Chronogram 20th Anniversary Special Section

S P E C I A L

S E C T I O N

TH

ANNIVERSARY Featuring highlights of our content from the past 20 years.

PRESENTED BY

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BEGINNINGS

HOW IT ALL GOT STARTED

By Jason Stern

I

remember well the moment the idea of Chronogram first occurred.

It was almost dawn on a balmy night in July of 1993. Amara and I had been lying in the grass all night, talking about the future. We were college dropouts living in a spiritual community, unsure of what we would do “in the world.”

The stars were bright and we identified some constellations. Following the line described by Orion’s belt downward I pointed out Sirius, just as it rose above the horizon. It was as though the start itself conveyed an idea.

“We should start a magazine,” I said as we looked at the dual star.

“Yes,” said Amara, as though it was obvious.

We talked further, fleshing out the concept.

“The Hudson Valley is so rich with clusters of community and creativity,” Amara contributed.

“It needs a calendar that lists even the smallest events and gatherings,” I responded, as though engaging in a process of Socratic dialectic. “It would be a kind of esoteric calendar, for those who are in the know.”

The next day we stopped by the SUNY college library and perused the mammoth Oxford English Dictionary seeking a term that matched our meaning.

Chronogram—“The word,” we read, “meaning ‘time writing’, derives from the Greek words chronos (‘time’) and gramma (‘letter’).” Perfect.

We quit our jobs and set to work. Amara designed a format and media kit and I planned editorial, canvassed organizations for calendar listings, and offered advertising space. We gave ourselves two months to conjure content and sell 10 pages of ads. If we could do it, the magazine would go forward. If not, we’d go back to our day jobs with our tails between our legs.

What qualified us to start a magazine? Nothing much other than the hubris and daring of youth. I had been a professional rock climber, a Chinese herb salesman, a writer and photographer for a local newspaper; Amara had been a painter, graphic designer, and bookstore manager.

But we had inspiration from a star, and that enthusiasm was contagious.

Two months later we had sold 12 pages of ads and Chronogram was born.

We rented office space and learned to roll with the punches. For instance, when the first issue came back from the printer bound horizontally instead of vertically, we decided to go with it, and used the format more like a calendar than a magazine for a few years.

In the beginning a friend who was experienced in business said “an enterprise is never mature for at least 7 years.” This was hard to swallow at age 22, but after seven years, I saw something interesting happen: What had required constant effort and attention from me and Amara began to take on a life of its own. People joined us who shouldered responsibility, and fed the magazine with new talent and creativity, and the magazine’s readers and advertisers began to show truly sustaining support.

Twenty years later, Chronogram has attained its majority, and has become a real force in the community, which is, for its founders a great source of pride and pleasure. Over the years, innumerable people have said the words “I didn’t know how much the Hudson Valley had to offer until I read Chronogram.” This was and remains precisely our purpose, and was, perhaps, what the purpose the Dog Star meant to convey.

The debut issue, cover art by Jane Sanders

AMARA PROJANSKY

W

hen Jason suggested we start a New Age magazine, I let the idea settle in me for a minute. I liked magazines, and I liked reading, and I liked the area, and I even liked thoughtful, New Age kind of stuff. But I realized it was going to need more content than that. I told him to count me in— but we should include arts and culture as well as the spiritual. We focused the magazine on helping people enjoy the area as much as we did. Meanwhile, I wanted it to look really good. I had studied art, but I wasn’t confident or schooled in graphic design, so a few choice suggestions along the way helped me learn, and over successive issues I found the look and feel of the magazine. Stanley Kanney suggested we use the cover to showcase real art—a signature feature of Chronogram to this day. Dorothy Hamburg’s

52 20TH ANNIVERSARY CHRONOGRAM 11/13

eye for type was contagious and helped me find a format that was easily readable and a pleasure to peruse from the beginning. A few great designers (thank you, Anthony Kosner) gave me encouragement that what I was doing worked, despite my doubts.

My five-year stint as art director for Chronogram—only one of the many hats I wore when we first began—ended, but it was the beginning of a surprise love affair with graphic design—for both me and the magazine. My shoes have been over-filled by our subsequent art directors, Molly Rubin, Carla Rozman, and David Perry, and I get a thrill seeing the beautiful development of the magazine. What started out being referred to as “that little thing” grew and grew. Now you can’t miss it, (unless you forget to pick one up in the first week of the month). It just gets better and better.

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Chronogram's natal chart

HOROSCOPES

CHRONOGRAM AND URANUS CONJUNCT NEPTUNE

By Eric Francis Coppolino

O

ne day in the late 20th century, as the first issue of Chronogram was going to press, there was a Full Moon in Aries. That makes Chronogram a natal Libra, a sign natural enough for a magazine that wants to both look good and do things well. The Aries Moon for its part is about bold initiative; I call this the Dauntless Moon, which we also find in the charts of Jerry Garcia, Salvador Dali, Betty Dodson, and many other artful pioneers.

On October 1, 1993, my symbolic chart for the first publication, the Aries Moon was conjunct Eris, which was not discovered at the time. To me, Moon-Eris talks about the profound search for identity—driven by uncertainty but also by purpose, complete with constant self-reinvention, many facets of expression, and more than a touch of creative chaos. Yet all of that churning passion is nicely veiled by the Libra Sun. You might not notice it’s there from the outside.

With Mercury and Mars conjunct in Scorpio, there is passion, an affinity for business, and also an inscrutability factor. (Some would say this imparts a natural mission to educate others about sex and relationships.) With Venus and Chiron in Virgo, there is both perfectionism and a drive for healing. All of this describes Chronogram.

Yet the planets that really tell the story are the more distant ones—particularly a conjunction between Uranus (revolutionary, expressive) and Neptune (spiritual, artful, allpervasive). That long meeting of two slow-movers helped define the late 1980s and early 1990s (the fall of the Berlin Wall and USSR; the Tiananmen Square incident; the dawn of the Internet), and it’s exact to one-quarter of a degree in Chronogram’s chart. This makes Chronogram an embodiment of the conjunction, which is in Capricorn. This conjunction happens less than once per century and often comes with a kind of spiritual and creative revolution. The last one was in 1821.

In Capricorn, the Uranus-Neptune conjunction is about the dissolution of the known order. It arrives in a time of crumbling beliefs and cultural structures. Because Neptune was involved, the conjunction melted a hole in what was then considered reality and allowed in another dimension of spiritual thought. This was around the time people stopped thinking that the paranormal was so weird and started believing in synchronicity.

The Celestine Prophecy was published the same year that Chronogram commenced publication.

The way Chronogram’s planets are arranged, the magazine is part of the 2012-era phenomenon. It caught the early wave of that astrology—and it will catch the last wave, which will be fully activated between 2015 and 2020. That suggests that Chronogram will step into its purpose with greater determination with each passing year.

When Chronogram first published, I was not an astrologer, but I was interested in astrology, and I was reading the Patric Walker horoscope every day in the New York Post.

That is how I initially learned astrology.

By my birthday in 1994 (my 30th—the end of my Saturn return), I went to Esoterica Books in New Paltz and purchased my first ephemeris. For a year, I used that tool to back-engineer Walker’s horoscope, and by April 1995 I was writing one of my own. Later that year, in December 1995, my old friends Amara and Jason picked up my horoscope column and it’s been in Chronogram ever since.

