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Highland-based author Da Chen is profiled in this month's BOOKS feature.
NEWS AND POLITICS
COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK
26 LOUDER THAN BOMBS
35 A TASTE OF ITALIAN PRIDE
The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson reports on the situation inside Lebanon in mid-August, amidst the displaced populace, rubble, and explosions.
Eric Steinman finds it's all in the family at Rossi's Deli in the Mount Carmel section of Poughkeepsie.
32 BEINHART'S BODY POLITIC
Shannon Gallagher listens in on how Tivoli-based music-marketing company Pump Audio uses its PumpBoxes to help indie musicians license their work.
Political observer Larry Beinhart examines how money means media coverage in the race for NY's Senate seat.
ARTS & CULTURE
39 ART OF BUSINESS
WHOLE LIVING GUIDE
46 PORTFOLIO Photographer Jeff Brouws's Approaching Nowhere.
100 ABRAHAM CHERRIX AND THE HOXSEY FORMULA Marguerite Dunne examines the
48 LUCID DREAMING Beth E. Wilson previews the third annual Peekskill Project.
age-old Hoxsey herbal cancer treatment and the ongoing controversy surrounding it.
51 GALLERY DIRECTORY What's hanging around the region. 54 MUSIC Peter Aaron profiles Coxsackie-based reissue label Sundazed Music. Plus Nightlife Highlights and reviews of CDs by Bar Scott, Gennarose, and Matt Finley.
104 INNER VISION Bard's Jacob Neusner surveys Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
BUSINESS SERVICES 81 TASTINGS A directory of what’s cooking and where to get it.
58 BOOKS Nina Shengold meets with Da Chen, author of Colors of the Mountain.
93 BUSINESS DIRECTORY A compendium of advertiser services.
60 BOOK REVIEWS Into My Own by Roger Kahn (reviewed by Anne Pyburn); John
106 WHOLE LIVING DIRECTORY For the positive lifestyle.
Burroughs and the Place of Nature by James Perrin Warren (reviewed by Susan Piperato);
THE FORECAST
The Devil's Backbone by Kim Wozencraft (reviewed by Erin Quinn).
119 DAILY CALENDAR Listings of local events. Plus previews of bluesman Guy Davis at Club
66 POETRY Poems by Alverus Ricardez, Blythe Boyer, Franklin Demuth, Micelle J. Lee,
Helsinki in Great Barrington; The Hudson River Valley Ramble throughout the region; The Isle
Chris Sumberg, Christopher Porpora, Michael Morris, Yana Kane,
of Klezbos at Unison in New Paltz; the Manhattan String Quartet at Storm King Art Center;
Walter Mcnealy-Masca, and Saul Bennett.
and a reading by Daniel Pinchbeck at the Liminal Worlds Conference in Woodstock.
78 FOOD & DRINK Jennifer May samples the Latin menu at Sabroso in Rhinebeck.
PLANET WAVES HOROSCOPES
MONEY & INVESTING
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JENNIFER MAY
CONTENTS
134 THE UNBEARABLE TENSION OF WATER Eric Francis Coppolino chronicles the movements of the Sun and Moon and their relation to recent world events. Plus horoscopes.
74 SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTING Q&A with Beth Jones of Third Eye Associates.
PARTING SHOT
77 SITTING ON A GOLDMINE An eBay tycoon takes stock of his childhood "investments."
140 An untitled drawing by Armand Rusillon.
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EDITORIAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian K. Mahoney bmahoney@chronogram.com ART DIRECTOR David Perry dperry@chronogram.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Peter Aaron paaron@chronogram.com NEWS & POLITICS EDITOR Lorna Tychostup tycho56@aol.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jim Andrews jandrews@chronogram.com BOOKS EDITOR Nina Shengold books@chronogram.com WHOLE LIVING EDITOR Lorrie Klosterman wholeliving@chronogram.com POETRY EDITOR Phillip Levine poetry@chronogram.com COPY EDITORS Andrea Birnbaum, Susan Piperato INTERNS Nora Balantzian, Patrick Shields PROOFREADERS Teal Hutton, Laura McLaughlin, Barbara Ross CONTRIBUTORS Emil Alzamora, Jon Lee Anderson, Nancy Beard, Saul Bennett, Jay Blotcher, Blythe Boyer, Jeff Brouws, Mary Kate Burnell, Eric Francis Coppolino, DJ Wavy Davy, Franklin Demuth, Marguerite Dunne, F-Stop Fitzgerald, Shannon Gallagher, Hillary Harvey, Annie Internicola, Mike Jurkovic, Yana Kane, Michelle J. Lee, Jennifer May, Walter Mcnealy-Masca, Michael Morris, Rachel Najdzin, Jacob Nuesner, Susan Piperato, Erin Quinn, Fionn Reilly, Alveraz Ricardez, Armand Rusillon, Sparrow, J. Spica, Eric Steinman, Chris Sumberg, Neil VanderVloed, Robert Burke Warren, Beth E. Wilson
SUBMISSIONS CALENDAR To submit calendar listings, visit www.chronogram.com/calendar and click on "Add My Event" and fill out the form. E-mail: events@chronogram.com / Fax: (845) 334-8610 Mail: 314 Wall Street, Kingston, NY 12401 Deadline: September 15
POETRY Submissions of up to three poems at a time can be sent to poetry@chronogram.com or our street address. See above.
NONFICTION/FICTION Fiction: Submissions can be sent to fiction@chronogram.com. Nonfiction: Succinct queries about stories of regional interest can be sent to bmahoney@chronogram.com. 8
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PUBLISHING FOUNDERS Jason Stern & Amara Projansky PUBLISHER Jason Stern jstern@chronogram.com PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Lara Buongiorno lbuongiorno@chronogram.com ADVERTISING SALES WEST OF HUDSON RIVER Jamaine Bell jbell@chronogram.com, x112 EAST OF HUDSON RIVER Ralph Jenkins rjenkins@chronogram.com, x105 ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE MANAGER Lisa Mitchel-Shapiro lshapiro@chronogram.com, x101 ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Becca Friedman bfriedman@chronogram.com, x120 OFFICE ASSISTANT Matthew Watzka mwatzka@chronogram.com, x113 TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR Justin Zipperle PRODUCTION PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Yulia Zarubina-Brill yzarubina@chronogram.com, x108 PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Kiersten Miench kmiench@chronogram.com, x116 PRODUCTION DESIGNERS Jim Maximowicz jmaximowicz@chronogram.com, x106 Julie Novak jnovak@chronogram.com, x102 Teal Hutton thutton@chronogram.com, x106 BUSINESS CONSULTANT Ajax Greene OFFICES: 314 Wall St. Kingston, NY 12401 845.334.8600 fax 334.8610 SUBSCRIBE Send $36/12-issues or visit www.chronogram.com/subscribe MISSION Chronogram is a regional magazine dedicated to stimulating and supporting the creative and cultural life of the Hudson Valley. ALL CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2006
LU M I N A R Y
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FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS
Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Theology at Bard College and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard as well. He also is a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, and a life member of Clare Hall at Cambridge University in England. He has published more than 900 books and numerous articles, making him the most published humanities scholar in the world. Jacob has been awarded nine honorary degrees, is editor of the Encyclopaedia of Judaism, and has served as editor for several other important religious reference works. He lives in Rhinebeck. Jacob’s article on the conjunction of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism appears on page 104. A practicing medicinal herbalist for over 30 years, Marguerite Dunne has taught seminars, and written articles on herbs and health. Her radio program, “The Urban Herbalist,” is broadcast every Monday on WTBQ 1110 AM (WTBQ.com) from 6-7 pm. An adjunct instructor at Marist College, where she lectures on nutrition and herbs, Marguerite also does consultations in Cornwallon-Hudson and New York City. Marguerite’s article on the Hoxsey formula appears on page 100. Jay Blotcher, a former Manhattanite, began his Ulster County life as a weekender in 1996. He came for the quaintness factor but kept returning for the peace-of-mind factor. Jay and partner Brook Garrett relocated in July 2001 to High Falls. Since then, he has contributed to Chronogram as well as The New York Times, the Times Herald-Record, the Citizen, InsideOUT, and Ulster Publishing’s Almanac. Jay also handles publicity for the Culinary Institute of America, Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center, and New Paltz Pride. Jay’s memoir of his experiences striking it rich as an e-Bay tycoon appears on page 77.
Michael Sinnochi
New assistant editor Peter Aaron comes to us from the Daily Freeman, where he served as the paper’s music columnist and as a copy editor. The former vocalist/guitarist of New York City blues-punk noisemakers the Chrome Cranks, Peter possesses an unceasing, obsessive thirst for musical knowledge. His column for the Freeman won a first place award in the Arts/Entertainment Writing category of the New York State Associated Press Association Writing Contest. His work has also appeared in the Boston Herald, Jazz Improv, and Your Flesh Quarterly and online at All About Jazz.com and All Music Guide.com. Peter’s profile of Sundazed Music appears on page 54.
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ON THE COVER
Untitled NEIL VANDERVLOED / OIL ON WOODEN TILE When Chronogram caught up with Neil VanderVloed he was on the road—no surprise, given that he’s driven back and forth across the country 16 times this summer, visiting family members and showing his art along the way. But it’s also fitting because automobiles and the air of fun and adventure they embody figure largely in his work. In fact, the Seattle-based/Monroe-bred painter has even lived the thrill-packed life of a demolition derby driver, twice driving cars he decorated at the Orange County Fair’s derby. “The second time, I drove a car I painted bright chartreuse with purple and black flowers on it,” he said. “The other drivers tend to go for the typical flat black, pop-culture look, or patriotic red, white, and blue, so I’d thought maybe I’d elicit some extra male anger with my design. But I don’t think they really paid attention to it.” Sometimes, however, his car got a little too much attention from his fellow drivers. “Driving in a demolition derby is an adrenalin rush, but it's also very frightening,” he said. “Very quickly, you realize these guys are actually trying to kill you.” During one event, the impact of a competitor's car resulted in VanderVloed's engine catching on fire. “That was really scary,” he said. “You can't jump out because the other drivers will hit you. So you have to sit there in your car and wait for one of the guys who monitor the derby to stop it and run out with a fire extinguisher to put you out.” VanderVloed says descibes his work of the last 10 years as “generally very cartoony, very colorful. Not ‘funny’ as much as ‘humorous,’ perhaps.” Besides driving, he cites his family and living in the Northwest as the most significant influences on his art. One of his shows, “I'd Like To Thank All The Little People,” featured tiny paintings of over 100 of his Seattle neighbors. The untitled images on the cover are culled from “1,000+,” a show featuring a series of over 1,000 4-inch-by-8-inch paintings that have been displayed in Seattle and St. Louis before rolling into the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Art, where they will be on view through September 30. Located at 105 Abeel St., KMOCA is devoted to contemporary art and was founded by musician Adam Snyder. The show opens with a reception on Saturday, September 2, at 5pm. The event features music by My Other Car Is Silver and DJ Raissa St.Pierre. www.kmoca.org. 14 CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
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Esteemed Reader Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay “Self-Reliance” Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine: “Go for a walk!” she said, not yelling, but with urgency in her voice. “I need to concentrate.” It was toward the end of the July heat wave. My partner, and cofounder of this magazine, Amara, was in labor. After some efforts at timing we determined that the contractions were coming every two or three minutes. Our older son, Asher, almost 21 months, had missed his nap. He was irritable and craving the attention of his mother, who was busy focusing on the very internal experience of her body preparing to give birth. So I helped him climb into his stroller and started walking. Suddenly in a new environment I felt the intense emotions that were present but hidden by the circumstances. I was very fully awake, keenly aware of the feeling of the air on my skin, wind blowing the trees. I was surprised to acknowledge that I could see every leaf on a tree waving individually. I felt an intense inner pressure that I knew was a sympathetic experience with Amara’s. Until that moment I hadn’t accepted that the birth was imminent. Asher’s had taken almost 18 hours, while this labor had been in process very undramatically for just a few. But as Asher and I walked I reflected on the previous birth and recent months of pregnancy. The first birth had shown me that the experience is much more than a physical or medical event. I felt that it was an ordeal of the highest order, a doorway through which to pass into a new phase of life—the life of parenthood and family. I had known theoretically that we, as parents-to-be, were stepping into a wholly new state of responsibility, but at the moment of Asher’s birth I felt a palpable shift, as though a new piece of my being was being born with him. And I could see that for Amara the birth had been a deep initiation. It was preparing her for the being-disposition of motherhood; for an as-yet unrealized level of selflessness and selfsacrifice. The birth was an explosive beginning to a new life. And since every beginning contains the germ of what follows, very much depended on the way she faced the event. Participating in the process I saw it as akin to the process of meditation—or perhaps it was itself the height of meditation—in that she was required to face and absorb every aspect of the experience; to feel every iota of pain, to work through her own avoidance and fear of discomfort; to see these things and yet stand apart from them, allowing the experience to unfold and herself inhabit the position of she-who-watches. At a pivotal moment in Asher’s birth I could see that she was struggling and said “Remember: Don’t work against yourself, do only what is necessary.” This was the seed of what the next birth would be. In reflection on the previous experience Amara had gradually come to the determination that she wanted to allow herself to experience this birth fully, with a minimum of interference. When she introduced me to the idea of having the birth without the assistance of a doctor or midwife I was nervous initially, but then I realized that I was myself considering the issue from within the paradigm we were trying to leave behind. I thought that if a doctor or midwife weren’t responsible, I would be, and I knew I was wholly unqualified. But the essence of what Amara wanted was to cooperate with and rely on her own body to do what the body knows how to do—give birth. I could hear in her voice that she was connected with the intelligence of her organism. There was an unalterable confidence that is not the opposite of fear. It was simply a knowledge that she could trust her body to have a baby; that it was not a medical event, not an emergency, but a natural process like many other bodily functions, and one that could be depended upon to succeed.1 Amara had taken the opportunity of the pregnancy to become deeply aware of her body. She meditated on every sensation and discovered unpleasant memories that caused constriction and pain. Releasing them, the pain dissipated. It was as though she labored continuously for the last trimester of the pregnancy. Hence, it was understandable that the labor was anticlimactic. It had been going on for months. Asher and I walked down our road in the oppressive heat talking about the birds and deer, having the type of intuitive conversation one can have with a not-quite-two-year-old. He wanted to get out of the stroller and push it himself, thrusting it ahead and then running after it. After awhile I felt a strong pull to return. Arriving on our porch I heard Amara’s voice from the bedroom. “Jason, Asher!” she yelled, “Come see the baby!” We arrived, and awestruck, watched Amara deliver her child into her own hands.2 —Jason Stern 1
What is termed “unassisted childbirth” is not something I would recommend to anyone. To give birth alone requires deep self-awareness and
determination to buck the norm on the part of the mother-to-be. In my opinion, the decision needs to be deeply personal and self-motivated. 2
Ezra Nur Saha Stern was born at 4:48pm on Friday, July 28, 2006. He is beautiful, healthy, and apparently pleased to have been incarnated in
human form.
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LETTERS Opening the Left’s Eyes To the Editor: I just finished reading through your interview with David Barsamian on the history of the current Israeli-Islam conflict [“The Never Ending Story,” 8/06]. This interview is littered with erroneous information. What indicates its irrefutable bias is, however, its complete failure to mention the 2005 Lebanese protest of Syrian occupation. The problem of a “terrorist nation within a nation” has a clear and delineable history if one chooses to look at all the events that have taken place. Given that, I would like to say that I think the left needs to open its eyes to the real situation here and start to understand that Bush’s enemies are not necessarily their friends.The pan-Arab agenda is painfully obvious to just about everyone but the extreme American left. Israel is a complicated situation, and possibly any credo that the American left may adopt would be that of concentration on domestic matters above all else. Joshua Zeidner, via e-mail
Isolation in Sundown To the Editor: Having just finished reading Amanda Bader’s excellent article, “Hidden Harvest” [8/06], I turned to Patrick Shield’s list of farmer’s markets and was disappointed once more, in the context of being part of the Hudson Valley, to find that “our” part of the region was not included. There is a farmer’s market in Ellenville on Saturdays—call (845) 647-5626 for details—and there are four other markets in Sullivan County (visit www.sullivancountyfarmersmarkets.org). It would seem that including a greater extent of territory to the west would balance the inclusion of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and Millbrook. Though residents of Ulster County, we feel isolated from many resources and a circuitous postal system (the Woodstock Times takes 10 days or more to reach us). We look forward to getting issues of Chronogram whenever we can and are inevitably impressed and delighted with the quality of coverage, the writing, the design and, not least, all the valuable information. M. Piera, Sundown
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PHOTOS: ARTIST'S SOAPBOX DERBY BY FIONN REILLY, SURVIVOR KINGSTON BY MOLLY EAGAN, BOLLYWOOD BY FIONN REILLY AND TIMOTHY BRILL.
CHRONOGRAM
SEEN
The events we sponsor, the people who make a difference, the Chronogram community. Here's some of what we saw in August: SHIFTKEY'S BOLLYWOOD PARTY / ARTISTS' SOAPBOX DERBY WOODSTOCK FRINGE FEST / SURVIVOR KINGSTON
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Clockwise from top left: Artists' Soapbox Derby co-founder George Donskoj at the
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start of this year's gravity-powered kinetic sculpture exhibition. Former Chronogram art director Carla Rozman and editor Brian K. Mahoney at the Survivor Kingston breast-cancer benefit. Michael Fosberg, writer and performer of "Incognito" at the Woodstock Fringe Festival. Shiftkey Productions Bollywood Party: Chronogram production director Yulia Zarubina; Henna painter Mary Fassberger; DJ Ashu Rai spins; Isis Vermouth and Osiris; Peter Kudren and Cynthia Kudren of New York House.
CHRONOGRAM SPONSORS IN SEPTEMBER: FAMILY FARM FESTIVAL, SEPTEMBER 10, HIGH FALLS TASTE OF NEW PALTZ, SEPTEMBER 17, ULSTER FAIRGROUNDS. For more info, visit www.chronogram.com Going to be there? Take a picture and if we print it, you'll win a stylish Chronogram tee-shirt! E-mail 300 dpi JPEGS (up to 10MB) to seen@chronogram.com. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM 21
EMPTYPRESS design plus.
www.emptypress.com
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Glen Wilson
Editor’s Note
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NEWS & POLITICS World, Nation, & Region
LOUDER THAN BOMBS THE BATTLE FOR LEBANON By Jon Lee Anderson On a deceptively peaceful afternoon in the last week of July, Ali Fayyad, a Hezbollah strategist, puffed on a cigar and spooned up a dish of ice cream. Three scoops of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.We were sitting in Lina’s Café, on Rue Hamra, in downtown Beirut. For 11 days, the city had been shuttered, nearly empty of people and traffic, as the Israeli military pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs and the south of the country, where Hezbollah, the “Party of God,” had dug its tunnels and bunkers and stored thousands of Iranian-built missiles. Bridges, tunnels, roads, and apartment buildings lay in ruins, and almost three-quarters of a million Lebanese had fled their homes in fear. But for the moment, at least, Ali Fayyad ate his ice cream in peace. Some of the shops were open, and more people were out on the street because Condoleezza Rice was in town to meet with the Lebanese leadership and everyone figured—rightly––that the Israelis would hold fire over downtown Beirut until she left. Fayyad is a burly man in his forties. As a member of the Hezbollah politburo, he is close to the group’s supreme leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and everything he told me at Lina’s, about the cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others on July 12, and the all-out armed conflict that followed, was an authorized version. “Our aim is to get Israel to return Lebanese lands”—he meant Shebaa Farms, a small strip of land occupied by Israel since 1967—“and to release three of our prisoners,” Fayyad said. “One of the prisoners has been held for almost 30 years.” He was referring to Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese man who, in 1979, killed an Israeli man and his four-year-old daughter. (Another daughter, who was two, was accidentally smothered when her mother tried to keep her quiet in the crawl space where they were hiding.) “We’ve made many efforts to have them returned, and have tried everything, including diplomacy, with no results,” Fayyad said. “So we were left with no other choice but to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The idea was ‘prisoners for prisoners.’And we have exchanged prisoners with Israel in the past.” If that really was Hezbollah’s plan, it went wrong from the beginning. Tensions were already high, because of the Hamas kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in Gaza, two weeks earlier, and Israel responded with bombing raids, including one, the next day, on Beirut’s airport. That night, a rocket fired from Hezbollah territory hit Haifa, and more missiles, in both directions, soon followed, resulting in casualties and the threat of regional war. Fayyad seemed both surprised and offended by the scale of the Israeli attack, which he said Hezbollah never expected. Although Hezbollah’s rockets were landing in Haifa, Nahariya, Safed, and Nazareth, he also claimed that it had been reluctant to target civil26 NEWS & POLITICS CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
ians. “First, for humanitarian and moral reasons, and, second, because when civilians are killed we come out as the losers,” he said. “Far more of our people get killed than Israel’s.” Still, for Fayyad, the events had the logic of reprisal: Israel had hit “civilian infrastructure,” and so Hezbollah fired rockets into “occupied Palestine,” by which he meant all of Israel. The past two weeks have represented a return to first principles for Hezbollah, which was founded in the early ’80s, after Israel invaded Lebanon. The group became known internationally when it was accused of bombing the US Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 American servicemen; that was followed by attacks on Israeli targets around the world. In Lebanon, Hezbollah draws support, in the Shiite community and beyond, for its role in driving the Israeli occupation forces out of the country in 2000. Since then, Hezbollah has presented itself as a political party, gaining two posts in the Lebanese cabinet and 14 seats in the parliament. But, rather than disarming, it bolstered its military capacity, with Iranian and Syrian help. Now that it is under siege, the contradictions of its position—as part of the Lebanese state, but also as a clandestine body that subverts it—are plainer than ever. On July 14, Nasrallah went on television and addressed Israel directly: “You wanted an open war. We are heading toward an open war, and we are ready for it.” The Israelis, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his novice defense minister, Amir Peretz, quickly shifted their aims from retrieving the soldiers to destroying, or at least crippling, Hezbollah. Hundreds of Lebanese had already been killed, most of them civilians; dozens of Israelis had been killed, about half of them civilians. As Fayyad considered these numbers, he puffed on his cigar and said that Israel, and not Hezbollah, had made the greater strategic miscalculation. “The real battle started four days ago, when the Israelis moved their troops into Lebanon, and it became a ground war,” he said. “That is the preferred situation for Hezbollah.They fought four days to take Maroun al-Ras, just one mile from the border, on very open ground, with tanks—four days.” A few days after our conversation, control of Maroun alRas was still in dispute, and Israel was facing more resistance than expected in the village of Bint Jbail. But Hezbollah’s interests are not reducible to the conventional terms of a casualty balance sheet. Hezbollah has embedded itself deep within Lebanese society, in effect creating a state within a state, with an extensive social service network. Even if Israel manages to dislodge Hezbollah’s fighters, Nasrallah will likely remain the most powerful politician in the country, in part because the chaos of the last weeks has exposed the weakness of the government. Most of the Lebanese analysts I spoke with said they
believed that Hezbollah had, on its own terms, been significantly strengthened by the conflict. The damage to Lebanon, meanwhile, has been catastrophic. Fayyad said that he had arranged to evacuate his father from the family home in a village near the Israeli border, but he emphasized that Hezbollah’s forces would not leave south Lebanon without a fight. “You must remember that the point of resistance is not to hold ground and face off in front of another position,” Fayyad said. “That is classical warfare, but we are guerrillas. If the Israelis want to take the territory all the way up to the Litani River, do you think they can do it without heavy casualties?” Fayyad finished his ice cream and stubbed out his cigar. Before we left Lina’s, he said, “This doesn’t mean that the battle isn’t difficult for us. It is. It’s painful, too. But the longer it goes on the harder it will be for them.” Across town, the talks between Condoleezza Rice and the Lebanese faltered the moment she announced that the Bush administration would not yet press Israel for a ceasefire. “It doesn’t do any good
REUTERS/ERIC GAILLARD
A LEBANESE WOMAN LOOKS AT THE DESTRUCTION CAUSED BY ISRAELI BOMBING AS SHE RETURNS TO HER HOME IN BEIRUT’S SOUTHERN SUBURBS ON AUGUST 15.
to raise false hopes,” she said after a meeting with Lebanese, European, and UN officials in Rome two days later. “It’s not going to happen. . . . I did say to the group, ‘When will we learn?’ The fields of the Middle East are littered with broken ceasefires.” ROAD MAP TO MISERY On July 23, the day before Rice’s visit, I’d made my way toward the cities and towns of the Shia south–– Hezbollistan, as some call it. I drove from Beirut with a few photographers, taking back roads to bypass the mangled highway interchanges and bridges.The only cars we saw were racing in the opposite direction, to the relative safety of the north, usually in caravans of seven or eight. Most were packed with families, who had attached makeshift white flags to the side-view mirrors. The previous week, an Israeli missile had hit a van full of refugees, killing 16 of them. Some drivers flashed their lights, warning us not to proceed; most passed by at high speed, the expressions on their faces grim, intent, and scared.
ApproachingTyre, we saw that a bomb had gouged out a crater, 20 feet across and 20 feet deep, in the middle of the road. Nearby, a black SUV sat accordioned and empty; it had crashed into a telephone pole. From the sky came the whoosh of a fighter jet and, much closer, the whine of a drone. We pulled over to make way for a convoy of refugees. One driver, a man wearing a white T-shirt and steering a large black Mercedes-Benz, had several frightened-looking women and children in the back seat. As he slowed down to edge past the crater, he yelled out to us, in English, “We will never go back! We must leave this country.” In another car, a woman pointed to a child and said, frantically, “Down’s syndrome.” A teenager poked his head out of yet another car and exclaimed wildly, “US Embassy!” A muffled explosion sounded, coming from beyond the city. Over the next half hour, several more groups of cars made the run. One had its roof caved in and one of its sides smashed; it seemed impossible that
anyone could drive it, but, as it came nearer, I saw an older man behind the wheel, his body bent and his head low to one side. As he passed, he called out that he had been with a woman—“a journalist like you”—and added, “She’s dead.” Later that day, news reports confirmed that a 23-year-old Lebanese photographer, Layal Nejib, had been killed when an Israeli missile struck near her car on the road south of Tyre. We turned north, to a hospital in Sidon. A large group of people—men, women wearing chadors, and children—were talking and crying at once. I recognized the man in the white T-shirt who had passed us by the crater. He appeared to be in shock, walking back and forth, trembling and shouting; several men were trying to calm him down. He was soaked with sweat.Three members of his family had been wounded. I walked up to the man and said that I had seen him less than an hour before. He turned and shouted, accusingly, “You were there and I talked to you—and then they hit us!” 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM NEWS & POLITICS 27
THE VOICE OF FAIROUZ Sunni and Christian politicians often publicly declare their solidarity with the Shiite Hezbollah, which routinely refers to itself as a Lebanese national “resistance movement.” But the sectarian fault lines have been affected by the current crisis. The population is estimated to be 35 percent Christian, 35 percent Shiite, 25 percent Sunni, and 5 percent Druze, and government posts are allocated to specific groups—the prime minister must be Sunni, for example. “Civil war is on everyone’s mind, but it’s the one thing nobody wants to talk about,” an affluent Maronite Christian businessman told me over dinner at a restaurant in a Maronite enclave in the hills above Beirut. I was there with two couples—the other man, also a Christian, was a well-known former government minister—on the restaurant’s terrace. Like many people with money, they had moved their families to the hills. The restaurant’s sound system was playing a song by Fairouz, Lebanon’s most famous singer and a national idol, whose beautiful laments evoke emotions in the Lebanese the same way that Edith Piaf once did for the French in wartime. My hosts had been telling me, with a certain 28 NEWS & POLITICS CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
REUTERS/ZOHRA BENSEMRA
BOMBS AND LEAFLETS Near the hospital, a mosque lay in ruins. Next door was a technical college and school run by the Hariri Foundation, which was established by the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a car bombing in February 2005. (A preliminary UN report implicated Syrian intelligence; the investigation is incomplete.) One of the mosque’s white domes, still intact, was propped up, bizarrely, on top of the debris. Strips of the mosque’s red carpet, shredded by the explosion, hung from the branches of nearby trees. A man approached and told me that he was a teacher at the Hariri school. I asked him why he thought the Israelis had hit a mosque, and he said, simply, “It was a Hezbollah mosque.” As he led me onto the grounds, a caretaker began yelling in Arabic about “Israel” and “America,” but the teacher shooed him away. I found a leaflet that had been dropped by the Israelis. It showed caricatures of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Khaled Mashal, a Hamas leader based in Damascus, playing flutes around an urn; from it emerged the bearded face of Nasrallah. “At your service,” the caption read. A younger man came up to me and, when we were out of earshot of others, said that Hezbollah had kept bombs in the basement of the mosque, but that two days earlier a truck had taken the cache away. It was common knowledge in Sidon, he said, and everyone was expecting the mosque to be hit. When, the previous evening, displaced people from the south had gathered on the grounds, they had been warned away. “Everybody wants to end this Hezbollah regime, but nobody can say anything,” the young man said. He told me that he had been to the United States. “I know how the people are there, what they eat and how they live and think, and we don’t have anything like that here.We would like to live like that, without all this”—he waved toward the ruined mosque—“normally, the way you do.” He hoped that the Israelis would be successful. When another Lebanese man came up and joined us, he stopped talking. Before we parted, I asked him if he was a Christian. He looked surprised. “No,” he said. “I am Muslim. Sunni.”
