Chronogram December 2020 by Chronogram

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december

COMMUNITY PAGES 38 Catskill: A Village in Flux Residents of this Greene County village are bullish on thriving during the pandemic. As New York Restuarant owner Natasha Witka told us : “I have never felt stronger about the people that are here. No matter what this winter brings, we’ll be able to get through it together.”

Sign on the side of building housing the offices of Dimensions North LTD, a construction firm in Catskill. Photo by Alon Koppel

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R ANT P

SPONSORED

I TY G

partner ChronogramMedia 2020

Celebrate Local Business Now more than ever, we need to celebrate the diversity of our locally owned business community. Chronogram Media is supporting BIPOC-and-women owned organizations by donating services and advertising. We plan to donate $250,000 in 2020. Each month, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be highlighting some of our partners in our pages and we invite you to join us in supporting them.

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december

Cycles of Seeing, Anne Lindberg ARTS, PAGE 51

DEPARTMENTS 6 On the Cover: Jill Enfield

ARTS 51 By a Thread: Women Fiber Artists

Selections from Enfield’s photos of immigrants, New Americans.

Fiber is not a single material—it’s terrycloth and leather, polyester batting and velvet, microfiber, fur, wool roving, cotton thread, raw silk, muslin, burlap, tulle. A sampling of what some artists in this “medium” are currently creating.

8 Big Idea: Uncharted Power in Poughkeepsie The city levels up its tech with the Internet of Things in its sidewalks.

12 Esteemed Reader

56 Music Album reviews of The Reservoir by Kenny Roby; Ken Fox & Knock Yourself Out by Ken Fox & Knock Yourself Out; Groovy by Geezer; and History Gets Ahead of the Story by Jeff Cosgrove/John Medeski/Jeff Lederer.

Stone and flesh meet on the cliffs of the Shawangunk Mountains.

13 Editor’s Note Whatever happened to the idea of America?

57 Books Carloyn Quimby reviews Mary Gordon’s Payback, a new novel from the awardwinning author about a lifelong reckoning between two women that wends its way from a boarding school in New England to reality television. Plus short reviews of Lotus Kay’s Jenny the Chimpanzee; Edward Schwarzschild’s In Security; Tom Schachtman’s, The Memoir of the Minotaur; Jeffrey McDaniel’s Holiday in the Islands of Grief; and James Lancel MElhinney’s, Sketchbook Traveler.

14 COVID Watch with The River A monthly update from the The River on COVID-19 in the region.

FOOD & DRINK 16 Interstellar Indulgence Within two weeks of opening its doors in mid-October, Cosmic Donuts in Kinderhook was having trouble keeping up with demand for its otherwordly pastries, with lines around the block on some mornings.

58 Poetry Poems by Cynthia Andrews, Emma Berg, Michaela Brannigan, Sydna Altschuler Byrne, Peter Coco, Christine Donat, Kim Ellis, E Gironda, Jr, Anthony Grillo, Lu Ann Kaldor, Ed Meek, Perry Nicholas, and Megan Phillips. Edited by Philip X Levine.

21 Many Hoppy Returns A conversation with Tommy Keegan of Keegan Ales about the business of beer as he celebrates 18 years of brewing in Kingston.

HOME 22 Improvisation, from the Ground Up A couple harnesses the power of renewables on eight wooded acres on the north slope of Mount Guardian in Woodstock.

HEALTH & WELLNESS 34 The Power of Peers Peer-to-peer coaching, and peer leaders, mentors, advocates, and meetings are part of a new wave of nonjudgmental, camaraderie-rich, and stigma-free recovery methods that put human relationships at the center.

CHRONICLES OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING 48 Urban Removal in Kingston Since the beginning of the pandemic, New York City residents have fled to Kingston, creating one of the country’s hottest housing markets. The city’s lessaffluent residents have been collateral damage as affodarble housing dries up.

THE GUIDE 60 61 62 65 66

Nick Cave’s Truth Be Told at Jack Shainman in Kinderhook. Carmel Holt launches a new radio show, “Sheroes,” on NPR. Dan Fisher rushed back to the movies after they reopened in October. Local musicians, DJs, and club owners tell us what they’re listening to. Gallery listings plus highlights from our favorite exhibitions this month.

HOROSCOPES 68 Two Big Eclipses, One Winter Solstice, a Great Conjunction, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree Lorelai Kude scans the skies and plots our horoscopes for December.

PARTING SHOT 72 Porcupine in Hemlock A photograph by Nora Scarlett from her new book, Ledge Lake Leaf Labyrinth.

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on the cover

Wet plate collodion prints by Jill Enfield from her New Americans series: Statue of Liberty (2015); Kadidja Rea (2008); Szymon Markwat and Maciej Tracz (2009)

ike most Americans, I’ve seen hundreds of pictures of the Statue of Liberty— she’s become a visual cliché, like a Coca-Cola bottle. Jill Enfield’s portrait of the lady reinterprets the iconic sculpture. For one thing, one doesn’t usually see the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World (her actual title) in black and white. Secondly, the angle is slightly different from the typical postcard view, the upraised arm throwing deep shadow over her face. Thirdly, the imperfections of the wet plate collodion process—a 19th-century photographic technique revived by Enfield— adds a tiny visual confusion. On top of this, a supernal, benedictory light flows from above. Based on Libertas, a Roman goddess, Lady Liberty represents the feminine side of America, the opposite of the sneering bald eagle. Because she’s green, she has no identifiable ethnicity. A beacon to generations of new arrivals, the Statue of Liberty herself is an immigrant, designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and arriving by ship in 1886. Her metal framework was designed by Gustave Eiffel, and if you’ve ever climbed the stairs inside, you’ve noticed the similarity to the Eiffel Tower. This photograph is taken from “New Americans,” an exhibition by Enfield, a resident

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of Beacon, at the Garrison Art Center. The show, which consists of portraits of recent immigrants and views of Ellis Island, runs December 5 through January 3. The images are printed on 45 glass windows, which have been assembled into a freestanding “house” by Hudson Valley artisan Greg Barnard. (The windows were scavenged from 19th-century Newburgh mansions.) Enfield came up with the New Americans concept after 9/11, but didn’t start the project until 2006. “Everyone kept talking about immigrants and how terrible they are: ‘How can you have them here? Blah blah blah,’” Enfield exclaims. “Everybody’s an immigrant! Who’s not an immigrant? Unless you’re a Native American, you’re an immigrant. It seemed so silly to me. And then I just thought about: ‘Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’” Apparently, Enfield invented the all-window edifice as a photographic display, allowing light to pass naturally through its illustrative walls. In theory, a democracy is like a glass house—transparent, open to public view—but also fragile. Recently, Americans have learned how vulnerable our democratic institutions are, under persistent attack from a lying demagogue. Enfield rediscovered the fragility of glass in

2019, when her photographic structure was part of the yearly Collaborative Concepts sculpture exhibition at Saunders Farm in Garrison, and the resident cows kicked in quite a few windows. The work has been restored for the current show. A glass house also connects to the wet plate collodion process, in which a glass plate is coated with a syrupy substance called collodion, dunked in silver nitrate, then exposed to light. Subjects must pose for 45 seconds (though the time is less—only five seconds—if they’re outdoors). The images are black and white, with a sculptural feel. Enfield found her subjects through friends and acquaintances while living in New York City. Usually, immigrants must learn a new language. Am I imagining that I see behind their eyes the strain of constant translation? Enfield’s father came to the US in 1939 at the age of 17. He and his family—who were Jewish—left Nazi Germany just before escape was impossible. Enfield’s grandfather and greatuncle were in Buchenwald, the concentration camp, but were released thanks to connections with the family who owned the Leica camera corporation. For Enfield, the immigration issue is not an abstraction. It is the reason she’s alive. —Sparrow

EDITORIAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian K. Mahoney bmahoney@chronogram.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR David C. Perry dperry@chronogram.com DIGITAL EDITOR Marie Doyon mdoyon@chronogram.com ARTS EDITOR Peter Aaron music@chronogram.com HEALTH & WELLNESS EDITOR Wendy Kagan health@chronogram.com HOME EDITOR Mary Angeles Armstrong home@chronogram.com POETRY EDITOR Phillip X Levine poetry@chronogram.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Anne Pyburn Craig apcraig@chronogram.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Phillip Pantuso ppantuso@chronogram.com

contributors Lee Anne Albritton, Andrew Amelinckx, Winona Barton-Ballentine, Jason Broome, Michael Eck, Dan Fisher, Connor Goodwin, Lissa Harris, James Keepnews, Alon Koppel, Lorelai Kude, Kim Marshall, Matt McDonough, Carolyn Quimby, Seth Rogovoy, Sparrow, Kaitlin Van Pelt

PUBLISHING FOUNDERS Jason Stern & Amara Projansky CEO Amara Projansky aprojansky@chronogram.com BOARD CHAIR David Dell

media specialists Kelin Long-Gaye kelin.long-gaye@chronogram.com Kris Schneider kschneider@chronogram.com Jen Powlison jen.powlison@chronogram.com SENIOR SALES MANAGER Lisa Montanaro lmontanaro@chronogram.com

marketing DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE PARTNERSHIPS Samantha Liotta sliotta@chronogram.com SPONSORED CONTENT EDITOR Ashleigh Lovelace alovelace@chronogram.com

interns MARKETING & SALES Andre Denaro, Theresa Marzullo SOCIAL MEDIA Sabrina Eberhard, Sierra Flach

administration FINANCE MANAGER Nicole Clanahan accounting@chronogram.com; (845) 334-8600

A TIMELESS ESCAPE AT THE HUDSON VALLEY’S MOST ICONIC RESORT An unforgettable getaway to nature is our specialty. And this year, we’re taking every precaution to keep our employees and guests safe, so you can relax and reconnect with the ones you love. Snuggle up beside a wood-burning fireplace, ice skate in our grand open-air pavilion, hike on miles of trails with our new MICROspikes® and enjoy farm-to-table cuisine from award-winning chefs—all included in your overnight rate. Join us on the mountaintop and feel your stresses melt away.

production PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Kerry Tinger ktinger@chronogram.com; (845) 334-8600x108 PRODUCTION DESIGNERS

ENJOY A DAY SPA VISIT OR BOOK THE ULTIMATE STAYCATION

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Chronogram is a regional magazine dedicated to stimulating and supporting the creative and cultural life of the Hudson Valley. All contents © Chronogram Media 2020. 12/20 CHRONOGRAM 7

BIG IDEA Poughkeepsie Plugs In

The sensors beneath the city: Uncharted Power will develop a “living digital dashboard” through the installation of smart paver technology in Poughkeepsie.

oughkeepsie’s downtown Innovation Zone, established in 2019 to encourage mixed-use development, is about to take a giant step toward living up to that name as a pilot project developed by Uncharted Power begins installing a system of smart pavers to enable power delivery, data collection, and integrated technology. The idea is to develop a “living digital dashboard” that will streamline infrastructure management and eventually generate revenue. Fittingly, the idea springs from a woman-led company situated in the former headquarters of an exclusionary “gentleman’s” club. “Here’s what we know right now: The world is in crisis, with natural disasters wreaking havoc at exponentially increasing rates, millions of students don’t have the

connectivity they need to get educated, cities are facing increasing deficits and can’t foot their bills,” says Uncharted Power founder Jessica O. Matthews. “And in all of this, it’s the marginalized communities bearing the brunt of the pain.” This has the potential to improve everything from health services and digital learning to water filtration and parking,” Matthews is a Poughkeepsie native, born in Vassar Brothers Hospital and educated at Our Lady of Lourdes before heading to Harvard for college and business school. But she’s back now and leading Uncharted from her office in the former Amrita Club on the corner of Church and Market. “I’m 33 now and I’ve been working this since I was 18,” she says. “With so much cool tech popping up, why do we not live in a Jetsons’ world?

Well, cities had no cost-effective way to implement innovation. You can see the good food but you don’t have the tray and the utensils. So cities end up with these siloed, expensive attempts at solutions, like installing four solar street lights.” Made from sustainably sourced polymer fiber, the hollow pavers are a surface more durable than asphalt that lays the foundation for fully upgradeable smart-city technology. “This revolutionizes the installation and maintenance of infrastructure—the pavers have sensors that, for example, can detect the vibrations from a weakening water line before it breaks,” says Matthews. “The sensors generate a digital image of the entire city that anyone can access; if you have unusual noise, say, or a power outage, you can pin the location down to within one meter. It basically brings the convenience of the digital world into the physical world. We build the tray, so cities can eat.” A mesh network of nano data centers within the pavers can provide cloud services, generating needed public funds. Mayor Rob Rolison says the project, funded by a $1.8 million multi-year grant from the Siegel Family Endowment and Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, has lots of people excited. “People will come here to see this, and companies that can utilize it will be drawn in,” he says. “We’re a Climate-Smart City, we have community choice aggregation in place—this is the next logical step, and I could not be more thrilled that it’s here, now, thanks to a daughter of Poughkeepsie.” —Anne Pyburn Craig

Poughkeepsie Mayor Rob Rolison and Uncharted Power’s Jessica O. Matthews.

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A Holistic Approach to Women’s Health In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, on October 19, Chronogram partnered with Columbia Memorial Health to present a virtual panel event titled a Holistic Approach to Women’s Health. The panel included five medical practitioners from CMH: surgeon Dr. Rakel Astorga, who specializes in detection, surveillance, and treatment of breast cancer; urogynecologist Dr. Ed Marici, who specializes in treating urinary and bladder issues like prolapse and incontinence in women; certified nurse midwife Cynthia Friedman, who sees patients regularly for gynecological visits through many phases of life and discussions including contraception, family planning, pregnancy, and post-partum; orthopedist Dr. Catherine Shin, who specializes in bone diseases; and Dr. Tariq Gill, Chief of Radiology at CMH, overseeing diagnostic medical imaging. Panelists began by introducing themselves and explaining how their specialty intersects with women’s health. Dr. Marici explained that, later in life, especially after women have given birth, the connective fascia that holds organs like the uterus and bladder in place can weaken, leading to pelvic prolapse and symptoms like incontinence. Dr. Shin pointed out that there’s a handful of bone diseases that more commonly affect women, such as arthritis, carpal tunnel, and trigger finger. Osteoporosis is another disease that commonly affects menopausal women, when the drop in estrogen can lead to bone loss. At CMH, as part of routine check-ups at-risk women undergo a bone density scan, a diagnostic test run by Dr. Gill’s lab. Dr. Gill explained how this technology and other cutting-edge advances like the 3D biopsy and mammography machines, give the team at CMH the most accurate picture for diagnosis and treatment. As the panelists discussed their specialties, it became clear how interconnected their work was and how much they function as a team, sharing information and working together to provide continuity of care for the patients. They discussed common fears and misconceptions patients have from vastly overestimating the amount of radiation in a mammography to fearing a minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, and how they work to try and put people at ease. Sexual health emerged as an important through line at all ages in a woman’s life including, or perhaps, especially post-menopause. The conversation memorably ended with Friedman advising, “Use it or lose it.” A video of the entire conversation can be found online at Chronogram.com/womenshealth. This event was sponsored by Columbia Memorial Health.

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esteemed reader by Jason Stern

Subscribe Make your coffee table the envy of all the visitors you never have. ChronogramMedia.com/subscribe

We began as a mineral. We emerged into plant life and into the animal state, and then into being human, and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again. —Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, Mathnawi, translated by Coleman Barks Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine: I am hanging by my fingers from a cliff, climbing a corner system on a route called The Spring. The climb is on the Seasons Wall, part of the Shawangunk escarpment, along with three other rock climbs, predictably named. In fact, the route’s title is to reflect the phenomenon of water gushing from the crack during wet periods. The last piece of protective gear is a few feet below my feet. If I were to fall, its placement would result in a longish fall onto the rope. With this eventuality in view, I am alert. Climbing out of the corner and onto an arête, I take in the view with heightened perception. Empty trees describe a skeletal design against a stormy sky. Still fresh bright leaves, just fallen from the most recalcitrant oaks and maples, make a golden brocade on the ground 50 feet below. The stone of the Shawangunk escarpment is a dense conglomerate embedded with quartz crystals. Climbing this rock, or even touching it, I sense that it amplifies and broadcasts a force of earth, a palpable, almost electric pulsing power. Is it the 7.83Hz vibration of the Schumann Resonance? I don’t know, but I can feel it. Along the top of the ridge one finds anomalous megaliths in uncanny positions, some standing vertical or balanced on an edge. Many are aligned to cardinal directions and form a pattern with other cairns and megaliths. Researchers trained in geology believe these are “glacial deposits” while archaeoastronomers* note their alignments with constellations and celestial events suggesting they were placed intentionally by unknown peoples at some time prior to dogmatic white men making up prehistory. I was drawn to the Shawangunk stone as a teenager and climbed it intensely and then for 30 years I experienced the cliffs from a distance, walking beneath their colossal presence, occasionally touching the rock to feel its force. Only in my 50th year did I begin climbing the stone again. Today I begin my 51st, having lived most of a life under the shadow of the ridge. Stone gives a unique temporal perspective. The sphinx on the Giza Plateau has been geologically shown to be at least 12,000 years old. In her original form, a lion, she was likely carved to commemorate the dawning of the Age of Leo, when the sun rose in the sign of Leo on the vernal equinox in 11,500 BCE, directly in front of the sphinx. Since then she has watched that sun rise over four million times. How many times have the Shawangunk cliffs faced the rising sun over the Hudson Highlands? How many human lives have blipped on and off during this span? Like the vastness of space these cliffs put our brief lifetime and burning concerns into perspective. We see that all our sound and fury about “current events” signify nothing on the scale of geological time. Making the final moves of the rock climb I venture beyond the tether of protected climbing. It is easy terrain and I climb freely for a few moves, at home in the vertical dimension. The rock under my fingers is cool and smooth. Its shape choreographs the movements of my body. In this endeavor the eternal element of stone and the brief, firefly existence of my body conspire a dance in the present moment. —Jason Stern *See Spirits in Stone: The Secrets of Megalithic America by Glenn Kreisberg

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editor’s note

by Brian K. Mahoney

America, When Will You Be Angelic? *

e need to talk, America. First, I’d like to clear the air. I apologize on behalf of everyone from Queens. We’re not all like this. In addition to presidents, we’ve also produced such talents as Paul Simon, Joseph Cornell, Nicki Minaj, and Andrew Cuomo. (And, gulp, Bernie Madoff.) I feel double-crossed America. Four years ago, I wondered aloud in this column what it would take to normalize our political relations in a country increasingly gripped by loathing and fear: “It starts by listening, methinks. What if we started to have informed and honest conversations about what’s most important to us? What if we found out that what we had in common was more powerful than our differences? What if we tried engagement? Knee-jerk opposition and blind hatred can’t be the only option. What if we started by affording the political other the same treatment we hope for ourselves: not assuming that they are the shittiest people imaginable. What’s the worst-case scenario? That we find out that our deepest fears are true and 62 million Americans are really terrible people? That feels a lot like where we are now, and that’s a nonstarter for the longevity of the republic.” Well, I communicated with a number of Trump supporters over the past four years. I listened. These are not terrible people. They were taught to believe in you, America, just as I was. But somewhere along the way, the information upon which we construct our realities diverged. I continued on with my fact-based existence and tens of millions decided to believe in Satan-worshipping pedophiles in pizza parlors and a socialist plot behind every Democratic proposal. Our worldviews are so far apart, we don’t even live in parallel universes anymore but perpendicular ones. I’m more worried than ever about the longevity of the republic, America. Our institutions are not used to taking this kind of beating. The Visigoths sacked Rome in 410. All

empires fall, America. Forget about Nazi Germany for a second and think about that. I don’t understand you anymore, America. If I’m being honest, America, I’m very disappointed in you. Eleven million more people voted for the president this time around than in 2016. Now, 73 million people is a lot of folks—not as many as the almost 79 million who voted for Joe Biden—but still, that’s way more people than I expected, considering the president’s general incompetence as an executive and inability to deliver on his campaign promises as a politician. But the old adage holds true: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Shame on me, America, for believing the bullshit they taught us in school about American exceptionalism. Being special was nice while it lasted. Our consistent failure to live up to the idea of America began long before 2016. The current administration is the aberration that proves the rule. What would Pete Seeger think of us now, America? America, I feel sentimental for the 2000 election. While George Bush the Younger lost the popular vote and the Supreme Court acted in a partisan manner to suppress vote counting in Florida, which led to Bush winning the electoral college and thus the presidency, Al Gore gave such a lovely concession speech that I forgot all about that at the time. Here’s a snippet of Gore’s speech: “This is America. Just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done. And while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the one we owe to political party. This is America and we put country before party. We will stand together behind our

new president.” Is a norm a norm anymore if it’s ignorm-ed, America? America, what happened to your love of science? You once fetishized rocket ships and the RAND Corporation and promised a life of technological enhancement via strategic defense initiatives, microwave ovens, and test tube babies. Why do so many Americans not trust peer-reviewed results arrived at via the scientific method anymore? If science is not to be believed, how does anyone get into an elevator without paralyzing fear? How does anybody have the confidence to drive their car? Or take antibiotics? (Don’t get me started on vaccines. America, you wouldn’t believe what some people believe about vaccines.) Social media is rotting your soul, America. It’s an invention on par with the nuclear bomb in terms of its destructive power. As ever, our technology exceeds the grasp of our ethics. America, I’m over presidential elections. Every four years voters are asked to decide between two people, as if our democracy could be boiled down to a binary option. You contain multitudes America, but our electoral process boils down our diversity to one oversimplified set of slogans or another. I remember a bumper sticker from years ago, that read: “If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.” Last week, I saw a political lawn sign proclaiming: “DOGS 2020: Because Humans suck.” America, I seriously have my doubts about you. America, after 30 years of espousing liberal thoughts and opinions, I’ve decided to become a conservative. And by conservative, I mean someone who wants to conserve our democratic norms and institutions—not destroy them in some anti-majoritarian power grab like the current crop of conservatives. As flawed as they are, they’re all we got. * From Allen Ginsberg’s “America,” 1956 12/20 CHRONOGRAM 13

2ND ANNUAL READERSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; CHOICE AWARDS

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I’m a science writer by training, and a local disaster reporter by choice. Since March, I’ve been covering the pandemic’s impacts on the Hudson Valley and Catskills for The River, Chronogram’s more news-oriented online sibling, with thrice-weekly updates on local and state numbers, news, and public policy. It’s fast-paced work, and it has been accelerating as New York’s second wave has picked up in earnest. This month, we’re trying something new: Taking a moment to slow down to the pace of print, look at where we are as a region, and think about what might lie ahead. —Lissa Harris

Where Are We Now?