Currently a Kingston resident, Eric Francis Coppolino has lived in Europe, Washington State, and various points in between. In addition to divining the stars for lucky Hudson Valley residents, Eric is also an investigative journalist, author, and essayist.

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COMMUNITY

WE THE PEOPLE

A PLACE IS ONLY AS INTERESTING AS ITS RESIDENTS. The region's mix of creative types—entrepeneurs, artists, farmers, activists, journalists, spiritual seekers and leaders, and characters—speaks to the dynamism of our cultural landscape.

CHRONO :

LOGY

How, why, and when we got here.

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October 1, 1993 The first issue of Chronogram hit the streets. The magazine is a bimonthy for three issues.

3

Number of staffers listed on the masthead of the first issue: 3 (Jason Stern, Amara Projansky, Grady Kane-Horrigan).

Horoscopes

appeared in these pages for the first time in the December, 1995 issue.

Eric Francis Coppolino is our house astrologer.

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Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Bill Yosh of Rock Star Rodeo (David Morris Cunningham); Lissa Harris and Julia Reischel of the Watershed Post (Ulla Kjarval);musician Carla Bley (Fionn Reilly); musician Melora Creager (Fionn Reilly); Kale Kaposhilin of Evolving Media Network (Fionn Reilly); Geddy Sveikauskas (Lauren Thomas); Rabbi Jonathan Kligler ((David Morris Cunningham); Abby Thomas and James Conrad (Jennifer May); activist Sister Adrian Hofstetter (Megan McQuade); artists Judy and Phil Sigunick (David Morris Cunningham); cartoonist David Rees (Jennifer May); Trevor Dunworth of BSP Lounge (David Morris Cunningham); musician Tommy Stinson (Fionn Reilly).

This page, clockwise from top left: Grandfather Woodstock (David Morris Cunningham); Poughkeepsie Farm Project's Susan Grove (Kelly Merchant); Hudsonia's Eric Kiviat ((David Morris Cunningham); Rei Peraza of Panzur (David Morris Cunningham); Elvis impersonator Joseph John Eigo (Fionn Reilly); Christine DeBoer of Wallkill Valley Land Trust (David Morris Cunningham); Benjamin Krevolin, former head of the Dutchess County Arts Council (Kelly Merchant); Kathy Stevens,Catskill Animal Sanctuary founder (David Sax); author Charles Smith (Jennifer May); Sean Nutley of bluecashew Kitchen Pharmacy (David Morris Cunningham).

A chronogram is an inscription, sentence or phrase in which certain letters represent a date or epoch.

4

Number of Chronogram art directors: Amara Projansky, Molly Rubin, Carla Rozman, and David Perry.

According to a survey taken earlier this year, Catherine Sebastian's portrait of Levon Helm is our readers' favorite cover.

A missing issue.

Despite rumors to the contrary, no January 1996 issue of Chronogram was ever printed.

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NEWS & POLITICS

THE LOCAL-TO-GLOBAL CONNECTION

By Lorna Tychostup

T

he synchronicity of adding a News & Politics section in the year 2000 to the already pioneering efforts of Chronogram still astounds. Perhaps we intuited the new millennium would see America embark on the juggernaut journey it still reels from today. With global-to-local and localto-global our mantra, we sought to provide cutting edge, and, in some cases, breaking news that informed on a local/regional level while connecting readers to national and international communities and vice versa.

Making its debut with exacting, eyewitness coverage of the WTO riots in Seattle, Room for a View lurched into coverage of a questionable presidential election ultimately decided by a divided Supreme Court. A heady time, along came 9/11, the Patriot Act, marches to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a robust peace movement marginalized by the mainstream media. Not satisfied with our distant view, we went to these countries and others: Thailand, Pakistan, Burma, Venezuela, Morocco, Sri Lanka—wherever we could, to put faces to stories not being told anywhere else.

In between jaunts, we informed on school funding, efforts to keep the Shawangunk Ridge development free, Indian Point, casinos in the Catskills, alternative energies, organic food regulations, and other critical regional issues.

Always present, boots on the ground, whether interviewing Ambassador Joe Wilson from an American Friends Service Committee peace bus tour traversing Washington State, climbing fences with Manna Jo Greene to investigate Hudson River industrial sites, or e-mailing home to let folks know all was okay after yet another Baghdad bombing, Chronogram has been and remains on the forefront, creating and defining the morphing face of modern journalism.

Lorna Tychostup was senior editor at Chronogram for 10 years. A documentary about her coverage of the Iraq War, Bordering on Treason, premieres on November 19 at the DOC NYC film festival.

EXCERPTS

Photo by Rebecca Rotzler

Photo by Marlis Momber

WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION PROTESTS

REPORTAGE FROM IRAQ

Reportage from Seattle, 1/00 “In one corner of the richest, most jaded, most powerful country in the world—a country that preaches to the world the glories of free trade and capitalism—some 70,000 protestors joined hands to halt a summit meeting of the World Trade Organization,” Todd Paul wrote in an editorial.

Our coverage included two eyewitness reports from activists on the ground (who were peacefully assembled before the police attacked) and an indepth explanation of how the WTO functions.

Lorna Tychostup, 4/03-4/09 Lorna visited Iraq for the first time in February 2003, just weeks before the war began, and spent three weeks dodging regime-assigned “minders” in order to visit homes, hospitals, markets, schools, and walk the streets unencumbered. Returning regularly over the following years, she reported the conditions on the ground—stories of the everyday realities facing Iraqis, from elections to sectarian violence to environmental degradation and recovery. Her reportage constitutes a record of what happened where the TV cameras refused to go.

9/11 EDITORIAL Todd Paul, 10/01 We published an essay by Todd Paul the month after 9/11 that triggered an anti-Chronogram backlash, resulting in a number of nasty letters and a few lost advertisers. Instead of blindly waving the flag like so many were doing at the time, we dared to suggest that US foreign policy was complicit in the causation of 9/11, and that the US should choose its next course of action carefully. An excerpt: “We feel powerless. For a mighty country about to kick some major butt—just as soon as we decide whose butt needs kicking—we feel mighty powerless, don’t we? Why? Three reasons: 1) Deep down inside, we know we’d probably be safer if we refrained from kicking some major butt this time. 2) The major butt-kicking that’s about to commence is completely out of our control. 3) We can’t trust our government to kick the right butts, for the right reasons, and tell us the truth about it.”

The original flip book format of the mag was a printer's error. We switched to saddle-stitch in February 1996.

56 20TH ANNIVERSARY CHRONOGRAM 11/13

Just kids.

When the magazine was launched, Jason and Amara were 23 and 24 years old, respectively.

Photo by Lorna Tychostup

A CALL TO ARMS: HOW WALL STREET & WASHINGTON BETRAYED AMERICA

Photo by Kevin Lamarque

In April 1996

Chronogram.com was launched. Most of our contributors were still faxing in their articles.

