Editor

Arts

The Wharton Salon presents Summer at The Mount

August 18 - August 29 Once upon a time, the resplendent lawns, gardens, chambers, and stables of Edith Wharton's guilded-age estate, The Mount, were alive with sprites, faeries, kings, queens, and courtesans created by The Bard, as well as characters drawn from the imagination of the property'

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Food

A BBQ Pitmaster Rustles Up Some World Class Chow

Taghkanic resident John Markus is an expert at BBQ.  What man isn't?, one might well ask.  But, as it happens, Markus is the real deal.  An Emmy-award winning TV writer (The Cosby Show, The Larry Sanders Show, among others) and the creator and executive producer of The

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Food

Food News: Locavore Hero Award Nominees Announced

Eleven nominees have been announced for the new Victoria A. Simons Locavore Award, a prize established by Ms. Simons just weeks before her death last March following a brief battle with cancer. "I contacted Vicki and asked, 'Is there some kind of local legacy you'd like

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Food

AgriCulture: My Life in Tomatoes

Rural Intelligence bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: As you may have already sensed, I am at an age when everything has a history. So when I think of tomatoes, my mind goes back to my first

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Arts

Review: The Göteborg Ballet at Jacob’s Pillow

Maurice Ravel’s Boléro is surely the Rodney Dangerfield of the classical music world; it gets no respect. So it’s understandable that a quick glance at the program offered by The Göteborg Ballet, 3xBoléro, might elicit a few groans. But when a deeper reading reveals that the troupe’s

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Arts

Review: Lucy Guerin Inc at Jacob’s Pillow

Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin keeps her six dancers very busy in her poignant, hour-long piece, Structure and Sadness, which was inspired by the collapse of Melbourne’s Westgate Bridge in 1970, a tragedy that killed 35 workmen. This incident looms over the work from the startling beginning, as what

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Community

Solid Sound Festival: A Wilco Lovefest at MASS MoCA

Cultural correspondent Bess Hochstein reports from North Adams: Even before the Solid Sound Festival began, love was in the air, as the local music media gathered for a press conference on the afternoon of Friday, August 13. Reporters peppered MASS MoCA’s Joe Thompson and Wilco band members Jeff Tweedy,

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Style

Rural Outfitters: Peter Becks Village Store Opens in Salisbury

With three boarding schools—Salisbury, Indian Mountain and Hotchkiss—Salisbury, CT, is arguably the preppiest town in our region, but until this week there was no place for prep students or their parents (or grandparents) to buy the high quality sporty clothing and gear that's essential to the

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Community

Pittsfield's Word X Word Festival: Not for Hipsters Only

Jim Benson, the owner of Mission Bar + Tapas and Pittsfield's leading hipsterpreneur, wants to make it clear that the second annual Word X Word festival—a celebration of the performed word that is written, spoken or sung—is not as avant garde as its marketing suggests. "There&

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Food

AgriCulture: What Do Livestock Think?

Rural Intelligence bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Mark writes: Last week Peter wrote about animal learning, and whether domestic animals like farm animals might actually learn by observing humans.  This week what's on my mind is

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Parties

Isabella Freedman's Feast in the Field

The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, CT, which hosts workshops and retreats all year long, prides itself on being inclusive, according to executive director Ellen Carton: "We are all ages and allstreams of Judaism—we’re reform, maintream, conservative, liberal, renewal, post renewal, orthodox, orthoflex, spiritual,

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Parties

Berkshire Botanical's Fête des Fleurs avec Voitures

Fleurs, voitures, despite the facile rhyme, flowers and cars generally don't turn up in the same place at the same time.  But on Saturday, August 14, at the Berkshire Botanical Garden's summer party at the Pittsfield home of Ann and Dale Fowler, the hosts' renowned

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