As I write this from my living room in Margaretville, it’s mid-November. Thanksgiving is around the corner. The nation is facing its most difficult phase yet, as social life moves back indoors, new cases surge past previous records, and strain on hospital capacity threatens to undo hard-won gains made in treating COVID-19 patients. Here in New York, new statewide limits on home gatherings have recently taken effect, and New Yorkers across the state are grappling with fraught decisions about whether to heed them. COVID-19 moves fast, and policy moves to keep up with it: By the time this magazine goes to print, the state may have a new strategy for dealing with the pandemic. The Hudson Valley was ground zero in New York State’s fight against COVID-19. In early March, a New Rochelle lawyer was the state’s first documented case of community transmission, a case of unknown origin that could not be traced to any recent travel or exposure. But in the weeks that followed, New York City eclipsed the Hudson Valley, soon becoming the virus’s global epicenter. The shape of the pandemic has changed once again. Positivity rates in the Hudson Valley currently surpass those in the five boroughs. Hospitalizations, which have seen a more modest increase in New York City, have more than doubled in the Mid-Hudson region over the past month. Meanwhile, outbreaks in the rural Catskills, where rates stayed relatively low all summer, are growing faster than those in more populated counties. It’s a pattern that has played out across the nation, as outbreaks that were at first concentrated in urban centers of travel and commerce later shifted to more rural areas.

FIND A TEST SITE NEAR YOU Go to Coronavirus.health.ny.gov/find-testsite-near-you to find the nearest COVID-19 testing location. Or call the NYS COVID-19 hotline: (888) 364-3065.

“Microclusters”: New York’s New Battle Plan

The plan that flattened the COVID-19 curve in New York State was a blunt and painful tool: Widespread restrictions on business, schools and gatherings, declared by executive order and applied to large regions of the state. In October, with new outbreaks flaring up across the state, Governor Andrew Cuomo adopted a new strategy: Tough restrictions on neighborhoods where COVID-19 is rising fast. By targeting so-called “microclusters” of infection, state officials hoped to avoid the paralyzing regional shutdowns of businesses and gatherings that New York endured for months in the spring. But with infections surging all around New York State and local outbreaks developing quickly within state borders, it remains to be seen whether targeted action will work. Already, less than a month after adoption, the microcluster approach is showing signs of fraying: Rising numbers across all regions have prompted statewide rollbacks of private gatherings and hours of operations at restaurants and gyms. New York has also gotten tougher on travel. On October 31, with cases in most of the rest of the nation rising fast, the state ditched its shifting list of quarantine states, and declared that all out-of-state travelers except essential workers and people coming in from border states must

get tested and undergo 14 days of quarantine when entering New York. A new rule now allows travelers who test negative after three days to exit quarantine early, but the logistics of getting tested can be daunting. IS YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD A FOCUS ZONE? The state’s color-coded maps of focus zones in microclusters can change fast, don’t follow zip codes or town borders, and are often announced by state officials with little warning. A tool on the NY Forward site at Ny.forward.gov lets you to check to see if an address is in a microcluster focus zone.

Schools Take a Hit

Schools got off to a rocky start this year. Across the region, many districts delayed the reopening of in-person education, and some reopened with hybrid schedules only to go remote again as cases in the school community forced teachers and students into quarantine. Meanwhile, in the world of epidemiology, researchers have been painstakingly studying school reopenings to find out whether in-person schooling increases the risk of community outbreaks. It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. But much of the research has found that with precautions like masks, distance, and ventilation—which cut down on the airborne transmission that drives most COVID-19 infection—classrooms are not often the setting of “superspreading” events. Indoor dining looks far riskier—which, for many public health experts, raises the question of why New York State has continued to allow indoor dining while community transmission throws school plans into chaotic patterns of shutdown and reopening. Higher education has also seen problems— most infamously at SUNY Oneonta—but the Hudson Valley and Catskills region has avoided most of the worst of them so far. Apart from Marist in Poughkeepsie, the site of a recent outbreak, most campuses in the region have escaped large outbreaks, aided by widespread testing of students and staff and a new “pooled” testing technique developed for SUNY campuses that allows many samples to be screened at once. With all SUNY colleges and most private college campuses slated to close down after the Thanksgiving break until February, colleges will soon be one less transmission vector for New York State to worry about.

Vaccine, But Not Yet

The biggest pandemic development of the past month, apart from the outcome of the presidential election: Recent announcements by Pfizer and Moderna that a working vaccine is near at hand. But widespread deployment is still a long way off, and will face massive logistical challenges. The Pfizer vaccine, one of many in development, must be kept in ultracold freezers that most hospitals and pharmacies don’t have access to, a factor that will make rural distribution especially complicated. In October, New York State officials drafted a plan to prioritize who gets vaccinated, with healthcare workers in hard-hit areas at the top of the list. Follow us at Therivernewsroom.com to keep up with COVID-19 news and policy across the Hudson Valley and Catskills region, or sign up for our email newsletter.

COVID WATCH A collaboration with

LOWER HUDSON VALLEY Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam counties

Amount cases grew between early October and mid-November: 1.97x Active cases per 10,000 residents 11/15: 24 The lower Hudson Valley has seen a steady rise throughout the fall, with several larger outbreaks. In October, one of the state’s first microcluster focus zones was declared in Rockland County, in a heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Ramapo. County executive Ed Day, a frequent critic of Cuomo’s actions early on in the pandemic, has been a vocal supporter of the microcluster strategy. In November, with Rockland’s outbreak improving, state officials also imposed a focus zone in the Westchester village of Port Chester.

MID-HUDSON VALLEY Orange, Ulster, Dutchess, and Columbia counties

Amount cases grew between early October and mid-November: 3.14x Active cases per 10,000 residents 11/15: 21 A focus zone declared in October in Orange County’s Kiryas Joel has also been the site of a controversy about the reliability of COVID-19 data. Local health officials raised the alarm that a movement was underway in the insular Orthodox community to refuse testing in an effort to keep positivity rates low, while Cuomo and state officials have kept mum on the issue. Orange County’s microcluster has also put a spotlight on the difficulty of school testing: North Main Elementary, one of the first schools to find itself in a state yellow zone, opted to go remote for weeks because they could not afford to conduct the mass testing required by the state in yellow zones. Elsewhere in the Mid-Hudson region, cases have been on a steep rise recently, prompting local action. County executives in Ulster and Dutchess are coordinating across party lines on pandemic response and community outreach, and Columbia County is boosting testing access through aggressive private fundraising.

CATSKILLS Sullivan, Delaware, Greene, and Schoharie counties

Amount cases grew between early October and mid-November: 4.25x Active cases per 10,000 residents 11/15: 12 Early on and throughout the summer, rural Catskills counties mostly had low rates, but they are quickly catching up to their Hudson Valley counterparts. As of mid-November, no focus zones have yet been declared in the region. The fall surge has brought an especially swift case increase to Delaware County, a deeply rural county where infections were low throughout the spring and summer. Throughout October, Greene County health officials struggled with the fallout from a state prison problem, as a large outbreak in the Greene Correctional Facility spilled out into the community. Public information on pandemic issues has been an intense challenge in the rural Catskills, where news sources are thin and county governments less communicative.

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food & drink

INTERSTELLAR INDULGENCE Cosmic Donuts in Kinderhook By Kim Marshall Photos by Amber Bauhoff

ithin just two weeks of opening its doors in mid-October, Cosmic Donuts was already having trouble keeping up with its customers’ insatiable demands. Two months later, the galactic-sized turnout the Kinderhook shop has experienced shows no signs of waning: Every morning, owners Jhori Jurgenson, her mother, Bonnie Tedder, and Jurgenson’s partner, Jason Garvey, hope to serve everyone that shows up to patiently wait in a two-hour-long line wrapping around the block. The shop is selling over 1,000 donuts per day and the family trio is working as fast as they can to keep hot, freshly made donuts filling the pastry cases—but they end up closing early most days, after running out. The force behind this astronomical frenzy? Giant, yeast-risen, filled-until-bursting donuts stuffed with sinful amounts of homemade buttercream, pie filling, and other sugary decadences that are then topped with out-ofthis-world sweets like fresh-baked cookies, slices of cheesecake, and shooters of caramel or maple syrup to drizzle on top. To wash all those sweets down, Cosmic serves hand-roasted coffees from No. Six Depot of West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, including flavored coffees, lattes, and nitro cold-brew.

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Pastry Pipe Dreams What eventually turned out to be a destination for donut lovers near and far began as a pipe dream years ago when Jurgenson, a makeup artist, and Garvey, a K-9 deputy sheriff with the Columbia County Sheriffs Department, competed together in bodybuilding competitions. The couple had to keep their bodies at a very low percentage of fat, but after their competitions were over, they’d indulge. “Part of competing was that we would always get a giant meal afterwards,” Jurgenson explains. “We could finally eat, and it was our big reward. But we always wanted donuts and could never find a good donut shop nearby. We would have to drive for hours, so we thought, ‘Why not open our own?’” In May of this year, that’s what they decided to do—and they’ve been going nonstop ever since, figuring out how to open a business while creating the menu and purchasing and renovating the Albany Avenue location to adequately reflect the playfulness of their planetary theme. “Honestly, we had no idea what we were doing,” says Jurgenson, with a laugh. “We’ve never owned a business before, so it was a very learn-as-you-go kind of thing. But it all

just fell into place. The biggest part of it was just finding time in our schedules, which are crazy to begin with, to go in and renovate the whole shop—we did it all ourselves.” The results are impressive. The couple completely transformed an old storefront into a fun and wacky standout locale—one they hope will help bring new life into the village of Kinderhook. The newly reconstructed venue now boasts bright neon colors that glow under black lights; funky artwork featuring iconic characters indulging in donuts (like Homer Simpson, Garfield, and Banksy); and a cozy lounge with comfy chairs, fluffy throw pillows, and a galaxy wall where you can Instagram your loved ones (or self ) under a bright neon sign reading “EAT ME.” Astronomical Determination Jurgenson and Garvey still work full-time jobs outside their time in the shop—and they also parent two boys ( Jaxon, age 10, and Weston, nine months) who have both been along for the journey. “I’ve dedicated most of my time since wedding season is over to just being in the shop every day that I have to be. And my mom too. We’re basically juggling work at the shop and

Left to right: Owners Bonnie Tedder, Jhori Jurgenson, and Jason Garvey. Opposite: Specialty yeast raised donuts, clockwise from left: Apple pie with a shot of cider; espresso hazlenut; triple chocolate; cherry bomb; and chocolate cake.

life because we have two kids who we want to be with as much as possible. It’s very much a juggle, but we make it work,” says Jurgenson, adding that she often keeps Weston strapped to her in a baby carrier while she works. She feels fortunate, too, that the shop is so close to home so she can dart back and forth if she needs to, taking the kids to daycare, picking them up for school, or caring for their three cats and two dogs. Despite their busy schedules, the trio were hopeful but apprehensive about opening a brickand-mortar eatery during the COVID pandemic, but as they developed the menu and handed out samples to coworkers and friends, they were encouraged by a more-than-enthusiastic response—especially since none of the owners had experience actually making donuts. Jurgenson’s stepfather owns Kinderhook’s Samascott Orchards, a pick-your-own-farm and marketplace in Kinderhook where Jurgenson and Tedder worked in the bakery. Jurgenson loved to decorate cupcakes and learned to make buttercream, so she, along with Tedder, took that experience and used it to try new donut recipes. Getting the dough right, though, was the most important part. “There is a science to it,” says Jurgenson. “The water temperature has

“We would have a pop-up sale, and our donuts would be gone in 15 minutes. It was insane.” —Jhori Jurgenson

to be right...the humidity. You have to take into account the temperatures in your kitchen. It’s all about how the dough rises.” Once they found the perfect recipe, one that makes the dough rise enough and gives the perfect consistency, they started decorating and trying out different flavors. Friends, family, and coworkers helped the family by trying them out, and they were delighted to hear rave reviews. Something Otherworldly To gauge interest, they also tried a few popup sales prior to their official opening, turning to Facebook and Instagram to document the opening and menu development process. Little by little, they built a large following that was already salivating before the shop even opened. As Cosmic Donuts posted pictures of sumptuous pastries from its ever-changing menu—like s’mores donuts topped with chocolate glaze, graham cracker crumbs, and toasted marshmallow crème; peanut butter bomb donuts stuffed with buttercream and topped with peanut butter glaze, peanuts, and peanut butter cookie dough; and apple pie donuts overloaded with apple pie filling, covered in cinnamon sugar and topped with sticky caramel and cheesecake buttercream—the response was 12/20 CHRONOGRAM FOOD & DRINK 17

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immediate. “I would announce on Facebook that we would be having a popup sale, and our donuts would be gone in 15 minutes. It was insane,” says Jurgenson. On a typical day, Tedder gets to the shop around 3am to make and roll out the dough, and Jurgenson comes in shortly thereafter to make fillings and get everything else ready. After the donuts hit the fryer, it’s time to decorate them and fill the cases before it’s time to open at 7am. According to Jurgenson, it can get a bit crazy. “As soon as 6:30 rolls around, we sometimes have people waiting outside. It’s like a mad rush. We’re constantly trying to keep donuts coming out as fresh as possible—we’ve got donuts coming out of the fryer that are immediately being dipped and stuffed and filled, and they’re going right into the display case. Sometimes there’s a wait, but it’s worth it because you’re getting a fresh donut that’s still hot when it goes into the box.” Donut prices range from $2 to $4, and Cosmic takes preorders by phone at (518) 610-8666 or through Facebook Messenger—and requires all orders over a dozen to be placed this way. They also plan to have an online ordering system in place soon and are working on developing new donut recipes for customers with dietary restrictions, like gluten-free and vegan, and peanut butter and oat doggie donuts for those out walking their pets. If you plan to give them a try, Jurgenson recommends getting there early, as they typically sell out of donuts by 1pm. Plans for the shop include a catering menu for weddings and events and a food truck so they can take their donuts far and wide. They’ve also considered opening other locations, setting their eyes on either Troy or Great Barrington, but for now they’re trying to keep up with the business they’ve already got. Hoping to give back to their community, they plan to have a charity they donate to every month, where someone designs a specific donut that, when each one sells, raises money for that cause. But amid the insanity and overnight success, Jurgenson is happy to be doing it all with family. “Honestly, it’s been really stressful and really crazy, and at times we’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is too much,’” she says. “But at the end of the day, knowing that we’ve all done this together, people love our donuts, and we’re bringing something really awesome to the community. It’s extremely rewarding.”

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the drink

Many Hoppy Returns

Q&A with Tommy Keegan

here are nearly 500 craft breweries in New York, and we are the sixth largest beer-producing state in the country. Our craft beverage industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade, boosted by state incentives and a thirsty public, and breweries continue to open and take market share from corporate competitors. But back in 2003, the craft beverage movement was in its infancy. When he opened Keegan Ales in Kingston that year, Tommy Keegan had to personally convince local bars and restaurants to make room on their taps for his kegs of Old Capital and Hurricane Kitty alongside Budweiser and Coors Light. In 2020, bar patrons expect establishments to curate their taps from a wealth of regional craft beer producers. In late October, I spoke with Hudson Valley craft beer pioneer Tommy Keegan about his two decades in the business. —Brian K. Mahoney Brian K. Mahoney: When you started, I remember you didn’t have a proper bar, just a tasting room open a couple of afternoons a week. Tommy Keegan: Those were the good old days. It was like cowboy season right there. It was Thursdays and Fridays from three to seven, Saturdays from noon to seven. And we didn’t do full pints. We did four- or six-ounce tasters and it was just free for everybody. People thought I was going to lose my shirt. This reporter came to interview me and said, “You cannot give away free beer in Midtown Kingston. There’s going to be riots and it’s going to go bad.” We would let people come in and drink for free during those hours, but they would also buy growlers. We were doing about half the beer for free and half the beer in growler refills. I was making more money on that keg of beer than if I sold the whole keg to a restaurant.

farm in there.” Well, that’s what happens when you’re sitting in the parking lot of a real brewery, there’s grain everywhere. That’s just the way it is. It hasn’t really changed that much since you opened up the tap room, right? I don’t think so. I built a clubhouse that I want to hang out in. And if that’s your gig and you want to hang out, great, come on in. And if that’s not your gig, I’m not going to be offended. If you want to go for white tablecloth and escargot, we’ve got that too in Kingston. I’m okay with that. I’m not offended. This is not where I would bring my wife on my 25th anniversary party. But we also have people get married here because they love the vibe. There are so many breweries in operation now. Has that changed the way you do business? I have restaurant customers who say, “Man, Mother’s Milk, I put that keg on tap, I’ve never sold a keg of beer faster in my life, never made more money on it, never got more compliments.” I’m like “Great! Do you want another keg of Mother’s Milk?” And they say, “Mm, no. What else is new? What else you got? I want something new?” Everybody wants novelty. The industry term is ‘rotation nation,’ because all those types rotate. In the good old days, when it was old men who were running bars, you had your tap. And it was a pain in the ass to get it, but once you got it, that was your tap. When your keg ran out, they put another one on. But now the customer has become educated enough to demand the bar owner keeps rotating stuff, which demands the wholesaler keeps rotating stuff, which puts us at a disadvantage as a production facility because now I’m constantly having to come up with new brands.

A couple of years later, you opened up a full pub with a small menu. I didn’t really expect it to be as big a part of my business as it is, but it’s huge. Probably half of my gross sales come out of taproom alone. People come here and they drink the beer and then they go back to New York City, and they see the beer there and then they drink it because they remember it from being here.

Earlier this year you were about to sell the brewery to Clemson Brothers but the deal fell through. What happened? It was complicated. And at first it felt like a round peg in an oval hole, and the more we tried to sand it down and make it fit, it just kept getting worse. It just wasn’t fitting right. It just didn’t feel organic to me personally, or to them I think. And then COVID hit. We all walked away, totally friendly.