Lorna Tychostup, 4/09 An interview with Robert Weissman of the Institute for Public Accuracy about the repeal of financial regulatory authority that led to the recent financial crisis. The conversation discussed the symbiotic relationship between fat cat lobbyists with enormous amounts of money to invest in elected officials and legislators who are more than wiling to both ignore and jettison legislativeregulatory protections. As the meltdown deepened, Weissman expained explored the deep conflicts of interest that exist between lawmakers, ratings agencies like Moody's, and the large financial institutions they rate bonds for.

A humble start.

Editorial director Brian K. Mahoney's first job with the magazine was as a distribution agent.

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Photo by Arko Datta

CHRONOGRAM CONSIDERED AS

THE APOTHEOSIS OF HUDSON VALLEY CULTURE Sparrow and Mikhail Horowitz

INTERVIEW WITH AMBASSADOR JOSEPH WILSON Lorna Tychostup, 12/03 In 2002, former diplomat Joe Wilson traveled to Niger to substantiate claims by the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had bought uranium yellowcake for weapons of mass destruction. Wilson found no evidence of this. On July 6, 2003, the New York Times published an op-ed by Wilson, that stated, in part: “some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” A week later, Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, in an attempt to discredit Wilson. Our interview with Wilson was published while the grand jury investigation into what became known as Plamegate was still underway.

Editor’s note: The two entities functioning here as both interviewer and interviewee are well-known to Chronogram readers: Sparrow is a frequent commentator on some of the more incomprehensible art and theater in the region and the creator of a perplexing column, Quarter to Three, which ran in these pages from 1999-2004; and Mikhail Horowitz as a coeditor (with Nina Shengold) of our erstwhile Literary Supplement, an occasional contributor of book reviews, and a widely celebrated castigated performance artist.

Rosendale, or as a reading light to read other magazines by, like the Watchtower.

Mikhail: Admirable Sparrow, in what way has

A giant tungsten bra hovering over Dallas

Chronogram aided and abetted your career, such as it is?

Sparrow: When I first began writing for Chronogram, I could hardly distinguish an art installation from an auto accident.

Now I am considered one of the three greatest authorities on avant-garde art in the Hudson Valley. I can only thank this magazine for its gentle nurturance of my meager talents.

Photo by Lorna Tychostup

Magnanimous Mikhail, if you could distill the essence of Chronogram into a bumper sticker, what would it be?

Mikhail: It would take far more than one bumper sticker to adequately capture the manifold riches of Chronogram and its place in the Valley’s ethos. Three, to be precise: THINK GLOBALLY, DRINK LOCALLY I AM MORALLY, POLITICALLY, AND RELIGIOUSLY OPPOSED TO DEMOCRACY, AND I VOTE

INTERVIEW WITH BOB MCCHESNEY Brian K. Mahoney, 7/04 In an interview with Bob McChesney following the publication of his book The Problem with Media, the media critic took exception to the role of “professional journalism.” “Many Americans have the erroneous opinion that the notion of professional, independent, non-partisan, non-ideological journalism was something that the Founding Fathers were proponents of, that they believed in objectivity, and that’s what real journalism for democracy is,” McChesney said. “That’s nonsensical. Journalism in the first 125 years of the Republic was stridently partisan and there was no notion of journalism being anything but partisan. The whole idea was to contribute to political debates and to draw people into life and to convince people of your arguments.

What’s considered professional journalism today, is basically stenography to people in power.”

A big boo-boo.

The word February was misspelled on the cover of the Febuary 1997 issue. No one was fired.

MY BOSS WAS A JEWISH CARPENTER— NOW HE’S A CROSSDRESSING ZOROASTRIAN ACOLYTE OF THE FATHER GODDESS Esteemed Sparrow, is there a current cultural phenomenon that you feel can be directly attributed to the influence of this magazine?

Sparrow: Chronogram has made the Hudson Valley so “hip” that indie rock bands in Bushwick are buying kayaks, in futile emulation. There’s a whole section of Pine Hill that is now called Little Williamsburg, and the annual TriBeca Film Festival will be screened next year in Germantown.

Modest Mikhail, how do you describe Chronogram to second homers, Valley residents, or visiting spelunkers?

Mikhail: Generally in glowing terms, but the glow would derive from bioluminescence, not radioactivity. On several occasions I have actually been able to use Chronogram as a flashlight when stumbling through the caves of

A fistfight

was once reported between two readers who grabbed the last copy at the same time.

Splendiferous Sparrow, if there were 17 things you could change about Chronogram’s poetry page, what would one of them be?

Sparrow: Let me answer with my latest poem: Dream Vision

Dignified Mikhail, is it your opinion that, in order to expand its revenue base, this magazine should start exploring the market for Chronogram spin-off merchandise, such as Hudson Valley action figures?

Mikhail: Absolutely. I have in mind a whole line of such items, based on characters created by the Valley’s first literary eminence, Washington Irving. How about a Rip van Winkle action figure that, when wound up, awakens 20 years later? A great gift for your kid’s kid. Or a Headless Horseman bobble-head doll, which can be produced at a very low cost, because it obviates the need of a head to bobble.

Masterful Sparrow, is there any truth to the rumor that Chronogram has hired you to review the fare at conceptual (i.e., nonexistent) restaurants in the region?

Sparrow: That is entirely an exaggeration. I’m only planning to review conceptual (nonexistent) meals at actual, brick-and-mortar restaurants—for example, Mussels Orbiting Jupiter, at Tuthill House.

Multiuntalented Mikhail, can you think of anyone in the Northeast who has a dreamier job than Brian Mahoney, the editor of Chronogram?

Mikhail: I can think of only two people: the guy who, every year in the weeks leading up to Halloween, incarnates Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Barn of Terror; and the woman who puts in one day of work every 17 years, collecting exoskeletons to pulp for her 100-proof periodic cicada cider.

A final question, Sagacious Sparrow: which Chronogram advertiser would you most like to have sex with?

Sparrow: I said my mantra, opened the magazine at random, and put my finger down on Lakshmi Schwartz, transpersonal horticulturalist.

Some readers

wait until the end of the month to read their horoscope so it won't affect their behavior.

75

Number of people who attended our fifth anniversary party at the Rosendale Café in November 1998.

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BOOKS

I

SHELF LIFE

By Nina Shengold

t’s been nearly a decade since Brian Mahoney tapped me to expand Chronogram’s books coverage into a monthly section that surveys the literary scene on both banks of the Hudson, stretching roughly from William Kennedy’s Albany to Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. In that time, we’ve reviewed nearly 1,000 books with some Hudson Valley connection (local author, publisher, subject matter, or upcoming event at one of the area’s great local bookstores). We’ve also profiled well over a hundred authors, from the late great Bard professor Chinua Achebe to High Falls newbie Koren Zailckas (see p. 76).

There may be a dreamier day job than talking with writers, but I can’t imagine one. Through Chronogram, I’ve met Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery in his stocking feet, shared a pub lunch with the McCourt brothers, fed chickens with New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean, touched the Orphic lyre of Woodstock poet laureate Ed Sanders, eaten vindaloo with novelist Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, perched in Esmeralda Santiago and Nancy Willard’s magical writing nests, talked Talk Talk

with Peekskill homeboy T. C. Boyle, and trailed National Geographic adventurer Jon Bowermaster to the Saugerties Lighthouse. Some of these encounters are gathered in River of Words: Portraits of Hudson Valley Writers (SUNY Press, 2010) with photos by Chronogram’s Jennifer May. All are archived at Chronogram.com, alongside profiles by my talented colleagues.

