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Community

James Taylor: For Haiti, More Than Just His Heart Goes Out

They billed this spur-of-the-moment booking as An Intimate Evening with James Taylor.  Ticket sales began Tuesday, January 19th, at 9 a.m., on-line or in person at the Mahaiwe Box office, and the prices were steep.   The occasion, of course, is a benefit concert for Haiti at the Mahaiwe Performing

By Editor

Community

Hudson On My Mind

Scott Baldinger is a writer whose work has appeared in Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times and other publications. He has been living in (and taking pictures of ) Hudson for  six years. This piece appeared previously in a slightly altered form on Melissa Stafford's website, Hudson

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Community

Greetings, Neighbors! Our First Annual Holiday Poem

Season's greetings, County Kin Let the merriment begin! Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas Is it local? That's our litmus. The arts and farms help define us So much driving, the only minus. True, this is a magic region It's rural life that we believe in

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Community

Berkshire Taconic's Neighbor-to-Neighbor Program

"Poverty is all around us but it's more hidden in our region than in other places," says Jennifer Dowley, the president of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, noting that 15,000 people in Berkshire County alone receive fuel assistance. "Whether you're in Millbrook

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Community

It's Finally Show Time at the Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield

Richard Stanley knows first hand how a movie theater can be a tipping point for a community. After all, fourteen years ago, he opened The Triplex, a brand new independent movie house in Great Barrington. By all accounts, The Triplex was the catalyst for Great Barrington's metamorphosis, attracting

By Editor

Community

Live & Let's Give: Shopping for A Good Cause

Community art sales are as common in our region as Subaru wagons and chamber-music concerts, so what makes the Live and Let's Give Sale this weekend  at the Lichtensten Center for the Arts different?  Of course, it's for the worthiest cause: Charley's Fund, the

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Community

The Pastures: A Spa for Wellness Down on the Farm

A "spa day" does not mean what it once did for Bridget Ford Hughes.  A massage therapist who worked at Canyon Ranch for many years and travelled the globe as part of fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger's entourage (which is how she ended up massaging Mick Jagger

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Community

Holy Smoke! The Berkshire Hosemen's Calendar

Photographer Sarah Edwards has an eye for hunky guys. Last year, she photographed the Treemen Calendar (which included a picture of her boyfriend, Cord Kenyon, aka Mr. January), which raised $25,000 for the daughter of an arborist named Rafe Kozaka who died in a logging accident in 2008. This

By Editor

Food

Raise a Glass To Food Writing! May It Long Endure

"There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk.  And that is my answer, when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love." Long, long before there was a Julie and long before we

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Community

The Sun Never Sets On The Silent Auction

Even as the days grow shorter and summer segues into fall,  Silent Auction Season continues. Actually, it's always Silent Auction Season in the Rural Intelligence region. When was the last time you attended a benefit for a library, theater company, day care center or museum and weren'

By Editor

Food

Pizza Farm: Food Designed for Social Change

On Saturday, August 29, at 4 p.m., the first ever Pizza Farm will open for business in Canaan, CT, under the pavillion in Lawrence Field at  Routes 7 & 44. It will close two hours later after giving away 300 individual six-inch grilled pizzas made with local farm-fresh ingredients

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Community

The Pied Piper of Pittsfield: Megan Whilden

"I've always liked underdogs, which is one of the reasons I was so attracted to Pittsfield" says Megan Whilden, the city's upbeat director of cultural development since 2005. Whilden is as responsible as anyone for making Pittsfield a destination rather than just a place

By Editor