DISPLACED LEBANESE MAKE THEIR WAY SOUTH AFTER THE UN BROKERED A TRUCE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HEZBOLLAH ON AUGUST 15. THE DRIVER DISPLAYS A POSTER OF HEZBOLLAH LEADER SHEIKH HASSAN NASRALLAH.
pride, how the monasteries and schools in the area had taken in thousands of Shiite refugees from the south. “This kind of thing has never happened before,” the former minister said. “Most of the people from these two communities have never had this sort of contact with each other. But they have been taken in, and they are getting along.” He saw it as a promising sign of “intercommunal solidarity.” After all, he said, the attacks had been directed not only against the Shiites but also against Lebanon’s infrastructure. Down the table, the businessman said that he wondered why, with all the resources Hezbollah had at its disposal—it receives an estimated $100 million a year from Iran—it hadn’t done more to protect its civilian population. “Why didn’t Hezbollah prepare for this?” he said. “Where is the food, the medicines? Where are the shelters for the people? Maybe, out of this, people will begin to question why they had to suffer because of the will of one man.” He meant Nasrallah. Speaking about the Shiite refugees, who were now dependent on aid handouts, his wife asked, “What will happen when October comes and winter begins? Will they stay?Will they have homes to return to? All through the civil war, I stayed in Lebanon—I never wanted to leave—but in just two weeks they have destroyed everything we have built in the 15 years since the war ended, and now I don’t want to stay anymore. This time, I want to leave.” A moment later, a distant rumble could be heard. “Are those bombs?” she said. “Is that what I am hearing? Here?” Neither her husband nor the ex-minister acknowledged her. But then there was another, louder explosion, and she asked again. “We are hearing Fairouz,” the ex-minister said sternly, cocking a thumb toward the sound system. He said this as if to tell her, “Don’t spoil the evening,” but afterward he brooded, and everyone at the table sat silently, listening to the music and, unavoidably, to the explosions in the distance. TOUR OVER When I arrived at the Hezbollah stronghold of Haret Hreik, in Beirut’s predominantly Shiite southern
suburbs, it had just been pummeled, as it had every day since the bombing began. Most of the residents, who lived in concrete apartment blocks, had left. It had been risky for reporters to go to the neighborhood, both because of the Israeli bombardment and because of the remaining Hezbollah sentinels, who were tense and suspicious. But now Hezbollah was conducting a press tour of its ruins. I found my way to the rendezvous point, at a bombed-out highway interchange, where 50 or 60 journalists had gathered—reporters, photographers, and television cameramen. An energetic young man named Hussein Naboulsi, who runs Hezbollah’s press office, announced that the tour would be fast, and that no one should stray from the group. He then headed off so quickly that people had to sprint to keep up. Hezbollah men kept an eye on the sky, and on us. We walked past entire apartment blocks that had been flattened.The streets were littered with chunks of concrete, insulation material, twisted aluminum shutters, broken glass, and dangling electrical wires, and it became difficult to walk. Naboulsi paused and waved his arms and said loudly, “You see? This is where ordinary people live. This is what the Israelis do.” In front of a row of wrecked storefronts, he declared, “This is revenge against Lebanon, the only country that has shown itself able to defeat Israel.” We reached an open area where the buildings had been completely leveled. Naboulsi pointed to some rubble and said, “This is where the Hezbollah media relations office used be. Now there’s no place for me to work.” He claimed that, apart from this and a center for social charity, there hadn’t been any Hezbollah offices around there—only civilian targets. He then led the group away from the area where, I had heard, Hezbollah’s security headquarters had stood. In Beirut, many people believed that Sheikh Nasrallah was still in the neighborhood, in a bunker, although there were also rumors that he was in Damascus or at the Iranian Embassy. Naboulsi suddenly yelled, “Jet fighters in the sky!” He urged the journalists to hurry to their cars; the tour was over.
THE PRICE OF RANSOM One evening, on a rooftop balcony in the eastern-Beirut district of Ashrafieh, I met with Jamil Mroue, a secular Shiite and the editor of Beirut’s English-language newspaper, the Daily Star. Mroue, a big, handsome, silver-haired man of 56, nursed a glass of whiskey and looked out over the sea, where two gray American destroyers were prowling the Mediterranean. After staring at the ships for a minute, Mroue began to vent his frustration. “Even after 9/11, there is this expectation in the US and Israel that some unspoken middle class is just sitting there waiting to inherit the ruins of whatever country it is that they are obliterating. But there is no calculation that, if they flatten Lebanon and Nasrallah comes out of hiding and is given a microphone to deliver a speech, he can topple governments. He has been extraordinarily empowered by this. Israel and America are still obsessed with destroying hardware. But if you do this with Hezbollah you just propagate what you want to destroy”—that is, an unmoored fighting force. “Do I want to live under Hezbollah?,” he asked. “No, I don’t. But the same errors that the Americans made in Iraq are the ones being made here.You get rid of Nasrallah not by destroying his guns but by helping to create a sustainable society.” Mroue went on, “In the beginning, in the’80s, Hezbollah controlled the night, but by 2000 it controlled the day, even as the Israeli soldiers were huddled in their bunkers.” He said that it was unfair to ask Lebanon’s fragile government to do what the Israelis couldn’t in their 18-year occupation. “Do you want to use a sledgehammer? Well, do you remember the Israeli minister who compared Arabs to lice? Try hitting lice with a sledgehammer!” Mroue sipped his whiskey and said, “Hezbollah will most likely come out of this with its infrastructure shattered, but then comes the soapbox with the highly cerebral underdog— Nasrallah—and there will be a camera crew there from CNN or Al Arabiya, and he will go on camera and say, ‘Do this,’ and people will.” Mroue’s point of view was common not only among secular Shiites but among Christians and Sunnis who normally had little use for Hezbollah yet despaired of the effect of Israel’s bombing and the Bush administration’s refusal to rein in the Olmert government. “Before the war, probably 80 or 90 percent of Lebanese were against Hezbollah,” Mroue said despondently. “But now I’d say it’s around 50, teetering on 60 percent—in favor.” Those numbers were guesses; the breadth and depth of Hezbollah’s support is one of the great uncertainties in the crisis. Mroue cited an old Saudi tribal proverb: “If you know the price of a man’s ransom, kill him.” The ransom was the price that would be exacted by the slain man’s tribe in revenge for his death. “In other words, if you know what the costs will be for your actions, and you can afford them, go ahead,” Mroue said. “But here, who knows what the price of the ransom is?” “A VERY ERRONEOUS PICTURE” Hussein Rahal runs Hezbollah’s information bureau, and, like other Hezbollah officials, he had
gone underground. I met him by prearrangement in a borrowed office in a government building. Rahal was a study in gray: he wore a gray suit, had cropped gray hair, and had a gray stubble beard. He was taking the long view. “We have lived in this situation before. All wars end, and when this one does we will be victorious, because we will stand fast, and the situation we have now will be changed. Right now, the neoconservatives, as part of their strategy to reshape the Middle East, are encouraging Israel to escalate its war against Lebanon, which means that the US administration is taking a leading part in a war, one that the American people have no say in.” Rahal paused, and added carefully, “But Hezbollah does not want to cause any harm to the American people.” He went on: “The US runs the risk of bringing down the Lebanese state it says it wants to support. And if this happens it could take the whole region into a new stage of the conflict—and who benefits from that? “War is always two-sided, and you must test both sides’ ability to stand fast.We have weapons that we did not have in 1996.The casualties for Israel in a ground war will be very high. And we have only one choice, and that is to survive.” The broadcast facilities of Hezbollah’s television station, Al Manar, were bombed––the Israelis consider it the group’s most powerful propaganda arm—but it somehow managed to stay on the air.When I asked Ibrahim Mussawi, the editor of foreign news at Al Manar, about the damage the country had sustained, he said, “We’ve managed with $35 billion of national debt”—Lebanon’s current debt. “What will it cost to rebuild the new damage? Four, five billion? If we could manage 35, then we can manage 40 billion. Bad as it is, maybe some good can come out of this; maybe after this it will be the right time to settle all our problems in Lebanon, all of the isms we are famous for: nepotism, corruptionism.” Mussawi seemed to be suggesting that the best solution for Lebanon’s ills, when the war was over, was a government led by the Party of God. For now, it is not clear who is running Lebanon. Rice came to Beirut in part to express support for Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who came to power after the “Cedar Revolution,” the mass protests against Syrian interference in Lebanon that followed Hariri’s murder. Siniora, a Sunni, had criticized Hezbollah, but was openly in despair about the lack of US support for a ceasefire; in Rome, he called the air war “barbaric.” One politician Rice pointedly snubbed during her visit was the country’s president, Émile Lahoud, a Maronite who is widely seen as a tool of Syria. I met with him at the presidential palace a few hours before Rice arrived. He was deeply tanned, and looked like an older, fleshier version of Tony Blair. Lahoud told me how pleased he was that I had come to Lebanon to see the “truth” of what was happening. “Unfortunately, Americans have a very erroneous picture,” he said. “It’s—you know, they have a very strong media. Israel is all over the world.” He spoke vehemently about the “infamy” of the Israeli attacks. “The Israelis said it was because of the taking of two hostages.Well, it is not true. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM NEWS & POLITICS 29
REUTERS/ERIC GAILLARD
A LEBANESE COUPLE COUNTS AMERICAN MONEY THEY RECEIVED FROM A HEZBOLLAH MEMBER AT A SCHOOL IN BOURJ EL-BARAJNEH, A BEIRUT SUBURB, ON AUGUST 19. RIGHT: LEBANESE DISPLACED BY THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HEZBOLLAH STUCK IN A TRAFFIC JAM ON THEIR WAY SOUTH FROM BEIRUT ON AUGUST 14 .
They want to break the infrastructure, because Lebanon is a very big competitor of Israel, from the touristic point of view and with anything—regional trade, finance. So the Israelis don’t want Lebanon to prosper.” He added, “But the most important reason is that they want to take revenge, because we liberated our land.” I asked Lahoud if he believed, as I had heard other Lebanese say, that Israel wanted to spark a civil war in Lebanon. “Yes,” he said. “Israel is happy when Lebanese fight each other.” He added, “Washington wants whatever Israel wants, unfortunately. For many reasons.The main one, you know”—Lahoud gave me a knowing look—“the lobby, and elections.” “Look, you can see the bombs from here,” Lahoud said. He led me to the window, and we looked down at the southern suburbs. A plume of gray smoke was rising rapidly. COUNTING THEIR LOSSES On July 27—the morning after Israel lost nine soldiers in clashes with Hezbollah, and two days after its missiles hit a UN outpost, killing four observers—I met a Western diplomat in Beirut. He told me that, while both Hezbollah and Israel had miscalculated, Hezbollah, at this point, had the advantage. “The casualties inflicted by Israel’s air campaign play right into Hezbollah’s hands. Hezbollah certainly thinks it’s winning. Even if it loses popularity among Druze, Sunnis, and Christians, its popularity remains high among Shiites, and for Hezbollah that’s all that really counts. Pointing to his head, he said, “In the end, the battle is between the ears. If, as a result of this, the Lebanese people get sick of Hezbollah, and if they turn on it and disarm it, that would be great.” A less favorable 30 NEWS & POLITICS CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
scenario was for the fighting to end inconclusively, with Hezbollah allowed to return to its former status. Still, he said, that might at least “show the Lebanese that there are serious consequences for supporting Hezbollah.” The diplomat said that if anyone had benefited from the confrontation, it was the government in Tehran. “Iran’s role in this has been huge,” he said. “I don’t know what role, if any, it had in the abductions, but I think it does encourage Hezbollah’s fighting on the border, and its arms shipments have been impressive.Without any cost to Iran, Lebanon is getting devastated, Israel is taking hits, and the Iranians are getting distraction from the nuclear issue.They must be very happy right now.” The degree to which Hezbollah, fortified by its sponsors in Iran and Syria, has constrained Lebanon’s political dialog was brought home to me by Nayla Mouawad, Lebanon’s minister of social affairs. Mouawad, a Maronite, is the widow of former President René Mouawad, who was assassinated in 1989, the main suspects being Syria or a domestic political opponent. When I asked about Hezbollah, Mouawad chose her words very carefully. “We thought we needed Hezbollah to be a part of the government, and we gave it ministries to give it confidence to join in the nation building. We thought that we could not implement a settlement by force, but through national dialogue.” Mouawad said that she wanted a ceasefire, but that afterward the Lebanese army should assume control of the entire country. She was worried about it, though. “Divisions still exist in this country,” she said. “If a comprehensive settlement is not implemented, we are going to have problems. There will be people counting their losses—and the losses are tremendous—and
looking for someone to blame.” She added, “Lebanon is paying the price for Syrian and Iranian interests.” She noted that the Lebanese government agreed with some of Hezbollah’s demands, including the return of Shebaa Farms and prisoners. “We need to convince Hezbollah that only a strong Lebanese nation and state could preserve its future as a party, as a Lebanese party—not as an armed political faction.” Mouawad paused, and said, “I am very much aware that the moment we are living now may be better than the one we are going to live through.” “WE’LL GO TO HEAVEN” Despite its losses, Hezbollah remains conspicuously in control in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Outsiders are stopped and interrogated by men who seem to materialize out of nowhere, riding on motor scooters. A few days after the press tour, I returned to visit an underground refuge for displaced Shiite civilians; a Hezbollah official had approved the visit. My car pulled up outside the Farms Superstore, a modern supermarket in a concrete-and-glass building. After a round of questioning, I was allowed to proceed but only in the company of a Hezbollah man, who carried a black portfolio. Like most Hezbollah men, he wore a light beard, in the Iranian fashion. He led the way down into the three-level parking garage beneath the store, a vast, clean space of rubberized gray floors and support columns. There were no vehicles in sight; instead, at every other column or so, there were Lebanese families sitting and reclining on reed mats and foam-rubber mattresses. Each family had neat bundles of blankets and plastic bags of clothing and food. A few had electric fans, and
REUTERS/MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL
one group was gathered around a television. They were mostly women and children, with some older men and teenage boys; I saw few men in their twenties or thirties. The Hezbollah man said that there were 360 families in the garage—approximately 2,000 people. In one corner, children played on swings, a slide, and a small carrousel. Our escort said that Hezbollah had provided the equipment. He added that Hezbollah had set up a clinic and a pharmacy. As we walked down to the next level, two teenage boys, who had been squabbling, began throwing punches at each other. The escort grabbed them and sent them away with a reprimand. A few minutes later, we were approached by a young man named Ali. He held the hand of a wide-eyed girl of six or seven. He said he was from the southern town of Marjayoun. “I have been here six days,” he said. “I am tired, but I’m not scared.” He said that he had volunteered his services to Hezbollah, patrolling the refuge at night, “to see if anyone needs anything.” Speaking of the Hezbollah leader, who the night before had made a television appearance, he said, “Sheikh Nasrallah said last night that it will last
a long time. So here I am.” A middle-aged woman in a black chador came over. When I asked if she minded living underground, she smiled and said, in a gravelly voice, “It’s all the same to me. If Israel and America want to do this to us, all we can do is to bear the situation, so if we have to stay underground we will. We don’t mind staying here as long as the boys are okay”—a reference to Hezbollah’s fighters—“and as long as Sheikh Nasrallah is fine.We can bear anything. Death is normal to us, and, anyway, it means we’ll go to heaven.” She told us that four children had been born in the underground garage.Two were boys, and they had been named Waaed, which means “the promising one,” and Sadeq, which means “the truthful one”—because Sheikh Nasrallah says, “We have the promise of liberating the south.” She added, “We don’t think the Israelis will come to Beirut, but, if they do, we know what to do with them.” A young pregnant woman standing next to her laughed and made lunging, stabbing motions with her hand. Originally published in the NewYorker. Copyright 2006 Jon Lee Anderson. For more New Yorker articles, please visit www.newyorker.com. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM NEWS & POLITICS 31
Commentary BY LARRY BEINHART
THE VAST CORPORATE CONSPIRACY How do we know the issues of the day? How do we know what options are out there for us? For the most part, we turn to our favorite newspaper orTV news show to find out. Some of us cruise the Net and read books, but Americans largely rely on the mainstream media for information. That’s what it’s there for. Presumably. Here’s my question: Does the mainstream press have a duty to the political process, or should the media be just a mouthpiece for big money? Here’s a vivid case in point. Senator Hillary Clinton is being challenged in the Democratic primary by Jonathan Tasini. He wants a debate. He’s on the ballot. Fifteen thousand signatures are required. He got 40,000. That’s tough to do without money. It means he had to convince people to volunteer and the volunteers had to convince 40,000 people to sign something that didn’t get them a free coupon for a Happy Meal. Tasini polls at 13 percent. Perhaps more important is that he has taken stands that are distinctly different from Clinton’s. He is a choice, not an echo (as they used to say about Barry Goldwater).The first difference is that his stands are clear and concise. Clinton’s stands are generally as fuzzy as possible, reserving wiggle room for the 2008 presidential race. Tasini is against the war in Iraq. Hillary voted for it and continues to support it. Sniping at Rumsfeld doesn’t change that. Tasini is in favor of gay marriage. Clinton voted for the Defense of Marriage Act.That’s one of those wonderful Republican names. It does nothing to defend marriage. It actually assaults marriages that are between gay people. If one state makes same-sex marriage legal and a couple gets married there, the bill allows other states not to recognize that marriage and it mandates that the federal government not accept it. She voted for the Patriot Act. She’s in favor of a law to trump the First Amendment and make flag burning illegal. She’s to the right of George Bush on immigration policy. Tasini is for a single-payer national health system, he’s against the sort of free trade that NAFTA brought us, sending American jobs overseas and weakening unions. NewYorkers, and especially NewYork Democrats, are probably much closer to Tasini than to Clinton on the issues. So Tasini has legitimacy and standing and the differences between the two candidates are certainly worth hearing. Here’s where corporate greed clashes with media responsibility and big money blurs a line that the general public rarely, if ever, gets to see. Tasini wanted to debate Senator Clinton, but cable news channel NY1, the primary host of political debates in New York, refused to air a Clinton-Tasini debate. Why? Because Tasini hasn’t raised enough money—not the arbitrary amount of $500,000 that was set by NY1. Hillary Clinton has. She’s raised $49 million, including $101,010 from Time Warner, who owns NY1. Should we infer that there is a “vast right-wing conspiracy” by Hillary and her million-dollar friends? In a sense, yes. In order for a candidate to be taken seriously, not just by Time Warner but by the media in general, he or she has to have raised a lot of money. To raise big money, you have to jump when corporations say “Let’s play leap32 NEWS & POLITICS CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
PHOTO: DION OGUST
Beinhart’s Body Politic:
frog,” and hop when millionaires say, “I like toads.” You can find the list of her contributors at www.opensecrets.org. That’s how we know that Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers, General Electric, Cablevision, insurance companies, and the healthcare industry all love the way Clinton skips and jumps. Do we think that corporations give to politicians as an act of the heart, like throwing a buck to the beggar on the street? Or because they believe that a given candidate will give us a better-governed country? Or do they invest in the kind of person who shares their world view, who will answer the phone, personally, when they, their lawyers, and their lobbyists call? Try this out. Call up Senator Clinton’s office and see if you, a humble citizen of NewYork, can get to speak to her. Alright, we don’t really expect that.Try calling and getting an assistant, an office peon, to tell you her position—on anything. Let us return to the story of the debates. Here’s the good news. People noticed. There was outrage. Enough so that NY1 responded. Here’s the real news: NY1 responded by canceling all the Senate debates. NY1 is a symbol of the essential problem. In 2004, it cost an average of $1 million to run for a seat in the House. It cost an average of $7 million to run for the Senate. If you’re in the press room or the news room of a TV station, you really only report on candidates with a lot of money. Nobody says that, because everyone has internalized it. But if, say, all the reporters went on strike and were replaced with scabs straight out of journalism school, and an editor had to explain it, he or she would say something like, “Hillary’s got the bucks, she’s gonna win, so we cover what she has to say. If she has a position, you can get a line or two about it from whoever-the-fug-it-is running against her, whatshisname.” The editor would not say, “Hillary’s got $49 million dollars and more coming, she can buy all the ads she wants.We have to redress the balance.That’s the public interest. Get on Tasini. Cover every damn thing he does. If he’s got a position, go and get a line from Hillary to show her stand too, but getting Tasini’s message out there comes first, to counter the money.” That is an unimaginable scenario. The peculiarity here is that Clinton doesn’t need coverage. Her $49 million will buy as much airtime as she could possibly want. If she had a stand on any issue, she could make it known. If she simply wants image, image, image—as apparently she does—she can do that too. But Clinton gets coverage. Because money makes her the likely winner. The less her opponent has frog-hopped around the corporate ponds, the less money he has; the less money he has, the less likely he is to win and the less coverage he gets. In this case, as in most cases, it also means that the issues won’t get debated. Alternatives won’t be discussed. Only one bundle of messages gets out. The one from the candidate of the banks, the brokers, big corporate law firms, insurance, information, and telecom industries. In this way, without media people ever really having to admit it to themselves, they have become the house organ, a simple public relations transmission device for our large corporate interests. So, yes, Hillary, there is a vast corporate conspiracy. I’m sure you’re pleased to be part of it, rather than the subject of it. And as for you, dear reader, you’ve taken at least one step out of that system—you read Chronogram.
9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM NEWS & POLITICS 33
34 COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK
D
A Taste of Italian Pride Rossi’s
uring the recent World Cup tournament, one could travel just about anywhere in the Hudson Valley and not have a clue that most of the world was locked into a state of rabid, nationalistic hysterics over a progression of partisan soccer matches. No flag banners, no stocky men painted like patriotic zebras, and no random brawls flaring up between roving packs of hooligans, at least none prompted by a soccer match held 2,000 miles away. However, ducking into Rossi & Sons Deli in Poughkeepsie, there was no mistake what time in the four-year cycle of the sporting world we were currently living in. Jerseys, banners, and memorabilia proudly sporting the Italian colors of red, white, and green flanked every available corner of the deli, sometimes edging out real estate that would ordinarily have been reserved for hanging charcuterie or aging wheels of cheese. For a few weeks in June and July, Rossi’s was both taste of the homeland and shrine to its winning potential. The last World Cup victory for Italy was in 1982, three years after Rossi’s first opened its doors. This was a time when Poughkeepsie was still a dedicated IBM town, riding out the successive years of midcentury prosperity with a large and cohesive Italian community. The area around Mount Carmel Church, not far from Rossi’s, was still a strong religious and cultural site for Italians in the Hudson Valley. The neighborhood today boasts the remnants of the heyday of Italian businesses such as La Deliziosa and Caffé Aurora, where people line up for pastries during the holiday season. In 1965, Giovanni Rossi, an Italian immigrant from Parma, landed in the Hudson Valley. With his brother-in-law from Calabria, Victor Trocino, Rossi opened Rossi’s Deli as a faithful interpretation of the kind of neighborhood establishment they had both left behind in Italy. Rossi labored over most of the cooking, while Victor ran the back end of things and made many of the business decisions. Eventually, the two steered away from a partnership and Rossi took the helm with his wife, Angela (Trocino’s sister), playing a crucial supporting role. The husband-and-wife team poured countless hours into the rosticceria, gradually building up an invaluable neighborhood rapport while offering authentic Italian home cooking. Their time has most assuredly paid off in the form of a solid business, a devoted clientele, and 27 years in the same location. Rossi’s sits in a tree-lined corner overlooking the serpentine passage of Route 9
Deli
by Eric Steinman photos by Hillary Harvey
and the anchorage of the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Inside it is a long, narrow stretch lined with roughly 40 feet of refrigerated deli cases, all generously stocked with rounds of imported Bel Paese cheese, cerignola olives, pancetta, homemade finger-sized cannolis, and Pernigotti chocolates. Directly across from the deli counter are floor-to-ceiling shelves heavy with the weight of rarified Italian imports like Fior d’Arancio (orange water), cold-pressed olive oil, salt-packed capers, and cinder-block sized cans of roma tomatoes. At the far end of the shop resides modest hills of steaming home-cooked foods ranging from lasagna and eggplant parmigiana to garlic-roasted chicken and roast pork loin behind a vertical glass food guard that playfully warns “Please do not lean on glass or I breaka you face.” There is never any music playing, but the place is always holding the remnants of two or three conversations as the Rossis take orders, shoot the breeze with customers, or bicker amongst themselves. Roberto and Fabio, two of the four Rossi brothers, man the front with the skill of surgeons and the bonhomie of neighborhood bartenders. They wear the badge of having grown up with the deli and are being primed to eventually take over the enterprise from their workhorse parents. A nimble, cherubic energy radiates from Roberto, the younger of the two, as he greets everyone who walks through the doors with a reception that feels both ambassadorial and like a fraternal slap on the back. Roberto is clearly the congenial face of Rossi’s, as well as the tireless champion of its legacy. Fabio, with just a few years on his brother, is the more subdued and sardonic of the two, and holds the temperament of a dedicated tradesman and an expert baker. Roberto and Fabio are unmistakably brothers in appearance with their cropped hair and fraternal dynamic, which is affectionate as well as offhanded—behavior reminiscent of the 1996 film Big Night, in which Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub play quarreling brothers trying to keep their struggling Italian eatery afloat despite its poor business and their wildly divergent perspectives. This comparison only vaguely approximates the goings-on in the house of Rossi, but speaks to the universal truth of the unity and disjunction of family. Unlike their other two brothers, Roberto and Fabio have chosen to carry on the family tradition by dedicating themselves to its customs and menu as tirelessly as their parents have done for the previous three decades. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK 35
36 COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
ANGELINA ROSSI DISPENSES CHANGE AND OLD-WORLD CHARM AT ROSSI’S IN POUGHKEEPSIE. PREVIOUS PAGE (LEFT TO RIGHT): A FAMILY AFFAIR: FABIO, GIOVANNI, ANGELINA, AND ROBERTO ROSSI.
