Editor

Parties

Boffo night at the Beacon for BIFF’s Academy Awards party

Cultural correspondent Bess J.M. Hochstein reports from Pittsfield: It's much easier for Hollywood types to doll up for the Academy Awards in the warmth of Los Angeles, where down jackets and other wardrobe-busting winter layers are unnecessary, but a glittery crowd managed to shine quite well,

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Community

Kinderhook Farm: A Fantasy Vacation Destination

When she was five-years-old, Renee Iacone Clearman's family planned to go to a farm for a vacation.  "I was delirious!," she recalls.  "I packed all my clothes into grocery bags.   Then my father got sick, so we couldn't go." Decades

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Community

20 Questions for Author Frank Delaney of Kent, CT

In literary circles, Frank Delaney is best known as a best-selling novelist and radio and television interviewer. In the Rural Intelligence region, he's known as a bon vivant and husband of the exuberant novelist Diane Meier. Delaney's latest novel, The Matchmaker of Kenmare, is a

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Community

Dress Rehearsal for IS 183's Annual Costume Party

The annual IS 183 Art School of the Berkshires costume ball and dance party has evolved to become one of those mythic—and epic—galas that define a certain bobo Berkshire lifestyle. The yearly challenge is to create a party that surpasses the previous one in both creativity and fundraising

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Parties

Saturday Night Fever at Hunter Bee in Millerton

When Jonathan Bee (left with librarian Rita Delgado) and Kent Hunter opened their Hunter Bee antiques shop two-and-a-half years ago, they brought a much-appreciated party-boy spirit to Main Street in Millerton. They helped bring together merchants to create the Enjoy Millerton campaign.  On Saturday night,

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Food

Chatham's Back Alley Nano-Brewery

by Christopher Matthews We all know that size matters, and that bigger isn't always better. This is especially true with breweries and beer. A local case in point is Chatham Brewing, located in a back alley off Main Street in the Village of Chatham, NY. Don't

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Style

Dabney McAvoy: A Homey Home Shop in Great Barrington

It seems Dabney McAvoy could not have opened her new home furnishings store anywhere but this crooked little house on Route 7 near the old Barrington Fairgrounds. After all, her concept was to offer a range of objects and furniture—clean smelling Nest candles ($32), striped wool throws from England

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Community

A Birthday Celebration for W.E.B. Du Bois

By Kathryn Matthews "One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder…."—W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903 This

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Food

AgriCulture: Farm Animals Are Not Pets

AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week, Peter writes: We tend to give all the praise and attention to our ewes as they give birth to and mother their lambs, taking for granted the not inconsiderable efforts of our

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Arts

Bart Gulley: The Making of a Painter

"Artists can't help but be influenced by where they work," says the abstract painter Bart Gulley.  "Particularly if they feel wedded to the place."  Gulley is wedded to both Chatham, NY, where he has lived full-time with his wife, the writer Sally Helgesen,

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Community

The Norman Rockwell Museum's Social Conscience

As anyone who has visited the Norman Rockwell Museum well knows, the artist had a well-defined social conscience that is evidenced in such iconic paintings as The Problem Everybody Lives With, The Golden Rule, Moving Day and the Four Freedoms paintings that he made during World War II to

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Style

Margaret Roach: Droppin’ Out is Hard To Do

In her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road, Margaret Roach often quotes pithy pop song lyrics to bring home a point in her account of how, at the height of her powers, she walked away from money and

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