And it’s not just a place where beer is being served, it’s also being made on premise. People are coming here to have, for lack of a better word, an authentic experience. I actually got a really poor Google review this week, because the guy was like, “It stinks like a

What were you thinking when COVID hit? Well, it was hard initially, for everybody. I’m not in a unique situation there, but I lost probably 80 percent of my business from St. Patrick’s Day through June. And then we were doing about 50 percent and we’re still at about 50 percent.

Looking toward the winter months—you’ve expanded your outside footprint, but you can’t serve outside forever. What are you thinking? A lot of breweries are going to be, or restaurants in general, are going to be in the same situation I am. One of the few things that I do have as an advantage is that I can open up my brewery floor and double my seating capacity. I’m going to adjust my brewing schedule to get my brewers to start earlier so they can end earlier, so they can be out of the building earlier, so we can throw some picnic tables back there. And then we’re going to put some speakers back there and some lighting and make it fit. Do you feel positive about the future? I think so. The industry is going to take a big hit and I’m not sure how it’s going to recover. I’m fortunate that I own my own property. I feel really bad for a guy that started a project like this 18 months ago. He’s like, “I’ve been in business six months and then COVID hits, man!” If I was in business for a short time when this started, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. January will mark 18 years in business. So 18 is pretty cool. And if I continue to have a great time, I’ll stick around. If somebody walks in and they go, “Here’s a bunch of money, get the fuck out of here and don’t show up again.” Great! I’ll bounce. If they need me to stick around, all right, I’ll stick around. If I can kind of slowly back away, but still show up and not have to pay for beers for myself and my old lady, that’s great too. 12/20 CHRONOGRAM FOOD & DRINK 21

The music room of Sree Kant and Annie Duflo’s house is flooded with light. Once a sun porch, the west-facing room enjoys views of the nearby Catskill Mountains and lush winter sunsets. It’s the perfect place to practice an instrument—a favorite pastime for both Duflo, who plays the piano, and Kant, who is learning the bass.

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Opposite: Surrounded by eight wooded acres on the north slope of Mount Guardian, the home is able to generate a majority of its electricity from an array of solar panels. “From the very beginning we wanted to become more energy conscious and switch toward natural sources of energy,” explains Kant. They started with rooftop solar and added Tesla power walls in the basement to store energy.

the house

IMPROVISATION, FROM THE GROUND UP A COUPLE HARNESSES THE POWER OF RENEWABLES IN WOODSTOCK

By Mary Angeles Armstrong Photos by Winona Barton-Ballentine

aybe it was their love of music, maybe it was their love of the outdoors, but it’s no surprise that Annie Duflo and Sree Kant found a home in Woodstock. “Someone told us that everyone in Woodstock thinks they’re an artist,” says Kant, showing me his collection of guitars and one giant upright bass in a sunny corner of the family’s music room. In the opposite corner sits Duflo’s baby grand piano, where she regularly practices classical pieces, a serious pastime the Paris native has pursued on and off since childhood. At their 2017 wedding, the couple played a duet of “Misty” for attendees, and since then the two are often collaborating on some piece of music, to play with family members over the holidays or just for their own practice. “We always have a piece that we play together,” says Duflo. Kant, who first learned to play violin as a kid in his hometown of Bangalore before switching to the bass as an adult, explains, “I just fool around more than play like she does.” 12/20 CHRONOGRAM HOME & GARDEN 23

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Fittingly, their home’s music room offers one of the best seats in the house. Surrounded on three sides by walls of windows, the space looks out over the Catskills and offers unparalleled views of the winter sunsets. It’s a great place to make music—and, especially, a great place to work out the improvisation that lies at the heart of the jazz piece they are now collaborating on. “With jazz, you actually have to learn a little bit more theory and structure,” explains Duflo. “But then, within that structure, you can improvise around points of the piece.” Duflo and Kant have approached the reimagining of their 2,300-square-foot home with the same spirit of improvisation—learning as much as they can about the existing structure and then improvising a bit with the elements at hand. Built in 1983, the two-story wood home “is typical of the Hudson Valley architecture of that era,” says Kant. Nestled into the northern slope of Mount Guardian, the home’s natural wood-paneled siding blends into the surrounding forest. Abundant windows offer views in all directions and two wooden decks provide ample space to enjoy the serene setting. In order to best enjoy the surroundings, the couple simplified and opened the interior spaces, allowing the natural setting to permeate the home. Most importantly, Duflo and Kant reworked the home’s primary energy source—drawing from the renewable sources at hand to power their home. In the end, Duflo and Kant created their own Earthfriendly improvisation, combining energy sources harnessed from deep in the Earth as well as their unobstructed access to the sun.

Above: Duflo, Kant, and their daughter Ila in the home’s living room. They kept the home’s built-in sofa, but completely reworked the rest of the interior. “Our goal was to create open spaces with furniture that was simple and had straight lines, mostly mid-century,” says Kant. “Then we added splashes of art and color—mixing roadside pop art with antiques or pieces from our travels.” Below: A complete renovation of the home’s outdated, enclosed kitchen was a priority. “I cook a lot,” explains Kant. “And I like to have space to work.” The couple removed overhead cabinetry, updated the appliances, and then replaced the fixtures and surfaces with an eye toward the “clean, plain, and modern,” leaving plenty of open counter space.

12/20 CHRONOGRAM HOME & GARDEN 25

Drawn by Nature The couple began visiting the Catskills on weekends from the city, for the chance to enjoy time in nature. Kant, who builds biotech companies professionally, is also an avid cyclist. He soon fell in with the local biking scene—making friends and enjoying a growing social circle with like-minded enthusiasts. Duflo, an experienced mountain climber who’s climbed all over Europe, enjoyed the chance to relax from her job as executive director of the Innovations for Poverty Action—an international nonprofit focused on making better data-driven decisions for social impact programs. Together, the couple also enjoyed the area’s many hiking trails. They began spending so much time upstate that they decided a weekend house was in order. Their home on Mount Guardian was only the second house in the area their real estate agent showed them—but when they got to the property their dog Scarlett promptly ran off into the woods and got lost. They took it as a good sign and bought the home in 2018. They loved the location, but knew the house itself would require some updating. The original interior was a hybrid of “Adirondacks-style decorating with a lot of southwestern influence,” explains Kant. “We changed all that.” Not only did the interior vernacular need a complete redo, the home relied on an aging propane-fueled furnace for heat as well as traditionally sourced electricity from the grid. It was important to both Duflo and Kant that they create a more Earth-friendly abode, and the two began researching both renewable energy sources as well as interior design. Clean Sweep The couple began converting their home to renewables almost immediately with solar energy. An array of 18 solar panels on their roof powers their home completely in summer and partially during winter. A bank of Tesla power walls in their basement allows them to store the solar energy for four days at a time. It was a friend of Duflo’s that suggested the couple research geothermal energy to heat their home. After doing some research, they contacted Dandelion Energy, a startup that offers a simple plug-and-play system with which they could easily replace their existing propane furnace for heating. They decided to go for it, and implemented geothermal heat this October. The process began by drilling two ground loops approximately 400 feet into the ground. Dandelion then swapped out their old propane furnace and replaced it with a heat pump. Using electricity generated by the home’s solar, the heat pump runs water through the ground loops, where the earth’s constant temperature either heats or cools it to approximately 50 degrees. The water is then pumped Above: The home’s arched brick alcove and woodstove are the final remnants of the home’s original southwestern-inspired interior. Throughout the home, a mix of Oriental area rugs line the wood plank floors. Some were bought while traveling in Istanbul and some were bought at Anatolia in Woodstock. Below: After adding the solar panels, the couple also replaced the home’s boiler and eliminated many energy drains—including a hot tub. They were still stuck with an aging furnace, reliant on propane for heating, however. “It was super inefficient,” says Kant. They replaced it with a geothermal system from Dandelion Energy, which was designed to fit into their existing, propane-based, forced-air heating infrastructure. 26 HOME & GARDEN CHRONOGRAM 12/20

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ome Catskills vistas just stick with you. The view of Hunter Mountain, one of the region’s beloved ski resorts, happens to be one of them. In a once-in-a-generation opportunity, the changing of the guard at ClovesEnd presents the chance to make it yours. Tucked between Hunter and Tannersville, 253 acres of glorious creek-riven hillsides and fields with views of Stony Clove Notch and the nearby ski mountain have been in the Rogers/Kassel family for almost a century. On one side of Route 23A is the 175 acres that made up the family’s estate, complete with a classic barn and farmhouse, a c.1920s Victorian oozing charm, three cottages, and a three-car carriage garage. Across the road lies 78 acres that were in use for a time as a recreation complex with mini-golf, driving range, restaurant, and fishing pond. “It’s been the family compound since 1939; before that it was a dairy farm; before that it was a sheep farm,” says owner Kerul Kassel. “There were pear trees, apple trees, sugar maples, and blackberry patches. My grandparents had an arrangement with the farmer who leased the property, and my grandparents would get some of the produce. The little white cottage by the road was where the farmer would stay when working the land. The story I heard growing up was that my grandmother would tell my grandfather, ‘Jack, the water is on to boil! Go pick the corn.’” As Kassel’s grandparents did, many Brooklyn families made a much-loved tradition of summers at the family compound. “My grandfather would come up on the weekends; my grandmother and my mom would be there all the time, cooking and cleaning and making it nice all week long,” she says. “The main house was where the family stayed, and friends would occupy all the other houses. It was what people did.” Kassel has vivid memories of her visits to the compound as a child. “I remember big meals, loads of food and family. I remember gathering pebbles to throw over the old bridge over the Schoharie where we’d go and look for fish.” When her grandparents’ compound days drew to a close, Kassel found herself the only family member with an interest in the property. “I lived there from ‘79 to ‘81, but the cold was too much,” she says. “I had a vague idea of starting an intentional educational community there, but life took other directions.” Over the years, Kassel would come back to ClovesEnd when she needed to. It’s where she finished her doctoral thesis and later, wrote several books. Now, she’s saying a fond, grateful farewell to the place that helped form her and provided respite for generations of her family. “It’s been my haven and my sanctuary, but now it’s time to pass the torch,” she says. “I have to let go of the outcome, but I do hope that whatever comes next respects the land.”

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health & wellness

Volunteer peer leaders of the New Paltz-based AWARENESS organization training new leaders.

THE POWER OF PEERS

TWO LOCAL PROGRAMS ARE TREATING ADDICTION WITH HUMAN CONNECTION. By Wendy Kagan

few weeks ago, while the coronavirus pandemic continued to rage, Maya Hambright, MD, did something jaw-dropping. She hugged a patient. “It was a kid that I hadn’t seen in a while,” says Hambright, a family doctor specializing in addiction treatment. “And I just threw my arms around him, because he needed a hug. And I needed a hug.” The setting was the Samadhi Recovery Community Outreach Center in Kingston, home to a walk-in, mindfulness-based recovery program that’s a lifeline to so many. Even during lockdown, Samadhi introduced Zoom programming but never really closed its doors—because it couldn’t. “COVID has destabilized an already unstable population,” she says. “Overdoses have gone up. Relapsing has increased among people who haven’t used or drank in years. I think it’s the isolation, fears, the unknown, and just, really, a loss of connection. And it’s across the board, not just in the recovery community.” In COVID times, we all have our crutches. Maybe it’s wine o’clock. Endless news consumption. Incessant baking. Overexercising. Instagramming everything. An addiction is a behavior that crosses the line from giving you pleasure to controlling you, and that steals the show from your better judgment or reasoned decision-making. Of course, some addictions are more harmful than others, substance use chief among them. With quarantinis and Zoom happy hours, drinking is on the rise during the pandemic, particularly among women. An October study in JAMA found that instances of women’s heavy drinking (four or more drinks in a couple of hours) have spiked 41 percent. And, tragically, opioid deaths are soaring among both sexes, often linked to fentanyl, a powerful synthetic painkiller that’s added to heroin with potentially lethal consequences.

34 HEALTH & WELLNESS CHRONOGRAM 12/20

A hug may not cure addiction, but there are angels in the community like Hambright who know that “the opposite of addiction is human connection.” That’s the maxim quoted on the Samadhi website, and it’s the idea behind some of the most effective sobriety programs available today. Peer-to-peer coaching, and peer leaders, mentors, advocates, and meetings are part of a new wave of nonjudgmental, camaraderie-rich, and stigma-free recovery methods that put human relationships at the center. Recovery is not easy, and connection is hard to come by in times of corona. But two local programs— AWARENESS, designed mainly for teens and twentysomethings, and Samadhi, with its mindfulness-based philosophy—build on the peer approach for a gentle yet powerful system of harm reduction. No matter what your crutch is, methodologies like these might just help you break free once and for all.

A Safe Space for Young Adults New Paltz-based wellness organization AWARENESS (which stands for “assisting with adolescence, resolving, empowering, nurturing each student substantively”) was born out of a need to break a culture of alcohol and substance use among young people. A mother of five, the program’s executive director and founder Marie Shultis wanted to be part of the solution after witnessing underage drinking, drugs, and risky behaviors that led to tragic outcomes in her local community. “We started with a mentor program, pairing middle school kids with high schoolers,” she says. She then worked with local judges to create an eightweek program for kids with drinking and drug charges, developing an OASAS-approved early-intervention alcohol awareness curriculum (OASAS is New York’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services).

Over the years, in schools and youth centers— and these days, on Zoom—AWARENESS has evolved to offer a safe space for youth to share their concerns and reflect on their behaviors and choices within a peer group setting. “The whole basis of this is bringing kids together so they can connect,” says Shultis, who takes an educational approach and works alongside licensed mental health counselors. “We connect younger kids to older peers who have been there and done that. It gives them hope, and warnings, because a lot of kids are on a trail and they don’t realize it. Then they hear how quickly that trail led to so much worse for someone who is now successful and doing great. But three years ago, they were not.” That was the case for Josh Tucker, a weldingschool student in Albany who wound up in the eight-week program in 2018. “I was drinking a lot and got arrested for possession of cocaine,” he says. “I was pretty much living recklessly, partying and living impulsively.” He heard about AWARENESS through his lawyer and didn’t know what to expect. After meeting his assigned mentor, Tucker dove into the peer-to-peer format—which uses an evidence-based script developed by Dr. Ken Winters and edited by Shultis over the years to include motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy, and measurement tools. “The charming thing about the program is that you go through a template of questions and it sparks conversation,” Tucker says. “You end up talking about things that maybe you’ve never talked about before. It’s not rigid, like, ‘You have a problem and this is what you have to do to get through it.’ But at a certain point, you start to realize what you were doing and you become more aware of, ‘Wow, that really took control of my life.’ You find it through yourself, which is the beauty, in my opinion.” Daniel Koopman, a volunteer now based in Portland, Oregon, had a similar epiphany after

going through the program 10 years ago, at 17. “I assumed that it was going to be, ‘Drugs are bad, you must stop using,’” he recalls. “But instead of telling me what to do, it gave me the opportunity to just become more aware of what my drug use was doing to me in terms of motivation, goals, everything, and how it was detracting from where I really wanted to get to in my life. It was much more powerful to realize, for myself, what I was doing.” Statistics for 2014–15 showed that 90 percent of AWARENESS participants identified a need to change their behavior by the end of eight weeks. The program also has a high rate of graduates who, like Tucker and Koopman, stick around to become peer leaders themselves. “Sometimes, 80 percent of the kids will stay and help after going through the program, because they get excited to be involved,” says Shultis. “They’re empowered to be leaders, and that is what will help them to continue on a good path.” Participants can join AWARENESS offerings virtually, including an online “Start with Hello” isolation-breaker program. While Zoom has opened doors for the program, attracting youths and volunteers from other states to join its meetings, Shultis has plans for expanding in the schools after COVID subsides. “My ultimate goal, after going into middle schools, would be going into elementary schools to teach something around kindness and empathy,” she says. The earlier the intervention, the better. “All the kids that get tickets and don’t get sent to something like this, they’re at a huge disadvantage,” she adds. “Because then their first experience is rehab, and now you’re forcing them to do something. And sometimes they’re [using drugs or alcohol] for stress relief or anxiety or depression, and it’s heightening all of that to have to go to this place. That’s why it’s so important to reach them early and try to help.” Creating Trust, Honesty, and Acceptance Geared toward all ages, Samadhi Recovery Community Outreach Center differentiates itself with an emphasis on mindfulness, teaching coping skills to avoid slipping into addictive or harmful behaviors. With its mix of online and in-person programming, Samadhi has a packed calendar of 8-step and Refuge Recovery meetings (which resemble a Buddhist approach to the 12 steps), sitting meditation, somatic experiencing, trauma-informed yoga, qi gong, and more. While Hambright offers medication-assisted treatment, such as suboxone, Samadhi is very much rooted in harm reduction. “You don’t need to be abstinent to come to us. People have so much shame and it just keeps them away from what they need,” she says. “Whatever your addiction is, or your not-addiction, or whatever it is that you’re looking for, you could spend the whole day doing programs at Samadhi and not once talk about drugs or alcohol. It’s really just about you. It’s about finding compassion for yourself, forgiveness of yourself, or whoever else. That’s connection. And learning how to sit with yourself, which is the meditation part.” In August 2019, Samadhi held its first peer-to-peer training program, which resulted in 63 certified peer recovery advocates. “It’s incredible because they all have different

Luis Mojica teaches a class on holistic addiction recovery to certified recovery peer advocates and volunteers at Samadhi Recovery Community Outreach Center.

backgrounds,” says David McNamara, Samadhi’s founder and executive director. “We train people who have been incarcerated, or who’ve been addicted to heroin or cocaine. We’ve trained parents of children who have been addicted to substances. And people that have had sex addiction. The idea is, when someone calls looking for a recovery coach, or from the drug court or DA’s office, then I or Jennifer Munn, my director of peer services, will look at the person’s case history. And we say, ‘Oh, she just lost her child from CPS. So, I’m going to put her together with Helen, who lost her child from CPS six years ago and got her child back.’ They have that connection and that experience together. For somebody who’s just come out of incarceration, I’m going to put them with someone who’s been incarcerated. We have transgender people who have faced different kinds of situations and can offer that understanding. Because you want to create that bond and that trust and that honesty.” Peer-Assisted Recovery The magic of peer-assisted recovery is that it creates a connection that’s not hierarchical. “It’s not like, ‘They’re the counselor and I’m the patient.’ It’s a different way of approaching things, and it’s much more based in harm reduction,” says McNamara. “One of my students said it’s like taking somebody arm-in-arm and walking through their recovery with them. It’s somebody that knows what you’ve been through and will share their experience to help you, but you have to do it. They’re going to be there, like a cheerleader, and there are different roles that we teach. It makes such a difference that you have somebody you can call in a crisis, and somebody who’s going to call you on your BS too, when you need it.” The ultimate goal, through Samadhi’s program of mindfulness, is to develop the resiliency and acceptance that will get us through the ups and downs of life. “Recovery is about learning how to accept whatever life’s presenting to me,” says McNamara. “I may not like it and want to change it, but I can’t change reality. I think that’s what the pandemic has really laid bare for everybody, which is that we don’t have as much control over

things as we think we do.” It’s critical to note that Samadhi is not just a program to stop using substances, because people can easily replace a substance with something else, such as anger, social media, or sex. “One of the things we teach is that addiction to anything is an attempt to avoid change or control the seemingly unbearable conditions of the present moment. It only seems unbearable because we haven’t attempted to go through it. We’ve attempted to avoid it, change it, ignore it. But it’s not until we actually let ourselves be with it that we can actually move through it.” You don’t have to be a monk or an expert meditator to get to this place; mindfulness requires less willpower than people think. “Meditation is examining our own mind and being able to see ourselves clearly, so that when we get triggered, and we want to reach for that drink, it doesn’t make you a bad or weak person. It’s just what’s happening,” McNamara says. “And the more clearly I can see that, then the more I have a choice. When I can’t see myself clearly, I’m not really making a decision. Like when people say, ‘Well, I just drank a whole bottle of wine and I didn’t even want to have a drink tonight. That’s so weird that I did that.’ Or, ‘I just wanted to have that one Oreo, and I looked down and the whole box was gone.’ When you’re not able to pay attention to yourself, those things can happen. It’s automatic.” Developing the habit of paying attention doesn’t take a huge time commitment. McNamara has seen people change just from spending three to five minutes a day on mindfulness. Consistency is key, and more important than finding a half-hour to meditate. “Usually what happens is that if the person notices the change within themselves, they become inspired to take it deeper and practice more,” he says. Meanwhile, having a peer by your side, to cheer you along or be your witness with unconditional acceptance, can make all the difference. RESOURCES AWARENESS Awarenessinc.org Samadhi Samadhiny.org 12/20 CHRONOGRAM HEALTH & WELLNESS 35