The recent addition of “& Sons” to the deli’s name last year reflects the brothers’ commitment. A few weeks into the World Cup competition, I stopped by Rossi’s to grab a strong and honest espresso and a sublime mortadella focaccia panino. Beyond the various red-white-and-green banners hanging from the ceiling was a small flat-screen TV broadcasting the Italy vs. Ghana match. Roberto, wearing a Rossi soccer jersey, gazed up at the screen, steadfast and enraptured. His palms clenched and opened as he spoke to me about the importance of an Italian win and the specifics of each player, all the while his eyes rarely left the action on the TV. During the especially tense moments and near goals, I could see and hear Fabio, stationed in front of his own TV in the back of the deli, involuntarily jumping backward with an audible gasp as if there were some force repelling him like a mouse on an electrified floor. Considering the spectacle of both the game and the faithful Rossi boys’ fervor, I asked Roberto where his parents were during all of this excitation. He pointed directly outside and said, “They can’t handle the excitement, it makes them too nervous.” Roberto went on to explain that he and his brother are responsible for running scores and news of the game out to his parents as they sit in waiting like expectant parents. This strikes me as a sweetly comical—if not a little overboard—familial detail, and Fabio leans in to educate me. “You know how hard it is just being around your own family?” he asks. “Well, imagine working with them six days a week.” So many of us tend to romanticize the notion of the family business as being an extension of the filial comfort and intimacy into the world of business, when really it might just function as a direct conduit of those familiar family tensions into the world of business. Even though Rossi’s stands as a paragon of virtue in the tightly woven domain of family businesses, they are a family fueled as much by love and forthrightness as they are stress and strife. They work long hours in a relatively small space flush with ringing phones, hot stoves, hungry lunch crowds, and the collective pressure of maintaining the dignity of the family name. All things considered, they find a shared harmony in the demanding hustle. As matriarch Angelina grouses, “This type of work is very difficult and takes a lot of time away from things like freetime, rest, and normal family life, but we all love it.” Roberto and Fabio are endeavoring to move the business into the 21st century while their family remains committed to traditional recipes and the integrity of ingredients. This entails sending blast faxes and updated menus to loyal customers, setting up a rigorous auxiliary catering and delivery outfit, and importing prime Italian ingredients like Taleggio cheese from Bergamo province, Parma ham, and Sanbitter soda, while filling in the gaps with their own hand-made fresh cheeses, breads, and charcuterie. Fabio is the daily bread maker, churning out disc after disc of soft and aromatic focaccia rounds while dabbling in charcuterie like sausage and cured pancetta; Giovanni seems to be doing everything at once, from cooking up Olympian-sized portions of penne to gathering fresh herbs, tomatoes, and zucchini from the family garden. Ultimately, their pride in what they do, as well as their intuitive knowledge of food, is what makes Rossi’s stand out in a landscape of relative mediocrity. It is rare to ever find Rossi’s empty. During lunch hours it’s always bustling. There are always a handful of people lingering or darting in momentarily to pick up a pint of soup or a side of pasta salad. The Rossis have so many regulars it seems like they know nearly every customer by face if not by name. If they don’t quite know their name and family, they assuredly know what each customer wants. One gentleman walks three paces through the door and Roberto yells out to him: “Hey, we just made some of that macaroni for you.” An older woman rushes the counter, a scribbled list in her hand. Fabio patiently works through the list with her as she turns to me and says, “These guys really got a knack.” Longtime customer Brian Moran simply proclaims, “It is the best food, and the service is more family-oriented than any other place I could think of.” Two days after Italy narrowly defeated France for the 2006 World Cup, I stopped into Rossi’s to witness the fervor and bluster. The place was still festooned with all the regalia and tackle that had been up for weeks, but the Rossis refused to gloat. Instead, they held an air of quiet contentment with appeasing smiles, knowing that, because of this win, the entire Italian community had advanced a few crucial steps forward, and the world was a much better place because of it. Still, the Rossi family dutifully cranked out the food, gathered orders over the phone, warmly greeted loyal customers—and moved their own community a few appetizing steps forward. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK 37
38 COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
THE ART OF BUSINESS
THE PUMP AUDIO CREW (LEFT TO RIGHT): BRIAN FORES, CLASSIFICATION DEPARTMENT; JEN WOITASEK, DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION; ALEX BARR, CLASSIFICATION DEPARTMENT; DENNIS LESICA, CLIENT RELATIONS; STEVE ASKEW, CO-FOUNDER AND C.I.O.; JESSICA KELLY, DIRECTOR OF ARTIST RELATIONS; ANTHONY FISCHETTA, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT; JOSEPH SCHNEIDER, DIRECTOR A&R AND CATALOGUE MANAGEMENT
HIGH VOLUME PUMP AUDIO IN TIVOLI
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BY SHANNON GALLAGHER
PHOTOS BY F - STOP FITZGERALD
ust a decade ago British-transplant Steve Ellis was tending bar at Stony Creek Restaurant in Tivoli, substitute teaching, and fronting the rock band The Simpletons. He spent the greater part of the ’90s in determined pursuit of a record contract. Ellis and his bandmates eventually found that record deals guaranteed neither fame nor fortune. After two disappointing deals, The Simpletons finally received the financial compensation and exposure they had been looking for when one of their songs was sampled for a television commercial. While Ellis maintains he can no longer remember the song nor the commercial, he says the experience turned him on to the potential of music licensing. From behind his uncluttered desk, the white walls of his small corner office adorned with his children’s colorful drawings, Ellis recounts his transition
from aspiring rock star to entrepreneur. “It just seemed odd to me that people were getting paid to make fake music when there are millions of people out there making real music every day, all sorts of kinds,” he says, referring to the production industry’s use of “canned” music. Working alone from a spare room in his Tivoli home, Ellis began compiling his own music library, stocked with submissions from a handful of musician friends. Agreements were drawn up, defining Ellis’s Pump Audio as a direct licensing agent, allowing the company to act as the link between independent musicians and companies in need of production music. Thanks to the connections of an old friend, Ellis soon began talking with MTV producer Ari Pomerantz, and Pump, as it’s called by its employees, was hired to rescore “The Real World.” For the project, Ellis recruited Steve 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK 39
40 COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
JOE SCHNEIDER, DIRECTOR OF A&R AND CATALOGUES, HOLDS PUMPBOX EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES.
Askew, a producer who had worked with The Simpletons; studio technician Joe Schneider; and Simpletons guitarist Rob Tourtelot. When asked about his company’s rapid growth, Ellis, casual in khaki shorts and plaid polo shirt, leans back in his chair and matter-of-factly states, “It has just been one step after the other.” Today, Ellis, Tourtelot, Askew, and the marketing and client relations staff work from a small converted barn in the center of Tivoli. Last week, Schneider and the music-processing staff moved their offices into a house across the street, affectionately dubbed “The Pump Dump.” Though Tivoli is considered Pump’s home base, sales offices have opened in cities across the globe, including Los Angeles, Melbourne, Amsterdam, and London.
I
ce cream bar in hand, Jessica Kelly, Pump’s director of artist relations, strolls back to her desk, her flip-flops slapping against the office’s scuff-marked wooden floor. As the ice cream truck’s jolly tunes fade down the street, she maneuvers through the tight, well-lit foyer-cumoffice, its corners piled with boxes, televisions, and a forlorn vacuum. Back in her chair, she begins pulling packages from mail crates, some of the 2,000 unsolicited submissions the firm receives monthly from unsigned musicians all over the world. Since the company added the FastTrack feature to its website, thereby allowing artists to upload up to three MP3s for pre-approval into the Pump catalog, the number of CDs to be sorted through has decreased. Tearing open an envelope from Ireland, Kelly removes a number of forms and a CD with a homemade label. The paperwork, downloaded from Pump’s website, includes a thorough, signed licensing agreement and a form asking the artist to classify the genre of his or her music as well as the themes of the lyrics. Once Kelly has entered all necessary data into the computer, the CD goes upstairs, where the classifiers, supervised by Schneider, decide how the songs should be cataloged, if at all. The Pump catalog includes 105 genres. Though rock, electronica, and hip-hop are the most commonly submitted and most licensed, the catalog also includes everything from Bulgarian orchestral music to Afro-Cuban jazz. Music from the catalog has been used in commercials for Nike, Mercedes-Benz, and Kodak. Popular television shows such as “Entourage,” “Sex and the City,” and “ER” have also used Pump to source their soundtracks. Clients such as VH1, A&E, NBC, Comedy Central, New Line Cinema, and E! can access the 65,000 songs in the Pump catalog through an external hard drive aptly named the PumpBox. No bigger than a deck of cards and emblazoned with the Pump logo, the drives are programmed just across from Ellis’ office in a tiny room packed tightly with computer equipment and ceiling-high switchboards. In one corner sits a waist-high stack of small boxes containing the un-programmed drives ordered in bulk from Hitachi. Using a hard drive “cloner,” up to a dozen PumpBoxes can be programmed at a time; the PumpBox contains catalog-accessing software to be downloaded to the client’s network. Each PumpBox has an internal number that corresponds with a particular client, who can use the software to search the catalog by genre, lyrics, mood, tempo, or instrumentation. When the client finds music 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK 41
42 COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
www.schneiderpfahl.com
Woodstock Landscape, Prudence See, oil on board, 10x8’
Real Estate • Estate Planning Arts & Entertainment
STEVE ELLIS, FOUNDER OF PUMP AUDIO, IN THE STUDIO OF THE TIVOLI-BASED INDIE MUSIC DISTRIBUTION COMPANY.
SCHNEIDER PFAHL & RAHMÉ LLP he or she would like to use, it can be immediately downloaded for production. An electronic register and a cue sheet are then filled out for payment records. The artist’s ability to retain the rights to their music is what makes Pump the most advantageous licensing choice for musicians. The artists receive 100 percent of their performance royalties from their respective performing arts society (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC), and they and Pump split the licensing fees paid by producers 50-50, a standard split for production libraries. Ellis declines to divulge the company’s annual revenue figures. “There is no catch,” Kerry Muzzey attests. A New York City-based film and television composer who has been in Pump’s catalog for several years, Muzzey’s compositions have frequently appeared on A&E, Discovery Channel, and shows like “Oprah” and “The Gastineau Girls.” His enthusiasm for the company is effusive. “The old business model for production libraries required that the artist sold the rights to their music with hope and a prayer that it got used,” Muzzey explains. “Pump Audio takes nothing from you.” He continues to explain how as a composer scoring jobs are few and far between; though the licensing deals he receives through Pump aren’t enough to pay his bills, it is a hassle-free supplemental income, and the exposure is the icing on the cake. “Someone will say, ‘Have I heard your stuff?’ and I can say ‘Yeah, it was on “Laguna Beach.”’ As an artist, that recognition is huge.”
31 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock, NY 12498 845-679-9868 2 Park Ave., 19th Fl., New York, NY 10016 212-629-7744
www.nycrealestateattorneys.com
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arlier this year, Pump became the first investment of Greycroft Partners LP, a new digital media and entertainment investment concern. The deal and funding from a handful of other partners gave Pump access to money for expansion and product development. One such product, the MyPump Soundtrack selector, was released at the beginning of August. The new video tool will allow users to create soundtracks from the Pump catalog for their videos and slideshows. Pump has partnered with various undisclosed media companies involved in usergenerated content, giving their members free access to MyPump, while the company itself absorbs the cost. MyPump will also be available directly through Pump’s website, requiring only a small fee for the average consumer and fees comparable to those of larger clients for professional users. “We’re giving everyone the power to create compelling video content by offering great music choices within a creative Web tool,” Ellis states. Seemingly always one step ahead of the game, Pump Audio has once again tapped into a growing market, that of Web-generated content, while still representing the best interests of the musician. And with the support of Greycroft, Ellis’s brainchild will remain at the forefront of the independent music licensing business. “We are in a unique position to offer a unique solution,” Ellis says. “It’s just a real fair deal.” More information on Pump Audio’s services, as well as a preview of the MyPump Soundtrack selector, can be found at www.pumpaudio.com. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK 43
44 PORTFOLIO CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
SEPTEMBER 2006
ARTS & CULTURE CHRONOGRAM
Closing of Ames Store, Hudson, NY, Jeff Brouws, 2002.
Hillary Harvey
Portfolio, page 46
9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM PORTFOLIO 45
PHOTO OF JEFF BROUWS BY HILLARY HARVEY
Portfolio Jeff Brouws
Jeff Brouws is a connoisseur of TOADS, an acronym used by ethnic geographers to describe temporary, obsolete, abandoned, and derelict sites. TOADS are the detritus of the American throwaway culture writ large—crumbling factories, empty motel swimming pools, public housing projects gone to rot, vacant storefronts on Main Streets across the country. In Brouws’s latest book, Approaching Nowhere (W.W. Norton, 2006), Brouws collects TOADS like Alan Lomax made field recordings of folk songs—not for the sake of nostalgia, but to chronicle the last vestiges of a disappearing part of the American landscape. Broken into three sections—“The Highway Landscape,” “The Discarded Landscape,” and “The Franchised Landscape”—Approaching Nowhere is a visual anthropological
tour of the American past, present, and future, sometimes all in one image, as in a photograph of a superstore being constructed on recently cleared Indiana farmland, from 2004. Although the landscape portraits in Approaching Nowhere are from locales as diverse as Gary, Indiana, and Needles, California, Brouws, a Red Hook resident, included some local shots as well, such as an eerie image of the Ames store in Hudson shortly after its closing in 2002. Brouws will exhibit photos from Approaching Nowhere at the Robert Mann Gallery in Manhattan, September 6 through October 14. Portfolio at www.jeffbrouws.com. —Brian K. Mahoney
JEFF BROUWS ON HIS WORK Fuzzy Representations of the Past
Multi-dimensionality
Layering
There’s a wonderful quote from Walker Evans, where he once defined nostalgia as being “the blurry vision which destroys the actuality of the past.” He instead was more interested in what he termed the “historical contemporary.” Nostalgia has never been my intent, either: I have always simply photographed what was in front of me as a reflection of present time. I didn’t photograph a building or site in 1992 wishing I could have made the photograph in 1950. Even though I’ve been a photographer 35 years, I believe a photograph can’t necessarily tell the whole story. That’s why photojournalism came into existence. Somebody, somewhere, realized that images without text have limited range. Similarly, singular images can’t convey what a series of photos can more broadly address—which is why I make books and work on specific projects or bodies of work. No single image has to carry the whole weight of the idea. I would love you, as a viewer, to walk into the gallery and know all my internal thoughts when you’re looking at the photographs—but that’s not possible.
Photographs have the capability of being multi-dimensional. They can be historical documents, narrative in nature, or can often enter the realm of metaphor or allegory. As an artist/photographer however, I don’t over-calculate with the camera and say, “Okay, now I’m going to make a social document” or “Now I’m going to make an image that’s metaphorical.” However, these different qualities emerge through you as you’re making the work. I hope that as you look through Approaching Nowhere, the photographs do hit you in different ways on different levels. Some will be in a social-documentary vein, while others, perhaps, will function in a more emotional, metaphorical, or moody way. While I don’t think I’ve ever consciously gone out to emulate the films of David Lynch or the paintings of Edward Hopper, I see definite threads of their influence.
I practice something called layering in my photography. I like to return multiple times to locations I’m interested in. For instance, the first time I was in Kansas City was in 1995 and I had an intuitive reaction to the place. I was up on I-70 and off to my right, as I was coming into the city, was a declining warehouse district with early 20th-century architecture. So boom! I was down there. However, because of my schedule, I could only work for maybe three or four hours there. So you make a mental note, “I’m coming back, I’m going to check this out further.” I’ve been to Kansas City on my way to elsewhere about four times now. I find by repeatedly returning to areas, instead of just dropping in and taking some shots and moving on, it becomes a richer experience. You see things you didn’t see before, or the landscape has been altered, or buildings torn down. There are always transformations happening, transformations to record. I also follow the photography up with reading, like the first time my wife and I went into Gary, Indiana. I promptly came home and started delving into the literature about inner-city America, trying to understand the economics and racial issues of what I was looking at.
46 PORTFOLIO CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
Clockwise from top left: Sign without Signification, Ludlow, California, 2004; Route 285, Vaughn, New Mexico, 1997; Superstore under construction on former farmland, Indiana 2004; Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago, Illinois, 2002 (since demolished).
The Tendency Toward Beauty
Slow Transformations of the Master
Romance of the Road
I’m not always confident, as an artist, that the complete message is coming through. Sometimes it may seem like a mixed message because you’ve made a beautiful photograph of subject matter normally considered “not beautiful.” All I can do is take the photograph and put it out there, publish it in a book, or put it on a gallery wall and hope a critical dialogue emerges. But I stopped worrying about this “incompleteness,” and [the] beauty problem, a long time ago. The dilemma with photography is that when you select something, extracting a slice of the world to place within a rectangle or square, there’s an inherent tendency by the medium to aestheticize, to render beautiful what’s before the lens. Because of my graphic design background I also tend to see things in a structured, highly formalistic way. Therefore, whatever I’m shooting—whether it’s pleasing or unpleasing subject matter (that traditionally isn’t thought of as beautiful)—it gets that treatment. However, this is okay with me. To grab the viewer’s attention, I think you have to play the beauty card first.
In the earliest phases of the life of every photographer, you’re marveling at being able to isolate things out in the world and making beautiful representations of that world. But at some point you want to get beyond the surface of what you’re doing. By reading about subjects I’m interested in, I’m able to keep myself motivated and mine more deeply below those surfaces. In fact, my intellectual curiosity has become so intertwined with the photography, oftentimes the reading happens before the photos (i.e., I often get project ideas from essays), although most of the time the reading transpires after the photo project has begun. As an artist, too—as you get farther along—it’s a little harder to keep yourself enthused because you’ve achieved certain mastery levels with the materials, the equipment, and the mental gyrations of being an artist. All changes appear more gradually at some plateau point. It can be frustrating as “things” move at glacial paces. So I strive to maintain a “beginner’s mind,” to recall those earlier times and stages where the artistic growth seemed dramatic and unending. Somehow the reading helps in this arena, too.
People find different places to hang out when they’re children, and for myriad reasons I gravitated toward the local gas station where I grew up, in Daly City, California. I was entranced by the futuristic, “googie” architecture of its swooping rooflines; the signage, stickers, and graphics of the motor-oil and auto-parts manufacturers, like STP or Champion Spark Plugs, that seemed to be plastered everywhere in that environment. It was a very masculine place, too. Being the child of divorced parents, I think I subconsciously wanted to be in the company of “men doing things.” I also took a fair amount of trips with my mother, just around California in her car—a white 1962 Thunderbird—and it was always interesting to see new places and navigate unfamiliar countryside. It was here that I became engaged with the idea and mystery of traveling, the highway, and the potentiality of the road map. It all seemed very romantic.
9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM PORTFOLIO 47
Lucid Dreaming BY BETH E. WILSON
BEYOND THE CHARMED CIRCLE
T
he value of art is too often a product of its exclusivity. Enormous crowds beat a path to the Louvre each year to see the original Mona Lisa “in the flesh,” an experience that cannot be fulfilled by any of the billions of its reproductions in existence. Similarly, the contemporary art scene is too often dependent on a cliquish attachment to social exclusivity—focusing time and critical energy on a very limited horizon, the same few dozen artists promoted by the same handful of curators, represented by blue-chip galleries that can sometimes make you question your worthiness to step in the door. So it’s especially refreshing when instead of restricting access, whether through impenetrable clouds of explanatory concept or simple snob appeal, a contemporary art institution elects to broaden the circle, engaging the community and expanding the dialogue between artists and their potential audiences. This is exactly what’s happening this month, as the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA) spearheads the Peekskill Project for the third year running. Calling upon over a dozen curators and exhibiting work by more than 100 artists, the project will install works throughout the town; from a special fall equinox event organized in the gazebo at the center of town to a sculpture park installed on the waterfront to a nomadic video-projection piece that will be driven through the streets, it will be difficult to pass through Peekskill without running into some part of the project. One of the more interesting aspects this time around is a strong emphasis on viewer participation. Dutch artist Esther Kokmeijer is drawing a “mental 48 LUCID DREAMING CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
map” of the city of Peekskill, which will be inserted in the official exhibition handout; she is also inviting visitors to draw their own maps representing their individual perceptions of the city. Ultimately, she intends to assemble 100 of these in an installation in one of the project’s many locations throughout town businesses and public parks. Founded by the Marc and Olivia Straus family, the HVCCA opened two years ago, dedicated to developing and presenting new art in a range of media and offering exhibitions and programs aimed at increasing the understanding of contemporary art and its social context. The ongoing Peekskill Project represents a real commitment by the museum to participation in the local community—a welcome respite from the icy, often “holier than thou” attitude toward both potential art viewers and local communities by some major institutions. On the opening weekend, September 16 and 17, the Peekskill Project will offer a number of festive, family-oriented activities, including a rockskipping contest on the riverfront. One curator has even organized a kiteflying event, in which a number of artists have been invited to design kites based on a theme inspired by Yoko Ono: “Kites Are for Peace and Love.” In addition to the artist-designed kites, visitors will be invited to create their own airborne peace messages with various materials provided by the organizers, making the event truly interactive. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the project for me is the sheer range of its contributors. The curatorial team this time around includes a writer from the international art magazine Tema Celeste, a sculpture professor from
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SUNY New Paltz, and project organizer Alison Levy, who lives in Brooklyn while she works on a Master’s in art history at Purchase. Similarly, the contributing artists come primarily from New York City and the Hudson Valley, with a significant handful of international participants. The work itself ranges from the high-conceptual to the down-to-earth, offering multiple potential points of entry for viewers of all backgrounds. Emily Puthoff, sculpture professor from SUNY New Paltz, has organized a group of sculptors working in unorthodox materials that serve to push the envelope in terms of traditional sculpture. From Elena Sniezek’s cast-salt pieces to Donald Bruschi’s neon work to Hyom Kang’s imaginative fountain composed of common garden hoses, the materials themselves render the sculptures more approachable, opening up references to the “real world” that are essential if contemporary art has any hope of seeming relevant or interesting to the average, non-artworld viewer. If there is to be any hope of making art more than an esoteric discourse, if it is to be relevant to a circle larger than the moneyed elite of collectors and navel-gazing professional theorists, it needs to engage itself with real audiences in real places, as the Peekskill Project quite admirably seems to be doing. If you’re a bit farther north and can’t make it down to Peekskill, there’s a veritable art festival taking place at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson. The current show (open through September 10) includes no fewer than seven artists from Davis’s stable, ranging from the main exhibition of obsessive-compulsive, often large-scale colored-pencil drawings by the self-taught David X. Levine to the works in cast metal and chain-link material by John Ruppert in the sculpture garden. Davis’s carriage house is populated by five very different artists, with innovative drawings by Elise Engler, who works in extended conceptual series such as her inventory of Everything I Own, contrasting with the subtle beauty of Sarah Sterling’s altered photographs of temple ruins from a trip she made to Indonesia. Tom Nicol is showing geometrically based, shaped canvases, sometimes in clusters of two or three separate parts, which emphasize the physicality of the painted surface. He hesitates to call them abstractions, as they are intended to stand as objects in their own right even as they recall the flattened farmland of his native Ohio. Nicol’s putative landscapes stand in stark aesthetic contrast with Daisy Craddock’s softly modulated, representational works, which reflect on the feeling of a warm summer day. The most daring space in the carriage house, the elevator shaft, is elegantly used to display several of Sara Jane Roszak’s paintings illuminating the I Ching, a project that has engaged her for some time. Hanging in 10-foot-long strips, the pieces show how Roszak has found a visual corollary for the abstract concepts presented in this ancient book of wisdom, and offer the viewer a space in which to contemplate, as she puts it, “a world where the past has become meaningless and the future unpredictable.” “PEEKSKILL PROJECT 2006” WILL BE ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 16 THROUGH OCTOBER 7 IN LOCATIONS THROUGHOUT PEEKSKILL. (914) 788-7166; WWW.HVCCA.COM/PEEKSKILLPROJECT. “DAVID X. LEVINE: DRAWINGS” AND A GROUP EXHIBITION ARE ON VIEW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 10 AT JOHN DAVIS GALLERY, 3621⁄2 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 828-5907; WWW.JOHNDAVISGALLERY.COM.
Gifts with a Twist 299 WALL STREET KINGSTON, NEW YORK 12401 845-338-8100
In The Heart of The Stockade District LIGHTING • JEWELRY • ART • GIFTS • FUNKYETHNIC 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM LUCID DREAMING 49
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gallery directory 50
GALLERY DIRECTORY CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
galleries ALBANY INSTITUTE OF HISTORY AND ART
CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AT WOODSTOCK
125 WASHINGTON AVENUE, ALBANY. (518) 463-4478.
59 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK. 679-9957.
“Picture Perfect: Photographs of Washington Park.” Through September 3.
“Perfectible Worlds.” Works by Sage Sohier. September 2-October 22.
“From Burial Place to Green Space.” Through December 31.
“Relationships: A 10 Year Bond.” Selections from CPW permanent print collection. September 2-October 22.
ALBERT SHAHINIAN FINE ART
Reception Saturday, September 9, 5-7pm
196 MAIN STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE. 454-0522.
“The Luminous Landscape 2006.” Over 80 paintings in this group show. Through September 10.
CLARK ART INSTITUTE
“Nocturnes.” Paintings by Robert Hacunda. September 16-October 29.
“The Clark: Celebrating 50 Years of Art in Nature.” Through September 4.
Reception Saturday, September 16, 5-8pm
“The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings.” Through September 4.
225 SOUTH STREET, WILLIAMSTOWN, MA. (413) 458-2303.
ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM 258 MAIN STREET, RIDGEFIELD, CT. (203) 438-4519.
“Bitter Fruit.” Photographs by Paul Fusco. Through February 25. “No Reservations: Native American History and Culture in Contemporary Art.” Through February 25.
AROMA THYME BISTRO 165 CANAL STREET, ELLENVILLE. 626-2883.
“Paintings by Sandy Straus.” Through September 29.
COFFEY GALLERY 330 WALL STREET, KINGSTON. 339-6105.
“Armand Rusillon: Paintings and Drawings.” September 2- 24. Opening Saturday, September 2, 5-7pm
DEBORAH DAVID FINE ART, INC. 345 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 822-1890.
“Fragments and Figments.” Works by Willie Marlowe, Jeanne Crane Strausman, Anique Taylor. Through September 24.
BAU 161 MAIN STREET, BEACON. 440-7584.
DIA
“Nexxxt- In The Waiting Room.” Works by Harald Plochberger. September 9-October 8.
“Vera Lutter: Nabisco Factory, Beacon.” 4 large scale pinhole photographs of the factory. Through September 4.
gallery directory
“Same Mother, Different Children.” Abstract works. Through September 4.
3 BEEKMAN STREET, BEACON. 400-0100.
Opening Saturday, September 9, 5-7pm
DONSKOJ & COMPANY GALLERY BE GALLERY
93 BROADWAY, KINGSTON. 338-8473.
MOHONK ROAD, HIGH FALLS. BEGALLERY@HVC.RR.COM.
“Ink Paintings.” Works by Anna Pardini. September 2-30.
“Oil Paintings by Dierdre Leber.” Through September 4.
Opening Saturday, September 2, 5-8pm
BELLE LEVINE GALLERY 521 KENNICUT HILL ROAD, MAHOPAC. 628-3664.
“The Environmental Show.” September 15-October 6. “Bronx Zoo Photo Series by Dr. Bernie Kessler.” September 15-October 6.
ELISA PRITZKER STUDIO & GALLERY 257 SOUTH RIVERSIDE ROAD, HIGHLAND. 691-5506.
“About Cats and Dogs.” September 10-October 21. Opening Sunday, September 10, 3-6pm
Opening Friday, September 15, 6-8pm
EXPOSED GALLERY BRASS ANCHOR RIVER POINT ROAD, POUGHKEEPSIE. 452-3232.
318 DELAWARE AVE, DELMAR. (518) 475-1853.
“Equus Vita.” Through September 5.
“Rural America.” Through September 12.
FABULOUS FURNITURE SCULPTURE GALLERY BRUYNSWICK ART STUDIO AND GALLERY 1058 BRUYNSWICK ROAD, GARDINER. 255-5693.
“Pastel Paintings by Marlene Wiedenbaum.” Through September 16.
3930 ROUTE 28, BOICEVILLE. 657-6317.
“Sculpture Garden.” Sculpture and furniture from wood, metal, and car parts. Through November 15.
FLETCHER GALLERY BYRDCLIFFE THEATER
40 MILL HILL ROAD, WOODSTOCK. 679-4411.
34 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK. 679-7148.
“Agnes Hart (1912-1979).” Through September 3.
“Foiled.” Works by RenS. Englander. Through September 3.
FRANCES LEHMAN LOEB ART CENTER CARRIE HADDAD GALLERY
VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE. 437-5632.
622 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 828-1915.
“Forms of Exchange: Art of Native Peoples from the Edward J. Guarino Collection.” Through September 3.
“Threesome.” Paintings by Sarah Berney and Judith Lamb and sculpture by Joe Wheaton. Through September 17.
