited, so are the number of wristbands, which are expected to sell out fast.

The Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck is having fireworks displays on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.  The Friday night sky show follows a rodeo, Saturday’s a demolition derby, and on Sunday the first rocket goes off at the culmination of a concert by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. These are all ticketed events, but, except for Sunday, admission to the grounds is free.  However, as with most fireworks venues, there is a parking charge, so check for details on the fairgrounds’ website (link above). 
 
Litchfield County

Every year Lime Rock Park in the town of Lime Rock in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Salisbury hosts the local fireworks show.  This year the fireworks will be Saturday, July 3, following Lime Rock’s NASCAR Doubleheader weekend (July 2-3).  The cost is $10 per car.  Gates open at 6 p.m. for picnicking; fireworks begin at 9 p.m.  Please leave the dog at home.

New Milford‘s annual Independence weekend carnival, featuring rides, game booths, and food, will take place at Young’s Field beginning on Thursday July 1st and continuing through Saturday, July 3rd, culminating with a free fireworks display on the 3rd, at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Fort Hill Still Meadow (behind Starbucks).

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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/28/10 at 04:40 PM • Permalink

Wrapped! Father & Son Mummy Reunion at Berkshire Museum

“Mummies represent the potential for people to be immortal,” says Dr. Jonathan Elias, an Egyptologist and curator of the new exhibition Wrapped! Search for the Essential Mummy at the Berkshire Musem (June 19 - October 31. ) As he installed the exhibition featuring the museum’s own 2,300-year old mummy known as Pahat (one of hundreds of mummies unearthed in the tombs of Akhmim, Egypt, in the 19th century), Dr. Elias explained that mummies are more than the preserved flesh and bones of ancient Egyptians but also vessels for their souls. “When the Egyptians eviscerated and embalmed the body with resin, they removed all the organs, including the brain, but they left the heart,” says Dr. Elias. “They believed that the heart is the seed of the intellect and that the spirit of the individual is in the heart. That is where immortality lives.” He pauses and then shares some wisdom he’s gleaned from his studies. “That is why we need to be more heart focused and less brain focused,” he says.

Dr. Elias, who runs the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium in Harrisburg, PA, has an intimate relationship with mummies, though he has never unwrapped one. “They used to do that in the 19th century—people would have unwrapping parties, and our exhibit documents that phenomenon,” he explains. “But it is the wrong thing to do in every way.” Nevertheless, he has looked inside mummies using non-invasive CT scan technology (right) to find scars and amulets and other signs of life. “Pahat has only left the Berkshire Museum three times since 1903, and that was so he could be scanned at Berkshire Medical Center,” notes Stuart Chase, executive director of the Berkshire Museum. “One of the highlights of the exhibit is that you will be able to view a virtual, 3-D animated fly through of Pahat’s body, unpeeling layers of linen until you get down to the bone.” The exhibit also features some 200 ancient Egyptian artifacts as well as mummified animals.

You will also be able to see Pahat’s long-lost son, Shep-en-Min. “It’s a father and son reunion,” says Dr. Elias, who discovered the mummy known as Shep-en-Min only 75 miles away at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. He believes it is the first such mummy family reunion in North America. To bring the mummies back to life as much as possible, Dr. Elias commissioned forensic artists to produce more than a dozen plaster busts (above) based on CT scans of mummies he has studied over the years. “These are people who knew each other,” says Dr. Elias, who is obviously pleased to be a handmaiden to immortality.  “You will see a community of Egyptians from the same time and place brought together again.”

Wrapped! Search for the Essential Mummy
June 19 - October 31
Berkshire Museum
39 South Street, Pittsfield MA; 413.443.7171

Opening Day Schedule: Saturday June 19
10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Mummy Facts Scavenger Hunt
12 - 3 p.m. Live Camels on the Lawn (weather permitting)
1 -3 p.m. Hieriglyphic crafts and face painting
1:30 p.m. Snake charmer Kevin McCurley shows off cobras and pythons
2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Dr. Elias’s talk on “The Origins of Pahat”
3 - 5 p.m. Egyptian refreshments in the Crane Room

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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/16/10 at 09:35 AM • Permalink

Upstairs at Olana: Frederic Church Slept Here

During the period (c. 1869) that the great Hudson River School painter Frederic Church was dreaming up his home Olana with the architect Calvert Vaux, Victorian-era domestic architecture was going through it’s most flamboyant and fantastical stage.  Though Church was too artistic and cosmopolitan to follow the lead of rich burghers, he was subject, nonetheless, to the same mysterious forces that shaped popular taste. That year, he and his wife Isabel returned from a trip to Beirut, Jerusalem and Damascus determined to incorporate into their plans for their family’s new home some of the design elements that had dazzled them in the Middle East.  The result is an haute-bohemian fantasy, part folly, part delightful family home, in a style Church described as, “Persian, adapted to the Occidental.”