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t’s almost a year into a global pandemic and the US still seems unable to effectively track the spread of the coronavirus. Without a robust national testing infrastructure and months until a vaccine can begin to impart immunity, there has been an upswell of individual efforts to fill in the gaps. One of those endeavors can be found at Clarkson University, where Shane Rogers, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been conducting cutting-edge, wastewater-based epidemiology to create an early warning system for coronavirus outbreaks. Rogers, who worked at the EPA prior to joining Clarkson’s faculty in 2007, has long studied how pathogens move from the environment into the water and air, the risks to public health, and how to mitigate them. “When COVID hit, it became apparent I had a particular skill set that I could apply to this situation,” says Rogers. “Wastewater is a leading indicator of infections. After an individual becomes infected, they’ll be shedding the virus in their stool within four or five days, often quicker than the onset of symptoms.” By regularly testing wastewater, institutions

and municipalities can identify potential outbreaks days before anyone realizes they’re infected. Implemented on Clarkson’s Potsdam Hill campus this September, Rogers’s automated surveillance network takes samples twice a week from seven sewers across campus that service its dormitories and residences. The system pulls up wastewater from the sewer line into temperature-controlled bottles, which are collected by students for analysis at the lab. There, the wastewater is placed in an ultracentrifuge and subjected to a force about 300,000 times that of gravity to capture the solid waste, which allows for easier extraction of the RNA that contains the virus. If the system gets a positive hit, the lab already knows its exact source and can alert the university administration that students who live in the vicinity may need to be tested for the virus individually or quarantined to prevent further spread. Rogers’s lab is also testing samples from the villages of Potsdam and Canton, as well as nearby St. Lawrence University, SUNY Canton, and the North Country School in

Lake Placid. As a faculty member at Clarkson’s Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, he is also well-positioned to help consult on and implement wastewater monitoring systems in the Hudson Valley. Rogers is also keeping in close contact with other academic institutions and research facilities across the US and Europe that have begun wastewater testing for COVID-19. “It’s a developing technology, so there is a network sharing resources to respond in the best way possible,” says Rogers. “Often, institutions are competing for research funding and discovery, but when it comes to real health consequences, it’s quite a bit different. It’s about making sure people stay safe and providing a service that is useful.” According to Rogers, wastewater detection systems have implications across the public health spectrum—from tracking the emergence of antibiotic-resistant organisms to understanding drug usage within a community. “To have a technology where we can noninvasively gather info about infectious diseases and other exposures like pesticides can really benefit people,” he says. 12/20 CHRONOGRAM HEALTH & WELLNESS 37

A kayaker out for an evening paddle on the Catskill Creek. The building on the right is Foreland, a 19th-century mill thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being adapted into studios for artists and creatives.

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community pages

A Village in Flux CATSKILL

By Andrew Amelinckx Photos by Alon Koppel

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40 COMMUNITY PAGES CHRONOGRAM 12/20

New York Restaurant serves Polish-influenced American cuisine on Main Street.

n March, when the coronavirus pandemic struck and life in Catskill came to a grinding halt, Michelle Williams found herself with a restaurant, Mermaid Cafe, that she’d sunk all her money into but couldn’t operate. She’d only been open for a few months when the pandemic hit. (Williams also owns Bittersweet Catskill, an ice cream shop.) “My fridge was full of perishable foods, and I decided I would just come up with a way to give it away,” she recalls. “I wouldn’t feed into the problem and the darkness but rather form a solution and seek light, even if it wasn’t good for my businesses’ bottom line.” Her solution was to create the Stone Soup Project, which delivered homemade soup to about 140 people three times a week from March through June across Greene County. Williams and her friends, family, and other local businesses, including Hilo Catskill and New York Restaurant, and a swath of community members came together, donated their time, energy, and money to help make it happen. The summer brought too many pressures on Williams to continue the effort, but if there’s another shut down, she may relaunch it. “I knew that there would be many hands to make light work of it all,” Williams says. “In a time that seemed so dark with so much destruction and fear, I was blessed to be surrounded by a team of dedicated volunteers and friends.” This wasn’t an isolated act of generosity for the village of Catskill. As winter gave way to spring, Wesley Harper and Dante Bardo teamed up with Hannah Otten to create the Catskill Community Micro Farm, which since its first

This summer, Subversive Brewing’s expanded beer garden became a mecca for socially distanced drinking.

harvest in June has provided more than 1,100 pounds of fresh produce to low-income residents through the Catskill Food Pantry. Much of Greene County is a food desert, says Otten, who heads up logistics for the farm as one of the lead organizers, and the pandemic has made things worse. “There are a lot of residents who don’t have access to fresh produce,” she says. The effort included nearly 70 volunteers who built 25 raised beds on an acre of land donated by St. Peter’s Church, located at the corner of William and Spring Streets. At the

municipal level, Michael Ragaini, the village code enforcement officer, and the Department of Public Works helped smooth the way with the village government, according to Harper, the other lead organizer. “They really went to bat for us,” he says. They plan to continue the farm next year. The program is in the process of becoming a nonprofit, and Otten and Harper are fundraising this winter to put in an automated watering system. “I wasn’t surprised by the support,” Harper says. “I think most people in the area, 12/20 CHRONOGRAM COMMUNITY PAGES 41

myself included, were eager to work together on a project that had such a clear goal and benefit to the community we live in.” Vincent Seeley, president of the Village’s Board of Trustees, was happy but not surprised by the outpouring of support for Catskill’s businesses and residents. As examples of homegrown efforts, he pointed to the Stone Soup Project, Micro Farm, and the Catskill Local Development Corporation’s (LDC) program that made it easy for people to purchase gift cards for many of Catskill’s businesses through its website (the program ended in July). Seeley also praised residents who’ve been supporting local restaurants throughout the pandemic. “People stepped up with not just purchasing food but with tipping generously,” he says.

Pizza Farm, Be Golden Farms’ popup restaurant in the courtyard of Subversive Brewing. Above: Marymichael D’Onofrio of Be Golden Farms.

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Land of 1,000 Pivots In March, Liam and Laura Singer, who own HiLo Catskill, a cafe, and Avalon Lounge, a nightclub that serves Korean food, worried that they might be only a few months away from permanently shutting down—but people quickly began offering help. Their landlord at HiLo worked with them after they closed for several months to assess how to move forward during the pandemic. The Bank of Greene County speedily processed their federal Paycheck Protection Loan. The LDC’s gift card program brought in “a significant and helpful influx of money right at the beginning of everything,” according to Liam. By the summer, they’d pivoted Avalon to a Korean takeout restaurant with outdoor seating and HiLo was back open with limited indoor seating and a revamped menu focused on graband-go items. Both businesses benefited from the village allowing them to use municipal parking spots as seating areas like many other restaurants on Main Street. Natasha Witka, the owner of the New York Restaurant, says the past year has been “really surreal.” She closed the eatery that serves Polishinfluenced modern American fare during the early months of the pandemic. “We had 27 staff members,” she says. “And it was like the lights were shut off. Poof !” When she reopened in May, it was with limited indoor seating and expanded outdoor seating, and a truncated service schedule. “We’re operating five years later like a brand new restaurant,” Witka says. “We’ve really had to start from scratch.” In August, the restaurant got a new executive chef, Francesco Gallo, a New York City transplant, who has helped reinvent the restaurant. Changes have included a revolving weekly menu and offering meal kits that customers can prepare at home. Witka believes even with the coronavirus pandemic raging the village will continue to thrive. “I have never felt stronger about the people that are here,” she says. “I feel strongly that no matter what this winter brings, we’ll be able to get through it together.” Just as Max Ocean and Zane Coffey, the owners of Subversive Malting and Brewing, were putting the finishing touches on their expanded brewing operation and taproom at an old mechanic’s garage at 96 West Bridge Street, the pandemic hit. They were forced to temporarily

close the taproom, but quickly moved their operation online and began offering one-hour beer deliveries to village residents, curbside pick-up, as well as overnight shipping across the state. This summer, their expanded beer garden became a mecca for socially distanced drinking and wood-fired pizzas from Marymichael D’Onofrio and Patrick Clark of Be Golden Farms. Closings and Openings The pandemic has taken a toll on Main Street. The Catskill Country Store, a mainstay since 2011, closed this year as did Circle W Market’s Catskill location. Snap Fitness, a 24-hour gym, has also permanently closed, according to its Facebook page. The Catskill Community Theatre, the storied movie theater that’s been around for more than 100 years, remains closed because of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. A few businesses have opened this year despite the pandemic, including Angel’s Latin Restaurant, at 334 Main Street, that specializes in Dominican food; Catskill Cryo, a health spa at 414 Main Street; and Left Bank Ciders, a cidery and tap room at 150 Water Street. Left Bank, which produces small-batch ciders from local apples, is owned by Anna Rosencranz and her husband, Tim Graham, and their friend Dave Snyder. They’d been building out the space for two years and were finally ready to open in March when the pandemic hit. They pushed back the opening until the state allowed outdoor dining this summer. They opened their tasting room in July, and “people seem happy to have us here,” Rosencrantz says. They now live in Catskill and have found it to be a close-knit community full of “integrity and spirit” with creative people “working to be a force for good, positive change,” Rosencranz says. “We hoped we’d be welcomed by the people who live here and the businesses that came before us, who made Catskill into what it is today,” she says. “We haven’t been disappointed. Everyone has been supportive, kind, and generous.” Over the summer and fall, Rosencrantz has seen an influx of tourists to the area thanks to a renewed interest in in-state tourism. The Singers also noticed more tourists coming from within the state—as well as many new residents. That’s been good for business. “There’s a significant amount of tourism that’s been diverted toward the upstate area because people aren’t traveling as far away, but there are also a lot of people who have relocated from the city,” Laura Singer says. Olivia Boren and Christopher Dooley, two filmmakers in their twenties, moved to the village from Manhattan in early September. Their jobs allow them to work remotely. They have a small film production company, Jack and Grace Production House, and Dooley is the online program manager for a children’s after-school and summer camp organization. They have family in the area, and initially began looking for an apartment in Hudson, but found rental prices too expensive. They’d heard that Catskill was a small, artistic village. “We’re loving our local spots now and often take a quick stroll down to Main Street for a scoop from Bittersweet or to window-shop at Kirwan’s [a

Mermaid Cafe owner Michelle Williams

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Top: Liam and Laura Singer outside the Avalon Lounge, the music venue they turned into a Korean take-out restaurant during the pandemic. Bottom: Rose working the counter at HiLo, a cafe also owned by the Singers.

game store on Main Street],” Dooley says. “Don’t get me started on how delicious the tater tots are at Mermaid Cafe.” Boren calls Catskill “a hidden gem for us” and says its vibrancy has pleasantly surprised her, especially being a Londoner used to living in big cities. Booming Market One consequence of the coronavirus pandemic is Catskill’s booming real estate market, according to Witka, who is also a real estate agent with Century 21. “Intense” is the actual word she uses when describing it. Demand is high and inventory low, which makes for a seller’s market, and it’s a mix between turnkey residential and commercial properties and fixer-uppers and rehabs, she says. “The best kept secret is finally out,” Witka says. Historically low interest rates are also fueling the boom. “We have some agents in our office that have been agents in the area for 40 or 50 years and no one has experienced anything like this, not even post 9/11,” Witka says. The buyers, mostly urban expats, are “making life changes to be here,” according to Witka. The market boom has come with a downside—a lack of affordable housing for first-time buyers and for renters. “That’s one of the biggest topics of conversation we’ve been having lately,” Seeley says. “The lack of inventory has caused some people who may not be able to afford $1,200 rent or $1,500 rent to move to other areas like Cairo, Greenville, and Durham.” Part of the problem is a “plague of Airbnbs,” he says. According to Ernestine Quinn, a lifelong Catskill resident who is retired from a career at the Office of the State Comptroller, rising rents has become a common topic in the last few months. “My rent went up a month ago,” she says. Quinn, who is very active in the Second Baptist Church community, says she’s noticed the influx of new residents. “It’s been a big change here,” she says. But even with all the changes, there is one thing that remains the same: “Catskill’s always been a friendly town,” Quinn says. 44 COMMUNITY PAGES CHRONOGRAM 12/20

Outside of Left Bank Cider, another gorgeous sunset in Catskill. 12/20 CHRONOGRAM COMMUNITY PAGES 45

1. 394 Main Mediterranean Bistro 394 Main Street (518) 947-4774 394MainStreet.com A bistro featuring an ever-changing range of specials from all around the Mediterranean region, created daily using fresh ingredients. 2. Bittersweet Catskill 374 Main Street (518) 217-8811 Facebook.com/bittersweetcatskill/ Local ice cream; homemade toppings; all natural, vegan, and gluten-free options. 3. Body Be Well Pilates 401 Main Street (914) 641-1110 Bodybewellpilates.com Committed to providing safe and effective Pilates instruction for any body type, at any age, that will enhance strength and mobility for life. 4. Catskill Cryo 414 Main Street (518) 947-8718 Catskillcryo.com Innovative wellness therapies, including whole body cryotherapy. Stimulate your body to heal itself, rejuvenate, detoxify, and boost performance. 5. Catskill Liquors 344 West Bridge Street (518) 943-4325 Catskillliquors.com A wide variety of wine and spirits. We’ll help you find exactly what you’re looking for. Must be 21 or older. Drink responsibly. 6. Catskill Public Library 1 Franklin Street (518) 943-4230 Catskillpubliclibrary.org Dedicated to providing free access to the world of ideas, learning, and entertainment for the enrichment of the community.

9. Conklin Architecture 50 NY-23A (914) 474-6582 Conklinarchitecture.com An ambitious, established firm with fresh ideas— from small weekend retreats in the Catskills, to commercial office space and showrooms throughout the region, we can assist with all of your needs.

15. La Conca D’oro 440 Main Street (518) 943-3549 Laconcadoroonline.com Italian-American restaurant offering a variety of home-cooked dishes including chicken, veal, seafood, steak, pasta, and vegetarian options. Daily specials, fresh-baked bread, and a full bar. 16. Lumberyard Center For Film and Performing Arts 62 Water Street (518) 943-1912 Lumberyard.org Lumberyardstudios.org A nonprofit performing arts center and soundstage (NYS tax credit). Rental income directly supports youth programming.

10. CREATE Council on the Arts 398 Main Street (518) 943-3400 Greenearts.org A regional arts council serving Greene, Columbia, and Schoharie counties with services, programs, and resources. Open year-round.

17. Magpie Bookshop 392 Main Street (518) 303-6035 Magpiebookshop.com Fine secondhand books specializing in literary fiction, history, art, philosophy, nature, and children’s books. Open Monday-Saturday 11am5pm.

11. Creekside Restaurant and Bar 160 Main Street (518) 943-6522 Creeksidecatskill.com American classics, cocktails, and various beers served in casual surroundings with a patio and creek views.

18. New York Restaurant 353 Main Street (518) 943-5500 Nyrestaurantcatskill.com Laid-back atmosphere, casual dining, American standards, and authentic Polish fare. Voted Best Restaurant in Greene County.

12. Gary DiMauro Real Estate 432 Main Street (518) 943-7533 Garydimauro.com A boutique real estate agency specializing in antique country homes, fabulous moderns, and historic Hudson townhouses. Serving Dutchess, Columbia, Greene, and Ulster Counties.

19. Rip Van Winkle Brewing Company 4545 NY-32 (518) 678-9275 Ripvanwinklebrewery.com Producing world-class, award-winning ales and lagers with eight in-house beers to choose from.

13. HiLo Catskill 365 Main Street Hilocatskill.com A counter-service and takeout café that serves specialty coffee, pastries, and light fare by day, cocktails in the evening. 14. Kaaterskill Farm Natural Storehouse 3 Boulevard Avenue (518) 943-1919 Facebook.com/pg/kaaterskill.health.food Organic and natural foods, bulk foods, organic produce, organic and natural poultry, meat and fish, and vitamins and homeopathy. Family-owned and operated since 1996.

22. Solo Vino 354 Main Street (518) 444-4285 Instagram.com/solovinocatskill/ Natural wine, craft spirits, cider, and sake store. 23. The Avalon Lounge 29 Church Street (518) 719-1640 Theavalonlounge.com Korean food, former/future music venue and dance club. Take-out Wednesday-Sunday, 4-9pm. 24. The Juice Branch 65 W Bridge Street (518) 947-0920 Thejuicebranch.com Over 100 different cold-pressed juices and smoothies. Açaí bowls, smoothie bowl options, vegan soup made fresh daily in fall and winter. We deliver!! Text or call in your order. 25. The Mermaid Cafe 374 Main Street (518) 217-8811 Facebook.com/The-MermaidCafe-100439701432214 Opened in December 2019 and serving ramen and tacos, made using locally sourced ingredients. Outdoor dining. 26. Village Pizza II 416 Main Street (518) 943-6556 Villagepizzaofcatskill.com Italian pizzeria and restaurant since 1986. Open seven days a week for lunch, dinner, and late night. Dine in, take out, or event catering.

20. Shook Insurance Agency, LLC 332 Main Street (518) 943-3980 Catskillinsurance.com Protect your personal and business assets with coverage through our insurance agents. 21. Social Sara (518) 965-0326 Instagram.com/social.sara Helping small businesses navigate social media through creative posting and photography, and helping to build their customer base, resulting in more sales.

Illustration by Kaitlin Van Pelt

7. Catskills Visitor Center 5096 Route 28, Mt Tremper (845) 688-3369 Catskillsvisitorcenter.org The official visitor center for the Catskill Park, offering area maps and information, interactive exhibits, local books and gifts, accessible nature trails, and the newest and tallest fire tower in the Catskills.

8. Columbia Memorial Family Care 159 Jefferson Heights (518) 943-3415 Columbiamemorialhealth.org Providing services to more than 100,000 residents in Columbia, Greene, and Dutchess counties, focusing on primary care, health education, and advanced surgery.

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Urban Removal

A collaboration with

Kingston’s Housing Crisis By Connor Goodwin

e have the fastest-growing real estate market in the country right now,” says Jared Ashdown as we enter Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston. “It’s not just for people who want to escape the city. It’s for people who want a second home or that Airbnb action.” It was early October, and Ashdown and I were on the tail end of an improvised tour through Kingston, a working-class city now home to the fastest rising home prices in the nation, according to a recent report by the National Association of Realtors. Desirable for its affordability, diversity, historic buildings, and direct bus line to New York City, the City of Kingston and Ulster County have seen a large influx of New Yorkers this summer because of the pandemic, which has challenged Kingston’s affordability: Affluent New Yorkers, accustomed to a higher cost of living, have been willing to pay a premium in Kingston to escape a city under lockdown. At the same time, local residents, many of whom work in the service industry, lost their jobs. In April of this year, Kingston lost approximately 3,300 leisure and hospitality jobs; in the last year, the Hudson Valley region reported 33,600 job losses in the leisure and hospitality industry. By July, Kingston’s hospitality industry had regained these lost jobs and, in September, the number of hospitality jobs had even exceeded pre-pandemic levels, perhaps to accommodate the recent influx of COVID-19 refugees.

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Wall Street in Uptown Kingston, home to many of the cultural attractions that are drawing people to the city. Photo by Anna Sirota

According to a Q3 report released on November 12 by the National Association of Realtors, Kingston was one of the top five housing markets in the country, with 21.5 percent growth in average home sale price over 2019.