“Subterranean Monuments.” Burckhardt, Johnson, Hujar, and the Changing Life of Bohemia in Post-War Manhattan. Through September 17.
CATSKILL MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION GALLERY HUNTER VILLAGE SQUARE, HUNTER. (518) 263-4908 EXT. 211.
“The Locus Show.” Featured artists from Catskill Mountain Regional Guide Magazine. Through September 15.
GALERIE BMG 12 TANNERY BROOK ROAD, WOODSTOCK. 679-0027.
“Tseno.” Exhibit of photographs. September 8-October 9.
CEDAR GROVE 218 SPRING STREET, CATSKILL. (518) 943-7465.
“Jasper Cropsey: Interpreting Nature.” Through October 29.
“Works.” Series of photographs glorifying spiritual beauty by Tseno. September 8-November 9. Reception Saturday, September 9, 5-7pm
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galleries GCCA CATSKILL GALLERY
MARLBORO FREE LIBRARY
398 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL. (518) 943-3400.
1251 ROUTE 9W, MARLBORO. 236-7272.
“Lynn Friedman: Following the Light.” Exhibition of oil paintings of the Hudson Valley, Andalucia and New Mexico. Through September 30.
“Art From The Heart Watercolor.” September 1-October 31.
MCKINNEY & DOYLE FINE FOODS CAFE GCCA MOUNTAINTOP GALLERY 398 MAIN STREET, WINDHAM. (518) 943-3400.
“Flora and Fauna.” Works inspired by plants and animals throughout the world. Through September 24. “Less is More.” Contemporary artists. September 30-November 5. Reception Saturday, September 30, 2-4pm
10 CHARLES COLMAN BLVD, PAWLING. 855-1676.
“Recent Works by Photographer Terry Ariano.” Through September 30.
MEZZALUNA CAFE 626 ROUTE 212, SAUGERTIES. 246-5306.
“Mixed Media and Collages by Shelley Davis.” Through September 3.
HUDSON OPERA HOUSE 327 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 828-7042.
“Photographs and Works on Paper.” Lee Anne Morgan and Traci Horgen. Through September 22. Reception Saturday, September 2, 6-8pm
MONTGOMERY ROW SECOND LEVEL 6423 MONTGOMERY STREET, RHINEBECK. 876-6670.
“The Fair is the Heart of Dutchess County.” Photography by Molly Ahearn. Through September 4.
“Wallpaper Exhibition.” 18th & 19th century wallpaper relating to Hudson’s past. September 30-November 11.
MORGAN LEHMAN GALLERY HUDSON RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM 50 RONDOUT LANDING, KINGSTON. 338-0071.
“Ship and Boat Building on the Hudson River.” Through October 31.
24 SHARON STREET, LAKEVILLE, CT. (860) 435-0898.
“Paintings by Emilie Clark, Franklin Evans, and Katia Santibanez.” Through September 10.
MUSEUM OF THE HUDSON HIGHLANDS HUDSON VALLEY CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART 1701 MAIN STREET, PEEKSKILL. (914) 788-7166.
gallery directory
“Reverence.” Work of 33 internationally renowned artists from 13 countries. Through February 26.
OGDEN GALLERY, BOULEVARD LOCATION, CORNWALL-ON-HUDSON. 534-5506 EXT. 204.
“Symbols of New York.” Learn about our state’s symbols. Through September 30. “Alive in New York: A Growing Invasion.” 43 works illustrating plants considered to be an invasive threat. Through October 29.
INQUIRING MIND GALLERY 65 PARTITION STREET, SAUGERTIES. 246-3765.
“Les Liasions Dangereuses.” Art about relationships in our real and dream worlds, in our conscious and unconscious states. Through September 20.
JAMES W. PALMER GALLERY
NICOLE FIACCO GALLERY 506 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 828-5090.
“Parallel Passages: Lynn Davis at the Sites of Frederic Church.” September 23-October 30. Opening Saturday, September 23, 7-7pm
VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE. 437-5370.
“Occupation.” Marine eye’s view of Iraq War in photographs by Major Benjamin Busch. Through September 16.
NO_SPACE GALLERY
Reception Thursday, September 14, 6:30pm
“Works by Giselle Potter.” Recent paintings including portraits based on vintage family photographs. Through September 16.
449 MAIN STREET, ROSENDALE. 658-9709.
JOHN DAVIS GALLERY 362 1/2 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 828-5907.
“David X Levine: Drawings.” Through September 10.
OPEN STUDIO
KARPELES MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY MUSEUM
“The Curvature of the Earth.” Works by Josh Bate. Through September 4.
402 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL. (518) 943-9531.
94 BROADWAY, NEWBURGH. 569-4997.
“Small Works Exhibition.” By The National Association of Women Artists. September 1-September 30.
ORANGE HALL GALLERY
LICHTENSTEIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS
“2006 NorthEast Watercolor Society Members Show.” Through September 25.
28 RENNE AVENUE, PITTSFIELD, MA. (413) 499-9348.
“Current Works.” Berkshire Photography group exhibition. September 2-September 29. Reception Saturday, September 9, 4-6pm
ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, MIDDLETOWN. 341-4891.
Reception Sunday, September 17, 1-4:15pm
ORNAMENTUM 506 1/2 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 671-6770.
M GALLERY
“Lineare.” Through September 10.
350 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL. (518) 943-0380.
“Far From Home: Interpretations of Natural Beauty.” Works by Latin-American painter, Ximena Hormaza D featuring landscape abstractions. September 9-October 5.
PUTNAM NATIONAL GOLF CLUB
Reception Saturday, September 23, 5:30-8pm
“Inaugural Exhibit of Public Art.” Through December 31.
MARK GRUBER GALLERY
RICHARD SENA GALLERY
NEW PALTZ PLAZA, NEW PALTZ. 255-1241.
238 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 828-1996.
“Robert Trondsen.” Recent paitings. September 9-October 18.
“The Art of War.” Works by photographer Nitin Vadukul. Through September 17.
Opening Saturday, September 9, 6-8pm
MARK MCDONALD GALLERY 555 WARREN STREET, HUDSON. (518) 828-6320.
“F3- Furniture Fabric Fotography.” Modern furniture upholstered in modern fabrics displayed in photographs. Through September 10.
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GALLERY DIRECTORY CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
187 HILL STREET, MAHOPAC. 628-3105.
RIVERWINDS GALLERY 172 MAIN STREET, BEACON. 838-2880.
“The Subject Was Roses.” Floral arrangement photographs by Mary Ann Glass. Through September 4.
S.K.H. GALLERY OF FINE ART AND CRAFT HISTORIC TRAIN STATION, GREAT BARRINGTON, MA. (413) 523-3300.
“Works By Joby Baker and Bernd Haussmann.” September 2-October 3. Opening Saturday, September 2, 5-7pm
SAMUEL DORSKY MUSEUM OF ART SUNY NEW PALTZ, NEW PALTZ. 257-3844.
“Art and Identity.” Selected work from the museums collections. Through December 10.
ST. GREGORY’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH 2578 ROUTE 212, WOODSTOCK. 679-8800.
“Three - Three Artists - Six Sculptures.” Outdoor sculpture exhibition, presenting the abstract works of Anthony Krauss, Basha Ruth Nelson and Shelley Parriott. Through November 20.
STARR LIBRARY 68 WEST MARKET STREET, RHINEBECK. 876-4175.
“Youth Photography Show.” Photographs by youth ages 8-13. Through September 13. “29th Annual Art Show.” September 15-23. Opening Friday, September 15. Call for times.
THE ART UPSTAIRS 60 MAIN STREET, PHOENICIA. 688-2142.
“Earth, Wind, Water & Fire.” Through September 9.
gallery directory
THE BEACON INSTITUTE FOR RIVERS & ESTUARIES 199 MAIN STREET, BEACON. 838-1600.
“Dave White: The World of a Hudson Riverman.” Through September 9.
THE DOGHOUSE GALLERY 429 PHILLIPS ROAD, SAUGERTIES. 246-0402.
“Staats Fasoldt and Friends.” Through September 3.
TIME AND SPACE LIMITED 434 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON. (518) 822-8448.
“Fairview: The Strip.” September 2October 14. Opening Saturday, September 2, 6-8pm
TIVOLI ARTIST CO-OP 60 BROADWAY, TIVOLI. 757-2667.
“Food! A Feast for the Eyes.” Artworks in all media on the subject of food. September 22-October 15. Opening Saturday, September 23, 6pm
UNISON ARTS & LEARNING CENTER 68 MOUNTAIN REST ROAD, NEW PALTZ. 255-1559.
“The Art of Haiti.” September 3-24. Opening Sunday, September 3, 4-6pm
VAN BRUNT GALLERY BEACON. 838-2995.
“Susan English & Kathy Feighery.” New paintings. September 9-October 2. Opening Saturday, September 9, 6-9pm
WILDERSTEIN HISTORIC SITE 330 MORTON ROAD, RHINEBECK. 876-4818.
“Daisy.” Journey through the life of Margaret (Daisy) Suckley. Through October 31.
9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM GALLERY DIRECTORY
53
Music
FIONN REILLY
BY PETER AARON
TEMPTING TREASURES: INSIDE THE WAREHOUSE AT SUNDAZED MUSIC ARE VINYL AND CD REISSUES BY LOVE, LINK WRAY, THE STOOGES, BOB DYLAN, THE TRASHMEN, JOHNNY CASH, AND OTHER IMMORTALS.
ROCK 'N' ROLL RESURRECTION sundazed music breathes new life into old sounds On the outside, 1 Reed St. doesn’t really scream rock ‘n’ roll. Pretty much blends in with the rest of the brick-façaded buildings in Coxsackie’s historic waterfront district. But on the inside? Ah, things are different. Very different. Step in a few yards. Stand between two of the many towering rows of floorto-ceiling shelving columns that define the interior of this gaping storehouse. Roll your eyes up, down, over, and across their vistas as you try to take in the never-ending stacks and lines of brightly hued wares that make up the stock. Scattered over the exposed-brick walls are framed album covers, posters announcing concerts long since passed, glossy 8x10s bearing autographs. Wedge your way through more rows of shelves, these holding tee-shirts, stacks of magazines—watch out, the doorframe’s a little low here—poke your head upstairs: more photos, album covers, a desk; on the wall above and behind it, Brian Wilson’s cherubic face smiles down upon you. But what’s that smell? Hit you as soon as you came in off the street. If you’re under 30, you may not recognize it. But if you’re holding near 40, it’s something vaguely familiar, something petroleum-based. Hmm… Wait. Hear that? There. Again. Move a little closer. I think the shelves are singing. I swear. No, really. Just...listen…POW! It’s 1965 again. Mod moptops rule the radio and teenagers in garages everywhere do their best to keep up with the sounds, sometimes inventing a few of their own. Cool, but let’s see what’s on this shelf over here and… Farrr owwwt… We’re back in ’68, man. 54 MUSIC CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
Psychedelia is flying high in full, fantastic flower; guitar-searing acid-rockers are popping lids and blowing minds. (Tip: Lay off the brown stuff.) How about the next aisle over? Cowabunga! We’re talkin’ 1963 now; Kennedys, Camelot, and California kids chirping out sun-drenched harmonies, reverb-soaked guitar instrumentals riding the wild airwaves. Surf’s up on the Hudson, baby: You’re in Sundazed country. Started by its president and owner, Bob Irwin, Sundazed Music is one of the world’s leading reissue labels. Specializing in ’60s rock, the imprint is beloved by music fanatics not only for its stunning repackagings of work by certified legends—Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Johnny Cash—but also for its attention to the numerous exceptional but little-known artists the big labels won’t bother with—Gandalf, Davie Allen and the Arrows, The Driving Stupid. And it’s one of the few labels that, in addition to its superb CD releases, also reissues this music in the format that many feel still sounds the best: vinyl, not only the 12and 7-inch varieties, but even the occasional 10-inch EP. “The ability for people to experience this music in the way it was originally released was something I was afraid was being lost,” says Irwin, a lifelong Coxsackie resident. “I wanted to make sure that stuff could still be heard by anyone who wanted it, just the way it would’ve sounded when it first came out.” Slim in black jeans at 49, Irwin’s living proof that music is the true elixir of youth, his gray-dusted hair very much at odds with the way he bounces excit-
edly in his studio chair as he talks about his job. In the 1980s, after managing a chain of record stores in the Albany area, he started doing freelance tape research for (pioneering reissue label) Rhino Records. “They were making tons of money reissuing stuff like The Monkees and the Four Seasons. But there was all of the great stuff by one-hit bands I love, like the Knickerbockers, just sitting there in the vaults and they weren’t interested in doing anything with it,” he recalls. “Then, one day, [Rhino label co-founder] Richard Foos just asked me, ‘Bob, don’t you think it’s about time you started your own label?’ It was the next obvious step.” So in 1989, Irwin and his wife, Mary Irwin, Sundazed’s chief financial officer (“chief everything officer,” Bob says), took the leap. “We remortgaged our house and started the label with $10,000. I was pretty nervous at the time.” Thanks to the CD boom of the last two decades, the vault doors of many labels, both major and painfully obscure, have been thrown open, smothering music lovers with seemingly endless riches of rare, out-of-print, and previously unreleased material. Unfortunately, so many CD reissues have been severely disappointing, abysmal-sounding, aesthetically underwhelming, poorly annotated junk; more McNuggets than Nuggets. Even most of the majors just can’t get it right. But thanks to the stringent standards of Irwin, who does all of the remastering himself using the vintage analog tube equipment in Sundazed’s on-site studio—working with the original master tapes whenever possible—the sonics of the more than 700 titles in his label’s catalogue perfectly mirror that of their original issues. “We make CDs, too, and we also put out records that never existed, situations where the band only released maybe three or four singles and had a bunch of leftover tracks in the can,” he says. “But with the actual LP reissues we strive for absolute accuracy. The album cover, the color of the ink on the labels, the smell of the vinyl. It all has to be as close as we can get it.” It’s a mark the label is known for consistently hitting. In fact, after word got around the trade about the fantastic job Sundazed had done on its early releases, a few of the majors came calling for help with their back catalogues. The results? Not only has the label picked up titles for CD reissue by genius but lossleading big-label acts like the tripped-out West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico, and the International Submarine Band (featuring a young Gram Parsons), it’s also been granted vinyl-remake rights to a shelf-full of all-time staple albums: Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, Love’s Forever Changes, Dylan’s early LPs. Irwin also works directly for some of the big guns, lending his remastering skills to reprises of classic material for Arista, Verve, and Sony/Legacy (Irwin’s relationship with the latter stretches back 18 years, and includes work on box sets by Stevie Ray Vaughn, Janis Joplin, and others). But it’s his work with Sundazed that takes
up most of his time. And, thanks to the twin phenomena of the rise of bands like the White Stripes and The Hives and the enormously popular syndicated radio show “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” (which plays much of the label’s product and airs Sunday nights on Woodstock’s WDST), Sundazed’s 12-person staff—music junkies all, Irwin says—has been busy keeping up with the high demand the garage-rock revival has brought for the company’s wares. And so have the stores that carry them. “Sundazed’s stuff sells really well,” says Rick Lange, manager of the Rhino Records store in New Paltz. “It’s a fantastic label, the kind of label you usually only see coming out of Europe. Usually it’s the European labels that are the ones that really care about older American music.” Lange mentions how the label has branched out from its ’60s rock core in recent years, putting out essential discs in other genres like soul, country, R&B, even jazz via its Euphoria wing. Branching out is certainly something Sundazed has done physically over the last 17 years, growing from Irwin’s dining room table to the four Coxsackie structures the company now occupies. And few could be happier about Sundazed’s growth than the artists whose resurging careers have seen an extra jolt from the label, LA fuzz-guitar king Davie Allen chief among them. With his band, the Arrows, Allen cut the high-octane instrumental soundtrack of many a ’60s biker and teen-exploitation movie, bridging the gap between the surf and psychedelic eras and frying the speaker cones of cult-rock fans in the years after. “The love and caring that goes into those reissues, I’ve never seen anything like it elsewhere,” says Allen, who still performs and has recorded new material for the label. “Not only are my old fans thrilled with the re-releases, but new fans keep popping up and buying both the old and new stuff.” While he’s confident the music Sundazed puts out on CD will keep its committed fan base long after the current garage rock rage has waned, Irwin admits the label’s dedication to vinyl was at least momentarily challenged. “There came a point in the late ’90s when we really had to make a decision as to whether it would be cost-effective to keep doing records,” he says. But in recent years, thanks to the busy club and breakbeat DJ scene, the demand for vinyl has exploded—and it’s largely people around half Irwin’s age who are making that demand. “I was manning the booth at one of the record shows we do and some 22-year-old girl came up and asked me ‘Are you ever going to put out the [obscure psychedelic band] Sagittarius album on vinyl?’” he grins. “That’s when I knew we had a future.” But it’s early in the day and there’s much yet to be done at Sundazed. So you say goodbye and make your way to the warehouse door, passing one of the label’s employees as he packs up a box of freshly minted LPs for shipment. Ah, the smell of vinyl in the morning. Smells like, well, yeah, victory. For music lovers everywhere. For more info, visit www.sundazed.com 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM MUSIC 55
NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS
Handpicked by local scenemaker DJ WAVY DAVY for your listening pleasure. THE RASCALS/ORLEANS September 2. The Rascals formed as the Young Rascals in early 1965, when singer Eddie Brigati, organistvocalist Felix Cavaliere, and guitarist Gene Cornish left the Starliters and recruited drummer Dino Danelli. Legendary music manager Sid Bernstein got them signed to Atlantic Records after they turned heads at NYC’s Phone Booth nightclub. Their biggest hit, “People Got to Be Free,” was an impassioned response to the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The hits of Orleans, a group founded by Hudson Valley locals John Hall, Wells Kelly, and the Hoppen brothers, Larry and Lance, include “Dance With Me” and “Still the One.” South Africa’s Sharon Katz & The Peace Train open this Labor Day love-fest at Belleayre resort. 8pm. $65-$45. Highmount. (845) 254-5600. www.belleayremusic.org.
NEW VANGUARD JAZZ SERIES September 3, 10, 17. Pianist and visionary David Arner is the hardest-working man in free jazz. His libertine New Vanguard series at Alternative Books on Wall Street, in conjunction with Deep Listening Institute, consistently scores the most expressive avant-jazz musicans and combos. This month, Arner, on solo piano, kicks the Sunday series off on September 3; followed by Connie Crothers (piano) and Kevin Norton (percussion) on September 10; and the dynamic Michael Bisio Quartet, featuring Avram Fefer (reeds), Steven Gauci (reeds), Michael Bisio (bass), and Jay Rosen (drums), on September 17. All shows are highly recommended. 3pm. $10/$8. Kingston. (845) 338-5984. www.deeplistening.org.
JAZZ AT THE RED ONION September 3, 10, 17, 24. After the New Vanguard’s afternoon set (see above), zip up Glasco Turnpike to the Red Onion Restaurant on Route 212 for its classic jazz Sunday session. Woodstock guitarist Peter Einhorn leads the set, backed by bassist (and well-known producer) Malcolm Cecil on bass, George Deleon on tenor sax, and Steve Haas on drums. Their collective talent bridges all styles, from swing to ballads to bossa nova. It’s free jazz, too—but only because there’s no cover charge. 6pm. “Saugerstock.” (845) 679-1223. www.redonionrestaurant.com.
MURALI CORYELL September 9, 14. Speaking of hard-working musicians, Murali’s busy schedule grooves its way into e-mail in-boxes everywhere. After a busy summer tour, this local legend returns for two hot September sessions. Hickory BBQ & Smokehouse on Route 28 hosts Murali and the band on September 9. For a kick, board the Teal motor yacht from the Rondout on Septmber 14 for a bluesy dance party sponsored by Ship to Shore restaurant. By land or by sea, Kingston is the place to boogie. Hickory: 9pm, $6, (845) 338-2424. www.hickoryrestaurant.com. Teal: 7pm, (845) 334-8887 for tickets. www.shiptoshorehudsonvalley.com.
RED MOLLY September 10. This Americana trio was midwifed at a late-night jam session during the 2004 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and returns to this year’s Harvest Moon Folk Festival at Warwick Valley Winery. Abbie Gardner (vocals, Dobro, guitar), Laurie MacAllister (vocals, guitar, banjo), and Carolann Solebello (vocals, guitar, bass, mandolin) were brought together by a love of traditional American music—old gospel, bluegrass, and contemporary roots artists like Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss. These ladies are multi-talented, too: MacAllister left a career in psychology to pursue music; Gardner studied classical flute as a child; and Solebello spent several years on tour as a professional theater actor. Noon. $10. Warwick. (845) 258-4858. www.redmolly.com.
DUWAYNE BURNSIDE AND THE MISSISSIPPI MAFIA
RED MOLLY PLAYS WARWICK ON SEPTEMBER 10.
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JAKE JACOBSON
September 16. Duwayne Burnside, son of the late, legendary R.L. Burnside, grew up hearing his family and neighbors play guitar-driven Mississippi hill country blues, and picked up the guitar before he was old enough to walk. In nearby Memphis, Duwayne began sitting in with musicians like Albert King, B.B. King, and Bobby “Blue” Bland. After touring 250 days a year for three years with the North Mississippi Allstars, Duwayne returns to rock the room with his own band at Club Helsinki. 9pm. $15. Great Barrington, MA. (413) 528-3394. www.clubhelsinkiweb.com.
CD REVIEWS BAR SCOTT: PARACHUTE LUCY MAX PRODUCTIONS, 2006
Evoking the compelling Sarah McLachlan and the iconic Joni Mitchell (rich, organic melodies and vocal harmonies), Scott’s sixth disc weaves a sumptuous musical tapestry, each song even more beautiful than its predecessor. Written after the death of her 31⁄2-year-old son from liver cancer, Scott’s piano-based songs become meditations on the fragile threads we consistently strain at—getting from one end of the day to the next and the small beauties and great loves we miss while on that constricted, linear pursuit. Textured with strings, notably keyboardist David Sancious’s elegiac arrangement for “World on Fire,” and tempered with Tony Levin’s ever-fluid bass, Scott, coproducer Kevin Bartlett and engineer David Cook create a welcoming atmosphere in which the weary can stop, rest, and listen—either to their own hearts or the universal heart beating in all the songs. Pinpointing favorite tracks on Parachute is like shredding a whole cloth, but for those of you with short attention spans, start with the opening, title track. Then try the exquisite “Sarah.” Then program “Come to Me,” “World on Fire,” and “Oh God.” Then be kind to yourself and let the disc play in full. You’ll hear what I mean. —Mike Jurkovic
GENNAROSE: SPIRIT KG PRODUCTIONS, 2006
Local singer-songwriter Gennarose follows in the footsteps of such artists as Rickie Lee Jones and Laura Nyro on her latest release, Spirit.. Stylistically, she recalls the Norah Jones brand of smooth, smoky vocals on comfortable, laid-back songs, creating a sound that is extremely listenable and relaxing. All the tracks save one—a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”—are originals in which she shows great versatility as a songwriter. She tends to favor a slow rock beat, making generous use of a jazzy instrumental vibe that lends a coolness to the music. The disc also displays her talent for lyrics, even including two versions of the same song—one in English (“Who Could Ask for More”) and one in Spanish (“Quien Queria Mas”). Her arrangement of “Hallelujah” seems to borrow from Jeff Buckley’s version of the song, though her light piano replaces Buckley’s guitar. Her relaxed, soulful vocal work fares well on this track, just as it does with all the others. Perhaps uncharacteristically, Gennarose also performs with Warwick’s Grammy-winning polka king, Jimmy Sturr. On this pop-jazz gem she never fails to sound sincere, and this attribute alone should contribute to her success. —Mary Kate Burnell
MATT FINLEY: BRAZILIAN WISH KINGSMILL MUSIC, 2006
Matt Finley, former Dutchess Community College professor and dean, has also been a professional musician since 1962. His Brazilian Wish showcases 13 of the hippest Brazilian jazz performers in the Hudson Valley. Producer/arranger Jen Werking has played with jazz legends Grover Washington Jr., Bill Evans, Larry Coryell, and others. These silky-smooth grooves are expertly crafted and easy on the soul. The title track is soft and sensual, cool and breezy. Not the hot, sweaty, dirty dancing associated with the music of Carnivale. No rough edges anywhere, the sounds here are effortlessly delivered. “There You Are” is a piano-and-trumpet-driven samba. This disc never takes its eyes off its roots, and is a hybrid of Brazilian rhythms under sleek, melodic jazz styles. There are nine tracks on the CD and over 40 minutes of clean, clear, dazzling listening. The last tune, “Softly Speaking,” is a graceful kiss good night and an invitation to return for more. Take time to destress under the spell. Hear it on cdbaby.com and check mattfinley.com for biographical information on this amazing cast of top-notch players. —J. Spica 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM MUSIC 57
Books
CHEN MASTER DA CHEN’S LITERARY PILGRIMAGE by Nina Shengold photograph by Jennifer May
D
a Chen rushes into the New Paltz Village Tearoom with enough energy to light several villages. He’s not drinking caffeine these days, but he scans the tea menu with visible yearning. He chooses a calming herbal blend and urges me to try the oolong, grown in the Fujian province of China, where he grew up. Soon he’s conjuring a picture of tea pickers’ earthen ovens and miles of tea leaves drying on bamboo racks. “You go to the mountain and see this, then you turn to the sea and see miles of salt flats, the farmers spreading it out so the miracle happens, a sparkling white gold is born.” Anybody who’s ever met Chen is accustomed to such bursts of poetry. Three years ago, when he joined my writers’ group, he charmed us all by fortune-telling our faces in the ancient Chinese manner he learned from his father, finding fame in this eyebrow, long life in the bow of that lip. He’s never shown up without armloads of gifts, from towers of Asian delicacies to two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. The opening lines of Chen’s bestselling memoir, Colors of the Mountain, may shed some light on this largesse: “I was born in southern China in 1962, in the tiny town of Yellow Stone. They called it the Year of Great Starvation.” Like his “brothers from another mother,” Frank and Malachy McCourt of Angela’s Ashes fame, Da Chen will never take food for granted. 58 BOOKS CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
Chen cuts an elegant figure in a white collarless shirt with silk-lined cuffs, tailored black slacks, and Prada ankle boots. In the past six years, he has published three memoirs (Colors of the Mountain, Sounds of the River, and China’s Son) and the young adult adventure The Wandering Warrior. Now he’s poised to launch Brothers, his first novel for adult readers. The sweeping 430-page saga garnered a starred review from Publishers Weekly and significant buzz at the Book Exposition of America, where Crown feted Chen alongside such stars as Senator Barack Obama. This month, the firm will release a first hardcover printing of 100,000 copies, and send Chen, with his bamboo flute and calligraphy brushes, on the first of three national book tours. It’s a wild ride by anyone’s lights, but for someone who grew up in a farming village with more water buffalo than light bulbs, unable to pay for tuition and textbooks even when Communist cadres permitted him to attend school, it is nothing short of a fairy tale. The Year of Great Starvation was also the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals and landowners were reviled. Chen’s forebears were both. His paternal great-grandfather scored so well on a national exam for civil servants that China’s ill-fated Last Emperor granted him the honorific title Jin-shi, the governorship of Pu-Tien, and a lot of land.