Nearly a century later, in 1964, when the widow of the Churches youngest son died there, Olana was, thanks to her vigilance, still virtually as it had been when Frederic and Isabel lived there.  The next Church heirs were not nearly so reverential—they opted to auction the furnishings and sell the house.  To prevent this, the Olana Preservation was hastily formed. Even as Sotheby’s tagged the lots, the Preservation (today called the Olana Partnership) arranged to lease the house and its contents for a year, to give themselves time to raise funds.  At the end of the year, having nearly reached their goal, they appealed to the State of New York, which came up with the rest.  With the house and its contents now safe, the Preservation embarked on a and, lengthy restoration, finally opening the main floor rooms for public tours in 1967.     

Last summer, two of the upper floor bedrooms were opened as gallery spaces.  “The furniture that had been in the Best Guest Room is no longer in the Olana collection,” says Evelyn Trebilcock, curator of Olana.  Once that room and its adjacent bedroom had been restored, rather than bring in substitute period furniture that had nothing to do with the Churches or their taste, Trebilcock and her associates used the opportunity to create a small gallery that would permit visitors to see some of the Church paintings and sketches that had been in storage.  The current shows are of oil-on-paper studies Church had done as preparation for larger works, and an exhibition of photographs and art relating to an extended trip to Jamaica the Churches had undertaken after the tragic deaths from diptheria of two of their children. 

This Saturday, June 6, for the first time, the Churches restored second-floor bedroom and dressing room will be added to the tour.  For those of us who have taken the tour of the main floor countless times, it is a dream come true to be allowed to ascent the stairs and enter the inner sanctum. 
   
Alas, sensibly, it is a back staircase one climbs, not the splendid one in the Main Hall, shown above. This is both necessary and wise, as the transition from the spirited public spaces to the relatively calm and spare master bed and dressing rooms might otherwise be too abrupt.  Upstairs there is less of the inspired, Church-designed decorative painting and artful clutter that makes the downstairs so entertaining. “The rooms look spare now because we have not completely furnished them yet,” Trebilcock explains. “We are going to bring down more furniture from storage, and there also will be plenty of ‘artful clutter’ soon.”  Still, the main attractions of these rooms, now and then, are the wallpapers, which have been painstakingly reproduced from scraps found in obscure, protected spots, such as beneath mantels and moldings that were added after the paper was hung.  There is also an interesting “golden oak” chest of drawers that gives further insight into the Churches’ taste. Their choice of this popular genre (not to be confused with the mass-produced next generation that was sold through catalogs such as Sears) indicates that the couple’s inclinations were not so far from those of their fellow mid-to-late 19th-century bourgeois. 
 

 
 
 
 
For their bedroom and the Best Guest Room next door, the Churches chose a wallpaper pattern inspired by French textiles of the period.  The preservationists at Olana relied on Laura McCoy, an expert in historic wallpaper, to draw the full repeat, filling in any missing bits with highly educated guesswork.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
In a dressing room adjacent to the master bedroom, built-in drawers are fitted beneath a staircase that leads to the nursery.  The new paper in this room is a leaf pattern handblocked in gold paint onto Japanese kozo (mullberry) paper, just as the original was, using the methods and materials that had been employed in Japan during the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries. This process, called momigami was replicated by Adelphi Paper in Sharon Spring, NY.  Olana’s next wallpaper project is for yet another guest bedroom.
 