Although Kingston was able to gain back these lost jobs, the question now is whether or not it can gain more affordable housing options. Although Kingston was able to gain back some of its lost jobs, the question now is: Can the city house its less-affluent residents? Beginning in Midtown, a predominantly Black neighborhood where Ashdown grew up and currently resides, we drove through dilapidated side streets and saw as many real estate signs as political signs. On Ashdown’s own block, a handsome two-story Victorian on the corner with a “For Sale” sign had a “Sale Pending” sticker slapped on it. Ashdown, 25, has deep family roots in Kingston. His mother, who is Black, has ancestors dating back to the early 18th century. His father’s side of the family is Italian and arrived in the 1950s to work in the waterfront brickyards. In Uptown, a more affluent, whiter neighborhood, we entered Rough Draft Bar & Books, where Ashdown exchanged pleasantries with Brett, our “bibliotender,” and then asked Brett to share the story of why he had to move in the early weeks of a pandemic and economic recession. Market Boom In March, just as the pandemic was upending daily life, Brett’s landlord texted him. “I’m selling the place and the new buyer wants to move into your apartment,” he wrote, and gave him six

weeks to vacate. Brett had lived there for twoand-a-half years and wanted to maintain what had been a good relationship with his landlord, so he moved out and found a one-bedroom apartment for $1,400 a month. Still, his new place was significantly smaller and more expensive than his previous apartment, a threebedroom where he paid $1,350 a month. “What really ticked me off was my landlord said, ‘We got a good deal.’ I really wanted to text him back and say, ‘I’m not getting a good deal.’” “Is this really the time to be talking about a good deal?” Ashdown chimes in. Etiquette aside, profiteering off a pandemic, however fraught, has become a cottage industry for landlords in Kingston as affluent New Yorkers seek to escape crowded and cramped living conditions in the city for open space and safety in nearby smaller cities. Compared to 2019, home sales in Kingston have jumped 18 percent in price and now average around $276,000. The growth has been so dramatic in Ulster County that home prices have notably increased even in the short timespan between mid to late summer. On July 1, the median home sale was $318,000; by midAugust, that number had leaped to $345,250. “Housing in general is already in short supply in the Hudson Valley,” writes Joshua Simons, a senior research associate at the Benjamin Center in SUNY New Paltz. Though data is scarce because these developments are so recent and closing a home can take months, anecdotal reports from real estate agents and locals describe a gold rush for upstate property: buying property sight unseen, bidding wars, and cash offerings 20 percent above the asking price. But everyone I spoke to was quick to note this recent surge in the housing market merely accelerated pre-existing trends that sociologists Simons and Leonard Nevarez summarized as the “Brooklynization” of the Hudson Valley. The pandemic simply poured rocket fuel onto the fire. IBM and Economic Fallout The most recent flashpoint to understand Kingston’s economy and housing market is when IBM laid off thousands of workers in the early 1990s. The technology company was the “economic anchor in the Hudson Valley throughout the latter part of the 20th-century,” says Simons, who lives in nearby Esopus. “IBM isn’t merely a prime mover of the economy here,” begins a 1991 article in the New York Times about IBM’s economic footprint in the Hudson Valley. “IBM is the economy.” At the peak of its presence upstate, the computer giant employed more than 46,000 people living in Dutchess, Westchester, and Ulster counties. In 1985, IBM employed 7,000 people alone in its major manufacturing and development center in Ulster County. But in 1993, IBM conducted mass layoffs throughout the region, culminating in the closure of the Kingston facility. This economic devastation brought on by the closure of IBM’s plant was compounded by law enforcement crackdowns on crime and

the crack epidemic, which gutted small city centers by the late 1990s. Divestment from city centers was coupled with governments and police departments who, then as now, focused on containing issues like crime and criminalizing issues like addiction, rather than treating them as social problems worthy of investment. Uncovered Gem “In an attempt to remake the economy, [the Hudson Valley] shifted more toward hospitality, tourism, antiques,” says Simons. In Kingston as elsewhere, the pivot toward tourism led to a service-based economy, which rarely creates well-paying jobs, can be subject to slow seasons, and can have a high turnover rate. “Waiters and bartenders make good money,” Simons notes, “but the longevity of a career in that industry is not there.” Hudson and Beacon are the poster children for what proponents call an economic renaissance, a pivot away from manufacturing and an embrace of arts-driven tourism. “By contrast to Hudson and Beacon, Kingston was still sort of hidden,” says Professor Leonard Nevarez, who chairs the Sociology Department at Vassar College and lives in Rhinebeck. “The pace of change was slower, it didn’t have a signature museum or attraction, [but] the pace of change started to accelerate in the last couple years,” and, today, “Kingston is the frontier of affordability in a hip city.” In a paper subtitled “The Racialized ‘Brooklynization’ of New York’s Hudson Valley,” Nevarez and Simons apply a cultural analysis to gentrification, which is usually framed more strictly in economic terms, to examine what role cultural amenities have played in the transformation of the Hudson Valley over the past two decades. People are “coming not just for cheap property or investment property, but for a real lifestyle experience that you have to understand through cultural amenities,” Nevarez tells me. In the case of Kingston, Nevarez and Simons argue its greatest amenity was its “reputation as a ‘hidden’ small city with historic architecture and contemporary cool.” In other words, Kingston’s marketability traded on being a hidden gem. This hidden aspect, coupled with Kingston’s roots as a working-class city, promised an “authentic” upstate experience. Examples abound in Kingston: the artful murals around the city from the O+ Festival; the arts manufacturing sector in Midtown. As Nevarez stressed, this cultural aspect is as much a factor as economics when people leaving New York City decide where to go. Moreover, the pandemic has upended what people value. Many now prioritize open space and safety over, say, museums or nightlife. While Kingston does have a vibrant arts scene—Ashdown himself is a musician and had a studio session later that evening—it is also a gateway to the Catskills. “The air, the water, the food”: these top Ashdown’s list of reasons why he keeps returning to Kingston after spending brief stints abroad, in the city, and a few years in Woodstock.

People are “coming not just for cheap property or investment property, but for a real lifestyle experience that you have to understand through cultural amenities.” —Professor Leonard Nevarez The Impact of Airbnb Kingston has blown up since Nevarez and Simons authored that paper, just a year ago. What, exactly, put Kingston on the map? While it is difficult to pinpoint cause and effect, Nevarez suspects Airbnb played a role. The real estate market in Kingston has been throttled for years, in part because there are few new housing developments, but also because the local economy has been reshaped by Airbnb. In 2018, Airbnb generated $24.4 million in revenue in Ulster County bookings, nearly triple that of any of the other 55 counties north of New York City. Ulster County had double the number of Airbnb guests (149,800) and nearly double the number of listings (2,500 listings among 1,800 hosts) of any other county. In 2019, Airbnb listed the Hudson Valley and Catskills as one of its top trending destinations worldwide. The only other US destination was the Smoky Mountains, the most visited National Park in the country. Citing outdoor and cultural amenities as major lures, the report states that, between 2017 and 2018, the Catskills and Hudson Valley saw a 100 percent year-over-year increase in bookings and a 130 percent yearover-year increase in searches. Airbnb declined to share 2020 data for Ulster County and Kingston, but a quick search in its directory shows 109 listings in Kingston, 83 of which are for an “entire place.” When Rashida Tyler, founder of the REAL Kingston Tenants Union, talks about the vacancy problem in Kingston, this is part of that problem. Here are 83 homes withheld from the residential market in favor of visitors who may stay for a weekend or a week. As of 2018, Airbnb listings accounted for three percent of total housing units in Ulster County. Increasingly, however, these visitors are staying for weeks or even months at a time, with the pandemic having unmoored knowledge workers from office life. Airbnb reported that upstate New York, specifically Utica, Saratoga Springs, 12/20 CHRONOGRAM AFFORDABLE HOUSING 49

and the Adirondacks, were among the fastestgrowing locations for long-term stays, meaning 28 days or more. Will these moves be permanent? It’s hard to tell, but one in three remote workers said they would move to a new city or state if remote working continued according to a recent survey jointly conducted by the New York Times and Morning Consult. For Tyler, Airbnb is the latest tool in a long history of extraction that has taken resources from the city center and neighborhoods like Midtown, and brought them to the periphery. When we spoke over the phone, Tyler had recently finished polishing a speech she planned to give at an anti-gentrification rally the following week. In Tyler’s view, the Midtown of today reflects “divestment of resources from the city, white flight, and a funneling of people who lacked resources to one area of the city.” This is the result of a “policy of containment” wherein discrimination in housing and employment conspired to create a segregated Kingston. “I’m not totally against Airbnb,” Tyler hedges. “If you have a room you can rent out occasionally to earn extra income and pay your mortgage, that’s okay. But that’s not what’s happening. What’s happening is an unregulated industry taking over homes that could be places where people live year-round.” Although Ulster County does levy a two-percent occupancy “bed tax” on all hotels, motels, and short-term rental properties, only about 75 percent of Airbnb hosts comply with the ordinance and are registered with the Department of Finance. County officials estimate as much as $200,000 was lost in occupancy tax revenue in 2019. For its part, the Kingston Common Council has at least seemed to recognize that Airbnb has become a problem: In October, a special housing committee set a deadline to present proposals for regulating short-term rentals to the entire council by the end of the year. “This would be one way to free up some units that have been chronically Airbnb’d,” Mayor Steve Noble told me in a phone conversation. The Media’s Role The media, perhaps unwittingly and certainly uncritically, has been a publicity arm for the Hudson Valley’s pivot toward a tourist economy. A quick survey of New York Times headlines shows how the paper has covered developments in the Hudson Valley in the Travel, Arts, and Real Estate sections. Its framing suggests a language of opportunity, rather than one of extraction and gentrification. “Beacon, NY: Quaint City Rediscovered” and “Hudson, NY: An Elegant Transformation” are two representative headlines from the last decade. More recently, stories have been told from the point of view of “COVID-19 refugees.” An article authored by someone who moved to Kingston in 2016 drew the ire of many locals for being tone-deaf and uncritical of their own role in gentrification, which has impacted many residents firsthand, including Rashida Tyler. Like Ashdown, Tyler is a native of Kingston with deep family roots that, in her case, date back to the 1930s when her grandparents arrived as part of the Great Migration, the period between 50 AFFORDABLE HOUSING CHRONOGRAM 12/20

RUPCO, a Kingston-based housing nonprofit, recently opened Energy Square, a 57-unit affordable housing development in the city’s midtown neighborhood. Photo by Anna Sirota

World War I and the 1970s when millions of African-Americans fled the Jim Crow South. Tyler first experienced the harms of gentrification at the age of 16. “My family had been through a lot of apartments, and we finally found a place we could afford in the Rondout section of Kingston—a beautiful, brick Victorian,” she says. Her family had a great relationship with the landlord, but when he sold the building to someone from Westchester, the new landlord’s first action was to present the family with an eviction order. “We had to leave because he wanted something we had,” Tyler says. “Because it was in a certain location.” What Can Be Done? “By the time you start talking about gentrification, it’s too late to stop gentrification,” says Simons in a sober assessment of the current housing situation. “The strategies at this point really need to focus on harm reduction overall.” In the current pandemic economy, millions of renters are at risk of eviction. In Ulster County, 41 percent of households either live in poverty or earn more than the Federal Poverty Line but less than the basic cost of living for New York State. In Kingston, that figure jumps to 57 percent. Recognizing the immediate need for more affordable housing, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan expanded Kingston’s land bank for workforce housing to be county-wide, assembled a committee to advise on what’s driving the shortage of affordable housing, and bolstered funds for the Emergency Rental Assistance program by reallocating $150,000 from the Housing Rehabilitation Program. For Mayor Noble, the problem of affordable housing is really a question of supply and demand. To this end, Noble was encouraged by two new affordable housing developments— Energy Square, a 57-unit building, and Landmark Place, a 66-unit building intended for seniors—as well as the Kingston City Land Bank releasing a request for proposals to redevelop three single-family homes. The former county jail will also serve as a site for new affordable housing, with 160 units total, half of which are intended for seniors. Construction will likely not start at the former jail site until 2022. In addition, Mayor Noble has proposed a

10-percent affordable housing requirement on all new developments, which he described as a “temporary stop-gap measure.” “Ten percent is at least a first step, while we look to rewrite our zoning codes,” he says, which were authored in the 1960s. In May of this year, Tyler and the REAL Kingston Tenants Union joined forces with several other community organizations to form the Ulster County Coalition for Housing Justice. In the short term, Tyler is focused on providing immediate housing through rapid renovation programs and she’s in talks with City Council about donating or selling land for “tiny homes.” “We need non-congregate housing options this coming winter for the unhoused and lowincome,” says Tyler, referring to the increased risk of COVID-19 as individuals spend more time indoors. Tyler knows of two individuals who have been living out of their car because they have health conditions and are wary of entering a shelter for fear of contracting the virus. Long term, Tyler is set on introducing a number of housing policy reforms, such as a residential vacancy tax. Since IBM left in the early `90s, Tyler has seen the city of Kingston “being marketed like the Wild West: Build what you wanna build, scrap the people.” This is best represented by the Kingstonian, a mixed-use development with 129 apartments (14 of which are earmarked for affordable housing units), a boutique hotel, and a high-end retail storefront. “The rents are pegged for people who aren’t here yet,” Tyler says. For her, this belies a more significant problem: the exclusion of Kingston residents from plans and discussions surrounding future development. “That is the core problem with development in Kingston and in gentrified areas,” Tyler says. “These plans are 20 years out, but the people are not privy to them.” “The faces that I grew up seeing either aren’t here or are about to be gone,” Ashdown tells me as we seated ourselves on a bench outside the Senate House and under the watchful eye of a Sojourner Truth mural. “It’s bittersweet—the thing you love and cherish the most is now this co-opted thing. Instead of moving out to pursue something, I feel like I’d need to move because I don’t have a chance to live here anymore.”

arts feature

Anne Lindberg 30 Birds, cotton thread and staples Photo by Derek Porter

By a Thread Women Fiber Artists in the Hudson Valley When I set out to write this piece on women fiber artists in the Hudson Valley, I didn’t recognize the brazen naivete of my quest. Fiber is not like paint—it is not a single material. It is terrycloth and leather, polyester batting and velvet, microfiber, fur, wool roving, cotton thread, raw silk, muslin, burlap, tulle. And that is just a sampling of what artists in this “medium” are working with to create sculpture and three-dimensional drawings, site-specific installations, and wallmounted works. I tried to find a through line with the historical aspect of women’s fiber and textile crafts, but some were rejecting it, some were carrying the torch, and some were indifferent. So rather than try to find a neat container that encompasses this beautiful gamut of creators, I would rather simply say: Behold these splendid, talented artists creating utterly distinctive and beautiful work that makes use of fiber. —Marie Doyon

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Anne Lindberg While many artists who work with fiber consider their work sculptural, Anne Lindberg uses thread to create three-dimensional drawings in space. In her luminous, site-specific installations, she uses fine colored threads pulled tautly to create abstract drawings that physically modify the space—bisecting rooms, hovering overhead, filling up corners. “The work is grounded in the basic act of drawing, marking the path and distance between two points,” Lindberg says. “Thousands of lines of thread are cast across surfaces and through space to create hovering clouds of color and light and complex fields of lines.” Lindberg favors chromatic thread for its delicate yet flexible nature, and its chameleon quality under different lighting conditions. “My installations respond to and amplify attributes of their environments in order to directly engage the body and affect how space is navigated and perceived,” says Lindberg, whose labor-intensive process draws from her study of textiles. “I am interested in materiality and its transcendence through the assembly and simultaneity of individual elements. Optical and atmospheric phenomena is achieved, yet in the end, the works feel almost immaterial, like light and color itself.” Annelindberg.com The Long Sun, thread and staples Photo by Derek Porter

Liz Collins Liz Collins comes from a family of crafters. “My dad, mom, some of my grandparents, my aunt, and others were all into making things in various capacities and these soft materials that held color and had texture, malleability, and all kinds of other exciting features were an automatic draw for me as a creative person,” she says. “It was never a question, but rather an instinct.” Collins is drawn to a broad range of fibers from organic materials like silk, linen, alpaca, and angora to shiny, happy, drapey rayon yarn to plastic and metallic materials with high-tech compositions. “I will use anything,” she says simply, though she tries to limit her consumption, using deadstock and materials on hand. When asked how she categorizes her work, Collins replies, “There have been so many artists who have worked in fiber without the specificity of that distinction. I do think sometimes it can bog down the work with a sort of stigma.” She explores a broad range of themes in her work from decay to eroticism, space to spirituality, and playful dualities like chaos/ order, opacity/transparency, pleasure/pain, darkness/ light, loose/tight. “Fiber and textiles often inspire the work and inadvertently materialize these themes,” Collins says. “It can sometimes be a chicken-and-egg situation.” For her, there is no connection between gender and materials. While Collins feels a certain kinship with the legacy of women who have worked in textiles, she rejects any outright connection. “I get the ‘whole woman’s work’ thing, and, of course, feel an affinity, but I also completely disagree with it and find it problematic because it’s too narrow a way to see this world of materials and media that have existed in some capacity for as long as time, across genders,” she says. Stretched Markers, silk, part of the “Wayfinding” exhibition at Addison Gallery in Andover, Massachusetts

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Lizcollins.com

Millicent Young Millicent Young makes use of clay, steel, lead, glass, plaster, wood, animal fur, and horsehair to create dynamic sculptures that seem at once peacefully still and in motion. She chooses these fibers for their ghostly familiarity. “Horse hair is beautiful and unsettling,” Young says of the primary fiber she employs in her work. “Though dead, in my work it becomes sensuous and animated by the light and air it gathers. It is not quite human—though it could be. It is kin; it is memory. It is a strand of life, metaphorically and literally, as DNA. It is fragile and enduring, a part of a whole.” The artist harvests fur from the brushing of her domestic animals and horse tail hair by the pounds from a cowboy shop in the Northwest. She ties many tiny bundles of hairs to sewing thread to create ethereal strands up to 13 feet long. “In the ways that I work with all my materials, I bring the lineage of being woman into a larger vocabulary of complexity,” Young says. “I am working with accretion, the whole emerging through the relationship of thousands of parts, the stillness and depth that comes through repetition, piercing and connecting, layering material and meaning. I work not toward answers but towards presence and sensorial knowing. Being at the edges of unknowing, where coherence and dissolution co-occur and a space is created for new forms—these are of interest to me.” Millicentyoung.com

Luminous Room, horse hair, thread, ceiling mounted cables Photo by Michael Bailey 12/20 CHRONOGRAM FEATURE 53

Toni Brogan Evocative range is one of fiber’s big draws for Toni Brogan. “If you knit something, then crochet something, then weave something using the same fiber, it will give you three different results,” says Brogan, who often incorporates multiple techniques into a given piece. While similar things could be said of other media, the utter textural and dimensional transformation possible with fiber when different techniques are applied is perhaps unique. Brogan returns again and again to natural materials: raw hemp, jute, and cotton ropes, which take dye really well, allowing her to play with a range of color palettes. “I love the natural roughness of hemp and jute, the wiry unruliness appeals to my no-holds-barred style of working,” she says. “It’s like throwing something up at a wall and seeing what sticks!” Her current work uses utilitarian objects as the bases for her looms, encouraging sculptural play. Like Ford, Brogan makes use of the familiar—though not conceptually, but representationally. Her upcoming solo show “Chromatic Family,” set to open in January at Roxbury Arts Group, “is an ode to family, dysfunction, estrangement, and death,” and includes clothing items corresponding to her siblings. Tonibrogan.com

Toxicity, wool, cotton, recycled fiber, plastic, vegetable netting, Lego, felted wool, matchbox cars, army men, silk, paper. Photo by Ivy Yin

Katie Ford For artist Katie Ford, fiber is a useful material in her repertoire for its pervasiveness and evocative familiarity. “Fabric clothes our bodies, adds texture to our homes, it’s integrated into how we move through the world,” Ford says. “Incorporating textiles in my work is a way to explore human experience and relationships through materiality.” Textiles and fiber offer a guise of abstraction for the exploration of interpersonal dynamics, while also being inextricably connected to the most intimate quotidian facets of our lives from sleeping and getting dressed to drawing the curtains. “Fabric brings up human associations regardless of imagery, and this wash of familiarity is significant to how I investigate the themes in my work,” Ford says. While gender identity isn’t a central theme to her work or material choice, Ford does admit that the use of fiber begets an ongoing contemplation of the age-old distinction between art and craft. “I consider my practice to be mixed media—moving between print, textiles, paper, wood, installation, sculpture. I don’t see why my practice should need to sit neatly in just one of these areas,” she says. “I find it energizing to blur the divides between media, which pulls at the threads of historical power dynamics wrapped up in those divides.” Katie-ford.com Refraction, quilted moving blanket