Chen’s poetic grandfather inherited this wealth, raising his two sons in luxury. When they reached adulthood, the brothers decided to start their own business in underdeveloped Taiwan, first returning to Yellow Stone for a double wedding to their village sweethearts. Chen’s uncle returned to Taiwan with his bride, while his father stayed home for a month to oversee some family business. During that fateful month, the Communists came into power. Overnight, the Chens were branded as “filthy landlords” and pariahs. Chen’s father and uncle would not see each other again for 40 years. The uncle became a successful Taiwanese banker, while Chen’s father struggled to care for a family of nine between stints of hard labor in reeducation camps. Though Chen’s fictional brothers follow a different arc, it is no surprise that he dedicated his novel “to my baba and my uncle,” or that the dizzying shifts of Chinese political history would provide the huge canvas for this epic tale, narrated in alternating chapters by two young men with the same father and wildly different fates. Shento is a poor village boy with near-mythological origins: His unwed mother gave birth in midair of her suicide leap from a mountain cliff. The newborn was caught in the branch of a tea tree, snapping the umbilical cord as his mother plunged to her death. An ancient medicine man heard his cries and climbed to save him, raising Shento with his childless wife. Years later, Shento will learn that he’s the illegitimate son of a general. General Ding Long has another son, Tan, raised in the lap of luxury and Party privilege. Inevitably, the brothers’ paths cross, with many twists of fate along the way. When they unwittingly fall in love with the same woman, the headstrong and beautiful author Sumi Wo, the stage is set for a fraternal conflict of Cain-and-Abel proportions. It is Chen’s gift to combine these timeless archetypes with acute observations of China’s recent upheavals: His larger-than-life plot unravels against a very real backdrop of Vietnamese border wars, Tiananmen Square, and the emergence of rampaging capitalism. “How did we get to where China is making 80 percent of the things for sale at Wal-Mart, and making billionaires? In Las Vegas, all the big players are Chinese guys. What does it feel like to be in the throes of such a huge and dramatic change?” Born when his family’s gifts were despised, Chen reached young adulthood as the wheel of history turned yet again, allowing the promising student to escape the rice fields for an English major at far-off Beijing University, the first from his village. “Fate is fickle,” Chen says, spearing a forkful of cherry pie. “What’s most important is how you face it. My father suffered behind the Iron Curtain, but he survived, and could face anything with a smile. He was a great inspiration to me.” Chen passes along that inspiration—he’s been a motivational speaker at corporations like Microsoft and Starbucks, and Sounds of the River has been assigned reading for incoming freshmen at SUNY New Paltz, Vassar, Seton Hall, and other colleges. It comes as a shock, then, to learn he had no intention of telling his tale. “I was too ashamed to visit my childhood. Poverty and political persecution took a toll on my spirit, soul, and body,” says Chen. “Now I’m
mature enough to see that nothing was wrong with me, the society was wrong, but when I was younger, I just felt shame.” Chen came to America at 23, for a teaching exchange in Nebraska. He attended law school at Columbia University on a full scholarship, and met his wife Sunny, a Chinese-American doctor. She watched the young lawyer struggling to write his first novel, an international thriller, and quietly urged him to write down the stories he told her about his childhood. Chen resisted at first. He’d carefully hidden his poverty from trust-fund classmates at Columbia. “It’s easy to pretend to be a yuppie,” he says. “All you need is a nice tie and shirt.” (He admits that this too took some coaching—new in New York, he was thrilled to find bargain-priced ties in Chinatown. Unable to choose between colors, he gleefully bought 13 for $3.00 apiece, only to have a blueblooded classmate sneer at his “cheap, shiny ties.”) When he finally sat down to write about Yellow Stone, it was like a dam bursting. “I would literally write thousands of words every night after work, no matter what,” Chen says. “The more I wrote, the more I began to feel. It jabs me to think of what happened, how I was picked on and ostracized. I think I became a different person. I learned to hold my temper in check. It made me stronger, but it changed me, damaged me.” It also made him a writer. Chen always composes in English, and it’s a jolt for the reader to realize that his fluid, vigorous prose issues forth in a language that isn’t his native tongue. “I can’t imagine writing in Chinese,” he asserts. “My entire college education was in English. The literary seeds were planted then and there. I was reading books like crazy, gulping them down.” His favorite authors were Dickens, Jack London, and James Michener. “I fell in love with Chesapeake at 17, the locality, the history. I learned so much about America from that book, from the oyster-digging Indians right up through Nixon. It was meaningful to me to write fictions like that. I hope to do that for China with Brothers.” Chen still speaks Chinese with his mother, who
lives with his family in Highland. The Chens are an overachieving clan: Victoria (11) and Michael (8) have appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” “Sesame Street,” and in several upcoming films. Sunny, who gave up her medical practice to raise children and guide Da’s career, just launched an erotic fantasy series with Mona Lisa Awakening (see review on page 60 ). Her husband reports proudly, “Once she shut the door and started pounding that keyboard, she got that look on her face, very intense, beginning to live in the book.” It’s a look Chen knows well. He’s already at work on another big novel, a ghost story featuring China’s last eunuch. It’s hard to imagine he’ll ever slow down. “When I talk at schools and libraries, I always talk about the idea of books, what they mean to people. There are millions of kids who don’t have books, who have to walk miles to see any kind of entertainment.” He pauses, perhaps recalling the days when he perched in a lichee tree, spinning stories for classmates in trade for foot rubs. Does his life’s journey ever seem hard to believe? “I’m the same person,” Chen says, flashing one of his world-warming grins. “I might be wearing Prada shoes, but inside are the same stinky feet.”
CONTEST FOR WRITERS For our first Humor Contest, “Joined at the Hip,” we invite you to help us eliminate bookshelf clutter by double-booking great works of literature. Please provide a title and one-line concept pitch for a literary twofer, e.g.:
Huckleberry Finnegans Wake. A plucky lad and a runaway slave fall asleep on a raft in the stream of consciousness. Moby-Dick-and-Jane. “Look, Ishmael! See Dick breach. Breach, Dick, breach!” Entries will be judged by Shengold and Horowitz (who, contrary to popular belief, are not joined at the hip). Each winner will receive a Chronogram Tshirt. Submission deadline is September 15, 2006. Please send up to three entries to Humor Contest, fiction@chronogram.com, or by mail to Chronogram Contests, 314 Wall Street, Kingston, NY 12401.
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SHORT TAKES Back-to-school reading isn’t just for kids. Broaden your core curriculum with these spectacular local books.
Into My Own Thomas Dunne, 2006, $24.95
MONA LISA AWAKENING BY SUNNY BERKLEY, 2006, $14
If your erotic fantasies include being serviced by gorgeous, otherworldly males, look no further. Highland author Sunny steams up the galaxy with this richly original tale of an E.R. nurse who discovers a secret life as the first mixed-blood queen of the Monère, exiled children of the moon. Read it in bed!
WOODSTOCK HISTORY & HEARSAY BY ANITA M. SMITH WOODSTOCK ARTS, 2006, $37.50
A gorgeous new edition of Smith’s 1959 classic, this illustrated history starts with Native American creation myths and goes on to detail colonial rent wars, the utopian Byrdcliffe and Maverick arts colonies, and the losses of World War II. A striking painter, Smith lavishes special attention on Woodstock’s extraordinary artistic heritage.
TRAILS WITH TALES BY RUSSELL DUNN AND BARBARA DELANEY BLACK DOME PRESS, 2006, $17.95
Perfect for history buffs and nature lovers alike, this extensive and easily navigable guide exposes a treasure trove of local waterfalls, old battlegrounds, and scenic vistas you’d be hard-pressed to find on your own. The Hudson Valley hikes are selected for their aesthetic as well as historical qualities.
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS BY VITA MAGIC WOMAN PUBLICATIONS, 2006, $44.50
Paris-born Woodstocker Vita calls this striking volume “a children’s book for adults.” Her boldly colorful paintings accompany a heartfelt, yearning text addressed to her late mother, an impassioned, desperately unhappy woman who abandoned her daughter at age 14. An affirmative work of selfhealing and forgiveness.
THE BUDDHA AND THE TERRORIST BY SATISH KUMAR ALGONQUIN BOOKS, SEPTEMBER 2006, $14.95
In this ancient Indian parable, retold by a former monk, the Buddha confronts a violent outcast who preys on innocent people for their fingers. Through their discourse, the two men come to address the vicious cycle spurred by hate and vengeance. A luminous and timely meditation on human nature and choices.
by Roger Kahn
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tone Ridge resident Roger Kahn is best known for The Boys of Summer, hailed by many as the best baseball book ever written—probably because, like anything great, it transcends its specific topic to tell us a great deal about human nature and life. In Into My Own, he chronicles people and events of the last half of the 20th century with candor, grace, and modesty. Kahn has indeed encountered some astonishing people and moments in time, a real-life Forrest Gump of sorts (had Forrest kept the wide-eyed decency while simultaneously possessing a formidable intellect). Journalism, sport, politics, poetry, and personal pain have all enriched and deepened his life, and in this memoir he shares the wealth. It begins in a Brooklyn of another era, when the Dodgers ruled at Ebbets Field and a young man eager to write could find himself a copy boy at the Herald Tribune. The Brooklyn Dodgers, Ebbets Field, copy boys, and the Trib are, of course, gone now, and Brooklyn itself is much changed. Through Kahn’s eyes, we understand why they mattered, and what it was like to be an ink-stained upstart, running out for smokes for Stanley Woodward, soaking up newspaper work like a human sponge. “I’d like to write literature,” he tells an editor, who snaps back, “I’m sure you will eventually. For now, get the salient facts up high.” Kahn had a sense for what was salient, and these were the days of Jackie Robinson’s demolishing the “color line” in major league baseball. As he covered the Dodgers, Kahn found himself in the middle of something that clearly transcended sport, a moment in time where baseball and social change converged, and he dug in and got the story, becoming close to Robinson and the legendary PeeWee Reese, watching as they played the game and won something much bigger. The Fates must have been on Kahn’s team; they, too, wanted him to write literature. At Bread Loaf Writers Colony, Kahn made the connections that would lead to a remarkable piece on the poet Robert Frost for the Saturday Evening Post, the same iconic publication for which he would find himself covering the Goldwater campaign—a defining moment in what would evolve into the far right as we know it today. His descriptions of the frustrations of trying to get “face time” at the Republican convention of 1964 and then watching the delegates disporting “country-western whorehouse style” (“I wondered where the Republican wives were, but I suppose that didn’t matter”) are great fun in a scary way. Later in the decade, he would cover the Eugene McCarthy campaign, giving him interesting brackets in which to enclose his experience of the 1960s. Through it all, he remains a journalist’s journalist, telling what he sees without fear, favor, or fudging. The Saturday Evening Post and the Tribune, icons in their own right, were fortunate to have had him. Those publications—perhaps the entire journalistic climate in which they thrived, then sank—are a part of history now themselves, and Kahn’s fond yet honest memories of the personalities and circumstances involved make for great reading. Just as we get used to strolling through history’s tumult with this objective, passionate, and eminently reasonable guide, Kahn winds up and throws a scorching fastball. Not sparing himself or anyone else, he describes the demise of a marriage and the efforts he made to educate and protect his firstborn son. For all the personalities and events Kahn chronicled, nothing meant as much as young Roger. Roger’s brilliance, decency, struggles, and eventual suicide, a passionate, tragic love story, must have been extremely difficult to get down on paper. Eloquent, poignant, and enlightening, the result is a great gift to the reader. The 20th century, it turns out, was the run-up to some strange times indeed. How fortunate for us all that Roger Kahn was there. —Anne Pyburn
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John Burroughs and the Place of Nature James Perrin Warren The University of Georgia Press, 2006, $39.95
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sk the average American who John Burroughs was and, chances are, you won’t get an answer. Ask the same question of just about anyone living in the Hudson Valley—where Burroughs was born in 1837 and reigned as the most famous writer in America for 50 years until his death in 1921—and you’re almost as likely to come up empty handed. But ask someone who’s into nature writing, the history of the environmental movement, or ecocriticism (the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment, or, more simply put, the notion that we are who we are because of where we are) about Burroughs, and you can bet they’ll express not only recognition but awe. Burroughs mostly lingers in obscurity these days, despite Edward Renehan’s acclaimed 1992 biography, John Burroughs: An American Naturalist. From humble beginnings as a Catskill dairy farm boy, Burroughs became a larger-than-life force as a writer and proponent of the then-fledgling environmental movement. He was a “great lion of a man” in his day, according to his friend and editor Clara Barrus. Looking like a dignified Rip Van Winkle (or Santa Claus), Burroughs owned and inhabited three homes in the Hudson Valley: Woodchuck Lodge, in Roxbury, and Slabsides, in West Park, both of which remain open to the public; and Riverby, also in West Park, a Tudor-style farmhouse designed by Burroughs and now privately owned. In these houses, he wrote 30 books and countless magazine articles on nature; hosted and swapped works-in-progress with no less than Walt Whitman; entertained Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Ford (the latter gave him a car that he crashed into his barn); paid homage to Thoreau and Emerson in several highly regarded essays; and mapped out the early versions of ecovacations he took across the country with Sierra Club founder John Muir. Within his lifetime, Burroughs saw his writings become standard textbook fare for school children and helped influence the first presidential policymaking on environmental matters. When Burroughs’ fame began waning about 10 years before his death, he blamed it on the new “moving-picture brain” of the public, and issued a private (and amusingly humorless) diatribe in his journal against silent films displacing literature. But it was Americans’ turning away from nature and toward lives of convenience that forced him out of the cultural landscape. By the late 20th century he was all but forgotten. However, with the momentum gained by the environmentalist movement came the resurgence of the nature writing genre—and a renewed interest in all things Burroughs. As such, James Perrin Warren’s fine new study, John Burroughs and the Place of Nature, portrays Burroughs as a major force in his own time and an important figure within American history. At recent, well-attended readings given by Warren (a self-described “Whitmaniac” at Washington and Lee University) in Kingston and Woodstock, it was clear that American readers, writers, and environmentalists, along with lovers of local history, are following Burroughs, once again, back to nature. (One member of the audience, an elementary school teacher, reported successfully using Burroughs’s work to inspire nature writing in her first-grade classroom.) Warren uses mainly primary sources to delve into Burroughs as a “great lion” in the context of his work, influences, and social life. In graceful prose, and quoting liberally from Burroughs’ journals and published essays, Warren reveals Burroughs’s relationships with Whitman and Thoreau, as well as their give-and-take regarding literary style and environmentalist views. Likewise, Warren includes a plethora of photographs of Burroughs with his other giant friends—Ford, Roosevelt, Muir—as well as quotes from their correspondence, published writings, and journals, to show the ties and tensions between them that later helped shape both American environmentalism and industry. In the end, says Warren, the words Burroughs wrote of Emerson could be applied to himself: “He left us an estate in the fair land of the Ideal. He bequeathed us treasures that thieves cannot break through and steal, nor time corrupt, nor rust nor moth destroy.” —Susan Piperato 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM BOOKS 63
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The Devil’s Backbone Kim Wozencraft St. Martin’s Press, September 2006, $24.95
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ake that flashlight with you to the parking lot, and lock your doors. Stone Ridge author Kim Wozencraft has just unleashed a mile-a-minute, heart-thumping new novel. A former undercover narcotics cop and the author of Wanted and Rush, Wozencraft has taken her literary game to a new level with The Devil’s Backbone, creating compelling yet vulnerable and flawed characters who find themselves enmeshed in twisted deadly plots and razor-sharp terror scenarios, all the while leaving the reader wondering who, if anyone, to trust. The Devil’s Backbone introduces two sisters who could not be more different. Jenny is dutiful and sweet, following in her father’s footsteps to become a Texas cop and excitedly planning her traditional wedding to the man of her dreams, Luke (another cop). Then there’s Kit, the wildly rebellious older sister, with a background in philosophy and a passion for the martial arts, who’s working as a stripper and drinking like a fish. Kit is haunted by her past, unable even to name the wolves that nip at her heels and keep her pole dancing while men masturbate behind windows. Her only refuge from shame is a dojang in the woods where she practices Korean martial arts—and the bottles of vodka tucked into every closet, nook, and cranny, even in her antique car. When Jenny is brutally and unexpectedly murdered, the reader is left with Kit, lovable but not trustworthy, trying to sober herself up without blacking out so she can find her sister’s killer. From there, the plot moves like a carnival ride, with twists and turns so abrupt and shocking that one moment the reader thinks he’s got it all figured out and the next, finds himself at the same dead end as Kit, peering over the edge, wondering whether she will jump, or take him to the ultimate truth. The book is filled with psychological terror so complex that only Wozencraft can unwind it, strand by strand, all the while keeping the reader on the hot seat in Texas, never knowing who to trust. Attacked, threatened, and thrust into a porn-ring sting operation at her stripjoint, Kit teams up with the man she most suspects of murdering Jenny, her fiancé Luke. Kit must unravel many mysteries from her past, not the least of which is her mother’s final words before dying of cancer: “I’m sorry.” Haunted by questions and her sister’s death, Kit seeks out a shrink, who bravely takes her on, even when her office is ransacked, her files are stolen, and she is physically assaulted by a masked man. Wozencraft’s descriptions of the hot, dry Texas air, the impressive, yet frightening bonds between police officers who call themselves Texas Rangers, and an open, barren landscape where life can be as brutal as it is free, are masterful. Her prose is infused with energy: “Kit slipped out of her sheer pink negligee, neglijah, life goes on, bra—bra, bra, take it off, that bra, stretch it taut, shoot it into the air, no me, me, me fire it toward me! All those eyes—oh baby, oh baby, oh baby yeah yeah yeah, do it like that. All those eyes and then she looked again and there in booth two was, was not a man, was a woman, and Kit looked again and it was a ghost, it was Jenny.” The Devil’s Backbone provides not only suspense, but texture, psychological depth, and a thrill ride that only comes to a halt on the last page. Breathe deep, readers, because this is quite a trip, and the heroine is not the petite beauty of the Harvard Law School graduating class. She is Kit, all too human, often drunk, ashamed, intense, and sometimes delusional. But in the end, love for her sister brings Kit back to the past, to reconcile her demons once and for all, and to learn the answer to her mother’s haunting farewell. —Erin Quinn
THE BOOK SENSE BEST-SELLER LIST AVAILABLE AT WWW.CHRONOGRAM.COM The Book Sense best-seller list is updated weekly and compiled from sales data from 450 independent bookstores throughout the US. Book Sense is a marketing initiative of the nonprofit American Booksellers Association, an organization through which independently owned bookstores support free speech, literacy, and programs that encourage reading.
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POETRY
Edited by Phillip Levine. You can submit up to three poems to Chronogram at a time. Send’em if you got’em, either via snailmail or e-mail. Deadline: September 5. 314 Wall St., Kingston, NY 12401. E-mail: poetry@chronogram.com. Subject: Poetry.
Sadly, I, we, lost a friend, poet, and friend of poetry when Saul Bennett passed away this past month. He will be missed. —Phillip
The Great Escape of ’88
untitled
My Ford was cooked and I was lost. I pulled into the town of just swell. The ravine of blue hair-conditioned track homes sucked what little smoke was left in my lungs.
you will not like this poem it does not describe antediluvian wastes makes scarce use of polysyllabic wordplay will neither challenge nor commend the reader’s literacy
A swarm of spider-veined Reaganites walked the rootcracked sidewalks. I was surrounded; and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I tempered my haste and weaseled my way under the hood without alarming the natives. Popped my Pabst and manned my block; I whispered in her ear, I’ll get you through this, baby. I focused through the glare of tea jugs and sun-spotted legs in polyester socks. I’ll be damned if that fucking poodle wasn’t as smug as its leash holding grin; but who was I to judge. The miles of coiled green hose on saturated lawns twisted my gut something fierce. The sound of pimpled larvae tugging at the teats of Stepfords caused a painful twitch in my cock. I polished my baby just right and dropped the hood; pounded the gas and left grease in my wake. The zombies in my rearview were frozen in defeat; I beat them perfect and victory was mine.
you will not like this poem it does not compare the poet to dylan thomas or anaïs nin— humbly accedes to conventions of grammar and spelling— avoids the fumbling contrivances of grade ten english compositions you will not like this poem this verse is forced to rhyme and does not even try to flourish syncopated time not that the poet has failed to notice the wretched calm that precedes torrent and flood how these words have filtered down from greater minds or that rhyme and meter are terribly unfashionable nor has the poet failed to notice that poetry can reek of commodity— writing is an act of desperation and compliance— and these lines, too, are a product of manufacture —Franklin Demuth
—Alveraz Ricardez
Litter
Night Thoughts
Man
I sometimes envy the evidence of languid hours: a congregation of acrid filters commiserating beneath a bench; the front stoop caped in feathers of newspaper; shards of green longnecks freckling the cement. Until I had sluiced bluesmoke to mine coal stripes in my pink lungs, or smashed bottles, pissed incontinent, between cars and curbs, I interpreted litter with thick-lipped innocence. Now I smile while walking by, same mouth, just stained.
Moon shines down in white spread beams on closed-up flower.
I know a Man He has Straw Growing in His Heart Someday I would like to walk Though His Heart And crush the Straw
—Blythe Boyer
—Michelle J. Lee
Youths speak words with loud, gash tones into thin air. Chopsticks click in dim lit room for waiter’s meal.
—Ingeborg
Wolf-dog howls at flat, white disk ’til early dawn.
The mist draws down. This house, the only house. Tunneled to our window, the smell of earth.
In From the Rain
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Worn Altoids Tin
Portrait of a Room
Cold Trail
It was when sunlight streamed in through the bus window, and the boy stuck a round mint in his mouth,
Now, when the human life in this room Is ebbing, The attitudes of the objects Have become apparent.
I took a train once from Antwerp to Brussels, sailing dusk from Brooklyn when the Atlantic freighters still lay down the Heights, rolling
the type we used to hold contests with in elementary school. How we held as many of those diabolical mints as was humanly possible, watched tears glide across faces. Then we’d try to kiss some boy, naturally. It was the heat of this boy’s mouth, light feel of saliva that must have melted the edges till it wasn’t round anymore. It was a glacier, a two day old snowman, the child-crafted igloo when Spring’s first warmth hits the air. The sun, the click of the tin, a puff of white dust that turned silver in the heat. —Rachel Najdzin
Poet Seeking Residence Smoking or non, quiet, poet seeking residence, two cats, lover friendly, wide grounds to walk upon, gardens, water, swimming, all very preferable —Christopher Porpora
Taking Notes at the Hospital Because of the morphine I must write down everything. Otherwise I might forget the last dose or the name of my nurse or who I should yell at or praise or how my wallet got so empty when I watched it. —Michael Morris
The rocking chair Stretches forth its armrests, Ready to embrace, To lull with the stories Of a long lifetime. The mirror turns a blind eye To all that is happening here, Gazing intently Into its own distant dreams. The hospital bed knows That it is seen as ugly, Unwanted in every room that it enters. Yet it goes about its work Reliably and with care, Keeping the patient As comfortable as it is able, Trying to make its large presence Somehow less obtrusive. The edge of the crystal vase Glitters hard in the corner. Being confined to a sickroom, The dusty monotony Of these pathetic fake flowers— This is not what it’s made for! The curtains hold back the darkness, Soften the midday light. Catching the slightest motion Of the air, they stir like wings, Like the white sails of a ship, Sensing the wind, the space Of a great invisible world. —Yana Kane
there overnight with mosquitoes from southern Ohio, pausing on the moon in West Virginia, at Grafton then its twin speck Keyser before first light short of Baltimore. Those still on they offed at Jersey City, the B & O left no Manhattan tracks. They crossed us on a fossil Hudson ferry roped at Liberty Street, nodded us on a freshly watered salmon motor coach to the end against Grand Central. A war before I routinely was brought by rail to the tropics of Rockaway Beach—and those peeling old Crayola burnt sienna Els in summer turning over Queensboro Bridge gave you to see the receding sounds of the slivery city from tiny open-air verandas crammed with standees on the Roosevelt Avenue tenement trail to the new planet World’s Fair. So high up there in space Father never let go my hand. —Saul Bennett, 1936-2006 Saul Bennett published two books, New Fields and Other Stones: On a Child’s Death (Archer) and Harpo Marx at
October
Prayer (Archer), and was working on a third, “Sea Dust,” at the time of his death. He also published a chapbook, Jesus Matinees
Here we go again, full of it.
and Other Poems (Pudding House). He was a beloved friend and supporter of the poetry community in Woodstock and the Hudson Valley.
Full of life, and so much more. With leaves to sweep under Something or other, I dunno which. —Walter Mcnealy-Masca
In November, Chronogram will publish its annual Literary Supplement. For that issue, we are seeking poetry along the theme of “Art & Artists” (about artists or artworks, or the process of painting, sculpting, etc.). E-mail your submissions to poetry@chronogram.com with the subject line: Literary Supplement Poetry Submission.
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MONEY & INVESTING “Having lots of money can be like a drug. It can make you feel powerful and giddy. It can convince you that everything’s going to be okay. Money makes us unjustifiably feel that we’re better and more important than we really are. When money can make you feel humble, then it’s really useful. But if it fattens your ego, which it often does, then look out. If we don’t understand our relationship to money in this culture, then I think we’re doomed. If you don’t know how you are toward money and really understand that relationship, you simply don’t know yourself.” —Jacob Needleman, author of Money and the Meaning of Life
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WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTING
An Interview with Beth Jones of Third Eye Associates Ethical investing is nothing new. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, religious values have been used to direct financial planning since Old Testament Jewish law dictated community-supporting investment up through John Wesley’s invocation to his Methodist followers to employ money as a social tool to advance the teachings of Jesus. In the early 1980s, religious and secular forces raised an international outcry against Apartheid that led to large-scale divestment in companies that did business with South Africa. In the past 20 years, however, interest in socially responsible investing (SRI) has gained serious traction in the US. According to the Social Investment Forum Foundation, the amount of money invested in SRI in the US was $2.3 trillion in 2005—a 15-fold increase from 1995, when there was only $10 billion invested in SRI. In addition, there are now over 200 SRI mutual funds for investors to choose from, employing a variety of screens, from “sin” screens (alcohol, tobacco, gambling) to the environment. Experts attribute the rise in SRI to increases in return on investment, corporate scandals, the rising desire by people to invest with their values, and the increasing prominence of women investors. I spoke with Beth Jones of Third Eye Associates, a Red Hook-financial consulting firm, about the growing interest in SRI. —Brian K. Mahoney
Beth Jones: Socially responsible investing is really about putting your money where your mouth is. Socially responsible investing is a rather broad concept and different groups interpret it differently, based on their particular values. So, for instance, there are socially responsible funds that target Catholic investors, which essentially are looking for companies that are anti-choice. The most popular types of socially responsible investment are mutual funds like Calvert or Domini, which use environmental screening. So when the fund managers look at companies to choose for their particular funds, they’re looking for companies that are paying attention to the environment. They also look at their personnel policies within their companies, they look at their humanrights policies, they look at discrimination against gays and lesbians, and the status of women. Those are some of the most common socially responsible screens, but essentially, an SRI investor is faced with the question: What are your values and where do you want your money to go?
Brian K. Mahoney: We hear a lot about socially responsible investing, but SRI is a fairly broad concept. Can you please explain what SRI is?
BKM: “No-load.” What does that mean?