Why do writers and book lovers flock to the Hudson Valley? It may be the soul-stirring beauty, and the short commute from publishing’s company town. But it’s also the sense of community: the library fairs, bookstore events, writers’ workshops, literary festivals, open mics, art walks, and poetry readings in caves. It’s a privilege to write about books in this valley, where words are a natural resource.

Nina Shengold is Chronogram’s books editor and the author of novel Clearcut (Anchor Books, 2005), and her alter ego "Maya Gold" writes for young adults. She once thought we would eventually run out of local writers to profile in this magazine. Not bloody likely.

EXCERPTS

DANNY SHANAHAN, cartoonist, 12/03

JO ANN BEARD, essayist and novelist, 5/11

If you’ve opened a New Yorker in the last twenty years, chances are you’ve seen a Danny Shanahan cartoon, and chances are you’ve laughed out loud. Shanahan’s signature, printed in a neat schoolboy’s hand, with the final “N” oddly distended, matches his humor: it’s easy to read and just slightly off-normal.

There are writers who thrive on high drama, and writers who make the everyday sing.

Beard is defiantly in the latter camp. In the movies, she’d be a genius character actor, her craft evoking the plainspoken truths, buried emotions, and glinting weirdness of real people’s lives.

Photo by Megan McQuade

Photo by Jennifer May

SHALOM AUSLANDER,

ROBIN PALMER, young adult author, 6/12 “I write for the girls who sit on the side in the cafeteria. They have no idea how cool they are,” she asserts, adding that popular girls reach their peak in high school. “They peak and we blossom.”

memoirist and fiction writer, 1/10 Auslander’s metaphors for his creative process are grueling. “I’ve spent the last year and a half wielding a scalpel, cutting through bone, wincing as I reach inside and fiddle around with the organs,” he says. “It’s Kafka’s Hunger Artist—you lock yourself in a cage and starve to death. That’s the job. You perform open-heart surgery on yourself.”

Photo by Jennifer May

Photo by Jennifer May

POETRY

OPEN CALL

I

By Phillip X Levine

n early 2003, I received a phone call from Brian Mahoney asking if I would be interested in becoming Chronogram’s poetry editor. Franci Levine-Grater, the current editor, was moving to California, and the position was open. I didn’t know Brian, and was only slightly familiar with Poetica, what the poetry page in Chronogram was called at the time. But I did know, and love, Chronogram— nearly everyone in the Mid-Hudson valley did. Brian didn’t really know me either, but the weekly poetry open mike, Monday Night Forever, that I was running at the Colony Café was in full swing, as was another series I ran, the Woodstock Poetry Society’s 2nd Saturday monthly reading, so it seemed a match well met and in June, 2003, I became Chronogram’s fifth poetry editor. Cool. What next?

Well…reading and selecting. Since June 2003, I have received (and read!) nearly 13,000 poems, submitted by over 5,000 poets, to end up publishing 1,300+ poems.

We have published poets from all over the world, with about half, typically, residing in the Mid-Hudson valley. The poetry section now also includes a personal favorite, “Kid’s

58 20TH ANNIVERSARY CHRONOGRAM 11/13

Corner,” where the magical words of poets as young as two years old are shared.

I like to believe that I am open to all forms, all tones, all topics, and I think the eclectic mix of work that one finds there reflects that. I publish what I like, what startles me, what causes me to pause. I try to be open to anything that moves me. I wouldn’t know any other way. Sometimes I succeed. I also try to write a personal reply to every submission, whether accepted or passed on, to convey my appreciation for people’s willingness to share their writing. Thank you.

The poetry section of Chronogram has been there since (nearly) the beginning. It is now two full pages, goes unnamed, (and unadorned, as for a time it featured various poetic image embellishments), but nearly always finds itself in or near mid-magazine. I imagine it will, happily, continue—with your help. Keep ‘em coming.

Phillip X Levine is a poet, actor, teacher, and aspiring stand-up comedian. He has read more poetry than all your former English teachers put together.

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ART

LOOKING BACKWARDS

By Beth E. Wilson

I

remember the first time I ventured out to the First Saturday art openings in Kingston, some time in the second half of the 1990s. It was a few years after I had moved to the Hudson Valley, and my circle of friends included just a few artists, mostly colleagues from SUNY New Paltz, where I was teaching art history as an adjunct. At that first First Saturday for me, I was a bit overwhelmed by the number of people chatting away, none of whom I knew, although I had a sense that I wanted to. Little did I realize that soon I would pick up a regular gig writing for Chronogram—as its first (and as of this writing, only) art columnist—that would sweep me into the heart of this growing, vibrant community.

Lucid Dreaming (as the column was called—a nod to my notion of how art criticism should work) served as a soapbox, a place to engage and reflect on the excellent work that I saw being made here, and on its relationship to this very special place. It was (is) work that makes me think, hits me in the gut, the stuff that “clicks," in many varied forms.

From the politically minded shows at Time and Space Ltd. in Hudson, to the curatorially

acute program at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, to the local ebullience of Main Street in Beacon, writing for the magazine for nine years gave me special entrée to much of the best that the Hudson Valley had to offer—which is quite a lot.

I look back fondly on all that looking and talking and writing…and I like to think that all those columns in Chronogram may have played some minor role in establishing a viable, critical rationale to support the still-growing art community that makes the Hudson Valley such a richly creative place. I know that I do have a terrific circle of artist friends as a result of it, and I am regularly amazed at the new, challenging work they produce. And I hope that Chronogram will continue to provide a meaningful space to advance the critical conversation(s) in this expanding artistic eco-system.

Beth E. Wilson wrote art criticism for Chronogram for 10 years, and once really pissed off everyone in Catskill in these pages by pooh-poohing a public art project there.

EXCERPTS

Clockwise from top left: Lou Patrou, Clown, graphite drawing, 3/08; Diana Bryan, Catcher in the Rye, paper cutout, 11/05; Kathy Ruttenberg, Life Goes On, ceramic, 11/09; Nicholas Walster, Ancestral Sheep, photo with ink, 4/08; Huma Bhabha, They Don't Speak, wood, acrylic paint, clay, Styrofoam, wire, 11/08; Joe Concra, Little Stinkin' Piglet, oil on canvas, 2/12.

C

Very tech boom.

Our logo font is Template Gothic Bold, chosen by art director Molly Rubin in 1999.

3 3 Two artists—

Joel Griffith and David Palmer—are tied for the most Chronogram covers, each with three.

Movin' on up.

In August of 1999, we moved out of our attic garrett and into a "real"office in New Paltz.

Bigger is better.

Our large-format size debuted in October 1999 with a pink birthday cake on Astroturf on the cover.

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MUSIC

THE MELODY LINGERS ON

By Peter Aaron

T

o many less familiar with the Hudson Valley, perhaps the biggest misconception about the region’s music is that it remains frozen in the sunshine glow of the post-Woodstock festival 1970s. That our scene begins and ends with the incredible music of The Band and those local artists connected with or following the stylistic footprints of that hallowed quintet. But at the same time—and calling attention to this has been somewhat of a personal crusade since I began overseeing Chronogram’s music coverage in July 2006—there’s much more to the story.