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Kat Howard Cautionary Tale,cotton knit, cotton muslin, polyfil, galvanized steel wire. Photo by Veronica Fassbender

“My pieces either have a physicality to them that feels almost human, or they are expressionist representations of landscapes where the body is noticeably absent,” says Kat Howard, who employs what she calls “a raw, direct approach to narrative and an emphasis on the sense memory we all have with textiles.” Howard’s material choices are integral to her artistic concept—a tactile language—and she uses whatever is most eloquent for the occasion, her materials ranging from silkworm cocoons and microfiber tubes to handspun yarn, leather, and muslin. Her work is an intimate exploration of gender and gender roles, sexism, oppression, and the physical body. “I make fiber art that addresses the history of the persecution of the female body, through which, I interrogate my own identity as a survivor of violence against women,” Howard says. “I use abstraction, the innate language of texture, and the repulsion/attraction of touch in my visual ‘fiber poems’ to capture the fight to break free from trauma.” Howard’s work is steeped in the history of labor-intensive textile crafts like weaving, both a continuation of the skills and an homage to those who came before. “You can’t help but be floored by the hours, the precision, and the repetition that is necessary to execute an idea: All of these things are a powerful metaphor for women’s work. There’s strength in this quiet, fevered language.” Kat-howard.com

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music Sufjan Stevens The Ascension (Asthmatic Kitty) Sufjan.com

In the tumult of our times, Sujan Stevens’s eighth solo outing invites us on a mind-bending, head-bobbing, ethereal expedition. Whether or not the hypnotic tome was written before the pandemic and civil unrest, The Ascension floats above to question and comment on the chaos below and within. All the more fitting to have emanated from the previously angel-winged performer who recently descended upon Catskill country, another soul fleeing the pollution of light and noise, to sparkle in the quiet of Van Winkle’s cove of slumber. Apt placement in light of dreamy cadences, pitter-patter beats and fog-kissed emotions misting through deciduously naked valleys and evergreen mountaintops. As percussive elements dart left to right, back and forth, synth beds and stark lyrics render contemplative and addictive, reverb-drenched meditations. The lofty 15-song album was performed, recorded and produced by Stevens, who is also responsible for the symbiotic kaleidoscopic cover art. The songwriter sings, plays drums and percussion, synthesizers, drum machines, guitar, piano, and recorder. The result is dense. Scandinavian blueice electronica fused with the humid ecstasy of a Balinese moonlit rave. An alluring collision as Stevens’s melancholic thoughts and voices swirl and trapeze with acrobatic intensity. Perhaps most cherished for his chamber folk forays, Stevens’s accolades are many, including Grammy and Academy award nominations and multiple collaborations, including one with the National. The Ascension is a departure from some of Stevens’s more precious explorations; an expansive and probing effort that feels more inclusive and more at peace— still searching, but not desperate. —Jason Broome

1313 Mockingbird Lane Unfinished Business: The Toilet Tapes (Cacaphone Records) Cacaphone.com Here’s some swingin’ retro-upon-retro rock ’n’ roll rubbish with which to splatter your platter. Back in the nefarious 1990s, 1313 Mockingbird Lane were Albany’s reigning garage punks, taking their Farfisa-fueled cues from contemporary revivalists like the Fuzztones, the Lyres, and the Cynics, as well as the legions of obscure 1960s one-shot gangs who fill the track lists of Nuggets, Pebbles, Back from the Grave, and similar compilations. Camp horror is key to the aesthetic here—the band’s name is the home address of Herman and family on TV’s “The Munsters”—as evidenced by creepy ditties like “Teenage Frankenstein” and “She’s Got a Werewolf in Her Pants.” Complementing Cacaphone’s deluxe reissue of the group’s 1990 LP, Have Hearse Will Travel (reviewed here in January 2017), Unfinished Business (digital and vinyl) dredges the depths for unheard outtakes, demos, and raw rehearsal rave-ups to further document this mythic underground outfit. —Peter Aaron 56 MUSIC CHRONOGRAM 12/20

Stephen Clair The Small Hours

(Rock City Records) Stephenclair.com Stephen Clair has done it. He’s made the record he’s been threatening to make all along. The Small Hours is rock ’n’ roll, pure and simple. Hooks, guitars, bass, and drums. Did we mention hooks? Whether it’s the slinky opening riff of “Come Down,” the smoky vocal curlicues of “Dorothy,” or the windblown New Orleans narrative of “Hurricane Coming,” Small Hours offers so many reasons to return. A peripatetic Beaconite, Clair has always gathered stories close, spinning them with an author’s eye and, with deference to Lou Reed, a rock ’n’ roll heart. But this disc is leaner in all the right ways than past efforts, anchored solely but soulfully by four stringer Daria Grace and skinsman Aaron Latos—you hear the songs, not the production. With such simple backing, Clair’s talents—deadpan delivery, keen wordsmithing, and deceptively intricate fretwork—come to the fore, shining through the small hours. Recommended. —Michael Eck

Sky Furrows Sky Furrows (Tape Drift Records/Skell Recordings/Philthy Rex Records) Skyfurrows.bandcamp.com Recorded two years ago and finally released this fall, Sky Furrows’ eponymous debut marries Hudson Valley poet Karen Schoemer’s spoken-word narratives to Albany-based trio Burnt Hills’ psych-rock. The resulting spoken word-with-guitar-rock approach immediately recalls early Patti Smith but traces itself even further back to the Velvet Underground’s “The Gift.” The musicians aren’t merely laying down foundational jams atop which Schoemer spiels; the minimalist musical arrangements are integral and totally at the service of Schoemer’s sentences, propelling them rhythmically and punctuating them, providing a soundtrack to her keenly observed stories. Schoemer herself straddles the fine line separating ordinary speech from performance, which adds intimacy to her vignettes and travelogues; it’s as if she’s telling you a story about something that happened to her—which presumably is exactly what she is doing here in these dynamic, compelling tracks. —Seth Rogovoy

books Jenny the Chimpanzee Lotus Kay EIFRIG PUBLISHING 2020, $14.99

Kay, a 19-year-old author of children’s books, activist, and co-founder of Bears for Cares, has penned Jenny the Chimpanzee as part of a campaign to inspire the next generation in protecting our Earth and other species. Presented in a fun, approachable way, the eponymous Jenny takes the reader through the history and origins of humanity’s evolution, explaining how interconnected humans are with all other animals and wildlife on this planet. Kay, a Woodstock resident, is also the author of A Thanksgiving for the Turkeys, Billy the Octopus, and More Beautiful than Heaven. The books are beautifully illustrated by artist Chey Diehl, and come with companion stuffed animals.

In Security Edward Schwarzschild SUNY PRESS, 2020 $24.95

A taut thriller as well as a multi-layered love story, In Security explores the rarely considered world of how those who strive to protect us are often unable to protect themselves. Our hapless hero, Gary Waldman, is a former tennis coach now slowly reentering the world after the death of his wife and struggling to be a good father to his six-year-old son. Waldamn finds unexpected comfort and stability in the rule-bound confines of working as a Transportation Security Officer in upstate New York. But his life is turned upside down again after he uses CPR to bring a passenger back from the dead.

The Memoir of the Minotaur Tom Shachtman MADVILLE PUBLISHING, 2020 $18.95

This satire takes the form of a posthumous confession from the half-man, half-bull of myth to 21st-century arrivals to Hades. As a memoir from birth to the beyond, this is for those who enjoy bawdiness, blasphemy, and theological impertinence. In the form of the monster narrative, it expresses a breadth of complexity as it deals with themes of power, violence, and sexuality. The ultimate message projects the hilarity and absurdity of classical values interacting with animalistic cores. Shachtman is a prolific author, documentarian, essayist, and journalist, always pointing out that “normal” is in the eye of the beholder.

Holiday in the Islands of Grief Jeffrey McDaniel UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS 2020, $17

In this new collection, McDaniel confronts the insular and expansive qualities of the maybeness of everything, with a go-to defensive snark offset with empathy. With electric language and surrealistic imagery, McDaniel’s poems deliver the daily elements of middle-aged life while weaving us in and out of childhood and adulthood alongside body and mind. The tragic and life-affirming share the same page and the same world, reminding us how close corruption can be to innocence; domesticity to fantasy; aging to youth. McDaniel is the author of five books, and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in the Hudson Valley.

Sketchbook Traveler James Lancel McElhinney SCHIFFER PUBLISHING 2020, $24.99

The keeping of diaries and journals has evolved through the centuries, and picturing exotic locations was part of topographical drawing and cartography. Knowing what a destination looked like helped travelers know they had arrived. Physically presented as an actual sketchbook of a traveler in the Hudson Valley, Sketchbook Traveler is suitable for both a plein air enthusiast or a novice. Providing educators with teaching tools and lesson plans, and professional artists with a way to refine their mobile practices, this is a guide for mindful engagement in documenting every day as a memorable adventure. —Lee Anne Albritton

PAYBACK Mary Gordon PANTHEON, 2020, $28

Assault. Revenge. Reality TV. #MeToo. These book-jacket buzzwords make it easy to stumble into Mary Gordon’s latest novel (her ninth) with the wrong expectations. Nuanced where it could be sensational, the novel explores how one moment can completely change the trajectory of two women’s lives forever. In Payback, Gordon’s understated and beautiful prose reveals the murkiness of victimhood, forgiveness, and redemption. In 1972, 25-year-old Agnes works as the art teacher at Lydia Farnsworth School for Girls, an exclusive boarding school in bucolic New Canterbury, Rhode Island. She finds herself drawn to Heidi, an artistically gifted and lonely student. Neglected by her dysfunctional family, Heidi distrusts everyone and doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere. As the two grow closer, Agnes suggests Heidi travel to New York City to attend a lecture at the Museum of Modern Art—to nurture her creative side and open her up to new experiences. Her well-intentioned plan ends in disaster when Heidi is brutally raped. Seeking comfort and understanding, Heidi goes to Agnes’s home to tell her what happened—and is met with a horrifying response. Agnes asks her, “How could you have let that happen?” It’s a question that will haunt both women for the rest of their lives. The moment, and its subsequent fallout, is made all the more heartbreaking because it happens just as Heidi begins to open herself up to kindness. And then the world—and the person she trusts most—betray her. Both women flee their lives in Rhode Island and attempt to start over. Agnes moves to Italy and unsuccessfully tries to forget the harm she inflicted on Heidi. She throws herself into the idiosyncrasies of Rome, her career as an art restorer, and a quiet life with her husband and daughter. Gordon’s meditations on motherhood are some of the most beautiful (and brutish) passages in the entire novel: “Since Maeve’s birth she has known that it is impossible to be a truly moral person if you have a child, because you wish for the child’s happiness, well-being, more than anything in the world.” Whereas Heidi, determined to rewrite her past and claw her way to success, creates a new life as Quin Archer, host of “Payback”— a reality show where she seeks out justice for those who have been wronged. Decades after that fateful night, the women are reunited when Heidi-Quin decides to confront Agnes and demand payback—in front of the cameras, of course. When the women finally sit down to film their “Payback” episode, Agnes realizes that Heidi-Quin has weaponized her persona as a way of surviving not just her assault, but also Agnes’s unintended victim-blaming: “Everything in Heidi-Quin refuses the suggestion of a caress, the giving or receiving of any tenderness at all.” Despite being a victim, Heidi-Quin’s unbearable cruelty and rage make her hard to sympathize with. In the extremes of vengeful Heidi-Quin and remorseful Agnes, Gordon explores the notion of victimhood—who gets to claim, rebuke, or wield it—throughout the novel. There are no easy answers in life or in this novel. Agnes and Quinn are seeking things—payback and forgiveness—that they cannot (or refuse to) give one another. In Payback, the only way forward to come to terms with what’s happened and try to live with it—and yourself. —Carolyn Quimby

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poetry I Love You in This Way Inspired by Pablo Neruda I do, I love you in a way I don’t find words often enough. I don’t love you the way books say, forever repeating, before sonnets dared not rhyme, when fate was poetic and intimate. Still, I don’t love you anywhere but here at home, held by night, inside a line’s refusal to merge, dissipating dreams before dawn, leaving only anxious air, stars and wishes no longer wishable, fleeting and gone before the bluish moon surrenders. I don’t love in daylight, on a bench, in a breeze, smokeless and alone, as cold marble foreshadows what little time we may have. In left-handed ways I love you, don’t know what it feels like to be right. I only ask you stop—understand just what it means for us to love this way. —Perry Nicholas

EDITED BY Phillip X Levine Class of ‘69

Fighting Words

Carl keeps an excel spreadsheet for the class of ’69. X’s mark the dead. I’m looking for

The whetstone of conflict honed my tongue too razor-sharp to put back in his mouth

an algorithm—the one that sealed their fate. Here’s what we know: A pool at UMass claimed Kurt Ives who, at 20 years of age, swimming alone, mistimed a flip turn. Nancy H found a van no place to fall asleep on the highway at night. Skippy should’ve had those headaches scanned. The brain surgeon Ed couldn’t cure his own cancer. Paula OD’d on downs And Sue slept with the wrong guy. We could have used a banshee— keening to let us know and knowing intervene… Now we’re getting old. We look to genes whose code spells our destiny. Meanwhile, we do the math. —Ed Meek

Reminiscing Oh to go back with today’s wisdom to yesterdays follies and faith —Sydna Altschuler Byrne Tea If I could weep, I would make saltwater tea for you, foolish, fat man, full of bluster and lies. Today I am beyond tears, but others aren’t. Here, have a cup of tears wept for the grandmas felled by COVID, for George Floyd, for immigrant children without parents, for Iowa’s farmers, for the coral reefs, the glaciers, the burned coastline.

Marriage as of Late Her shoulders are dog-eared but wide as Irish goodbyes, she tries to leave me for good only after promising she wouldn’t. She’s got morning absence: a hole in the mattress deep as I’d dug it during that argument about my father leaving me did that mean I would leave her? She crawls back to the same hole. Like a 7pm “goodnight,” everything she says is moldy her way of making me feel like a November pumpkin. She expires on my side of the bed, hoping I push her into her side into the hole.

How many cups can you drink?

But we’ll sleep on my side until it becomes a hole, too. Sleep until there’s no longer a bed. Then, sleep on the floor.

—Kim Ellis

—Christine Donat

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—Lu Ann Kaldor

Paradise Found Indigo skies paired with glasses of wine met lips that dripped with honey. A setting sun and clothes undone Eden these lovers do carry. —Michaela Brannigan

How I Sign “Rocco” This book is also dedicated to those who, by siege or by famine, watch their children die in their arms and on their streets —Peter Coco

Winter’s Edge It was dark winter turning to spring from your bed you shouted and like falling into a dream you were gone the deer at the window turned and ran away your hand still warm in mine. —E Gironda, Jr

A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries

An Extinction

It feels exactly like the crowded kitchen in Queens, New York when Queens, New York was still like country, in the big three-family Victorian when my father’s only brother was put in his grave ten years after my father and we all gathered in the big kitchen around the big table with my father’s five sisters surrounding me. It feels like that now, lamenting you and yearning for you, a relationship of ten years being with you and taking care of me, and my oldest cousin asked if I was okay standing at the grave because I looked so pale. I really could have married you, and I should have after ten years of knowing you and taking care of you, how stupid was I? I waited for all of them: one dark, one fair, another older than the rest until all five were there around me. I waited until the coffee was served to say how much I missed him and how I wished I could die at seventeen and the oldest looked at the ceiling and the darkest looked away and the fairest got up to get more coffee. I thought for sure at least one of my five aunts would lend me a tear, but they are all children of a war hero as my father was, and so I felt the fool with my face wet sitting at that table until one of their husbands began imitating an altar boy in church earlier, who was conspicuously picking his nose during the service which of course made everyone laugh and forget that the worst has just happened, and then the oldest finally stopped looking at the ceiling and I got up to get myself another cup of coffee.

You once confessed that you were embarrassed About the mustard stain on your tablecloth Bright yellow against the robin’s egg blue Nearly complementary, but not quite I liked the mustard stain It was part of your world Just like the couch that was just long enough For us to face each other with legs extended A life raft of sorts, carrying us through the evening Sipping tea cups filled with wine, plus a shot of brandy

—Cynthia Andrews Naïveté Illuminated and hedonistic, She made love to the sun. Setting her insides on fire, Her engrossment had begun. He took everything that he could from her, She turned out her pockets just in case. He promised a reward for the suffering, So she accepted the debase. But then he kissed her once and told her That he belonged to the sky. That there was no use in loving her, And it made no sense to try. Just as quickly as it started, He disappeared without a trace. Except the burn marks on her body, And boiling tears that scorched her face. The sun shone through her window, She ducked under covers to avoid his rapacious glare. But there weren’t actually any covers, And the sun wasn’t really there. —Emma Berg Full submission guidelines: Chronogram.com/submissions

I remember standing in front of a painting with you At the Chazen Museum of Art We squinted closely to pick out the faded shapes Of extinct creatures It was hard to make out whether they were in the foreground or background What was it trying to show us? I don’t know what the painting was called But I went back there often and basked in the memory Of absorbing it with you by my side Sometimes on a rainy day Sometimes between classes Sometimes when I missed feeling close to you I remember laughing at your bulky winter mittens Likening them to boxing gloves And you would throw a couple of sample punches, grinning Your straight white smile Beaming at me from under your tousled mat of curls It was the same smile that you shot at the bus driver When he asked if I was your girl Please know that I wanted to be I didn’t know how at the time But I did love you with a childlike sense of curiosity The same curiosity that crept across your face That day that I pulled back the shower curtain And invited myself in When I finally came around to opening my heart You reminded me that I was a stick who stood alone, unsupported And you were a stick that leaned upon other sticks to remain upright Perhaps you were right But I want you to know that I’ve kept your letters Scrawled in your perfect script In a separate part of my jewelry box The same jewelry box that also contains Your grandmother’s amber necklace The clasp doesn’t work anymore But the memory sends blood rushing to my cheeks You can let me know if you want it back someday —Megan Phillips

Tea Buddha’s tears infuse My burdock root tea, rain drops Splash from lotus leaves. —Anthony Grillo

12/20 CHRONOGRAM POETRY 59

“Sign” of the Times Truth Be Told, an installation by Nick Cave and Bob Faust at the School in Kinderhook, has generated quite a bit of controversy since it was installed last month on the facade of Jack Shainman’s gallery. Town officials contend that the 160-foot-long text piece, which references the Black Lives Matter movement, is technically a sign, and therefore in violation of municipal code. Shainman claims Truth Be Told is a work of art and its display is within the special use permit he obtained from the town when he opened the School in 2014. As of mid-November, Truth Be Told was still on display. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 60 THE GUIDE CHRONOGRAM 12/20

the guide

Nevertheless, She Persists Q&A WITH “SHEROES” HOST CARMEL HOLT

Carmel Holt, host of “Sheroes” Photo by Shervin Lainez

If you’ve bounced around the radio dial in the Hudson Valley/New York Metro region at all during the past two decades, you likely know the voice of Carmel Holt. After 15 years at Radio Woodstock (WDST), Holt in 2013 became a host, interviewer, and assistant music director at New York’s WFUV. In 2019, she left the latter station to develop “Sheroes,” a radio show focused on raising the voices of female artists that’s heard locally on Radio Kingston and last month launched nationally as a weekly NPR broadcast. In celebration of the syndication, Holt responded to the questions below by email. Sheroesradio.com. —Peter Aaron What’s the story behind “Sheroes”? “Sheroes” was originally conceived as a podcast. I was working at WFUV and the topic of gender inequities in radio programming (and in the music industry at large) was really starting to heat up in a more public way at our annual radio conferences. The idea of putting together a female-focused show had been on my mind for a long time, and then it started to feel more urgent in 2018, when Neil Portnow, the president of the Recording Academy, said that “women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level” need to “step up.” I loved WFUV and being in public radio in New York City had always been a dream of mine, but I craved doing something of my own. I told a friend who worked at Spotify, “What I really want to do is create a podcast about the experience of being a woman in music,” and he offered to help. WFUV had begun hosting a series of “In Conversation” taped events where I interviewed two of my own sheroes, Cat Power and Sharon Van Etten. The global brand manager of Sonos happened to be in the room for the second of those interviews and asked me, “Have you ever thought about getting into podcasting?” Sonos

was launching a podcast incubator program, and she wanted to know if we could meet to talk about it. Just before our meeting, I heard back from my contact at Spotify: They were going to pass on “Sheroes.” I accepted Sonos’ offer to join the incubator and gave my notice at WFUV. After I left WFUV, I had a coffee with my old WDST boss and mentor, Jimmy Buff, who had recently taken the helm at Radio Kingston, and he asked if I wanted a show there. I immediately said yes and that it would be a playlist version of my podcast. Then I created a sample hour to pitch, and other stations were interested: The first to sign on was KXT 91.7 in Dallas; from there, more stations signed on, and I now have 10 affiliates across the country carrying the show, with more expressing interest. So it is really true: One door closes, another opens. Were there any particular experiences that inspired the idea for the show? Yes, there were many. I am a woman who has been devoted to music my entire life. I was a musician first, before I got into radio. And in both cases, it has been really challenging and painful at times. I may have even given up on pursuing my own music because of how hard it was. But it didn’t get any easier. Radio and the entire music business are male-dominated spaces. It is inherently hard to push forward and persevere, and the odds are still stacked against women. And living in a misogynist society makes any pursuit difficult. The imbalance of power, both in professional and personal relationships, and the all-too-frequent abuse of that power, can have crippling effects on women’s and girls’ ability to pursue their dreams. I am all too familiar with all of those phenomena, and I want to help change the narrative where I can. This is where I find myself providing a platform to have these conversations; to share our experiences and stories; and hoping to build awareness, empathy, and meaningful change.