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BKM: If I want to “put my money where my mouth is,” how do I do it? BJ: There are some no-load socially responsible funds—
BJ: No-load means that you’re not paying a commission. Essentially, you
could just go online and find a socially responsible fund company and you could manage that money yourself. Most people, however, prefer to have an advisor who helps them determine what’s going on in the market. One of the problems of going it alone is that your access to research is somewhat limited. Although there is a lot information on the internet, you don’t get the same depth of information and access to what’s really going on in the fund as you would with an advisor. An advisor can asses if you have a fully diversified portfolio. On your own, you might think you have a diversified portfolio when, in fact, if you looked internally at the funds you might have the same holdings or an overlap between one fund to another where you have the same stocks. Through an advisor, you can also access managed accounts. A managed account is when you have a larger amount of money, and that gives you access to institutional managers—meaning they’re managing large volumes of money and access to better information. If you have a small amount of money, the only funds you can access are the retail mutual funds. BKM: Such as? BJ: Such as Calvert. Calvert’s a fine company, but there are professional money managers that are dealing on a higher institutional level at much higher volumes, so the internal expenses are considerably lower and they’re the experts in the industry. So if you have $50,000 or more, you can have access to the experts in the industry versus going to with a retail mutual fund or a no-load mutual fund. BKM: Can those with limited resources be part of the SRI scene? What if someone only has $1,000 instead of $50,000—can they still get in? BJ: Yes, you can. BKM: These SRI funds like Calvert, Pax, and Domini—how do they screen which companies are in their funds? BJ: All the companies screen differently. I work predominantly with Calvert, and I like Calvert because they’re the largest company that does SRI and they’ve been doing it since 1982. Calvert is looking at what they term “corporate responsibility,” and they’ve developed a particular criteria for that. They’re looking at governance and ethics of the company; how the company impacts the environment; workplace environment—benefits, discrimination, benefits for domestic partners; product safety and impact; international operations and human rights; when they’re purchasing products from overseas vendors; are their vendors doing business with responsible companies as well?; indigenous peoples rights; and community relations—are they active in their community and doing something to make a difference? Those are some of the general areas that they screen for. BKM: Is there a certifying body or government agency that oversees SRI? BJ: There is nothing like that, and the reason being that socially screening is based on what your values are. Especially in the current political climate, there’s no real interest in that—it’s not even on the current administration’s radar screen. But for instance, if you’re in a Catholic fund, your primary goal is going to be investing in anti-choice organizations, so you’ll be looking at SRI completely differently from someone who is interested in environmental screening. To have a governing body in SRI—I don’t know how they would come up with a criteria, because different groups want different things. BKM: Do you have to settle for a lesser rate of return on SRI than you do with conventional investments? BJ: Twenty years ago that was the case. Today that is not the case. In fact, when the mutual fund scandal was happening a few years ago and there was a lot of market timing going on, and companies like Enron and Tyco were suffering major scandals, the SRI funds really held their own when the market tanked because they had really scrutinized these companies. For instance, there was a time when Tyco was considered a great investment; they were really growing, etc. Well, Calvert sold out of Tyco because they started to see suspicious things in their finances. So Calvert sold Tyco the year before the whole scandal hit and came out unscathed in the corporate-scandal downturn. Now, I can’t say it’s always going to be that way, but because of their in-depth screening and scrutiny, SRI funds were able to avoid some companies that had significant
issues that otherwise looked like very responsible companies. If I look at the returns on SRI funds over the last five years, they beat the general market funds by about two percent a year, which is significant when you compound that money over time. It doesn’t always happen that way, but SRI funds hold their own through very rocky times, which we should be seeing for the next few years. BKM: Why shouldn’t someone who’s interested in SRI just put their money in the investments that give them the highest rate of return—regardless of whether it’s a socially responsible one or not, and then just donate some of their dividends to a favored charity, rather than investing in a specific SRI fund? BJ: Well, some people do just that. Most investments company advisors will tell you: “Just make money now and spend your money contributing later.” You have to follow your heart and do what you think is right. I never think it’s the right thing to do to focus on money first and figuring out the rest later, because there are costs to that. But that is up to the individual investor. BKM: Can you please explain how shareholder advocacy works? BJ: The theory is that shareholder advocacy is another way of impacting changes in corporations. A company or investment firm will buy holdings in a corporation that clearly needs to make some changes and improve their corporate responsibility. And the firm will then, based on the volume of shares that they own—for when you own a stock you’re an owner of the company—have voting rights on the direction the board of directors takes the company. If you have a good number of shares, then you have more voting rights. It is a way for people to actually impact the direction a company is going in. If that is a piece of one’s perspective on investing, I would say that’s fine. Shareholder advocacy can be effective, but it can be a very long timeline to see changes. Who is the typical person who comes to you looking to invest in a socially responsible manner? BJ: About a third of our clients are interested in SRI and they are predominantly women. Although we do have some men, I’d say it’s about 75 percent women. Women are raised—and are wired—differently than men; they tend to want to nurture and take care of things. They care about the impact of their actions and men tend to be raised to focus on business and making money. BKM: Socially responsible investing makes up a fraction of the larger investment market. How much of a difference do you think that SRI is making? BJ: Twenty years ago it wasn’t significant—it was a non-issue. Today it’s had a much bigger impact, especially around corporations’ expanding their benefits programs to include things like domestic partners. Companies don’t want to be singled out for not doing the right thing. Calvert, for instance, screens lots of companies it doesn’t invest in. So if Calvert looks at you and doesn’t invest, a company may want to know why. Why are they looking at us and not picking us? What are we not doing? The other thing that has come to the forefront is the environmental impact of global warming and the carbon-based economy. Companies have become much more aware of the impact they are making on the environment. Corporations have started to recognize these issues. The more that something like humanrights issues are in the news, the more corporations take notice. BKM: What’s the best argument for SRI? BJ: If you’re someone who is passionate about the planet, passionate about human rights, passionate about raising the status of women in the world, SRI is where you want to put your money, because it is impacting those issues on a day-to-day basis. In this country, in a capitalist society—money talks, that’s the bottom line. Know the rules of the game and play to win. Beth Jones is a financial consultant and registered life planner with Third Eye Associates in Red Hook. Securities and advisory services are offered through Commonwealth Financial Network. Member NASD/SIPC a registered investment advisor. For more information on Third Eye Associates: (845) 752-2216; bjones@thirdeyeassoc.com. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM MONEY & INVESTING 75
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SITTING ON A GOLDMINE An eBay tycoon’s childhood “junk” nets hard cash By Jay Blotcher
When it comes to financial success, I’m no Rockefeller, Gates or even a DeLorean. I failed to pocket my first million by 30. When Fortune or Forbes lists the wealthiest Earthlings, I am rightfully overlooked. But in the kingdom of eBay, I am a prince of finance. From Argentina to Norway to Piscataway, thousands have bought my ’60s and ’70s memorabilia: old postcards, vintage photos, even a piece of the original Hollywood sign. My clients know me as Jayboy, a modern alchemist turning schlock into gold. A monetary success of any type, much less a killing on the memorabilia market once seemed beyond my feeble skills. My career began inauspiciously in 1970 in my suburban Boston hometown of Randolph, Massachusetts. I had just celebrated my 10th birthday. In addition to a wicked-cool AM transistor radio, I received a few checks. Mom, a child of the Depression, decided this was a ripe time to test my frugality. Unwisely, she let me loose in Westgate Mall. I snatched up a joy buzzer, some candy, and a cardboard sign in psychedelic colors that read “Sock It To Me.” Mom reviewed my haul and told me, “You’ll never know the value of a dollar.” She ripped up the sign for dramatic effect. Three decades later, Mom is no longer with us, but she’d be gobsmacked to see how those lowly artifacts have made her son a player in the memorabilia market. Despite the mall trauma, I continued to buy stuff through the ’60s and ’70s. Nowadays, countless doctors treat obsessive collecting. But my condition held no psychological puzzle. I simply collected stuff because I was a short, chubby nerd with thick glasses, a whiffle cut and no friends. I wasn’t buying with an eye towards profit and wrapping comic books and baseball cards in plastic for future sales. I simply wanted to dull the pain of loneliness. If it existed, I collected it. Comic books (I had 900, from DC to Marvel, Archie to Gold Key, Harvey to Classics Illustrated). Bottle caps. Hardy Boys books. Marbles. Bubblegum cards. Top 30 lists from Boston’s WRKO radio. Golden Magazine. Mad. Charlie Brown paperbacks. Teen magazines like 16, Tiger Beat, 16 Spec, and Fave! (More about that later.) And gum cards. Not only baseball cards, but football, hockey, and basketball, although I had no interest in sports beyond a two-month stint in Little League. I bought every gum-card series spun off from a TV show: “Batman,” “The Flying Nun,” “The Mod Squad,” “Dark Shadows,” “Laugh-In,” “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Good Times.” I memorized names, dates, song titles, celebrity bios. While other friends would lose their collections to overzealous mothers and cleaning sprees, I held on to my out-sized assemblage, and it accompanied me to adult life in New York City. The eBay empire was still years away. So my collection sat in the hall closet of my tenement apartment on Essex Street. When I stumbled across eBay in 1998, this cyberspace flea market had already been humming along for three years. In that moment, my long, lonely existence as a nerdy collector fell into place. It was time to sell off my childhood. I was doing business with kindred spirits, fellow hoarders, pop culture junkies. I was no computer whiz, but I learned the finer points of scanning from a fellow seller in New Jersey. I learned how to put an item on auction, how to use key words to jazz up the description. The process simply flowed
since I already knew the stories behind each item. As a journalist, I made my product descriptions breezy, funny, provocative, and enlightening. The anal-retentive in me kept meticulous records for each sale. In the likelihood that an IRS official is reading this article, I will refrain from sharing my gross income over eight years. But I garnered a profit that would have had Mom eating her words. Until now, I viewed the business world as a snake pit, where selling goods meant selling your soul. But eBay is free of moral dilemmas, as evidenced by e-mails from elated winners now reunited with childhood talismans. As I closed in on my first $500, I became giddy with possibilities. I began haunting yard sales and flea markets with the eye of a speculator, buying items at bargain costs and turning them around on eBay for a neat profit. I had also learned that the eBay universe was home to a number of gay men who collected physique photos. They would plunk down $40, $50, $60 for beefcake shots of athletes, soldiers, frat boys, wrestlers. One Saturday morning at a flea market in southern Jersey, I came across a collection of snapshots of American soldiers living in Burma after World War II. The photos included many shirtless Yanks. The lot of 105 photos was priced at $55. I did some quick calculations, smiled at the profit potential, and bought the set. Over the next two months, I sold them individually on eBay, realizing nearly ten times my initial investment. I accomplished similar economic coups when I bought a cache of shirtless shots from a retired celebrity photographer. A collection of 4 x 6-inch color backstage photos of actor Maxwell Caulfield clad only in leather pants was snatched up happily by a gentleman living in Southern England at $80 per shot. (I had spent $4 for each picture.) The aforementioned piece of the original Hollywood sign was gathering dust in a coworker’s office and he gladly handed it over. I made $197 on that sale. I couldn’t articulate the business principles behind my decisions, and would have made a sorry sight at business school, but I was turning pop culture artifacts (some would say junk) into cash. Mine was a seamless operation: When items failed to sell on eBay I brought them to the flea market in High Falls, where I sat for two seasons. The golden paint on the palace of eBay has lately shown signs of peeling. The website’s wild success has also been its curse. Capitalists and professionals have wrested the game from casual collectors. Auction costs keep climbing. I no longer enjoy the dizzying prices of eight years ago; unless you’re selling something truly rare, you’re probably competing with several others selling the same item in any given week. Since I had a finite number of artifacts to sell and have now sold most of them, I have begun weaning myself from eBay. It’s been a great ride. Where else would someone of my limited vision and lack of blood-thirst succeed in business? Beyond eBay, I may never again make a financial killing that brings me guilt-free money. But, for a brief time, it was comforting to know that a guileless childhood investment could turn me into a dot.com tycoon. Jay Blotcher launched Jayboy Greetings, a short-lived greeting card empire, in 2001. Visit its graveyard at www.jayblotcher.com/cards. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM MONEY & INVESTING 77
Food
Little Plates, Big Tastes Sabroso in Rhinebeck text and photos by Jennifer May
A
t 4:30 pm, an hour before their restaurant is scheduled to open for the evening, chefs Marcia Miller and Erica Mahlkuch don’t seem the least bit stressed. Instead, they sip iced coffees and nibble oatmeal cookies and chat about how much they love to cook. When the time is pointed out to them, Mahlkuch smiles and says, “Oh, we are very well organized.” It might seem that two executive chefs in one kitchen is a recipe for bruised egos and discontent, but in the kitchen of Sabroso in Rhinebeck, Miller and Mahlkuch wouldn’t have it any other way. They say they thrive on each other’s input and inspire each other’s creativity. They refer to the style of their food as Latin world cuisine, and the heavily weighted seafood menu pulls from different regions of Latin America. On a Friday night in summer I sampled a Sabroso margarita on the rocks. The glass arrived heaped with ice and holding an elixir that was refreshing, potent, and not too sweet. My company ordered starters from the tapas menu: a startlingly delicious corn lobster tempura with a sauce of emulsified sea urchin, ginger, and soy, beside fried sweet plantain disks; chili-dusted calamari with poblano lime aioli and a sweet and smoky guajillo sauce made with tomatoes, ginger, onions, and garlic; and the trio of ceviche. The ceviche trio changes with the tide, often daily, and is made with the freshest fish of the day’s delivery. Citrus blends of lemon, lime, or orange vary according to theme. We sampled Ecuadorian-styled shrimp in a tomato based sauce with cilantro, onion, roasted red peppers, and roasted jalapenos; Peruvian styled scallops dressed in mango and poblano; and Asian styled tuna in a sauce of ginger, sesame, and soy. The little square dishes hold big, well-rounded tastes. For main courses, we tried an evening special, the Catalonian-style pasta with jumbo shrimp, scallops, mussels, and clams heaped atop a layering of wide fresh-made noodles, with a smoky chipotle tomato sauce made of fresh tomatoes and sofrito paste. (Miller and Mahlkuch describe sofrito as a “mother seasoning” in Latin cooking that varies depending on the region, and it may be jarred, dried, or frozen.) The chefs make their sofrito from scratch using onions, peppers, garlic, bacon, cumin, and culantro (similar to cilantro but bitter). The seafood portion was generous and cooked to perfection. We also tried the 78 FOOD & DRINK CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
lump crab cakes. They arrived atop a divine corn-infused saffron cream sauce that dissolved in the mouth. Near the fat cakes, sautéed squash blossoms lay like a fan, and near these were tiny red pearl onions. A garnish of vibrant green cilantro oil created a surprising flourish against the white plate. “Erica and I love food and we love feeding people,” says Miller. “We get excited about an ingredient. We talk about it and what we have done with it before. We work together and ask each other, ‘How about this—or that?’” “Like with the lobster tempura. We used Latin corn flour instead of regular white wheat flour. And I had never worked with sea urchin before and I had wanted to. It has a texture like foie gras, and because it is salty, it adds the taste of the sea,” says Mahlkuch. “They don’t come up with a dish in five minutes,” says Christopher Long, the third partner-owner, host, and front-of-the-house manager. “It takes weeks,” says Mahlkuch. “There was a dessert we wanted to do, leche frita [fried milk]. We threw thoughts around for a year,” says Miller. The crispy-on-the-outside-and-custard-on-the-inside leche frita is currently a desert special, on its way to the regular desert menu. The two chefs plus Long have worked together on and off over the past ten years, beginning in Virginia when fifteen-year-old Mahlkuch was hired for pantry and behind-the-scenes work at an Italian restaurant (with a Spanish flare) owned by husband-and-wife team Miller and Long. When Mahlkuch moved to Miami a few years ago, the three stayed in contact, and when Miller and Long decided to relocate to Rhinebeck, they invited Mahlkuch to join them. (The area is familiar turf to the couple as both were raised in the boroughs of New York City and have been visiting and vacationing in the Hudson Valley for years—even when they had to travel from Virginia to get here.) Mahlkuch’s talent was evident from the minute she first set foot in a kitchen. “She watched Marcia and pretty soon was able to replicate what she did and make suggestions. She was running the kitchen at seventeen,” Long says. The three consider each other family and they all have plans for Mahlkuch’s sevenmonth-old daughter. “She loves it here. I think she remembers the smells and
(ABOVE) FROM THE TAPAS MENU: GRILLED LANGOSTINO (PRAWNS) WITH GOLDEN BEET CARPACCIO, PEAR TOMATOES, MÂCHE, AND GRAPEFRUIT CHAMPAGNE VINAIGRETTE (OPPOSITE) ELEGANT SIMPLICITY: LATE NIGHT IN THE DINING ROOM OF SABROSO IN RHINEBECK
the sounds, the feeling of the place from when I was pregnant. I think she’s going to be a chef,” says Mahlkuch. “Or she’ll be out front,” offers Long. “No, I think a chef.” They chuckle at the oft-repeated speculation.
S
abroso is tucked away on Garden Street in the former Cripple Creek space. The color scheme and décor of the redesigned restaurant are not the typical red, orange, and green of many Latin-inspired establishments. It is an elegant blend of muted creams and yellows with mirrors, carved wooden frames, and a few Mexican masks carved from dark wood. “We wanted it to appeal to women. We wanted it soft and warm,” says Mahlkuch. At night, when the recessed lights behind the cushioned benches are lit, the room glows. “We wanted it to glow but not be orangey. And women do love coming here. They are comfortable and yet men don’t feel put off by it,” adds Miller. Miller and Mahlkuch describe themselves as self-taught chefs. Miller’s early influences around food were in the kitchens of her grandmothers and extended family in Brooklyn, where she lived in a mixed neighborhood of Russian, Jewish, and Polish immigrants. To this day, Miller studies food the way an anthropologist studies the remains of ancient settlements. She looks to food to understand people and cultures. World-traveled, Miller has eaten her way through Egypt, Greece, Pakistan, and Europe. But it was a breakfast of boiled white sweet potatoes on the beach in Haiti—cooked and shared by a peasant family—that really impressed her. Though it was the simplest of meals, remembering the love the family put into cooking and serving it brings tears to Miller’s eyes to this day. Miller was also first exposed to fusion food in Haiti—what she describes as a natural fusion, the fusion of cultures. She speaks of the Spanish, French, and Indian cultures merging on the plate. “A chicken dish might be made in a spicy tomato broth in a classical technique, and then served with rice and beans or a gratin. You see classical French cooking with Indian and Spanish influences on the side,” she says.
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eople arrive at Sabroso in unannounced large groups and they arrive in intimate parties. From his perch at the door, Long shakes hands and kisses familiar cheeks. At the flick of his fingers a barrage of dainty black-clad waitresses flit smoothly through the room, guide guests to their tables, and drape napkins over the diners’ laps. Long loves to introduce people to one another. One evening as I sat at the bar, Long introduced me to famed New Yorker cartoonist and Rhinebeck resident Danny Shanahan, who was just finishing the ceviche special. That night I savored what chef Mahlkuch described as a tuna poke—a Latin-Asian-styled interpretation of a tartar made with yellow fin tuna with red onion, sweet plantain, topped with spiced avocado, and pineapple vinaigrette—and sipped the strongest mojito I have ever seen poured. When I commented on the strength, bartender Adria DiMarco winked and said, “It’s mostly Bacardi, baby!” The dessert menu is just as perplexing as the tapas menu when it comes to choice reduction. My first night, I could not choose between the trio of sorbets, the chocolate torte with house-made banana ice cream, and the orange cinnamon flan. So I skipped. Another night, Long delivered a plate of churros—soft fingers of fried dough served with a dish of thick and creamy cinnamon-ancho chocolate dipping sauce. You get the feeling that whatever you try, you can’t go wrong. The only dilemma I had at the two different times I dined at Sabroso was that after a deep study of each of the three menus—tapas, platos principales, and dessert—I answered with a mental “yes” to each and every item. I am not alone. During one afternoon, two customers from the previous evening knocked at the door and inquired after a lost cell phone. As the couple waited for the phone to be retrieved from the kitchen, Long asked them how they had enjoyed or not enjoyed themselves the night before. “The only problem was choosing which item on the menu we didn’t want,” the man answered. Sabroso is located at 22 Garden Street, Rhinebeck. (845) 876-8688; www.sabrosoplatos.com. Tapas $4.95 to $12.95; entrées $16.95 to $28.95. Open daily for dinner from 5:30 p.m.; closed Tuesdays. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM FOOD & DRINK 79
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tastings directory BAKERIES
FARMERS MARKET
The Alternative Baker
Rhinebeck Farmers Market
“The Village Baker of the Rondout.” 100% Scratch Bakery. Stickybuns, Scones, Muffins, Breads, Focaccia, Tartes, Tortes, Seasonal Desserts featuring local produce, plus Sugar-free, Wheat-free, Dairy-free, Vegan, Gluten-free, and Organic Treats! Cakes and Wedding Cakes by Special Order. We ship our Lemon Cakes nationwide, $30 2-pound bundts. Open Thursday-Monday 8am-6pm; Sunday 8am-4pm. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Well Worth The Trip! 35 Broadway, at the historic waterfront district, Kingston. Thursday-Monday 8AM-6PM. Sunday 8AM4PM. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday. 35 Broadway, Kingston, NY. (845) 331-5517 or (800) 399-3589. www.lemoncakes.com.
The Hudson Valley’s best farmers bringing you farmfresh vegetables, fruit, meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, wine, honey, bread, flowers, jam, pickles, herbs and much more. Free live music every week. Tastings and special events all season long. Municipal Parking Lot on East Market St. Sundays 10am-2pm. www.rhinebeckfarmersmarket.com.
CATERING
Beacon Natural Market
Blue Mountain Bistro Catering Co.
Claudia’s Kitchen Personalized celebrations and weddings, using fresh local ingredients to create delicious and elegant menus. Homemade artisanal breads, Hudson Valley cheese, fabulous appetizers, meat and vegetarian entrees, out-of-this-world desserts. Claudia works one on one to custom design your menu, your party, your wedding or special event. (845) 868-7338 or (914) 475-9695. www.claudiascatering.com.
Fresh Company At our kitchen in the Hudson Highlands, we gather great local and imported ingredients for events of all sizes and pocketbooks, from grand affairs to drop-off parties. True to our name, we emphasize the freshest, finest ingredients, because great food is the spark that ignites a convivial gathering. Our style is reflected in meals that encourage hospitality and leisure at the table, the elemental enjoyment of eating and drinking well. Garrison, NY. (845) 424-8204. www.FreshCompany.net.
Ladybird Home Catering Fresh, Seasonal, Balanced Meals Delivered to your Home. It’s the newest solution for your “what’s for dinner?” problems. Feast your eyes on Ladybird’s new sensational menus online every week. Affordable Catering, Beautiful Party Platters and Gift Certificates available. Chef/Owner Tanya L. Lopez. (845) 568-7280. ladybirdho mecatering@yahoo.com. www.ladybirdcatering.com.
Pad Thai Catering Delicious, affordable, and authentic Thai cuisine served with authentic Thai hospitality to your group of six or more. Lunch or dinner served in your home by Chef & Owner Nuch Chaweewan. Please call for prices and information. (845) 687-2334.
Healthy Gourmet to Go See Vegan Lifestyle in the Whole Living Directory. (845) 339-7171. www.carrottalk.com.
NATURAL FOOD MARKETS
Lighting the Way for a Healthier World...Located in the heart of historic Beacon at 348 Main Street. Featuring organic prepared foods deli & juice bar as well as organic and regional produce, meats and cheeses. Newly opened in Aug. ‘05, proprietors L.T. & Kitty Sherpa are dedicated to serving the Hudson Valley with a complete selection of products that are good for you and good for the planet, including an extensive alternative health dept. Nutritionist on staff. 348 Main Street, Beacon, NY. (845) 838-1288.
tastings
On and off-premise catering. Sophisticated Zagatrated food and atmosphere in a rustic country setting – wide plank floors, rough hewn beams and a stunning zinc bar. Chef-owner Erickson’s Mediterranean cuisine has garnered praise from Gourmet and New York Magazines to Hudson Valley Magazine (Best Tapas in the Hudson Valley 2004). 1633 Glasco Turnpike, Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-8519. www.blue mountainbistro.com.
HOME MEAL DELIVERY
PASTA
La Bella Pasta Fresh pasta made locally. Large variety of ravioli, tortellini, pastas, and sauces at the factory outlet. We manufacture and deliver our excellent selection of pastas to fine restaurants, gourmet shops, and caterers throughout the Hudson Valley. Call for our full product list and samples. Open to the public Monday through Friday 10am to 6pm, Saturday 11am to 3pm. Located on Route 28W between Kingston and Woodstock.(845) 331-9130. www.labellapasta.com.
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PUBS
Snapper Magee’s Heralded as having “the best jukebox in the Hudson Valley” by the Poughkeepsie Journal, The Kingston Times, and Scenery Magazine. Snapper Magee’s is the Switzerland of pubs, a rock & roll oasis where everyone is welcome. Daily happy hour specials from 4-7 weekdays and noon-2 on weekends. Always open late. 59 N. Front Street, Kingston, NY. (845) 339-3888.
RESTAURANTS
Aroma Osteria Aroma Osteria. 114 Old Post Road, Wappingers Falls, NY. (845) 298-6790.
Beso Located on Main St. in the heart of New Paltz is Beso. Spanish for “kiss,” Beso offers casual fine dining by Chef Owners Chad Greer and Tammy Ogletree. Fresh, modern American cuisine, seasonally inspired by local Hudson Valley farmers, using as many organic ingredients, including beef and poultry, as
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possible. Get cozy in the intimate dining room under skylights and glowing candlelit tables, or sit at the bar for a more casual experience. Housemade pastas include gnocchi and cannelloni, Grilled Swordfish, or Braised Beef Short Ribs. And for dessert, Maple Mascarpone Cheesecake. International wine list. Private parties, children welcome. Dinner 5pm-10pm, Sunday Brunch from 11:30am - 4pm, Sunday Dinner 4pm - 9pm, Closed Tuesday & Wednesday. 46 Main St., New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-1426. www.beso-restaurant.com.
Catamount Restaurant Located near Phoenicia and Woodstock, the Catamount Restaurant has been a locals and visitors favorite for years. Experience the pastoral beauty of the surrounding Catskills as you dine creekside in the warm, inviting dining room. Chef Mike Fichtel and his team have created a locally-inspired menu that features perfectly seasoned steaks and chops, creatively prepared fish and poultry and several vegetarian dishes. And don’t miss the desserts created from the Emerson Bakery. “The Cat” as locals call it, has a full bar including a great selection of local and regional micro-brews and international wines that can be enjoyed next to one of our two large stone fireplaces. Panoramic views are the signature of The Cat, a perfect location for weddings and banquets under the outdoor pavilion. The Catamount is open for dinner Wed.-Sat. 5pm to 10pm and Sunday from 12pm to 8pm. 5368 Route 28, Mt. Tremper, NY. Call (845) 688-2828 for reservations. www.emersonplace.com/dining/catamount.
The Emerson at Woodstock
The French Corner Chef Jacques Qualin, former NY Times critically acclaimed chef of Le Perigord in NYC, impresses with his innovative style of cuisine which cleverly combines ingredients typical of his native FrancheComt, France with the sumptuous ingredients available from the Hudson Valley. All of The French Corner recipes are made on premise by Chef Jacques including the breads, pastries, and desserts. Route 213 West, just off Route 209, Stone Ridge. Dinner-Wednesday through Sunday from 5 pm, Prix Fixe $25 available every evening. Brunch Sundays from 11am. Routes 213 West and 209, Stone Ridge, NY. (845) 687-0810. www.frcorner.com.
Gilded Otter A warm and inviting dining room and pub overlooking beautiful sunsets over the Wallkill River and Shawangunk Cliffs. Mouthwatering dinners prepared by Executive Chef Larry Chu, and handcrafted beers brewed by GABF Gold Medal Winning Brewmaster Darren Currier. Chef driven & brewed locally! 3 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 256-1700.
Best authentic sushi in the Hudson Valley! Superb Japanese sushi chefs serve the best authentic sushi with extended Dining Area. Sit at the counter or tables and enjoy all your favorites from Chicken Teriyaki and Udon to Yellowtail and Special rolls. Eat-in, Take-out, and private room is available. Tuesday-Friday Lunch 11:30AM-2: 30PM. Monday-Thursday Dinner 5-9PM. Friday Dinner 5PM-10PM. Saturday Dinner 4:30-10PM. 7270 South Broadway, Red Hook, NY. (845) 758-4333. www.hanasushi.com.
Hickory BBQ Smokehouse Located on historic Route 28 between Kingston and Woodstock, Hickory offers diners Hudson Valley’s finest barbecue and smokehouse cuisine such as ribs, pulled pork, smoked beef, fish and free-range chicken. Whether enjoying your meal by the fireplace in Hickory’s threestar dining room or sipping a cocktail at the wood bar, Hickory’s staff is trained to make you feel as comfortable as you would at home. Hickory also features several vegetarian options, steaks, homemade desserts, happy hour specials, a complete take-out menu, and catering and special events in our private dining room. You can enjoy live music featuring the area’s hottest bands on Friday and Saturday night. Open daily for lunch and dinner. 743 Route 28 (3.5 miles from NYS Thruway Exit 19.), Kingston, NY. (845) 338-2424. www.hickoryrestaurant.com.
Joyous Cafe Is it any wonder that Joyous Cafe is the most exciting new eating experience in Kingston? Whether it’s Breakfast, Lunch, or Sunday Brunch, the wonderfully prepared food and attentive service are outstanding. Open Monday through Friday 8 am - 4 pm. Sunday Brunch 9 am- 2 pm. Serving Dinner evenings of UPAC events. 608 Broadway, in The Heart of Broadway Theater Square, Kingston, NY. (845) 334-9441. www.joyouscafe.com.