The Hudson Valley is one of the most musically diverse areas on Earth. Its fresh air, natural beauty, and striking-distance proximity to New York have long made it the popular, affordable nesting ground of musicians of all genres. In addition to, yes, The Band’s late Levon Helm, in my time with the magazine I’ve covered legendary and breaking

artists working in rock, folk, jazz, classical, the avant garde, hip-hop—not to mention the local Elvis impersonator, Joseph John Eigo. And here there’s no shortage of venues that regularly present live music; casual open mikes at coffeehouses, gigs at nightclubs and other performance spaces, visits by world-class headliners and symphonic recitals at large theaters and concert halls, and the abundance of outdoor festivals we highlight annually add up to a rich, vibrant, varied, and creatively inspiring musical environment.

An environment I’ve been extremely proud to chronicle during my nearly eight years at Chronogram, and one I look forward to doing the same for in the years to come.

If You Like The Ramones… (2013, Backbeat Books,) is Peter Aaron’s first book. When he’s not chronicling the Hudson Valley music scene or DJing at swank parties, he likes to kick a little ass with this band the Chrome Cranks.

EXCERPTS

Photo by Steve Gullick

PITCHFORK MILITIA

NATALIE MERCHANT

Todd Paul, 12/00 From an interview with the “apocabilly” trio’s frontman, Peter Head: Chronogram: What’s your plan, musically speaking? Peter Head: I’ve been blessed with delusions of grandeur. If someone ever picks up on it and wants to do something with it, I’ll be ready. One of my theories is, “True art is what you spend all your money on, fake art is what you make all your money with.”

Peter Aaron, 2/10 Spearheaded by Merchant’s plaintive but full-bodied voice and gift for graceful pop songwriting, 10,000 Maniacs’ ubiquitous modern folk rock pretty much defined college radio’s late-’80s arc into mainstream alt-rock. Merchant left 10,000 Maniacs after the release of 1993’s live “MTV Unplugged.” “I really had to be able to speak for myself,” the singer says.

Photo by Mark Seliger

MERCURY REV

PETE SEEGER

Jonathan King, 10/01 The title of this piece was “The Best You Never Heard in Your Life.” Little known in the US, the Kingston-based psychedelic alt-rockers have charted gold records in the UK and continue to tour to sold-out shows for addicted fans across Europe and Japan.

“The music becomes like a drug, but it’s not a substance you ingest, more like a ritual,” Sean “Grasshopper” Mackowiak says.

“The music becomes like a religion in itself.”

Peter Aaron, 2/11 Even if you don’t know who the man is, or about his devoted activism, odds are you know at least a couple of his tunes.

Eternal anthems that sparked the fuses of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Byrds, and basically the entire post-World War II folk revival and protestsong and folk-rock movements.

Photo by Fionn Reilly

SONNY ROLLINS

LEVON HELM

1

Photo by Fionn Reilly

Number of letters we've received attacking the editor's integrity, rhyming Mahoney with baloney or phony.

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Peter Aaron, 9/11 Before launching into the final tune of the Newark concert, Rollins, seemingly sensing the unease of the dark and uncertain world outside, tells the audience, “There’s nothing to worry about. You have nothing to fear. If you can look the man in the mirror in the face, then everything’s going to be okay. I’m not afraid of anything.”

Peter Aaron, 2/08 The smile belongs to Levon Helm, one of this country’s most precious cultural treasures, who tonight at one of the Midnight Ramble sessions that take place a few times a month at the erstwhile Band member’s Woodstock home and studio is doing exactly what he was put on this Earth to do: make great American music.

Photo by Fionn reilly

Following our

size change, one reader complains the magazine no longer fits on the back of the toilet.

Our biggest issue ever

was September 2005. It was 180 pages and weighed one-and-a-half pounds.

Café Chronogram

was a monthly cultural gathering we ran from 2005 to 2006.

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FOOD & DRINK

THE NEXT NAPA

By Brian K. Mahoney

T

here were three articles in our first issue, and one of them was about food (“Five Myths of Brussels Sprouts” by Lee Reich). We’re obsessed with food, and we’ve spent the past 20 years fussing over it and chronicling the rise of what has become the world-class food culture of the Hudson Valley, where the farms, restaurants, wineries, distilleries, and breweries complement the natural beauty, creating a regional culinary identity beginning to rival Napa or Tuscany.

It begins with John Novi, the father of New American cuisine, whose Depuy Canal House put the region on the map in 1970 with a four-star review in the New York Times.

It includes the family farms that stretch back generations and form the backbone of the local economy. It encompasses the hundreds of restaurants owned and operated by

passionate chefs. The Culinary Institute of America has played an influential role, providing the region’s restaurants with competent graduates and pushing the culinary conversation forward. The region’s wineries have been patiently building a wine culture for 40 years.

Don’t forget the food trucks and the artisanal producers—chocolates, pickles, maple syrup, bread, vinegar, etc.—that now form a sizable cottage industry.

We’ve covered it all, from foie gras to raw food, sous vide to sukiyaki, grass-fed to grain whiskey. One of the great pleasures of living in the Hudson Valley is witnessing the continuing development of the food culture, engaging in its debates, and sampling it at every opportunity.

Brian K. Mahoney is the editorial director of Chronogram.

EXCERPTS

FOWL FEAST

THE GOOD TERROIRIST

Susan Gibbs, 2/05 Our visit to Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Sullivan County, the world’s largest producer of this ethically challenged delicacy. John Novi of the Deput Canal House summed up the divided sentiment of local residents nicely: “I have many vegetarian items on my menu, as well as a lot of fish and seafood. But I also serve foie gras. It is a delicacy that people love.”

Brian K. Mahoney, 6/08 When Neal Rosenthal published a memoir of his 30 years of importing small-batch European wines, we thought it prudent to travel out to his home in Pine Plains and drink with him. Rosenthal served an exquisite 1992 Pouilly Fuissé. Rosenthal’s comment on the wine: “This is about understanding that if you’re not exposed to what this can be, then you’ll never be able to hope to bring it into your life.”

Photo by Roy Gumpel

Photo by Jennifer May

THE BUTCHER’S CONSCIENCE

Photo by Jennifer May

Photo by Jennifer May

7

Number of issues we published of a stand-alone Capital Region edition of the magazine in 2007.

Jennifer May, 11/05 Before Josh Applestone was posing in his meat locker for national magazines, before Julie Powell’s Fleisher’s-training memoir Cleaving, before the expansions into Rhinebeck and Park Slope, before the artisanal butchery boom, Fleisher’s was a quaint shop on a side street in Kingston run by an idealistic couple (one a former vegan) who spun a business out of their desire to eat the healthiest, most humane, and most sustainably farmed meat.

OFFALLY GOOD

Photo by Jennifer May

Peter Barrett, 2/11 When two foodies collide. Rich Reeve of Elephant goes to our food editor’s house for an all-day session of cooking off-cuts of meat.