What criteria do you have in mind when selecting the music for the show? Obviously, the programming centers on women artists, but what other defining qualities do you look for with the music you play? To showcase a diverse range of female-identifying voices, across genres, generations, cultures, races, and nationalities. Inclusivity and diversity may be buzzwords right now, but it has always been my mission to embody that ethos in my work as long as I have been on the air. It’s also important to note that it is much harder for women to continue to get airplay as they age, so I also make a conscious effort to include new music being made by heritage artists, not just the popular songs that made them famous when they were young. Who have been some of your own sheroes? Number one: Joni Mitchell. She is a true artist, uncompromising, who was unafraid to take risks, evolve her sound, and stay true to her vision. She is, and always will be, an unequaled genius. Neko Case: her singular voice, her wildness, her writing, her “I-don’tgive-two-fucks attitude,” her feminism, her sharp wit and sense of humor, her devotion to her animals and the natural world, her individuality. I could go on and on. To me, she embodies the complex, magnificent, and multi-faceted world of being a woman. Neko is my spirit animal. Also: Sharon Jones, Lizzo, Billie Holiday, the Breeders, and Bjork. There is no one like Bjork. Her work is astonishing, and unparalleled. A true artist. For that young girl somewhere who’s the same age you were when you first discovered radio and music and is hearing the show for the first time, what do most hope she takes away from “Sheroes”? That this show is for her. That she can do whatever she is passionate about, and if that is music, then the world is waiting to hear her voice. Just listen to these sheroes. If they can do it, so can you. 12/20 CHRONOGRAM THE GUIDE 61

film

Going (Back) to the Movies LOCAL THEATERS GRAPPLE WITH REOPENING

The theater was immaculate. The purple, red, and blue pattern on the vast carpet was so vivid that it cast the illusion of hovering above the floor. The lobby of the Showcase Cinema de Lux, a 15-screen multiplex in White Plains, was empty, with the exception of a handful of employees. I felt like a special guest at the grand opening of a brand-new theater. I also felt like I had just checked into the Overlook Hotel. I went back to the movies days after Governor Cuomo permitted theaters in certain parts of New York to reopen on October 23, seven months after he’d ordered them to close throughout the state due to the pandemic. The executive order stated that theaters could only open at 25-percent capacity; no more than 50 people were allowed in front of each screen; and only theaters in counties that have a COVID-19 positivity rate of less than two percent. No cluster zones were permitted to reopen. While most counties north of New York City were cluster-free, including Westchester, where I live, many theaters were not reopening. My local, go-to movie house, the longstanding Mt. Kisco Theatre, where I had taken my kids to virtually every movie they had ever seen, permanently shuttered its doors in September. The next-closest theater hadn’t reopened yet, so I drove 30 minutes to one I’d never been to before. The drive made me think about how our comfort zones have changed. We want to stay close to home; traveling even remotely beyond our new parameters causes unease. Before I left my house, I bought my ticket online for a contactless purchase. I could select my seat from a

62 THE GUIDE CHRONOGRAM 12/20

The corridor of Showcase Cinema de Lux in White Plains on October 28. Photo by Dan Fisher

seating chart, as one does when purchasing tickets for a concert or a Broadway show. It made it feel like a special event, which, ironically, going to the movies used to be in its early years when it was a novelty and not the commonplace pastime it became. If I wanted snacks, I had to preorder them, which I skipped, since getting popcorn at the now-closed concession stand is still part of the experience for me. There were two other people in the theater at the matinee, and one of those two other people in the theater happened to be sitting two rows behind the seat I had chosen. We were at least six feet apart, but it still felt too close, since the rest of the auditorium was empty. There were no previews, since there are no big studio releases coming out in the theater any time soon, as their openings have been delayed until next year, if not indefinitely. The only thing that screened before the movie was a reminder to put your mask back on at the end of the show. I saw Christopher Nolan’s new film, Tenet, which the director refused to stream or make available on-demand, insisting that it only be shown on the big screen. I was lucky Tenet is nearly three hours long, because I spent the first 45 minutes grappling with whether or not I should take off my mask even though the other moviegoers and I were adequately distanced from one another. I wear my mask in the gym and when I rehearse in a local music studio, where I’m already comfortable, so why shouldn’t I wear it in a big, enclosed space among strangers? I ultimately took it off but put it back on whenever I was overcome by a small wave of paranoia. I was

preoccupied for most of the film and was never able to fully suspend my disbelief. For the theater owners, the decision to reopen or not—even in counties that meet all the criteria—was an extraordinarily difficult one. This was particularly the case for the owners of smaller, independent cinemas that don’t have the backing of a major chain. “What is paramount for us is the health and safety of our customers and staff,” DeDe Leiber, codirector of Upstate Films, which operates theaters in Rhinebeck and Woodstock, tells me, regarding their decision to remain closed. “We don’t know if there is data that says, ‘If you go to a movie theater in a large space with a big volume of air, you’ll be fine,’” she continues. “Additionally, the theaters we’ve been looking at, economically, can’t go back to normal at 25 percent.” She is currently renting out the Rhinebeck theater for $675 a night to private groups of up to 35 people. The package includes concessions for all and a movie of your choosing, depending on availability. Faced with the same obstacles, Michael Hoagland, executive director of the Bedford Playhouse, chose to reopen the small arthouse theater, but not without some pushback: “It was not an easy decision, and it was not a unanimous decision. There were definitely people that thought that we should stay closed,” he explains, “but what I can say to that is: We are not hemorrhaging any more money at 25 percent capacity than we were being closed. We are still losing money, but at least we are open for the community.” —Dan Fisher

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music

In Their Ears 2020 MUSIC SURVEY If there’s been one good byproduct of this bleak and unusual year, perhaps it’s the fact that all of our quarantining has led us to spend more time listening to music than we had before. With this in mind, Chronogram reached out for this piece to a few of the leading names from around the Hudson Valley music scene for a sampling of what’s been on their playlists, turntables, and CD or cassette players in 2020. Me? Well, when I’m not hosting “Go Go Kitty,” my weekly show on Radio Kingston (Thursdays from 12 to 2am), I’ve been especially obsessed with the Riding Easy label’s series of Brown Acid compilations (obscure late ’60s/early ’70s hard rock and heavy psych); New York improv outfit 75 Dollar Bill’s sublime opus I Was Real (Thin Wrist Recordings; Live at Tubby’s, recorded at the Kingston venue last March, is out now); and, if I may toot my own horn here, We Were Living in Cincinnati, an album of early Ohio punk and new wave nuggets I assembled for the HoZac and Shake It record labels. Below is some of what my musical brothers and sisters have been digging. —Peter Aaron Shana Falana musician, Kingston My music selection since the pandemic has changed so much. In the morning, while I’m getting ready to start my day, I listen to Ravi Shankar radio. When I’m home at night cooking it’s John Coltrane radio. During the weekends, I am listening to Marlene Dietrich and Bessie Smith radio, and during the election it’s been Iggy Pop radio! These are all Pandora music stations. Normally, this isn’t my usual [listening medium], but these are unusual times, indeed. I don’t listen to music that makes me want to play music—that would feel like torture. Spike Priggen musician, DJ, and owner of Spike’s Record Rack in Catskill Oddly enough, for a record store owner, I was not a record collector myself until the beginning of this year, when I decided to start doing my radio show (“The Bedazzled Radio Hour with Spike Priggen,” Wednesdays noon to 2pm on WGXC) live with physical media, instead of prerecording it with mp3s, as I’d been doing before. So I’ve been buying and rediscovering records by some of my all-time favorite artists and bands, such as Roky Erikson, Guided by Voices, the La’s, the Pretty Things, Lee Hazlewood (Light In The Attic is doing an amazing reissue campaign on Lee), the Jacobites, Vashti Bunyan, and the Bee Gees. Decora hip-hop artist and performance poet, Newburgh Yes, it’s been a tough year and in order to prevail I’ve been listening to a lot of positive podcast and audio books. In addition to these I’ve also been listening to music that has motivated me out of writer’s block. I even put together a playlist on Spotify called “2020 I WILL WIN,” which includes Flume (“The Difference” featuring Toro y Moi), Tion Wayne (“I Dunno” featuring Dutchavelli and Stormzy), and Rejjie Snow (“Cookie Chips” featuring MF DOOM and Cam O’bi). These are a few gems to keep the vibes going until I do my next listening party in Newburgh in December with Melissa McGill. Melissa auf der Maur musician and co-owner of Basilica Hudson Hello, 2020! The year we all learned to see the world through a new, sobering lens. With NO live music for the first year of my life since I started performing arts elementary school, my love and connection with music has been very odd this year. Entirely limited to listening and, considering my options, AT HOME ALONE. The eclectic results have been something like this: “Hamilton,” the musical, entered my daughter’s life this summer and hooked us as a family instantly. A necessary and entertaining homeschool program of American Founding Fathers for a Canadian, I am LOVING it. With the loss of innocence we are facing this year, making for a melancholic mood, I have not been able to resist going back to finding comfort in the Smiths, as I

did in my first wave of rude awakening as a teen in high school. Then there are my go-to happy sounds of dark pop and synths that always elevate my spirits, like Grimes, Interpol, and Depeche Mode. When live music comes back, I promise it will be ALL NEW MUSIC! I will go out and support and see all I can! Jaguar Mary X host of “Midnight Medicine Journey” (Mondays, Tuesdays, and Sundays from 12 to 2am on Radio Kingston) The great thing about music is its ability to trigger memories and special life events. I’ve been playing “Benji” by Soulflower frequently because it’s brilliantly produced. Some of the go-to (sometimes overused) sounds that electro music producers create, though present in “Benji,” are articulated gently and beautifully. It reminds me of being on the road, traveling without time or destination restrictions. It’s a long track, about eight minutes. “Benji” gives listeners a chance to really fly with it. There’s barely any information available about Soulflower, the track’s creator, which adds to the song’s trance-like quality. I’m inspired by anthems of freedom, too. Specifically, I love Buffy Saint-Marie’s track “You Gotta Run (Spirit of the Wind)” and “We Rising Up” by Climbing PoeTree. For me, these songs bolster the agency of ordinary people to change the world. It’s a very important message right now. Cory Plump co-owner of Tubby’s, Kingston I haven’t ventured into a record store since March, so I’ve only been buying stuff online. I figured to do this honestly, I would just tell you the stack of records right next to my turntable at this very moment: Lewsberg’s In This House, the Shifters’ Have a Cunning Plan, Powers/ Rolin Duo’s Powers/Rolin Duo, Container’s Scramblers, Anika’s EP, Matchess’s Sacracorpa, the Kinks’ Glenhenry Winners, and Alejandro Duran’s Rey Negro Acordeón Vallento (Mas Vallenatos, Vol. 6). Also, after snorting up the “Cocaine and Rhinestones” podcast, I’ve been reexamining some of the early work of Buck Owens (the mid-’60s, classic Buckaroos lineup) and Ernest Tubb. Oh, and some screwed-up cumbia mixes by Archivo Sonido Dueñez on Mixcloud.com. Simi Stone musician, Woodstock At the beginning of March, blasting music alone in my car was my refuge. Common’s 2016 album, Black America Again is an express train straight to a source of truth. I played the sweetest beats and poetic fever of this man. The earnest plea in his tonality for love and justice. This, at a time when I could not get George Floyd’s scratchy voice, pleading for his life, out of my head. These cuts on repeat for weeks. Jay-Z’s “A Star is Born” from his 2001 album The Blue Print. Charlie XCX’s single “Enemy”—pop sugar glaze and baller bass that would make my car doors vibrate! It was pure escapism. Elliot Smith’s Either/Or made for a perfect bedtime headphone lullaby for sad dreamers. Lately, I’ll be driving and feeling weepy, throw on the Velvet Underground’s 1969 live album, and crank it, for its sublime effect. I don’t need drugs to get high with this crew: The track “Jesus” was hitting home, and the genius from top to bottom gives one a sensation of another time—a time when art was cherished and rock ’n’ roll was Jimi Hendrix, and then Lou Reed and Patti Smith carried the torch. I was drawn into their storytelling and characters. When truth was truth and lying mattered. For a familiar symphonic delight, I’ve been digging on ‘The Four Seasons’ from Opus 8 by Antonio Vivaldi. The New York Philharmonic with Alan Gilbert recorded an impeccable, full-length, exciting rendition. Check it out on Apple Music and Spotify. Nothing like a 300-year-old concerto blaring at full volume through late summer into fall in the weirdest year of our lives.

From top: Lee Hazlewood, Forty Container, Scramblers Climbing Poe Tree, Intrinsic Rejjie Snow, Cookie Chips 12/20 CHRONOGRAM THE GUIDE 65

exhibits

Drusilla Balduf, Eva Watson-Schütze

Outerspace Dad’s Old Tattoo Smiley Foot, Emilie L. Gossiaux

“CELEBRATING THE CENTENNIAL” AT WOODSTOCK ARTISTS ASSOCIATION & MUSEUM

EMILIE L. GOSSIAUX AT MOTHER GALLERY

Curated by Tom Wolf, this exhibition focuses on the early years of the association, including works by its five founders: Carl Eric Lindin, Frank Swift Chase, John Carlson, Andrew Dasburg, and Henry Lee McFee. Their pieces are flanked by works by women who also played important roles in the early years of the association, Eva Watson-Schütze and Zulma Steele, as well as Birge Harrison, the Tonalist painter and teacher who inspired many Woodstock artists. Woodstockart.org

The New Orleans-born artist Emilie L. Gossiaux became blind a few years ago after being hit by a tractor-trailer while riding her bike. At the time of the accident, Gossiaux was studying art at Cooper Union; in 2019, she earned her MFA from Yale. Gossiaux has to rely on her memories and sensory experiences for her work, using ballpoint pen on newsprint to draw outlines that she later fills in with wax crayons. She also creates sculptures by using clay to recreate body parts, appendages which fall somewhere between real and imagined. Mothergallery.art

Weird RTW Tales, Bilrock

“IN OUR OWN WORLD” AT JOYCE GOLDSTEIN GALLERY A group show of six artists who create distinct worlds in their work. Dr. Revolt’s paintings are made by an alter ego in a supercharged reality of superheroes and villains. Alex Itin’s one-of-a-kind stickers are reminiscent of Picasso’s portraits. Jessica Bard’s photographs capture the early days of street skateboarding in New York City during the early 1980s. A former photographer for the Daily News, Martha Cooper documented the world of children on the Lower East Side. Bilrock teases with his comic book covers, providing a glimpse into psychedelic and graffiti culture. Greatboxers’s paintings confront viewers with depictions of brutality. Joycegoldsteingallery.com

11 JANE ST

DIA:BEACON

JOYCE GOLDSTEIN GALLERY

“Debra Priestly: Memory Walking.” Through December 13. “Social Distancing (Solstice Drive-In).” A durational performance for multiple video projections and spacialized sound system. December 19-20, 4-8pm.

Works by Lee Ufan, Sam Gilliam, Mel Bochner, Barry Le Va, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, and others on long-term view.

“In Our Own World”. Work by Jessica Bard, Martha Cooper, Bilrock, GREATBOXERS, Dr. REVOLT, and Alex Itin. Through December 26.

11 JANE STREET, SAUGERTIES

ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM 258 MAIN STREET, RIDGEFIELD, CT

“Through the Eye of a Needle.” First major solo museum exhibition of New York-based artist Genesis Belanger. “Frank Stella’s Stars: A Survey.” Outdoor installation. Both shows through May 9.

BARD COLLEGE : CCS BARD GALLERIES PO BOX 5000, ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON

“Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somehwere.” Solo museum exhibition of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Through February 14.

3 BEEKMAN STREET, BEACON

FRANCES LEHMAN LOEB ART CENTER VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE

“Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States.” Retablos are thank-you notes to the heavens dedicated to Christ, the Virgin, or saints to consecrate a miraculous event. The votives in this exhibition—spanning the entirety of the 20th century—were offered by Mexican migrants and their families to commemorate the dangers of crossing the border and living in the United States. Through December 13.

FERROVIA STUDIOS

17 RAILROAD AVENUE, KINGSTON

19 CENTRAL SQUARE, CHATHAM

KLEINERT/JAMES ARTS CENTER 34 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

“5 by 7 Show.” Major fundraising exhibition for Byrdcliffe featuring 5-by-7 inch artworks from local artists which are sold for $150 each. December 4-20.

LABSPACE

2642 ROUTE 23, KINGSTON “Holiday Show.” Group exhibition of small works. Through January 17.

“Pamela Zaremba: Transposed.” Through December 6.

“David Schoichet: Recent Work.” Schoichet’s black and white photographs are exclusively of people of color; his subjects range from brief interactions with strangers at public events such as protests, rallies, and marches, to intimate portraits of family and friends. Ongoing.

BOARDMAN ROAD BRANCH LIBRARY

GARRISON ART CENTER

“Lynn Schamberger: Needlepoint and Fiber Art.” Through January 3.

“Jill Enfield: New Americans”. A solo exhibition of collodion portrait photographs. December 5-January 3.

“Bochner Boetti Fontana.” Examines the formal, conceptual and procdural affinites in the work of Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, and Lucio Fontana. Curated by Mel Bochner. Through January 11.

CARRIE HADDAD GALLERY

HUDSON BEACH GLASS

622 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

162 MAIN STREET, BEACON

MARK GRUBER GALLERY

“Memory as Place.” Group show with Richard Britell, Sue Bryan, Shawn Dulaney, Susan Hope Fogel, Ricardo Mulero, Linda Newman Boughton, Eric Lindbloom, and Leigh Palmer. December 2-January 31.

“Pith.” New paintings by Khara Gilvey. Through December 6.

HUDSON HALL

BAU GALLERY

506 MAIN STREET, BEACON

141 BOARDMAN ROAD, POUGHKEEPSIE

CLARK ART INSTITUTE

225 SOUTH STREET, WILLIAMSTOWN, MA “Ground/work.” First outdoor exhibition at the Clark featuring work by Kelly Akashi, Nairy Baghramian, Jennie C. Jones, Eva LeWitt, Analia Saban, and Haegue Yang. Through October 2021.

66 THE GUIDE CHRONOGRAM 12/20

23 GARRISON’S LANDING, GARRISON

327 WARREN STREET, HUDSON “Art & Soul.” Group show featuring work by David Hammons, Bijan Mahmoodi, Reginald Madison, Marlene Marshall, Kris Perry, Richard Sandler, Tschabalala Self, and Kianja Strobert. Curated by Reginald Madison. Through December 20.

THE ICE HOUSE

17 MANDALAY DRIVE, GARRISON “Firewater.” Paintings by Lucia Love. Through December 19.

LOCKWOOD GALLERY

747 ROUTE 28, HILLSDALE “Woodstock School of Art Instructor’s Exhibition.” Group exhibition of small works. Through December 6.