 
 
Olana State Historic Site
Route 9G, just south of Route 23
Greenport, between Hudson & Germantown, NY
Guided house tours: Tuesday - Sunday & holiday Mondays, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Reservations recommended; 518.828.0135
 
The Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery
Thursday - Sunday, June 6 - October 31, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
 
Free lecture, Olana, Salon for Jamaican Journeyers
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) deadline Friday, June 4
Sunday, June 6, 2 p.m

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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 05/31/10 at 03:32 PM • Permalink

Bohemian Rhapsody: At Home with Edna St. Vincent Millay

In her day, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was a rock star (although, of course, she predeceased rock-‘n’-roll.)  Rich, famous and influential, she lived for 25 years in grand, back-to-the-land, high-bohemian style with her husband at Steepletop, their estate in Austerlitz, NY, where she died at the age of 58 in 1950.  “She was the highest paid poet of the 20th century,” says Peter Bergman, the executive director of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society (which is entirely separate from its neighbor the Millay Colony for the Arts.) “At one point, she was getting royalties of $100 a day from her opera The King’s Henchman.” In her New York Times obituary, she was described as “a terse and moving spokesman during the Twenties, the Thirties and the Forties. She was an idol of the younger generation during the glorious early days of Greenwich Village when she wrote, what critics termed a frivolous but widely know poem which ended: My candle burns at both ends, It will not last the night, But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, It gives a lovely light!”

Since going to work for the Millay Society four years ago, Bergman (who’s also a prolific theatre critic) has methodically begun to restore the gardens along with Millay’s house and her writing cabin. “When she died, her sister Norma moved in and preserved everything,” he says. “She kept her things separate from her sister’s so that someday the house could be a museum and an accurate reflection of how her sister lived.” This summer for the first time, beginning May 28, there will be regularly scheduled by-appointment tours of the house (the upstairs only) given by docents that Bergman is training. They will be able to explain that the hand-stenciled “Silence” sign in Millay’s library (below) is an inside-joke because Millay never let anyone else into her inner sanctum. They will be able to explain that the black-and-white United States map in the sewing room with with red lines details the route of Millay’s cross-country reading tour she took from October 1938 to January 1939. They will be able to explain that the halls are painted blue because blue was her favorite color and the subject of many poems, and that the guns in the foyer were used by her and her husband for hunting game on the property. They will let you inspect her handsomely monogrammed towels (right.) “But they won’t let you look inside her dressers or drawers,” says Bergman. “You have to come back and take the white-glove tour to see that.”

A separate garden tour includes the restored potting shed, the simple cabin where Millay wrote, and the evocatively ramshackle swimming pool. ‘There’s a haunted quality, isn’t there?” says Bergman, as he explains that Millay built a pergola with a bar next to the pool that she hid from the road by planting arborvitae. “This was during prohibition, and she didn’t want people to see anyone drinking. She had very definite rules. You had to be fully dressed at the bar and you had to be completely naked when you swam in the pool.”  He explains that Millay and her husband, Eugen Boissevain, a Dutch coffee importer, lived more-or-less self-sufficiently at Steepletop and did not get electricity until 1948, when Ladies Home Journal (which frequently published her poems) installed a state-of-the-art kitchen for a photo shoot that Millay then refused to do. “They grew their own vegetables and canned them for the winter,” says Bergman. “We found garden poisons like arsenic in Royal Dutch Coffee cans in the potting shed.”

As he unlocks the door to the writing cabin (right) that Millay used year round and heated with a cast iron stove, Bergman explains that one of the society’s goals is to restore Millay’s reputation and an appreciation for her role in American letters. He has put together a photographic exhibit, Where She Lived, that chronicles her glamorous life which makes you think that Katherine Hepburn would have played her in a contemporaneous biopic. “She was the reigning queen of Greenwich Village’s bohemian set until she got married,” he says. “She set the world on its ear with her 1919 anti-war play Aria de Capo and she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.”

Millay’s property line abuts West Stockbridge, and one wonders whether she identified with the writers like Edith Wharton and Herman Melville who lived across the border in Massachusetts. Bergman smiles. “She always considered herself a Berkshires artist,” he says. And just when you think that everything at Steepletop is about the past,  Bergman announces that an indie rock band called Ghost Ghost has written a song cycle about the poet’s life called No Clothes on Ragged Island, which they will perform at Steepletop on July 18. Now, that rock-star analogy doesn’t seem so farfetched.

The Edna St. Vincent Millay Society at Steepletop
House Tours by appointment: Fridays - Mondays;  $15 (six-person limit per tour)
Garden Tours by appointment: Fridays - Tuesdays; $12
Where She Lived exhibit: Thursdays - Tuesdays, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.  $8
All of the above: $25
Poetry Trail: Open daily; free.

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Posted by Dan Shaw on 05/05/10 at 08:36 PM • Permalink

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