Why? Because it’s tasty and righteous. Reeve says that there are only two things about meat that matter: “You need to know where it comes from and you need to eat the whole thing. As carnivores, we owe it to the animal and the people who raised it properly.”

HUDSON VALLEY HOOCH

FISH & GAME

Jennifer May, 3/06 From Jennifer’s May’s profile of the man who started New York’s small-batch distillery boom: “Ralph Erenzo stumbled into the whiskey trade.

After purchasing a 36-acre parcel in Gardiner in 2000, complete with historic farmhouse and 200-yeard-old gristmill, his neighbors blocked his every attempt to develop the climbing, camping, and bunkhouse concept he had imagined. So he turned to booze.”

Peter Barrett, 6/13 Twenty years from now, perhaps the opening of Zak Pelaccio’s Fish & Game will be viewed as the moment when Hudson Valley food culture jumped the shark. Or, as Peter Barrett remarked in his profile, “Why Hudson Is Hipper than Your Town.” With the only option a seven-course tasting menu for $75 and few bottles of wine under $50, this is indeed rarefied air.

Woodstock

is where our most rabid fans live. Magazines fly off the shelves there faster than anywhere else.

Photo by Roy Gumpel

Wag the Dog

author and political pundit Larry Beinhart joined us a columnist in June, 2006.

>2K Over 2,500 people have had their names featured in the Contributor's List on the masthead.

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WHOLE LIVING

TAKING BACK WELLNESS

By Wendy Kagan

A

lmost three years ago, Lorrie Klosterman was passing over the baton from her long and celebrated tenure as Chronogram’s health and wellness editor—and I was lucky enough to catch it. I was motivated to run hard, because what I saw around me was a very sick society in an out-of-balance world—diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart disease are everywhere we look. I was juiced up (with green juice, of course) to change people’s consciousness and to challenge our society’s lethal infatuation with processed foods and sedentary habits. In the Hudson Valley, we’re more enlightened—right? In some ways, yes. But the excesses of our culture extend even here to our progressive river shores.

It’s been my mission to give voice to our readers’ love of alternative medicine and mindbody modalities, tempered by my interest in Science with a capital S. It has also been my modus operandi to shut up and let the experts around me do most of the talking. And what a conversation it has been. I’ve conferred with stroke and heart attack survivors who looked death in the eye and lived to tell about it; sat with a newborn and heard the story

of his home birth in a tub on the kitchen floor; explored the soul-transforming realms of mindfulness, meditation, and karma yoga; had a juicy three-way (conversation) with erotic experts about what is good sex; and met a woman who healed herself by making a stool smoothie in a blender and inserting it via enema where the sun doesn’t shine. Divergent in almost every other way, these stories have circled back to the through line of taking charge of one’s own health—proactive ways to avoid putting ourselves at the mercy of a deeply flawed healthcare system. It’s not magical thinking to explore different approaches to food and alternative healing—it’s self-reliance. Western medicine can work miracles, but with a little common sense and ingenuity we can prevent the need for many of these miracles in the first place. Just by living better.

Chronogram's health and wellness editor Wendy Kagan is also a freelance writer and editor, yoga teacher, and mother of two girls. A vegetarian since 18, she's on a quest to achieve wildly good health without losing a sense of humor and joy.

EXCERPTS

Illustration by Zak Pullen

Illustration by Jim Campbell

Illustration by Annie Internicola

Utne Reader

nominated us for an Independent Press Award for our wellness coverage in 2010.

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RECIPES FOR WINTER

COOKING UP A WELL-BALANCED LIFE

Dylana Accolla, 12/01 Herbalist Dina Falconi: “I tell people that it’s important to nourish themselves emotionally as well as physically. Avoid isolation; it can cause sickness. This is a time for more potlucks, book clubs, and other activities with people. On the other hand, it’s also important to get enough sleep, to be more internal, to rest more, and go to bed earlier. The important thing is to balance the social interaction with rest.”

Lorrie Klosterman, 4/09 Nutritionist Joshua Rosenthal: “You can eat all the broccoli in the world and still be unhappy and unhealthy because other aspects of your life aren’t balanced. When you are satisfied with your career, in a loving relationship, have a spiritual practice, and exercise on a regular basis, you will be more likely to make better decisions about the foods you eat.”

Illustration by Annie Internicola

FLU SHOT FRENZY

DRIVER’S MANUAL: LOVING AND LEARNING FROM YOUR SPIRITUAL VEHICLE

Lorrie Klosterman, 12/04 Herbalist Jennifer Costa: “We’ve forgotten how to take care of ourselves when we’re sick. You can take the painkiller and go to work, but you’re infecting people around you and you get sicker by not redirecting the immune system to the appropriate place.

You need to know how to convalesce.

Nature conserves its energy. Lie down, and rest, because the body’s trying to heal itself.”

Lorrie Klosterman, 6/10 Holistic teacher Vaishali: “Consider what the body goes through for us—all the things that can happen to our fragile, delicate container.

The body gets injured, it gets ill, it ages, goes through surgeries. How many people would go through this for you? What relationship do you have, all life long, that would go through any unspeakable thing the body goes through for you? It loves you that much.”

Illustration by Annie Internicola

CLASSICAL HOMEOPATHY

POWER TO THE PLANT EATERS

Lorrie Klosterman, 9/07 Homeopathic consultant David Kramer: “Nobody gets sick suddenly. A man works a job for 40 years, retires, goes down and plays golf six months later, and then drops dead of a heart attack. That heart attack doesn’t happen suddenly. There were signs. Nature never obscures anything. If you can see the signs, then you can treat the disease.”

Wendy Kagan, 11/12 Wellness activist Kris Carr: “People are wanting a way out of the insanity that is our healthcare system. A lot of people are slowly waking up to the fact that they have more power than they think. The more that folks wake up to that, the more they realize that a plant-based diet can be their tool, their vehicle for the type of freedom they seek.”

River of Words.

Nina Shengold and Jen May published a book based on their author profiles in August, 2010.

Illustration by Annie Internicola

Community Pages section is unveiled in Chronogram on March, 2010

Jason Stern

published a book based on his Esteemed Reader columns, Learning to Be Human, in November 2010.

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ILLUSTRATION

DRAWING OUTSIDE THE LINES

By Carla Rozman

I

was the art director of Chronogram for 5 years. I designed each issue, mentored by my predecessor, Molly Rubin, a photographer who left New Paltz with a oneway ticket around the world. When I sent her my first cover, a black and white photo of boy standing on the beach, she emailed me back from Indonesia. “I hired the right person.”

In 1999, we were a team of 7. Brian and I shared an office, singing our favorite songs, scarfing down lunches, coming in and out as we pleased. We worked late hours, drank late drinks, hung out on the stoop in New Paltz. I’d scout the Valley for cover art, frequenting Carrie Haddad Gallery and The Center for Photography at Woodstock. I’d visit studios and survey work, commissioning Ralph Steadman and

Milton Glaser and James Victore. Unknowingly, I hired illustrators who are top-of-theirfield today. We paid them $150 for full page illustrations, and for some, Chronogram was their first assignment.

Times were great, some of the best in my life so far. There was true camaraderie, freedom and fun. This is why Chronogram has lasted. We were young, we were friends.

