Editor

Arts

Todd Reynolds on the 10th Annual Bang on a Can Festival

The rock band Wilco, which hosted the recent Solid Sound festival, was not the first musical group to commandeer MASS MoCA. In 2002—just three years after the museum was founded – Bang on a Can, a group of musicians and composers dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting, and recording contemporary

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Arts

Commentary: Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood

by Scott Baldinger In 1966, when asked what he thought of the music of the Beatles, Richard Rodgers churlishly replied, “I find it monotonous…I don’t think there’s anything creative or original about it.  Their music won’t last.”  When told about this, Paul McCartney responded that he

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Community

Zip-lining: Adventure in the Treetops

by Betsy Miller In 2009, there were 62 ziplines in the United States.  Two years later, there are about 200, three of them in our area.  Investors, get out your checkbooks.  Treetop zipping is coming to a neighborhood near you. The use of cables and harnesses to transport people between

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Style

Style Shopping: All About Weave

by Scott Baldinger One of the great things about Hudson, New York, is that you can literally fall out of bed (or your car, if you don’t live or weekend here) and into a new and wondrous world of the decorative arts. Sometimes you may even find worlds within

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Parties

Tanglewood 2011 Opens With a Splash

It was that kind of night.   Just before hundreds of undaunted Boston Symphony Orchestra supporters, some local, many more, it seemed, from New York and Boston, descended on the grounds of Tanglewood to celebrate the opening of its 2011 season, it had rained.  Fortunately, the weather held throughout the cocktail

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Food

AgriCulture: Why We (Um)...Castrate

AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week,  Mark writes: If you want to know what empathy is, follow the expression on a  young man's face as he assists at a piglet's castration.  Last Sunday I

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Arts

Shorts: A Filmmaking Roundtable and A Juried Contest for Young Filmmakers

The Columbia Land Conservancy  and The Chatham Film Club are seeking entries for a juried competition. Filmmakers 16 to 25 are invited to submit original shorts (max. 30 minutes) about land conservation, agriculture, land-use planning, environmental education, or outdoor recreation, all aspect of the Conservancy's work. A

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Community

Pie Contest in A Box: Competitive Baking with a Soul

Two years ago, Gina Hyams was helping organize the pie contest for Hancock Shaker Village's annual Country Fair, and she was knocked out by the passion of the participants. "People were so excited to be judges," she recalls, noting that the panel included The New Yorker&

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Style

Style Shopping: Carolyne Roehm's Big DeClutter

We don't normally alert readers to tag sales, as, without actually vetting the merch in advance (impractical), it's impossible to tell which ones are worthwhile.  But earlier this week, when style guru Carolyne Roehm, author of countless books, including At Home with Carolyne Roehm, sent us

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Arts

Review: "Moonchildren" Shines at BTF

Comedy is so much harder to get right than tragedy: making an audience laugh is more difficult than making them cry. The veteran actress Karen Allen, in her directorial debut at Berkshire Theatre Festival, gave herself a formidable challenge: to resurrect Moonchildren, a 40-year-old comedy about Vietnam era

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Food

Celebrity Chef Lydia Shire Debuts at Tanglewood

by Sally Helgesen Lydia Shire has been to the Boston restaurant scene what Alice Waters was to Northern California: a creative force, influencer-in-chief, modernizer, experimentalist, provocateur and muse. Now Shire brings her outrageously delicious cuisine to the Berkshires as guest chef at Tanglewood’s opening night Gala at

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Community

To the Lighthouse: An Interview with Emily Brunner

by Betsy MillerOn Saturday, July 9th, a Hudson Cruise Boat departs from the Henry Hudson Riverfront Park in Hudson on the hour every hour between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. for the season's first regularly scheduled tours of the Hudson Athens Lighthouse.   The tour takes about

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