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Using locally raised meats and produce, Chef and Culinary Institute graduate Jessica Winchell’s dishes celebrate the area’s bounty of right-off-the-farm ingredients. Enjoy specialties like an Apple-butter Glazed Double-Cut Pork Chop ($23), Green Garlic Pesto Smothered Chicken ($19), Crusted Tofu, Avocado, Arugula and Pesto Sandwich ($8), or Seared Arctic Char on a caramelized fennel bed ($20). Savor a fine wine, micro-brew or specialty drink from the Emerson’s magnificent bar while you enjoy the atmosphere of the transformed 19th Century farmhouse. The Emerson is available for group parties and other private occasions. Open for dinner, Tu.-Sun. 5:30pm to 10pm (9m Sun.), Brunch Sat. & Sun. 10am to 3pm. NOW OPEN FOR LUNCH Wed.-Fri., 11m to 3pm. Located at 109 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock, NY. Call (845) 679-7500 or visit us online at www.emersonplace.com.
Hana Sushi
Kyoto Sushi Kyoto Sushi. 337 Washington Ave., Kingston, NY. (845) 339-1128.
Luna 61 “Best Vegetarian Restaurant.” –Hudson Valley Magazine. “Food is simply delicious, four stars.” –Poughkeepsie Journal. “Imagine spicy Thai noodles, delicate spring rolls, and the best banana cream pie you’ve ever eaten. Join the Culinary Revolution.” –Dutchess Magazine. Luna 61 is relaxed and funky, candlelit tables, cozy, and romantic. Organic wine and beer. Wednesday, Thuesday-Saturday dinner 5PM. Sunday brunch 10am-5pm. Now Accepting Credit Cards. 61 East Market Street, Red Hook, NY. (845) 758-0061.
Machu Picchu Peruvian Restaurant The only authentic Peruvian restaurant in Orange County, NY. Family owned and operated since 1990. Serving the community traditional dishes from the mountains and coast of Peru. Trained in Peru, our chefs make authentic dishes come alive. Wine list available. Serving Lunch and Dinner Sunday through Thursday 10am-10pm and Friday & Saturday 10am-11pm. Closed Tuesday. 301 Broadway, Newburgh, NY. (845) 562-6478. www.machupicchurest.com.
Main Course Four-star, award-winning, contemporary American cuisine serving organic, natural, and free-range Hudson Valley products. Wednesday and Thursday nights, food and wine pairing menu available. Voted “Best Caterer in the Hudson Valley.” Open Lunch and Dinner TuesdaySunday, and Sunday Brunch. 232 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-2600. www.maincourserestaurant.com.
Marion’s Country Kitchen Nestled inside the beautiful compounds of the Woodstock Lodge, near Woodstock’s charming center is a
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romantic getaway where European hospitality and delicious food is created by Marion Maur (excellent awards by Zagat Survey). It is the perfect place for a cocktail at our rustic elegant wood bar. Then be pampered in our cozy & intimate dining room, ensuring you and your guests the enjoyment of Marion Maur’s light and flawless cuisine which consists of European contemporary and updated classics provided by local Hudson Valley farmers. And do not forget to compliment your meal with a selection from our unique, refined and eclectic wine list. Marion’s Country Kitchen is a wonderful location for rehearsal dinners, receptions & family events! 20 Country Club Lane Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-3213. www.Marions CountryKitchen.com.
Monster Taco When you have a hunger that only Mexican food can satisfy, visit Monster Taco. With fresh food, reasonable prices, and a funky atmosphere, there’s no doubt you’ll keep coming back to feed the monster. Open for lunch and dinner. 260 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY. (845) 452-3375. www.monster-taco.com.
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Voted best Mexican restaurant in NYC, Mexican Radio’s 3-year-old branch in Hudson features the same award-winning homemade dishes and the world’s greatest margaritas! Everything made fresh daily. Extensive vegetarian/vegan choices. A Great Place for Parties! Open Every Single Day - 11: 30am - 11pm. 537 Warren Street, Hudson, NY. (518) 828-7770. www.mexrad.com.
Neko Sushi & Restaurant Voted “Best Sushi” Restaurant by Chronogram readers and rated four stars by Poughkeepsie Journal. Serving lunch and dinner daily. Eat in or Take Out. We offer many selections of Sushi & Sashimi, an extensive variety of special Rolls and kitchen dishes. Live Lobster prepared daily. Parking in rear available. Major credit cards accepted. Sunday-Thursday 12-10PM. Friday and Saturday 12-11PM. 49 Main Street, in the Village of New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-0162.
Osaka Japanese Restaurant Want to taste the best Sushi in the Hudson Valley? Osaka Restaurant is the place. Vegetarian dishes available. Given four stars by the Daily Freeman. Visit our second location at 74 Broadway, Tivoli. (845) 757-5055. 18 Garden Street, Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-7338 or (845) 876-7278.
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OII Food. Tapas. Wine. Gallery. Catering. The newly opened OII in historic Beacon has wide appeal. Dine on contemporary American fusion cuisine in the elegant yet casual dining room while admiring the work of local artists. Sample a medley of tapas and wine at the bar. Call for your off-premise catering needs. Reservations recommended. Serving Dinner Sunday-Thursday 5-9pm; Friday and Saturday 5-10pm. Closed Mondays.240 Main Street, Beacon, NY. (845) 231-1084. www.oiiny.com.
Plaza Diner Established 1969. One of the finest family restaurants in the area. Extensive selection of entrees and daily specials, plus children’s menu. Everything prepared fresh daily. Private room for parties and conferences up to 50 people. Open 24/7. Exit 18 off NYS Thruway. 27 New Paltz Plaza, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-1030.
Roasted Garlic at the Red Hook Inn
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Elegant environment, comfortable atmosphere, internationally acclaimed chef/owner, the Red Hook ‘Country’ Inn, located in the heart of historic Red Hook/Rhinebeck NY has it all. This 6 room Federal style colonial, built in 1842, offers guests a walk back in time as they enjoy modern amenities including luxury bedding, linens, jacuzzis, fireplaces and wireless internet. The dining room at the Inn, ROASTED GARLIC, features a mixture of French, American and Mediterranean menus with a focus on flavor and affordability. Meet Chef Nabil Ayoub and Hostess Patricia Holden as you enjoy charm, exquisite cuisine and warm hospitality. Red Hook, NY.
Sukhothai Restaurant located in Beacon, NY, offers a delicious menu full of authentic Thai cuisine. From traditional dishes, such as Pad Thai and Som Tam, to custom dishes created exclusively by our master chef, our menu is sure to please any palate. Take–out is also available. 516-518 Main St. Beacon, NY. (845) 790-5375.
Soul Dog Featuring a variety of hot dogs, including preservative-free and vegetarian hot dogs, chili, soup, sides, desserts & many gluten-free items prepared in-house. Redefining the hot dog experience! Open for lunch Mon-Fri 11am-4pm. 107 Main St., Poughkeepsie, NY. (845) 454-3254.
Wasabi Japanese Restaurant Wasabi Japanese Restaurant. Open 7 days a week. 807 Warren Street, Hudson, NY. (518) 822-1888.
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business directory ACTING Sande Shurin Acting Classes Revolutionary new acting technique for Film/Stage/TV. The book: Transformational Acting...A Step Beyond, Limelight Editions. The technique: Transform into character using current emotions. No recall. No forward imagining. Shurin private coaches many celebrities. The classes: Thursday eves at 7PM, Woodstock. Master classes at the Times Square Sande Shurin Theatre. Thursday eves at 7PM. Woodstock, NY. (917) 545-5713 or (212) 262-6848.
ANIMATION 8 Hats High 23-27 West Main Street 3rd Fl., Middletown, NY. Please also see our Illustration directory. (845) 344-1888. www.8hatshigh.com.
ANTIQUES Expect the unexpected at the Hudson Valley’s newest antiques and crafts center. The multidealer Hudson Valley Showcase in Newburgh, minutes from the acclaimed Riverfront is open 7 days, has ample parking, a cafe, and offers superb quality at affordable prices. Come check out the unique array of antiques, jewelry, collectables, crafts and more. 280 Broadway (9W), Newburgh, NY. (845) 4941135. www.hudsonvalleyshowcase.com.
ARCHITECTURE DiGuiseppe Architecture Inspired, Sensitive, and Luxurious...these are the words that describe the quintessential design work that is DiGuiseppe. The firm, with Design Studios in Accord, New York City, and Boca Raton, provides personalized Architecture and Interiors for each and every client. Whether the project is a Sensitive Historic Renovation, a Hudson Valley Inspired Home or Luxurious Interiors, each project receives the attention of the firm’s principal, Anthony J. DiGuiseppe, AIA RIBA, an internationally published architect and award-winning furniture designer. Accord (845) 687-8989; New York City (212) 439-9611. diarcht@msn.com. www.diguiseppe.com.
ART GALLERIES Imari Arts Hudson’s newest craft shoppe/art gallery is worth a one block walk off Warren. Imari features Hudson Valley painters, sculptors, and craftsmen you will find one-of-a-kind items ranging from fine art and sculpture to decorator items and wearable art. Open Thur-Sat 11: 30-6; Sun 11-2. moconnellhudson@aol.com. www.imariarts.com.
Exhibiting the work of contemporary artists. Featuring abstract painting, sculpture, digital art, photography, and video, the gallery has new shows each month. The innovative gallery Web site has online artist portfolios and videos of the artists discussing their work. 460 Main Street, Beacon, NY. (845) 838-2995. www.vanbruntgallery.com.
ART SUPPLIES Catskill Art & Office Supply Traditional fine art materials, studio furnishings, office products, journals, cards, maps, and gifts. Creative services, too, at all three locations: photo processing, custom printing, rubber stamps, color copies, custom picture framing, and full-color digital output. Pushing the envelope and creative spirit for over 20 years. Woodstock (845) 679-2251; Kingston (845) 331-7780; Poughkeepsie (845) 452-1250.
Manny’s Since 1962, big city selection and small town service have made Manny’s special. We offer a full range of art materials, custom picture framing, bookmaking supplies, and the best selection of handmade and decorative papers north of Manhattan. Manny’s, it’s more than just an art store. 83 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-9902.
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Hudson Valley Showcase
Van Brunt Gallery
R & F Handmade Paints Internationally known manufacturer of Pigment Sticks and Encaustic paint right here in the Hudson Valley. Stop in for a tour of our factory, get paints at discounted prices, sign up for an Encaustic or Pigment Stick workshop, or check out bi-monthly exhibits in the Gallery. MondaySaturday 10AM-5PM. 506 Broadway, Kingston, NY. (845) 331-3112. www.rfpaints.com.
ART THERAPY Deep Clay Art and Therapy with Michelle Rhodes ATR-BC, LMSW See Psychotherapy in Whole Living Guide.
ATTORNEYS Law Offices of Andrea Lowenthal, PLLC Offices in Hudson and Manhattan, serving individuals and businesses throughout the Hudson Valley and New York City. Estate Planning (wills and trusts) and Elder Law (planning for you or your aging relatives), Domestic Partnerships (for GLBT families), Family Matters, Business Formations and Transactions, and Real Estate. Intelligent and sensitive approach to your personal and business legal matters. Hudson, NY. (518) 671-6200 or (917) 301-6524. Andrea@LowenthalLaw.com.
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businesses. Specific areas include: Real Estate, Estate Planning, Corporate, New Media and Arts, and Entertainment Law. Each matter is attended to by a senior attorney, who develops a comprehensive legal plan with the client. Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-9868 or (212) 629-7744. www.schneiderpfahl.com www.nycrealestateattorneys.com.
BED & BREAKFASTS / INNS Storm King Lodge Bed and Breakfast Come and enjoy our cozy lodge, converted from an early 1800’s post-and-beam barn, and guest cottage in a country setting with gardens, pool, and mountain views. The Great Room offers a comfortable place to relax, with a roaring fire on winter evenings; or enjoy those summer nights on the covered veranda. Choose from six comfortable guest rooms with private baths. Comforts include central AC, several fireplaces, spacious lawns, gardens, and the grand swimming pool. Located near Storm King Art Center, West Point, DIA: Beacon, Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, and 1 hour from NYC. Great restaurants nearby. 100 Pleasant Hill Road, Mountainville (Cornwall), NY. (845) 534-9421. www.stormkinglodge.com.
BEVERAGES Esotec Ltd. Choose Esotec to be your wholesale beverage provider. For 20 years, we carry a complete line of natural, organic, and unusual juices, spritzers, waters, sodas, iced teas, and iced coffees. If you are a store owner, call for details or a catalog of our full line. Now located in Tech-City, Kingston, NY. (845) 336-3369. sales@esotecltd.com. www.esotecltd.com.
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Leisure Time Spring Water Pure spring water from a natural artesian spring located in the Catskill Mountains. The spring delivers water at 42 degrees Fahrenheit year-round. The water is filtered under high pressure through fine white sand. Hot and cold dispensers available. Weekly delivery. (845) 331-0504.
BICYCLE SALES / RENTALS / SERVICE BICYCLE DEPOT OPEN EVERY DAY EXCEPT TUESDAY. 15 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255- 3859. www.bicycledepot.com.
BOOKSTORES Barner Books Used books. From kitsch to culture, Thoreau to thrillers, serious and silly. We have the books you read. MondaySaturday 10-7. Sunday 12-6. 69 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-2635. barnerbk@ulster.net.
The Golden Notebook A feast for book lovers located in the heart of Woodstock, we are proud to be a part of Book Sense: Independent Bookstores for Independent Minds. In addition to our huge database, we can special order any book in or out of print. Our Children’s Store located right next door has an extensive selection of books and products exclusively for the under-14 set. We also carry the complete line of Woodstock Chimes. 25-29 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-8000 | fax: (845) 679-3054. thegoldennotebook@hvc.rr.com. www.goldennotebook.com.
Mirabai of Woodstock The Hudson Valley’s oldest spiritual/holistic bookstore, providing a vast array of books, music, and gifts that transform, renew, and elevate the spirit. Exquisite statuary and other art works from Nepal, Tibet, Bali. Expert Tarot reading, astrological charts/interpretation available. 23 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-2100. www.mirabai.com.
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CARPETS / RUGS Anatolia Tribal Rugs & Weavings Direct importers since 1981. Natural-dyed Afghan carpets; Balouchi tribal kilims; Russian sumaks; antique Caucasian carpets; silk Persian sumaks; Turkish kilims. Hundreds to choose from, 2’x3’ to 9’x12’. Kilim pillows, $20-$55. We encourage customers to try our rugs in their homes, without obligation. MC/Visa/AmEx. Open 6 days a week 12-6PM. Closed Tuesdays. 54G Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-5311.
CHILDREN’S ART CLASSES The School for Young Artists An Extraordinary Art Experience! The School for Young Artists provides you with the tools, materials, instruction and support to achieve your goals. Our studio is about the joy of learning and the power of making art. Classes and individual sessions for children and adults. Call Kathy Anderson. (845) 679-9541.
CINEMA Upstate Films Showing provocative international cinema, contemporary and classic, and hosting filmmakers since 1972... on two screens in the village of Rhinebeck, NY. 26 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-2515. www.upstatefilms.org.
Pegasus Footwear 10 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock, NY. (845) 6792372. www.PegasusShoes.com.
COLLEGES Dutchess Community College Dutchess Community College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, was founded in 1957. The College offers an educational policy of access, quality, opportunity, diversity, and social responsibility. DCC’s main campus in Poughkeepsie is situated on 130 scenic acres with facilities that are aesthetically pleasing and technologically advanced. The College has a satellite campus, Dutchess South, in Wappinger Falls, and learning centers in Carmel, Staatsburg, and Pawling. Poughkeepsie, NY. (845) 4318020. www.sunydutchess.edu.
Mount Saint Mary College An independent liberal arts college offering more than 30 undergraduate programs; graduate programs in business (MBA), education, and nursing; and noncredit courses. 2,500 women and men. Its beautiful campus overlooks the Hudson River and is conveniently located off I-84 in Newburgh, NY. (845) 569-3222. www.msmc.edu.
CONSIGNMENT SHOPS Past ‘n’ Perfect A quaint consignment boutique that offers distinctive clothing, jewelry, shoes and accessories, and a unique variety of high quality furs and leathers. Always a generous supply of merchandise from casual to
The Present Perfect Designer consignments of the utmost quality for men, women, and children. Current styles, jewelry accessories, and knickknacks. Featuring beautiful furs and leathers. MondaySaturday 10AM-5PM. Sunday 12-5PM. 23G Village Plaza, Rhinebeck, NY 12572. (845) 876-2939.
CONSTRUCTION Phoenix Construction Phoenix Construction and Contracting is a company dedicated to superior addition, remodeling, and renovation work through top quality materials installed by trained professionals. Along with a high standard of work, we pride ourselves on superior job site and budget management. Our close-knit network of sub-contractors ensures the success of every project through proper delegation of its mechanical and specialist requirements. We deliver customer service coupled with quality assurance. Phoenix Construction professionally handles all details so that you don’t have to worry. (845) 266-5222. www.phoenix-b.com.
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CLOTHING
chic; contemporary to vintage; with sizes from infant to adult. Featuring a diverse and illuminating jewelry collection. Conveniently located at 1629 Main Street (Route 44), Pleasant Valley, NY, only 9 miles east of the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Tuesday-Friday 11AM - 6PM. Saturday 10AM - 6PM. 1629 Main Street (Route 44), Pleasant Valley, NY. (845) 635-3115. www.pastnperfect.com.
COSMETIC AND PLASTIC SURGERY M. T. Abraham, MD, FACS— Facial Plastic, Reconstructive & Laser Surgery, PLLC Dr. Abraham is one of few surgeons double board certified and fellowship trained exclusively in Facial Plastic Surgery. He is an expert in the latest minimally invasive and non-surgical techniques (Botox™, Restylane™, Thermage™, Photofacial™), and also specializes in functional nasal surgery. Offices in Poughkeepsie, Rhinebeck & NYC with affiliated MediSpas. Poughkeepsie, NY. (845) 454-8025. www.NYfaceMD.com.
CRAFTS Crafts People Representing over 500 artisans, Crafts People boasts four buildings brimming with fine crafts, the largest selection in the Hudson Valley. All media represented, including: sterling silver & 14K gold jewelry, blown glass, pottery, turned wood, kaleidoscopes, wind chimes, leather, clothing, stained glass, etc. Friday - Monday 10:30AM-6PM. 262 Spillway Road, West Hurley, NY. (845) 3313859. www.craftspeople.com.
Deep Clay Showroom Pottery and Dreamfigures Wood-fired, raku, and stoneware. From everyday mugs and bowls to Tea Ceremony ware. Simple forms, natural colors, islands of calm, created by artist/therapist Michelle Rhodes. Studied pottery in Bizen and Tea at Urasenke. Open by appointment year-round. (845) 255-8039. www.michellerhodespottery.com. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM BUSINESS DIRECTORY
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CUSTOM HOME DESIGNERS Atlantic Custom Homes Atlantic Custom Homes is an independent distributor of Lindal Cedar Homes, the world’s largest manufacturer of quality cedar homes. Lindal is known around the world for their signature post and beam home designs, quality building materials and detailed craftsmanship. We believe that your home should be a realization of your wishes. We take the time to explore them with you, and to develop your design in accordance with those wishes, your budget and your property. (845) 265-2636.
the beauty and exhiliration of transforming the rooms you live and work in every day into spaces that reflect your sense of style. Portfolio showing a phone call away. (845) 532-3067.
FRAMING Catskill Art & Office Supply See also Art Supplies directory. Woodstock (845) 679-2251; Kingston (845) 331-7780; Poughkeepsie (845) 452-1250.
Manny’s See also Art Supplies directory. 83 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-9902.
DANCEWEAR First Street Dancewear First Street Dancewear in Saugerties, NY offers quality dancewear for Adults and Children. We have dancewear, knit warmups, ballet, jazz, tap shoes, gymnastics wear, skatewear, accessories, and gift items. We also feature a line of women’s active wear clothing suitable for Yoga and Pilates. Saugerties, NY. (845) 247-4517. www.firststreetdancewear.com.
DENTISTRY Tischler Dental
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With over 35 years experience, Tischler Dental is the leading team of dental care experts in the area. Dr. Michael Tischler is currently one of only two Board Certified Implant Dentists in the Hudson Valley Region of NYS and one of only 300 dentists in the world to have achieved this honor. Sedation dentistry, acupuncture with dental treatment, dental implant surgery, cosmetic makeover procedures and gum surgery are just a few of the many unique services Tischler Dental offers. Their practice philosophy is that each modality of dental treatment is performed by the practitioner that is best trained in that area. Working as a team, they deliver ideal dental care. Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-3706. tischlerdental@hvc.rr.com. www.tischlerdental.com.
DISTRIBUTION Chronogram Is Everywhere! Have you ever noticed how wherever you go, Chronogram is there? That’s because our distribution is so damned good. We can distribute your flyer, brochure, business card, or publication to over 700 establishments in Ulster, Dutchess, Columbia, Greene, Putnam and Orange counties. Now in Westchester County with new stops in Peekskill. (845) 334-8600. distribution@chronogram.com.
FAUX FINISHES Faux Intentions Cat Quinn, professional decorative artist, setting the standard for excellence in Custom Faux Finishes for your home and business. With infinite possibilities, your walls, floors, ceilings, fireplaces and furniture can be transformed using my faux finishing techniques. A full spectrum of decorative finishes using plasters, glazes and many other mediums, help to fill your home full of your unique personality and spirit. Don’t miss 96
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GARDENING & GARDEN SUPPLIES Mac’s Agway in Red Hook/New Paltz Agway Specializing in all your lawn and garden needs. We carry topsoil, peat moss, fertilizers and organics, grass seed, shavings, straw, fencing, pet food, bird seed, bird houses, and more. Hours for both locations: Monday-Friday 8AM-5:30PM; Saturday 8AM5PM; Sunday 9AM-3PM. Mac’s Agway, 68 Firehouse Lane, Red Hook, NY, New Paltz Agway, 145 Route 32N, New Paltz, NY. Mac’s Agway (845) 876-1559; New Paltz Agway (845) 255-0050.
The Phantom Gardener At Phantom we provide everything you need to create and enjoy an organic, beautiful landscape. Our dedicated and knowledgeable staff will help you choose from an unbeatable selection of herbaceous or woody plants, garden products and books. We offer professional design, installation, and maintenance services. Visit us! Daily 9AM-6PM. Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-8606. www.thephantomgardener.com.
GIFTS Earth Lore Walk into a world of natural wonder: amethyst caves and heart-shaped druzies, quartz crystal spheres and sculptures, orbs of obsidian, lapis and jasper. PLUS a gallery of wearable art. Navajo necklaces of turquoise and coral, pendants and bracelets of moldavite, tektite and meteorite; watches crafted from oxidized copper, brass, sterling; an array of Baltic amber in all its hues: honey, lemon, butterscotch, cognac...., fashioned into jewelry that makes a statement. Earthlore also offers unique objects of home decor such as a 100 yr old camel bell from Afghanistan, a Thai rain drum, and fossilized salt lamps from the Himalayas. A great place to find gifts from around the globe. Open Tues. thru Fri. 10am - 6pm. Sat 10-5. 2 Fairway Drive, Pawling, NY. (845) 855-8889.
GUITARS McCoy’s Guitar Shop Is your guitar or bass performing up to its fullest potential? Do you have fret buzz? Is your action too high/ too low? Is your instrument just plain old hard to play? Guitars and basses regularly need set ups, much like cars need oil changes and tune ups to keep
them running well. Here at McCoy’s Guitar Shop our aim is to make your instrument play as well, or better than, you ever thought possible. Remember, if your instrument isn’t playing up to par, perhaps neither are you! Come to McCoy’s Guitar Shop and fall in love with your instrument all over again! McCoy’s Guitar Shop: Expert repairs, restoration, guitars and basses bought, sold and traded. Give us a call: (845) 658-7467. You’ll be glad you did! Rosendale, NY. (845) 658-7467.
personal attention and technical support, rock-solid security and reliability, and flexible rates. Complementary services include e-mail, Web hosting, accelerated dialup, server collocation and management, and customized networking solutions. Webjogger is a locally grown company with offices in Tivoli and Kingston, NY. (845) 757-4000. www.webjogger.net.
HOME DESIGN
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Eco-Arch Design Works— Janus Welton, AIA, BBEI An award-winning design architect, offering over 15 years of Traditional Chinese Feng Shui expertise to her Ecological and Healthy Building Design Practice: combining Building Biology, Solar Architecture, and Feng Shui to promote “Inspiring and Sustainable” environments for the 21st Century. Unlock the potentials of your site, home, or office to foster greater harmony, prosperity, spirit, health, and ecological integrity. Services include: Architecture, Planning, Commercial Interiors, Professional Seminars and Consultations. (845) 247-4620. ecoarchitect@hvc.rr.com. www.JanusWeltonDesignWorks.com.
ILLUSTRATION 8 Hats High
INTERIOR DESIGN DeStefano and Associates Barbara DeStafano has been the owner of DeStefano and Associates, an interior design business, for 18 years. She received certification in Feng Shui from the Metropolitan Institute of Interior Design and has completed advanced work with several Feng Shui Masters. Feng Shui is the perfect marriage to interior design. It brings a spiritual dimension to your space. Barbara can create a kind of beauty that touches your spirit, and brings balance and harmony to a level that transcends the superficial. Barbara is available for consultations, guest speaker engagements, and workshops. (845) 339-4601.
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS Hudson Valley Internet Local Internet access and commercial Web site hosting. Fast, reliable, easy to use, flexible pricing...Want more? How about: free software, extra e-mail, K56Flex support, personal web space, helpful customer service, and no setup charges. (845) 255-2799. www.hvi.net.
Webjogger Blazing fast broadband internet access. Featuring symmetrical bandwidth, superior
Writing workshops and private instruction for writers. (845) 339-5776.
Submit to Chronogram Seeking submissions of poems, short stories, essays, and article proposals. Accepting pieces of all sorts. With SASE, send submissions to Chronogram, 314 Wall Street, 2nd floor, Kingston, NY 12401. info@chronogram.com.
MAGAZINES Chronogram The only complete arts and cultural events resource for the Hudson Valley. Subscribe and get the lowdown first. Whether you live in the Hudson Valley or just visit, you’ll know what’s going on. Send $36 for yearly subscription to: Chronogram, 314 Wall Street, 2nd floor, Kingston, NY 12401. info@chronogram.com.
business directory
8 Hats High is a full service animation studio and production house located in Middletown, NY. We specialize in Animation, Illustration, Storyboarding, Television Production, Photography, Post Production, Web design and more. Production: It’s what we do! 23-27 West Main Street 3rd Fl., Middletown, NY. (845) 344-1888. www.8hatshigh.com.
LITERARY
MEDIATION & CONFLICT RESOLUTION Pathways Mediation Center A unique mediation practice for couples going through divorce or families in conflict with the innovative, combined services of two professionals. Josh Koplovitz has 30 years as a Matrimonial & Family Law Attorney and Myra Schwartz has 30 years as Guidance Counselor. This male/female team can effectively address all your legal and family issues. Use our one-hour free consultation to find out about us. (845) 331-0100.
Rodney Wells, CFP, Member AFM & NYSCDM If you’re separating, divorcing, or have issues with child support, custody, or visitation, choose mediation. On average, mediated agreements are fulfilled twice as often as litigated court decisions and cost half as much. I draw on my experience as a financial planner, psychotherapist, and pro se litigant to guide couples in a responsible process of unraveling their entanglements, preserving their assets, and creating a satisfying future. Cornwall, New Paltz, and NYC. Cornwall, NY. (845) 534-7668. www.mediated-divorce.com.