MAGAZZINO ITALIAN ART

2700 ROUTE 9, COLD SPRING

NEW PALTZ PLAZA, NEW PALTZ

“Holiday Salon Show.” Group show. December 5-January 31.

MOTHER GALLERY

1154 NORTH AVENUE, BEACON “Memory of a Body.” Emilie L. Gossiaux. December 12-January 31.

NEW YORK RESTAURANT

353 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL “Sirpa Cowell: Paintings.” Through January 1.

exhibits

Holding Pattern 1, Lucia Love

"LUCIA LOVE: FIREWATER" AT THE ICE HOUSE IN GARRISON Lucia Love’s surreal paintings are dense with symbolism referencing politics, gender, history, and the dynamics of power. Love works like an author of speculative fiction, pushing actual events to their most absurd extremes to create imagined worlds that tilt toward the dystopian. Love is also the co-host of the “Art and Labor” podcast, where she reports on social justice organizing within the arts. Jdj.world

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“Cragsmoor Artists in Olive.” Group show curated by Ed Mues. Through January 9.

“All Out/All In.” Group show featuring work by Natalie Baxter, Jen Dwyer, Amanda L. Edwards, Mark Fleuridor, Rose Nestler, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Liz Nielsen, Nyugen Smith, and Aisha Tandiwe Bell. Through March 27.

4033 ROUTE 28A, WEST SHOKAN

PAMELA SALISBURY GALLERY

362 1/2 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

37 FURNACE BANK ROAD, WASSAIC

“All Small.” Small-scale works by Silas Borsos, Farrell Brickhouse, Tom Burckhardt, Daisy Craddock, Lois Dickson, Diana Horowitz, Elisa Jensen, Kathryn Lynch, Michael Meehan, and Elena Sisto. December 12-January 17.

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QUEEN CITY 15 GALLERY

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“New Narratives.” Xuewu Zheng and Emmanuel Ofori. December 4-26.

“Twilight Year.” Group show of works that explore all of the aspects of dark art—macabre and dark surreal—in the works of contemporary female, non-binary and gender fluid artists. December 6-29.

317 MAIN STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE

SEPTEMBER

449 WARREN STREET #3, HUDSON. “Allison Schulnik: Moth.” A large-scale animation by Allison Schulnik about the constant nature of change, and the interdependence of growth and decay, life, and death. Through December 20.

43 SOUTH THIRD STREET, HUDSON “Post Photosynthesis.” Sculpture, drawing, video, and painting by Mimi Czajka Graminski. December 2-January 4.

4 SOUTH CLINTON STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE

WOODSTOCK ART EXCHANGE 1398 ROUTE 28, WOODSTOCK

STANDARD SPACE

“Small Etchings: Joseph Owczarek”. A registered architect and interior designer, Owczarek studied drawing and printmaking at the Illustrators Society, Spring Street Studio, and the Salmagundi Club. Through December 28.

“Nostalgia.” Ann Toebbe and Carly Glovinski. Curated by Jennifer Terzian. Through January 10.

WOODSTOCK ARTISTS ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM

TANJA GRUNERT SALON

“C.J. Matherne: Stacked Against You.” Paintings. Through February 1. “Celebrating the Centennial: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Woodstock Artists Association, Part 1.” Through March 28.

147 MAIN STREET, SHARON, CT

21 PROSPECT AVENUNE, HUDSON “Emily Ritz: Feeling Myself.” Drawings, watercolors, ceramics. Through December 13.

28 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

THOMAS COLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE 218 SPRING STREET, CATSKILL

“Pollinator Pavilion.” A 21½-foot-high, painted wood, architectural confection draped with flowers, plants, and paintings by Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood. Ongoing.

12/20 CHRONOGRAM THE GUIDE 67

Horoscopes By Lorelai Kude

TWO BIG ECLIPSES, ONE WINTER SOLSTICE, A GREAT CONJUNCTION, AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE The celestial portends illuminating the darkest time of year signal we’re headed for an epochal change, and that process creates disruption, anxiety, and resistance. How can we be the light as this present darkness of societal division and disunity looms large? December really begins with the Lunar Eclipse/Full Moon in Gemini on November 30 in tandem with a Mercury/Saturn sextile supporting the desire to comprehend, rather than cull, those with differences. The more we alienate, distance, and cast out others, the more urgent restoration and reconciliation becomes. The Solar Eclipse/New Moon in Sagittarius on December 14, accompanied by Venus’s sextile to Jupiter and Mercury’s trine to Mars, demands liberty, freedom, and independence, balanced with individual responsibility to the greater community. This Solar Eclipse at 23 degrees Sagittarius is the counterpoint/bookend to the Lunar Eclipse at 23 Sagittarius, which occurred the day of Donald Trump’s birth. It happens that the Electoral College meets on the very day of the eclipse, December 14. The parenthetical eclipses of Trump’s birth and December 14 may end up bookending a public life: in with one eclipse and out with another? At the Winter Solstice on December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will make a “Great Conjunction” In the sign of Aquarius for the first time since 1405. This is a signpost for the “Age of Aquarius,” as the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction cycles are viewed as cosmological portents of political and social change, such as the emergence of a new dynasty, nation, or the revelation of a great prophet. How can we be the light? With Jupiter/Saturn in idealistic, universalistic, humanitarian Aquarius, we don’t just light our own candle. We reach across the aisle to light someone else’s candle, and together we shine light into the darkest places—first within our own hearts, and then to the world we share.

ARIES (March 20–April 19) Mars direct in Aries is a huge relief this month! You’re finally in your comfort zone with a clear path ahead, empowered to take positive steps in the right direction. The Solar Eclipse/New Moon in Sagittarius on December 14 reroutes your inner GPS to the destination; Mercury trine Mars fills you with energy and purpose. The Winter Solstice at First Quarter Moon in Aries on December 21 pushes the reset button back to factory settings. Mars square Pluto on December 23 finalizes a conflict brewing since October. The hard and sometimes unpleasant work of 2020 has developed your wisdom muscles: Flex away!

TAURUS (April 19–May 20) Planetary ruler Venus in Scorpio through December 14 continues to trigger issues of security and possession around your relationships. Be clear about what belongs to you and what you’re willing to share with others. Venus square Neptune on December 5 distorts relationship perceptions; though this may be pleasant, it isn’t necessarily truthful. Venus sextiles Pluto, Jupiter, and Saturn December 10–15, supporting the deep maturation and extended development of emotional responsibility. Be worthy of the trust others have placed in you. You deserve to relax December 24–26; equanimity and calmness of spirit is the best holiday gift to give yourself. A practicing, professional astrologer for over 30 years, Lorelai Kude can be reached for questions and personal consultations via email (lorelaikude@yahoo.com) and her Kabbalah-flavored website is Astrolojew.com. 68 HOROSCOPES CHRONOGRAM 12/20

Horoscopes

GEMINI (May 20–June 21) December really kicks off on November 30 with the Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse in Gemini and planetary ruler Mercury’s sextile to Saturn. This is a cosmic curtain call summoning you to a starring role over the next year. Doubts about your capabilities are put to rest with extreme displays of competency at Mercury’s trine to Mars during the Solar Eclipse/New Moon on December 14. Mercury in Sagittarius on December 20 slings truth arrows at every target standing between you and the naysayers. Original ideas get attention on December 24; your unique perspective is valued by influencers who help raise your profile.

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CANCER (June 21–July 22) Eclipse season began for you on November 30 with the Lunar Eclipse/Full Moon illuminating your deepest secrets, empowering you to speak your truth precisely and succinctly at the Last Quarter Moon in Virgo December 7. Solar Eclipse/New Moon in freedom-loving Sagittarius on December 14 liberates you from sharing your feelings with emotional vampires. Take back your heart, take courage, and take stock of your resources on December 21 at the Winter Solstice/First Quarter Moon in Aries. The Full Moon in Cancer on December 19 is your annual personal Full Moon: Revel in your own uniqueness and celebrate your individuality!

LEO (July 22–August 23) Sun-ruled Leo is disproportionally influenced by the solar square to Neptune on December 9, which demands a clear decision despite muddled perceptions. Discern between temporary circumstances and long-term realities. Choose the wise path, bypassing distorting distractions; cleave to the non-negotiables that have been your guiding values all along. Solar Eclipse/New Moon in Sagittarius on December 14 reinforces your core truth; Sun’s conjunction to Mercury on December 19 before the Winter Solstice on December 21 empowers clearer communication. Sun’s trine to Uranus on December 27 sparks genius, and genius loves company New Year’s Eve. Let your love light shine, even from behind a mask.

VIRGO (August 23–September 23) Last Quarter Moon in Virgo on December 7 invites you to tie up relationship loose ends in the gap between the ideal vs. the real. Imperfection is perfectly human and so are you; acknowledging imperfection mean you’re only human. Mercury’s trine to Mars at the Solar Eclipse/New Moon on December 14 empowers transformative truth-telling at home and with family. Default toward diplomacy rather than bluntness on December 19 at the Sun’s conjunction to Mercury; don’t burn the bridges you’ll need when Mercury trines Uranus on December 24 bringing fresh, ingenious ideas for which you’ll need the support of friends and associates.

LIBRA (September 23–October 23) Planetary ruler Venus gives you a boost with firm foundational support via sextiles to Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn December 10–15. This invites you to build upon a feeling of emotional stability, even if external circumstances are anything but stable. Your influence in neighborhood, community, and immediate surroundings is supercharged at the Solar Eclipse/New Moon on December 14; people will be looking to you for leadership, comfort, and wisdom. Your legendary diplomatic skills come in handy during this time, especially on December 30, when informational interpretive challenges make temporary waves. Be the calm in the midst of the storm!

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12/20 CHRONOGRAM HOROSCOPES 69

Horoscopes

SCORPIO (October 23–November 21) Mars squares Pluto again December 23, as they did August 13 with Pluto retrograde, and again October 9 with Mars Retrograde. Scorpio’s two planetary rulers in a challenging square; Mars in Cardinal Fire Aries and Pluto in Cardinal Earth Capricorn. By modality they agree: Cardinal energy initiates. By element they conflict fire vs. earth. Integrate fire’s inspiration with earth’s manifestation and use these dynamic energies to direct internal, creative tensions to the yielding of rewarding leaps in personal development. This time both Mars and Pluto will be direct: Now you can move with this energy instead of against it.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22–December 22) The Solar Eclipse / New Moon in Sagittarius December 14 invites you to really put down roots and manifest your wisdom; Venus sextile Jupiter inspires you to do so in a beautiful way. The Jupiter-Saturn “Great Conjunction” on the Winter Solstice December 21 signals an epochal shift of which you are an integral part. Planetary ruler Jupiter in Aquarius through the end of December 2021 gives you an entire year’s worth of tremendous ideas; the conjunction with Saturn enhances concentrated, consistent, profound thinking. You’ll be able to connect successfully in a big way via any number of communication modalities.

CAPRICORN (December 22–January 20)

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After two and a half years in his home sign of Capricorn, planetary ruler Saturn enters Aquarius on December 16, where he stays through March 2023. Use your values, valuables, resources, and abundance-generating powers to benefit your environment, your community, and humanity itself. The conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius at the Winter Solstice on December 21 supersizes this imperative and reveals that the causes of righteousness have a deep need for your wisdom, maturity, experience, and patience. You will be in great demand in the coming epochal shift and you’re up to the task after everything you’ve been through.

AQUARIUS (January 20–February 19) With both Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius during the entirety of 2021, you’re looking forward to a sea change of a year ahead with your name on it—literally. The flag drops on “The Aquarian Age” at the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius on December 21, the Winter Solstice. These two tremendous luminaries, whose conjunction is historically understood to signal epochal shifts, haven’t met in your sign since the year 1405. The year ahead is the most significant opportunity to take gigantic steps towards actualizing your ideals, developing the deepest self-understanding and manifesting the truest you possible.

PISCES (February 20-March 19)

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70 HOROSCOPES CHRONOGRAM 12/20

Venus trine Neptune on December 5 invites magical possibilities. Last Quarter Moon in Virgo on December 7 helps stimulate wisdom and discernment in partnerships; Sun square Neptune on December 9 challenges you to define your desires if you want them fulfilled. The Solar Eclipse/New Moon in Sagittarius on December 14 signals a new beginning in the realm of your career and public persona. Classical planetary ruler Jupiter in Aquarius until December 2021 opens a gigantic portal into your unconscious/subconscious mind where all sorts of goodies are stored. You’ll be excavating them, one by one, over the next 13 months.

Ad Index Our advertisements are a catalog of distinctive local experiences. Please support the fantastic businesses that make Chronogram possible. 100 Main...........................................32

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Larson Architecture Works.................24 Liza Phillips Design............................28 Mark Gruber Gallery..........................64 Masa Midtown...................................20 Millman Tshirt Factory........................32

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Catskill Art & Office Supply................10

Newhard’s – The Home Source.........33

Catskill Cryo......................................40 Catskill Liquors Wine & Spirits...........40 Clarkson University............................37 Columbia Memorial Health...Back Cover The Dancing Beast............................32 Dedrick’s Pharmacy...........................36 Demitasse.........................................28 Dia Beacon........................................63 Elena Herrera Jewelry........................32 Facial, Plastic, Reconstructive and Laser Surgery.......................11 Fionn Reilly Photography...................68 Fluff Alpaca........................................24 Frank Azzopardi.................................64 Gadaleto’s Seafood Market...............20 Gary DiMauro............Inside Back Cover Glenn’s Wood Sheds.........................70 Green Cottage...................................71 H Houst & Son..................................28 Hawthorne Valley Association..............2

Old Souls...........................................11 Outlast Goods...................................33 Peter Aaron.......................................64 Ridgeline Realty.................................28 Rip Van Winkle Brewing Company.....40 Rob Hare Maker of Things.................32 Rosendale Theatre............................71 RPAC Art Center and Academy RPAC Gallery...............................32 Sassafras Mercantile..........................28 Schneider’s Jewelers, Inc..................29 Solar Generation................................27 Sunflower Natural Food Market...........9 Susan Eley Fine Art............................32 Susan Silver Antiques........................28 Teller Hill............................................33 Third Eye Associates Ltd...................69 Vanikiotis Group................................18 Village of Kinderhook.........................29 Walnut Hill Fine Art.............................64 Warren Kitchen & Cutlery.....................9

Holistic Natural Medicine: Integrative Healing Arts................36

WDST 100.1 Radio Woodstock.........70

The Homestead School.......................2

Williams Lumber & Home Center...... Inside Front Cover

Hudson Hills Montessori School........36 Hudson River Housing.......................28 Hudson Valley Sunrooms...................27 Imperial Guitar & Soundworks...........64

Wimowe............................................29 Win Morrison...............................30, 31 YMCA of Kingston and Ulster County........................69

Chronogram December 2020 (ISSN 1940-1280) Chronogram is published monthly. Subscriptions: $36 per year by Chronogram Media, 45 Pine Grove Ave. Suite 303, Kingston, NY 12401. Periodicals postage pending at Kingston, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Chronogram, 45 Pine Grove Ave. Suite 303, Kingston, NY 12401.

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parting shot

A photo of a porucpine from Nora Scarlett’s Ledge Lake Leaf Labyrinth In 2016, photographer Nora Scarlett published Trunks of the Gunks, featuring some of the stranger tree formations in the Shawangunk Mountains. In her latest book for Black Dome, Ledge Lake Leaf Labyrinth, Scarlett presents the many faces of the range, from its northernmost tip to its southern reaches. Scarlett captures the flora and fauna, as well as its human-made and geological marvels. She documents ladders and pathways that snake through weathered rock and wood, bright orange lizards and fungi that rest on verdant, mossy stones and hidden

72 PARTING SHOT CHRONOGRAM 12/20

canyons, lakes and waterfalls that have been crafted by nature over tens of thousands of years. Scarlett was drawn to photograph the Gunks because of its network of carriageways and the geological makeup of the mountains themselves. The former makes traversing the terrain much easier, while the latter provides stunning images. “The white rock [of the Shawangunks] is just such a graphic visual element that makes an ordinary picture of a forest interesting,” Scarlett explained. “The rock is so sculptural; it calls out so graphically and makes such

a great compositional element.” Scarlett was just as interested in the smaller moments along the Gunks. As seen above, she captured a photo of a porcupine occupying a tree that was on her property, just west of the village of New Paltz. The creature had been something of a domestic pest, rooting around in her compost and garbage, but the porcupine is just another small, integral part of the sprawling ecosystem of the Shawangunk Mountains. —Matthew McDonough

Linden Farm Second Empire

$899,000

Eccentric 4 BR/2 BA Informal Rural Italianate on 3.8 acres in Red Hook, amid 1200+ acres of multi-generational crop farms and a preserved landscape. 3-story, circa 1856, 4875 sf, driveway lined with century-old trees. Columned porch with decorative brackets & cornices, carved doors & generous foyer. Sunlit parlor & dining room have fireplaces, elaborate period moldings & French doors. Sweeping staircase, large landings & tower with bright bedrooms. Third story with steep mansard roof, pedimented windows & 6 dramatic rooms, each with original porcelain sinks. Cupola w/ endless views. Well-maintained with much new infrastructure. Perfect as a private home or as a venue for elaborate occasions.

❚ Eliane M. Abramoff 917.608.2680

Rowe House

This year, we’re more thankful than ever for our homes in the Hudson Valley.

$995,000

Circa 1810 manor 5 BR/5.5 BA house on 10 acres in Milan w/ pond & 2 swimming pools. Delightful joining of an authentic Federal wing and a 1970s-style entertainer’s paradise. Fireplace in large living room, and stone patios, indoor pool w/ fireside seating area, and the conservatory deck. Outside pool w/ poolhouse w/ sauna & woodburning fireplace. Sumptuous master suite with double master bathrooms, double sinks, and double dressing areas. The Federal wing is perfect for guests, with 4 cozy bedrooms, ensuite bathrooms, and its own sitting & dining areas. The stylish kitchen is the center of the house that brings everyone together. Detached oversized 5-bay garage, a reflecting pond, and charming country views.

❚ Gary DiMauro 518.755.3973

23 Fitch Street

$1,380,000

A stately 1884 Gothic Church overlooking Rondout Creek and bordering Kingston’s Historic Rondout section. Large main floor with exposed stone walls & lights from the Russian Tea Room, combo kitchen, dining & living space with adjacent private BR suite. Large original nave with stained glass, Venetian plaster, vaulted ceiling. 2 rooms can be converted to BRs. Major renovation, new heating & plumbing, electric, windows, and standing-seam metal roof, custom copper & French gutters. Plenty of parking on a large double lot. A property with many possibilities.

❚ Tracy Dober 845.399.6715 ❚ Adelia Geiger 845.216.0218

Modern Ashokan Views

$1,350,000

Beautifully designed modern 3 BR/3.5 BA home at the top of a private drive on a quiet country road in Olive. The interior is designed to draw the eye down the long line of the house, and as you move along the main hall, the home unfolds to sweeping views. Step down to the open living room, dining room and kitchen, and the elevation reveals views of the Ashokan reservoir. Living room with large built-in sofa surrounding the wood-burning fireplace. The master bedroom enjoys the same views and a modern ensuite tiled bath with dual rain shower heads & walk-in closet. 2 additional bedrooms, with their own baths, large additional flexible space to (yoga, office, or guest room), generous pantry & separate laundry mud room. Large screened porch with outdoor fireplace provides a welcoming spot to enjoy the views and through the seasons.

❚ Rachel Hyman-Rouse 917.686.4906

Twin Lake Houses

$1,450,000

Two 2-story 3BR/3BA homes in Pine Plains perched on a private 5 acre peninsula extending into 50 acre Twin Island Lake. Perfect for multi-generational living and/ or the requisite home office during this time. Inviting and comfortable with brick fireplaces, country kitchens & cozy dens. Beamed lake rooms with windows on three sides connect you to ever-changing nature. Private porches & decks. Swim, kayak & fish. A remote sanctuary minutes from community, these homes deliver the much-needed good life. Available fully furnished to simplify your transition.

❚ Eliane M. Abramoff 917.608.2680

Tivoli NY • Hudson NY • Catskill NY Rhinebeck NY • Kingston NY

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