And there was work we believed in: a magazine on art, culture, and spirit in a place with the most I’ve ever witnessed. How could that go wrong?

Carla Rozman is a former art director at Chronogram. She currently lives in Washington, DC and is an art director for Smithsonian magazine.

Clockwise from top left: Emil Alzamora's illustration for Planet Waves, 10/04; Thomas McDonough's illustration for Quarter to Three, 6/02; J. B. Lowe's illustration for "America's Abu Ghraibs: Prisoner Abuse in the US," 6/04; Jim Campbell's illustration for "Running on Empty: Driving Toward Peak Oil," 4/05; Jesse Kuhn's illustration for the short story "A Partial Catalog of Harold's Major and Minor Epiphanies," 8/08; Mike Dubisch's illustration for Quarter to Three, 9/04.

www

Our first covers

show is exhibited at ASK Gallery in Kingston in February 2011, followed by a slew of other venues.

Chronogram.com

is launched for the third time, in November 2012 with all kinds of newfangled bells and whistles.

Our block party to celebrate our 20th anniverary drew 3,500 to Uptown Kingston on August 17.

A lot of paper.

This is the 237th issue of Chronogram. The sheer tonnage of the paper required gives us pause.

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APPRECIATIONS

THE CHRONOGRAM COMMUNITY LOCAL LUMINARIES and FORMER CONTRIBUTORS write a few words on our behalf.

NATALIE MERCHANT

FRANK CROCITTO

“ Over the past 20 years, Chronogram has helped us to forge a regional identity.”

I remember when the first editions of Chronogram mysteriously began appearing in the doorways of Upstate businesses 20 years ago. Its size then was closer to a TV Guide, nothing slick or hip about it: uncoated paper, small advertiser section, horoscopes, and local listings of music, film, dance, and yoga classes. But slowly it began to grow into an indispensable guide to what was happening in the area. Over time, we saw the listings include children’s events, lectures, workshops, and gallery openings. Month by month our “community” of towns clustered around the river, tucked into the mountains, and spread across our valleys began to feel more connected. Eventually, Chronogram made the giant format leap forward to a big, beautiful, full-color magazine with wonderful features on our local entrepreneurs, farmers, artists, environmentalists and community leaders and their work. Over the past 20 years, Chronogram has helped us to forge a regional identity. We live in a unique area full of vibrant and creative people. I’m amazed (at times overwhelmed) by the variety and abundance of activity. I look to Chronogram for who, what, where and when throughout my year: Which composer will the Bard Summerscape feature this year? What’s debuting at the Powerhouse Theater? How can I donate food to The Queen’s Galley? What’s on at the Frances Lehman Loeb Gallery, Woodstock Center for Photography, Dia, or Unison Arts Center? How can I volunteer at the Mill Street Loft or Family of Woodstock? What good fight is Scenic Hudson fighting now? Where’s the closest farmers’ market? What’s the lecture series at The Cary or Beacon Institutes? What’s on display at The FDR Library? Where can we pick apples? When’s the Sheep & Wool Festival this year? What’s playing at Upstate Films, Time Space Limited, or the Rosendale Theater? Where’s the next BRAWL? Who’s headlining the O+ Festival or Mountain Jam? Who’s teaching at Omega this weekend?

I can’t calculate the size of the loss the region would suffer if bundles of Chronogram suddenly failed to appear next month.

“ A little magazine that could, and would, challenge, inspire, even shock.”

I was there at the beginning, when the magazine, then nameless, was a mere glimmer in the minds of Jason and Amara. They were young, talented, and looking toward the future. They knew they had a future. And as a duo their future possibilities seemed unlimited. Perhaps they knew that. Everybody else did. Of course they had their doubts.

Back in those days—20 years ago?—which might as well be 200 at the rate things are skidding downhill—Henry Hudson’s Valley and its level of possible consciousness was a great unknown. Ah, thought they, there may be a place for a little magazine that is open to matters above the trivial, a little magazine that could, and would, challenge, inspire, even shock.

But where do you start? Why not print a calendar of interesting events in the area?

Yes, and then steadily, stealthily, content began to creep onto its pages. A little here, a little there. And then one fateful day the duo asked me to write a column for their little magazine—Chronogram! How could I refuse them?

I think the column was called “Another Way to Look at Things”—or some such. To my surprise there were some people who liked it, and some people claimed they got something from it. I certainly did. It got me clacking away at the typewriter. And I must confess I am still at it. So, as they have done for many others, Jason and Amara gave me a very sweet opportunity.

Twenty years, huh? Well, well. Hooray and more power to you all.

Frank Crocitto is a playwright, poet, and author of many books, including Insight Is Better Than Ice Cream (Candlepower, 2000). His column, “Frankly Speaking” appeared in the magazine from its inception until 2005.

Natalie Merchant is a local musician.

STUART BIGLEY STEPHEN LARSEN

“ Chronogram somehow hit the right note of aesthetic, cultural sophistication, and practical usefulness.”

When it was brought to my attention that I had been represented in the very first Chronogram, in 1993, I began to feel really ancient. I had known Jason since he was a talented young Gunks climber, of the generation of my son Merlin. Merlin guided for ten years or so with Jim Munson’s Mountain Skills, and then went on to found his own theater company, Airealistic, based in the Los Angeles area. Jason went on to found Chronogram.

In the beginning, as an aging, pragmatic, WASP male, I may have been skeptical that either enterprise would succeed; but I am glad to report they have both been wildly successful. Airealistic has put on shows on several continents, participated in the 2008 Olympics, and flown aging celebrities aloft on “Dances with the Stars.” And Chronogram, well, Chronogram has become an enduring fixture of the Hudson Valley landscape.

Chronogram somehow hit the right note of aesthetic, cultural sophistication, and practical usefulness to guarantee its success—a tribute to Jason Stern’s instinct and vision—and the talented people he has managed to collect around him. I love the covers, the literary and political content, and the glimpse of what goes on in our culturally fertile neighborhood.

Many poets, writers, and artists of local and more than local renown have been represented in Chronograms over the years; and I am told that I shared the first issue with that scurrilous, demented reprobate, Mikhail Horowitz, who has gone on to horrify audiences all over the Valley, and who I am proud to call, as I do Jason Stern, a longtime friend!

Stephen Larsen is SUNY Ulster Psychology Professor Emeritus, the author of a number of books in print, including, with his wife, Robin, Jospeh Campbell: A Fire in the Mind. He directs the Stone Mountain Center, and with Robin, The Center for Symbolic Studies, near New Paltz.

64 20TH ANNIVERSARY CHRONOGRAM 11/13

“ An extraordinary mix of what is new and upcoming in music, art, poetry, politics, and the environment.”

When Brian asked me to write something about Chronogram’s 20th anniversary, I was taken back more than 20 years.

Jason often mentions that the idea for Chronogram came out of something I said during a conversation we were having about the possibility of he and Amara taking over the designing of the Unison program guide. As someone who is rarely reluctant to take responsibility for a good idea, I usually just smile and nod. In all honesty, I don’t remember saying anything too profound that day, but on the outside chance that anything I said actually did help to birth what has evolved into one of the Hudson Valley’s most important arts and cultural assets, then I am grateful to have been part of that process.

That being said, ideas are cheap. What is of real importance is the doing—taking an idea and through hard work and perseverance realizing its potential. Chronogram has become such an integral part of the Hudson Valley arts scene that it is difficult to picture our community without it. Jason and Amara have taken a seed of an idea and put together a highly professional production team headed by Brian Mahoney that has continually put out a monthly magazine whose main focus is our community, but whose scope is global. I always look forward to an extraordinary mix of what is new and upcoming in music, art, poetry, politics, and the environment. The cover art is always thought provoking and visually unique. Chronogram’s monthly appearance around town has become much anticipated by all the arts loving community in the Hudson Valley. It is one of the many things that make our area such an amazing place to live and to visit. I thank everyone at Chronogram for all their continuing hard work to bring this gem to us. I wish Chronogram many, many more years of success. We all love you.

Stuart Bigley is and artist and cofounder of Unison Arts Center in New Paltz, where he served as executive director from 1980 to 2012.

C H R O N O G R A M

MEIRA BLAUSTEIN

C E L E B R A T E S

“ Chronogram was our friend.”

I remember Chronogram when it was still a small size magazine, brochure-like almost. Even then I always picked it up looking for the best things to do in the Hudson Valley.

It was right around the time when the magazine changed from small (and I mean very small) size to the large format that it is now that I began working on the creation of the Woodstock Film Festival. I remember heading to their old office in New Paltz, going up the steep set of stairs, climbing over the piles of sneakers as I passed the yoga studio, to arrive at their small, crowded office and sit down with the young and friendly editor, Brian Mahoney, telling him about this exciting new film festival that we were about to launch in the Hudson Valley. I knew one of their reporters, Lorna Tychostup, and so I felt that I had an in. I asked Brian to support the infant festival. “Give us coverage, give us ads, you’ll see, it will be great,” I said. Alas, Brian approached it a bit cautiously, suggesting he would wait and see how the first year unfolded.

As it turned out, Lorna ended up being our official photographer that first year, back in 2000, and by the time the next festival came around, Chronogram was our friend. Hard to believe that so many years have already gone by. Look at Chronogram now. Happy 20th anniversary! Here is to at least 20 more.

Meira Blaustein is the co-founder and executive director of the Woodstock Film Festival.

CARRIE HADDAD

“ Chronogram did more than just announce exhibits.”

When I first opened Warren Street Gallery in the spring of 1991, there wasn’t a publication in the area that would print any information about the existence of the gallery or any of the exhibits. The Woodstock Times had calendar listings for the arts, but it took about a year to convince the Independent and the Register-Star that their readers would actually like to have this information, and that I couldn’t afford to pay the price per column inch for the mention. Well, they finally agreed to print my press releases, and we were off and running.

Magnificently, Chronogram appeared soon after and touted the arts—in color, I might add. Chronogram did more than just announce exhibits, they incorporated work by local artists on their covers and included the arts in many of their articles. They even left you thinking about art with their “Parting Shots.” Thank you so much, Chronogram, for contributing so much to the Hudson Valley. Here is to another 20 years.

When Carrie Haddad opened her first art gallery, it was the only one in Hudson. More than a dozen artists represented by Carrie Haddad Gallery have appeared on the cover of Chronogram.

SARA PASTI

“ The magazine took the words art and community as seriously as did Beacon’s artists.”

When I first arrived in Beacon during the summer of 2002, the city was abuzz with excitement about a new arts facility called Dia:Beacon, set to open in May 2003. In November 2002, a newly formed Beacon Arts Community Association (BACA) launched its monthly Second Saturday arts celebration to help position Beacon as an arts destination in advance of Dia:Beacon’s opening. From BACA’s inception, Chronogram was there to promote and support Beacon’s development, publishing articles about Beacon’s artists, galleries, and other businesses that were slowly beginning to populate Beacon. The magazine took the words “art” and “community” as seriously as did Beacon’s artists. They recognized that what was taking place in Beacon and other Hudson Valley communities was not just a series of art events but a transformation of the greater Hudson Valley into an arts and cultural destination. When I joined the staff of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, I chose to advertise the Dorsky’s exhibitions and programs in Chronogram not only because we shared a Hudson Valley focus but because

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Chronogram exemplifies the aesthetic excellence that has long been associated with our region. May Chronogram continue to bear witness to Hudson Valley arts, culture, and spirit for another 20 years to come!

Sara J. Pasti is the Neil C. Trager Director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

CAROLE WOLF Chronogram has been my go-to publication “ Imagination is for arts and culture, food and wellness, local certainly unleashed, politics and personal growth, gardens, history, encouraged, and valued photography, animals and just about everything at Chronogram.” about Hudson Valley life since 1993, and all of us at the Mill Street Loft family salute your 20th anniversary. We are so fortunate that we can count on Chronogram for cutting-edge creativity and visually stunning design, as well as fascinating and provocative articles on what’s going on in our towns and cities. Imagination is certainly unleashed, encouraged, and valued at Chronogram.

As an arts organization, Mill Street Loft is thrilled to be associated with a publication so passionately dedicated to culture. Your articles and calendars keep us inspired while ensuring that the arts stay at the forefront of our community.

Mill Street Loft was one of your original advertisers and readers; I even remember your early half-size issues and marvel at the growth and complexity of Chronogram as you’ve moved into the digital age. Each issue is a treasure, and I look forward to celebrating many future anniversaries. Happy Birthday, Chronogram!

Carole J. Wolf is executive director of Mill Street Loft, a Poughkeepsie-based arts organization she founded in 1981.

DAVID ROTHENBERG

“ Chronogram never lets us down.”

Chronogram is not always what it seems. Though it looks like a giveaway guide to the pleasures and possibilities of life up and down the Hudson Valley, it has increasingly offered something more. It is a celebration of what our unique part of the world has to offer the body, mind, and soul.

I am always amazed when I peruse its pages that even in the countryside, there is far too much to do, so many festivals, concerts, events, gatherings. These only seem to increase in number as people seem to value more and more the idea that culture can be created locally, nearby, that the big city is not the only hub of human activity. We are re-building culture at the human and natural scale all over America, and Chronogram is the most reliable chronicle of how this is proceeding in the Hudson Valley. No wonder the magazine has evolved from a black and white newspaper to a big-format color magazine.

Everything in the Valley is getting more colorful all the time. And the bigger it is, the less it is likely to be replaced by a web page or any other screen, where the diversity of our experience tends to be processed into looking all the same. Just as there will always be large-format film cameras even as we can snap everything with their phones, the Chronogram will not be smartphonized. [Editor’s Note: There is actually a Chronogram smartphone application.] The big page always offers more.

I was honored to have a photograph I took of a 17-year cicada on the cover of last June’s issue. When biologist John Cooley studied the cover while we made a podcast, he pointed out, “look, you can see that insect is sucking from that blade of grass,” proving that they do eat while above ground, doing more than singing, flying, and mating. You need the big picture to get that information. Chronogram never lets us down.

David Rothenberg is a musician and writer living in Cold Spring. His latest book and CD, Bug Music, was excerpted in our June issue.

SPONSORS

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