MUSIC Burt’s Electronics Good music deserves quality sound! Avoid the malls and shop where quality and personal service are valued above all else. Bring Burt and his staff your favorite album and let them teach you how to choose the right audio equipment for your listening needs. Monday through Friday 9AM-7PM. Saturday 9AM-5PM. 549 Albany Avenue, Kingston, NY. (845) 331-5011. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM BUSINESS DIRECTORY
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Joshua Pearl’s Whole Musician Workshop
PHOTOGRAPHY
Develop and liberate your unique musical potential through customized music lessons, workshops, or artist development programs. For aspiring and developing musicians and bands. Explore your music in a supportive environment. Call (845) 679-7599 and receive a free lesson during September. Studios in Woodstock and Manhattan. www.joshuapearl.com.
China Jorrin Photography
WVKR 91.3 FM Vassar College, Poughkeepsie. A listenersupported, non-commercial, student-run alternative music station. Programming is provided by students and community members, and includes jazz, new music, folk, hip hop, polka, new age, international, blues, metal, news, and public affairs programming. WVKR Web casts at www.wvkr.org. (845) 437-7010. www.wvkr.org.
MUSIC LESSONS Bibi Farber—Guitar Lessons Guitar Lessons Acoustic / electric Pop, rock, blues & folk. Beginners welcome, age 11 and up. I offer very flexible scheduling & discounts for students teaming up. Lessons in Minnewaska area or in your home, if within a 30 minute radius. Songwriting coaching & demo recording also available. Let’s play! (646) 734-8018. www.bibifarber.com.
business directory
NURSERIES Loomis Creek Nursery Inc Great Plants for Adventurous Gardeners! Tuesdays-Sundays, 9am - 5pm. Hudson, NY. (518) 851-9801. www.loomiscreek.com.
PERFORMING ARTS
A fine art approach to your photographic and advertising needs. Internationally exhibited. Major communications/advertising clients. My work is 100% focused on your needs. (845) 750-5261. www.France-Menk.com.
Michael Gold Artistic headshots of actors, singers, models, musicians, performing artists, writers, and unusual, outlandish, off-the-wall personalities. Complete studio facilities and lighting. Creative, warm, original, professional. Unconditionally guaranteed. The Corporate Image Studios, 1 Jacobs Lane, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-5255. www.michaelgoldsphotos.com and click on to the “Headshots” page.
Marlis Momber Photography LTD ‘KEEP IT REAL’ Call Marlis for all your photographic needs: Commercial Photography, advertising, annual reports. Personal portraits, head shots, fine art reproduction. Weddings, family reunions, life’s events. Free in-depth consultations to meet your photographic needs and budget. Digital files send directly to you. PHOTO CDs or film and great prints all sizes. Studio in the heart of New Paltz. New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-4928. www.marlismomberphoto.com.
PIANO Adam’s Piano
PET SERVICES & SUPPLIES Pussyfoot Lodge B&B
Piano Clearing House
Powerhouse Summer Theater/Lehman-Loeb Gallery. Vassar College Box 225, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604. (845) 437-5902. befargislanc @pop.vassar.edu.
The Pioneer in Professional Pet Care! Full house-pet-plant sitting service, proudly serving three counties for 32 years. Experienced, dependable, thorough, and reasonable house sitting for your pets’ health and happiness. Also offering a cats-only resort with individual rooms. Extensive horticulture and landscaping knowledge in addition to domestic and zoo animal experience. Better Business Bureau Metro NY/Mid-Hudson Region Member. (845) 687-0330.
PET SITTING Dog Love, LLC Personal Hands-On Boarding and Daycare tailored to your dog’s individual needs. Your dog’s happiness is our goal. Indoor 5x10 windowed matted kennels with classical music. Supervised playgroups in 40 x 40 fenced area. Homemade food and healthy treats. 240 N. Ohioville Road, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-8281. www.dogloveplaygroups.com. BUSINESS DIRECTORY CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
France Menk Photography & Photodesign
Featuring Kawai and other fine brands. 75 pianos on display in our Germantown (just north of Rhinebeck) showroom. Open by appointment only. Inventory, prices, pictures, at adamspiano.com. A second showroom will be opening in New Paltz in November. Superb service, moving, storage, rentals; we buy pianos! (518) 537-2326 or (845) 343-2326. www.adamspiano.com.
Powerhouse Summer Theater/ Lehman-Loeb Gallery
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A Hudson Valley based photographer dedicated to documenting weddings in a candid and creative style. While remaining unobtrusive she is able to capture key, quiet and personal moments of the event. Please call for rates and availability. (917) 449-5020. www.chinajorrin.com.
8 John Walsh Blvd. Suite 318A, Peekskill, NY. (914) 788-8090. www.pianoclearinghouse.com.
PLUMBING AND BATH Brinkmann Plumbing & Heating Services A third generation plumbing company operated by Timothy Brinkmann and Master Plumber Berno Brinkmann. They handle all your plumbing needs with skilled, prompt, and attentive service. Call for further information or to schedule a free estimate. Free Estimates. Fully Insured. (518) 731-1178.
N & S Supply N & S Supply. 205 Old Route 9, Fishkill, NY 12534. (845) 896-6291. cloijas@nssupply.com.
PRINTING SERVICES New York Press Direct At NY Press Direct we exist for one reason
– to delight our customers! What does that mean to you? Worry-free shopping for all your printing and fulfillment needs. Our solutions are leading edge in the industry. Our pricing is among the most competitive in the northeast region. Call John DeSanto or Larry Read for more information. (845) 457-2442.
PUBLISHERS Monkfish Book Publishing Company Monkfish publishes books that combine spiritual and literary merit. Monkfish books range from memoirs to sutras, from fiction to scholarly works of thought. Monkfish also publishes Provenance Editions, an imprint devoted to elegant editions of spiritual classics. Monkfish books are available at your favorite local or online bookstores, or directly from us. Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-4861. www.monkfishpublishing.com.
REMODELING Phoenix Construction See also Construction directory. (845) 2665222. www.phoenix-b.com.
SCHOOLS Hudson Valley Sudbury School
High Meadow School Pre-kindergarten through 8th grade, committed to a child-centered education that engages the whole child. Intimate, nurturing, with small class size and hands-on learning. A program rich in academic, artistic, physical, and social skills. Fully accredited. Call Suzanne Borris, director. Route 209, Stone Ridge, NY. (845) 687-4855.
Maria’s Garden Montessori School Cultivating independence, confidence, compassion, peace, and a lifelong love of learning. Serving children 3 years through first grade in a one-room country schoolhouse surrounded by gardens, woodlands, and streams. 8:30 am-3:30 pm, with part time options for preschoolers. Half or full day kindergarten. 62 Plains Rd., New Paltz, NY 12561. (845) 256-1875. info@mariasgarden montessori.com.
Mountain Laurel Waldorf School At the Mountain Laurel Waldorf School, not only can all students do their best in academic basics, they can find and achieve a balance in rich programs of drama, speech, Spanish, Russian, painting, music, creative writing, woodwork, and more. Waldorf Education: for the head, heart, and hands. Nursery-8th Grade. Call Judy Jaeckel. 16 South Chestnut Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-0033.
Music Institute of Sullivan and Ulster Counties The Music Institute of Sullivan and Ulster
Woodstock Day School Woodstock Day School, a state-chartered, independent school and member of NYSAIS, providing quality education for pre-school through high school students since 1972. Small classes and a 6:1 student-to-teacher ratio allow us to give each child the individualized consideration necessary for a positive learning experience. PO Box 1, Woodstock, NY. (845) 246-3744. www.woodstockdayschool.org.
SINGING LESSONS Ann Panagulias—Singing Lessons Concepts of classical, Italianate technique complimented by alignment and deep breathing rhythms of Eastern callisthenics; repertoire grounded in 17th-19th century Art Song extending to vintage and contemporary musical theater; training at Oberlin College and San Francisco Opera; performing professionally on three continents for twenty years. (845) 677-1134. annpandora@aol.com.
WEB DESIGN Beyond The Box Web Design
business directory
A radically different form of education based on the belief that children are driven by a basic desire to learn and explore. We trust that children, given the freedom, will choose the most appropriate path for their education. Our democratic School Meeting expects children to take responsibility for their lives and their community. Year-round Admissions. Sliding-scale tuition. (845) 679-1002. www.hudsonvalleyschool.org.
Counties (MISU) provides an opportunity for people of all ages and levels to experience music in an environment that acknowledges and nurtures the whole person. MISU offers ongoing private instruction in violin and viola, a Suzuki program, adult education, chamber music, and a community chamber orchestra. To register call (845) 647-5087 or visit our website. www.misucatskills.org.
We specialize in co-developing unique designs with clients, though we also work from pre-designed templates for fast, low-cost sites. We put friendly, patient, collaborative customer service first. Our sites adhere to current web design standards (like CSS) for coding and accessibility, and include secure e-commerce and other integrated features (like forums, calendars, blogs and forms). Many of our employees are gifted high school students, so expect great savings! Visit us online, and request an online quote. (518) 537-7667. www.beyondboxweb.com.
Curious Minds Media Inc. Want a website that works for you? We’ve got solutions to fit any budget, and we understand the needs of small businesses. Flash, E-commerce, database applications. CMM has what it takes to get you results. Mention this ad and receive 3 months FREE hosting! Call now toll-free, at (888) 227-1645. (888) 227-1645. www.curiousm.com.
WEB DEVELOPMENT 8 Hats High 23-27 West Main Street 3rd Fl., Middletown, NY. Please also see our Illustration directory. (845) 344-1888.
Curious Minds Media Inc. See also Web Design directory. Tollfree, at (888) 227-1645. (888) 227-1645. www.curiousm.com.
WINE & LIQUOR In Good Taste In Good Taste. 45 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-0110. ingoodtaste@verizon.net. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM BUSINESS DIRECTORY
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whole living
ABRAHAM CHERRIX AND THE HOXSEY FORMULA NONPHARMACEUTICAL CANCER TREATMENT IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL ERA THE HOXSEY FORMULA FOR CANCER TREATMENT ONCE AGAIN IS A BELLWETHER FOR THE PLIGHT OF NONSTANDARD APPROACHES TO HEALING.
The latest poster child in the tangled web of American-style cancer care is Abraham Cherrix (full name, Starchild Abraham Cherrix), a mature 16-year-old struggling with Hodgkin’s disease. Abraham’s parents supported his choice against a second round of chemotherapy last February when they learned his cancer had returned, and then accompanied him to Mexico for treatment with a batch of Harry Hoxsey herbs. For their efforts, Mr. and Mrs. Cherrix found themselves battling in court to retain custody of their son. A social worker told the court the treatment was neglect and the mainstream press reported on it thinly, using such characterizations as “an alternative doctor in Tijuana, Mexico” and “an herbal remedy four times a day and an organic diet.” But the Hoxsey herbal formula is more than a few ragged weeds pulled, chopped, and boiled into a 21st-century technobrew. It was born out of traditional folk medicine of the sort handed down for generations from healer to healer, preserving a knowledge of the curative properties of teas, poultices, and foods. It has a generations-old history.
A HISTORY OF HOXSEY In the 19th century, herbs were used everywhere in the Western medical world, with empiricist doctors consulting materia medica books listing plants’ medicinal properties. It was during that period, in 1840, that Harry Hoxsey’s great-grandfather, John Hoxsey, a Quaker farmer in Illinois, discovered that a prized stallion
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of his had a cancerous tumor on its leg. Rather than put the horse down, Hoxsey yielded to nature’s ways, letting the animal graze until its time was over. But after several weeks the horse’s leg looked better; several months later the tumor appeared “to dry up,” separate from the leg, and fall off. The horse completely recovered. Hoxsey had observed the horse munching on different plants than usual while in the pasture; he collected those and combined them with herbs known for healing properties at the time to create a tonic. He used the mixture to treat other farm animals and shared it with neighbors. The precise formula was kept a family secret and willed from one Hoxsey generation to the next, with two caveats: The exact formula must never be revealed (simple plants couldn’t be patented), and it must be given free to those who couldn’t afford to buy it. Two generations later, in 1924, great-grandson Harry Hoxsey founded the first clinic to treat cancer patients with the formula. Simplified versions of his story note that Harry partnered with physicians, asked clients to bring their medical records, eventually opened clinics in 17 states, and had thousands of patients credit him with “curing” their cancers. But there is much more to this story. Dr. Morris Fishbein, chief of the American Medical Association at the time, courted Hoxsey for the rights to his formula. But, says Hoxsey in his autobiography You Don’t Have to Die, the AMA wanted out of the family pledge to give the treatment free of charge to those who couldn’t afford it. On that point, Hoxsey refused to sell. Unknowingly, Harry Hoxsey had just goaded Dr. Fishbein into firing the first
shot in the acrid medical civil war between himself and the AMA. Fishbein set out to systematically discredit Hoxsey and his herbal tonic as quackery and to dismantle the clinics. Thirty-five years of lawsuits, instigated by the AMA and directed by the federal government, ensued. Hoxsey brought hundreds of witnesses to tell their own success stories with the herbal tonic, whom the AMA attorneys tried to disqualify since “they weren’t doctors.” During this protracted period of attack, Hoxsey also endured injunctions, got divorced, and went broke from court costs. Even though two federal courts did uphold the therapeutic value of Hoxsey’s formula, the government finally got him in 1960 on a technicality: He wasn’t a doctor, and therefore couldn’t supervise doctors administering treatment. Hoxsey’s clinics were shut down. In his painstakingly researched book, When Healing Becomes a Crime (2000), Kenny Ausubel details this sordid medical saga. One story after another involves the police, the government, the courts, and Dr. Fishbein, all attempting to suppress this natural healing therapy. Ausubel also co-produced a film with Catherine Salveson, Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime, in 1987 (view it online at www.altcancer.com/vidgal.htm#hoxsey). The movie includes footage from the 1950s of Hoxsey repeatedly asking the AMA to scientifically investigate his formula, since orthodox medicine’s chief objection to it was that it hadn’t, in the organization’s eyes, been proven. Ausubel explains that more recently, in 1999, “The NIH [National Institutes of Health] sent a team to examine case histories of Hoxsey clinic patients and found up to six who had been ‘given up to die’ and were healed. They also found there were many noteworthy cases that had been presented at trial.” Rather than continue fighting, Hoxsey gave in. But he sent his trusted, long-time professional partner Mildred Nelson to Tijuana to open a clinic offering the Hoxsey tonic as part of a treatment regimen for cancer patients. It is to that clinic, the only one offering the authentic Hoxsey formula today, that Abraham Cherrix and his parents went for treatment.
PROOF IS IN THE PLANT Hoxsey’s formula combines plants that had, in his time, already been used by Native American healers for ages, including to treat cancers. The formula for internal cancers consists of licorice, red clover, burdock root, stillingia root, barberis root, pokeweed root, cascara, prickly ash bark, buckthorn bark, and potassium iodine. Some of these appear to enhance the destruction of cancer cells, either directly or by boosting immune functions (essential to the body’s natural cancer-fighting arsenal); others are thought to protect against cell mutation while still others promote healing of healthy tissue. Hoxsey treated external cancers with a paste of bloodroot, zinc chloride, and antimony sulfide. A similar paste was used by Dr. J.W. Fell at the Middlesex Hospital in London during the 1850s to destroy cancerous tissue topically, with many documented successes; products containing bloodroot are still available today for this purpose. The Hoxsey formulations have not all been tested through the system of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials, as pharmaceutical medicines must be. But laboratory studies of individual components are revealing anti-tumor characteristics, as reported in scientific and medical journals. Burdock, for example, used for
centuries as a tumor treatment in Russia, China, Japan, India, and the Americas, contains arctigenins, chemicals now being studied for their ability to suppress proliferation of cultured leukemia cells. Pokeweed contains PAP, a protein that inhibits protein production and induces death in cultured prostatic cancer cells. Sanguinarine, an alkaloid in bloodroot, induces death of malignant cells. There are scores of examples like these in current biomedical research literature, in which plant compounds in the Hoxsey (and many other plant-based) treatments are being scrutinized for mechanisms underlying their activities. Esteemed botanist Dr. James Duke, author of The CRC Handbook of Medicinal Herbs and once the chief of the Medicinal Plant Laboratory at the United States Department of Agriculture (where he studied the medicinal constituents in plants for over 30 years), says in Ausubel and Salveson’s film: “The National Cancer Institute, with which I collaborated until 1981, had screened over 10 percent of the plant species of the world, including all that are in the Hoxsey formula. I might add that all of them showed up in Jonathan Hartwell’s Plants Used Against Cancer. Every one of the species in the Hoxsey formula was covered in Hartwell, and the least citations one got was three and the most was 30 citations in that particular book.” Hartwell was a longtime chemist at the National Cancer Institute, and his book is highly regarded as an authoritative text on traditional medicinal uses of plants worldwide. In addition, medical historian Patricia Spain Ward investigated the Hoxsey regimen in 1988 for the Congressional Office of Technology Assess-
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ment, stating that “orthodox scientific research has by now identified anti-tumor activity” in most of Hoxsey’s plants.
A PATIENT’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE? Dr. Samuel S. Epstein’s 1998 book, The Politics of Cancer Revisited, reported that 64 percent of cancer patients were using some form of alternative treatment. Since then, people continue to want alternatives to the standard medical approach of chemotherapy. And yet the Virginia judge in the Abraham Cherrix case ordered the boy to report to the hospital for chemotherapy treatments, as advised by the doctors. Judge Jesse E. Demps of the state’s juvenile and domestic relations district court also found that Abraham’s parents were “neglectful for risking his health by permitting him to pursue [an] alternative treatment of a sugar-free, organic diet and herbal supplements supervised by a clinic in Mexico.” His parents were ordered to share custody of him with the Accomack County Department of Social Services. But the fight isn’t over yet. There was a new ruling on July 25, by Accomack County Circuit Court Judge Glen Tyler. He agreed to a stay on the forced chemo filed by Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who argued that Abraham deserved the right to appeal the order. Judge Tyler promised Abraham and his parents a new trial in circuit court and returned full custody of the boy to his parents. Still fighting for their son’s right to choose, the family is now over $100,000 in debt with legal fees. People all over the health industry are watching this medical Greek tragedy. Kenny Ausubel says, “This case is about medical civil liberties. I understand the medical profession’s desire to want to protect the innocent. I understand faith-based choices. But the problem in this case is that this is a mature young man who’s made a choice.” Ausubel adds, “Our health care system is on the verge of bankruptcy. The costs are out of control. The public wants medicine that works, something less expensive, and something safer.” “This is a health-freedom issue,” agrees Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of the American Botanical Council. “The boy himself and his parents should be allowed the right to choose their form of health care. The fact that he’s already taken a round of chemo, followed the doctor’s orders, and found he didn’t like it, strengthens his position that he wants to try something else. It gives the family more credibility that they’re going down another road.” Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of several books on preventative medicine and nutrition, reminds us that “The first thing you learn in medical school is that all drugs are toxic. Chemotherapy does extensive damage to the body.” Still, Fuhrman acknowledges that the drugs have helped Hodgkin’s patients and are a viable option. But that’s not what’s at issue, he says. “The issue here is that it’s ridiculous that the government is stepping in. The question is not ‘Hoxsey versus chemotherapy.’ Where is the precedent that says judges can be making medical decisions?” On the other hand, as Marc Ullman, a Manhattan attorney close to the natural foods industry impartially pointed out, “When there is this kind of a dispute, in our social contract, the judge is our arbiter. The judge is the one who is going to decide.” Dr. Fuhrman sees a systemic societal problem at work here. “We have a population whose religion is ‘drugs’ and they are going to ‘save’ us. [Yet] the health care in this country is deteriorating. They keep looking for that magic pill for a cancer cure and we’ve spent $40 billion in the last 10 years, and we’ve not found it.” (American consumers spent an estimated $78 billion out-of-pocket on alternative treatments for a diversity of health needs in 2005.) The Hoxsey saga continues. Mildred Nelson, the registered nurse and colleague with whom Hoxsey entrusted his clinic in Mexico, still offers its very different alternative to highly toxic chemotherapy drugs. Her patients start with a strict diet. “You’re not allowed pork, vinegar, tomatoes, carbonated drinks, alcohol, bleached flour, [or] bleached sugar, and the salt is really limited.” About the efficacy of the diet and formula, she says, “Success comes with the patient’s attitude. When they come in the front door, saying, ‘I’m in here to get some medicine ’cause I’m gonna get well,’ then I’m just as happy as they are. And when they come through the door saying, ‘Well, I don’t think anything’s gonna help, but they wanted me to do this,’ you can’t make them get well. They have to want to do it themselves.”
RESOURCES KENNY AUSUBEL, WHEN HEALING BECOMES A CRIME (2000) JAMES DUKE, THE GREEN PHARMACY HERBAL HANDBOOK (2000) LOUISE TENNEY, TODAY’S HERBAL HEALTH 5TH EDITION (2000) DR. SAMUEL S. EPSTEIN, THE POLITICS OF CANCER REVISITED (1998) ABRAHAM CHERRIX’S WEBSITE, WWW.ABRAHAMSJOURNEY.COM
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THREE RELIGIONS THREE RELIGIONS THREE RELIGIONS,
ONE GOD BY JACOB NEUSNER
The resurgence of aggression and retaliation in the Middle East, yet again, prompted me to seek insight from Professor Jacob Neusner, Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism at Bard College, and Senior Fellow of Bard’s Institute of Advanced Theology. Is there reason to hope, I asked, that somewhere from within the belief systems of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, each of which claims as its holy land the same small segment of the earth, a peaceful coexistence could be crafted? Neusner summarizes here some of the similarities and differences among this triad of religions. —Lorrie Klosterman The three monotheist religious traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have more in common than in contention. All three believe God is one, is unique, and is concerned with humanity’s condition. These three monotheisms among all theistic religions bear a unique relationship to one another. Each takes up the narrative of the others. They tell stories of the same type, and some of the stories that they tell turn out to go over much the same ground. Judaism, with its focus upon the Hebrew Scriptures of ancient Israel, tells the story of the one God who created man in his image, and of what happened 104 WHOLE LIVING GUIDE CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
then within the framework of Israel, the land of holy people. Christianity takes up that story, but gives it a different reading and ending by exemplifying the relations between God and his people in the life of a single human being. For its part, in sequence, Islam recapitulates some basic components of the same story. It affirms the revelations of Judaism and then Christianity, but draws the story onward to yet another climax. We cannot point to any three other religions that form so intimate a narrative relationship. They share not only the common conviction that God is one and unique, but that He makes demands upon human social order and the conduct of everyday life. Each religion also distinguishes those who do God’s will from the rest of humanity, and says that God will judge who is saved and who is not. Yet from these commonalities, differences have emerged that afford a perspective upon the others in this triplet group. What are the key issues in which they have diverged? There are five: the nature of God; the nature of people’s relation to Him; how the people are to show their love and devotion; how they are to relate to those outside the religion; and what will happen in the End of Days. Genesis 1:26 speaks of God’s making man “in our image, after our likeness”
(“our” refers to God’s image). Yet there is also Commandment Ex. 20:4: “You shall not make yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything” in nature. What conclusions have the three religions drawn from such statements? At one end of the continuum, Islam insists that God cannot be represented in any way, shape, or form, not even by man, who was created in God’s image. At the other end, Christianity finds that God is both embodied and eternally accessible in the fully divine Son, Jesus Christ. In the middle, Judaism represents God in some ways as being of the same substance as man, in some ways as wholly other. There is a continuum, then, in relation to idolatry (creating embodiments of God in physical form): Islam has no practice or tolerance of it, including among other religions; Judaism has no practice of it but is tolerant; Christianity does have some forms of idolatry. In all three religions, God makes himself known to a particular person, a “you” that is not only singular—a Moses, a Jesus, or a Muhammad—but plural; all those who will believe, act, and obey. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism concur that the faithful within each sect form a distinct group. But, among all humanity, how does that group tell its story? Judaism tells the story of its faithful as an extended family, “Israel,” all of whom are children of the same ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. The faithful adopt for themselves the narrative of a supernatural genealogy, finding within the family all who identify themselves as part of it by also making its story their genealogy. Islam takes the diametrically opposed view, dispensing entirely with the analogy of a family. It defines God’s people, instead, through the image of a community of faithful worshippers. It sees Muslims as supporters of one another and caretakers of the least fortunate or weakest members of the community. Its “people of God” are ultimately extensible to encompass all humankind within the community of true worshippers of God. Here, Christianity takes a middle position. Like Judaism, it views the faithful as a distinct people, but, like Islam, it obliterates all prior genealogical distinctions, whether of ethnicity, gender, or politics. So Christians form “a people of the peoples,” or “a people that is no people,” using the familiar metaphor of Israel. In each religion, God has set forth what he wants from his people: love and devotion. This comes to realization in a program of actions. Some to be carried out and others to be avoided. These include prayer, study, and contemplation and reflection on divine revelation as described in sacred texts. Where Islam requires a pilgrimage to Mecca, the observance of the festivals of Judaism encompassed a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem when it still stood; Christianity portrays all the faithful as pilgrims to the new, heavenly Jerusalem that God has prepared for his people. All three religions also require deeds of philanthropy in charity and acts of loving kindness, above and beyond the requirements of religious law. In these and comparable ways, the three religions define acts that realize God’s will and sanctify God’s people. There also is the question of how God’s people are seen in relation to everybody else. What are the consequences of the conviction that the one and only God has made himself known through one community or person or family to humanity at large? Judaism, in its classical statement, defined its task as the passive avoidance of idolaters joined with the willingness to accept sincere converts. Islam called for active extermination of idolatry and those who engaged in it, yet early Islam largely tolerated Jews, Christians, and a few other “people of Scripture,” so long as they did not threaten Muslims or the practice of Islam. Christianity found its position in the middle. On one hand, like Judaism and Islam, Christianity forbade the faithful from acts or complicity with idolatry, even at the cost of death (martyrdom). Classically, Christianity, in its formative age, fell between Judaic passivity and Islamic activity in relation to idolaters, engaging in an ongoing campaign of evangelism to win them over. In due course, it slid to the Islamic side of this continuum, promoting extermination. Today, all sectors of Christianity have abandoned the aspiration to wipe out idolaters; Islam represents a more complex picture. Finally, what of the End of Days? All the monotheisms concur that God will bring the End of Days, when all mankind will be raised from the dead and judged, and those found worthy will enter Paradise. Judaism sees its faithful as participants in advancing this day by carrying out God’s will as stated from the beginning, and sanctifying the Sabbath of creation in accord with the Torah. So Judaism looks inward, within Israel, for the salvation not just of Israel but of all humanity. At the other end of the continuum, Islam holds that no human effort can advance or retard the Last Day: God alone will recall His creation to Himself in His own good time. The only thing human beings can do is prepare for the Day of Resurrection by living daily lives of piety and probity. And on that day, all the living and all who have died before will face an accounting of their earthly lives and inherit either Paradise or the Fire as their eternal abode. Christianity takes a middle position, insisting that the world as we know it, down to the very bodies we inhabit, will be transformed. These topics show us similarities and differences among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each takes a different position along a series of continua in answer to a common set of questions raised by the interior logic of monotheism. Each religion tells the story its followers share in its own way. Their respective narratives—in their character, components, and coherence—shape distinctive responses. Though these three religions of one God converge in their basic structures, they also differ in the way their systems work out the implications of monotheism. Jacob Neusner is coeditor of Three Faiths, One God with Bruce D. Chilton of Bard College and William Graham of Harvard University. In the fall of 2006, he will teach “Comparative Religion: Law and Theology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” at Bard College with Bruce Chilton and Ismail Acar. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM WHOLE LIVING GUIDE 105
whole living guide ACUPUNCTURE
AROMATHERAPY
Acupuncture Health Care, PC
Joan Apter
Peter Dubitsky, L.Ac., Callie Brown, L.Ac., and Leslie Wiltshire, L.Ac. Mr. Dubitsky is a faculty member and the Director of Clinical Training at the Tri-State College of Acupuncture, and a member of the NY State Board for Acupuncture. Ms. Brown and Ms. Wiltshire each have years of acupuncture experience in private practice and in medical offices. We are all highly experienced, national board certified, NYS Licensed acupuncturists. We combine traditional Asian acupuncture techniques with a modern understanding of acupuncture and oriental medicine to provide effective treatments of acute and chronic pain conditions, and other medical disorders. In addition to our general practice we also offer a Low Cost Acupuncture Clinic which is available for all people who meet our low income guidelines. 108 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-7178.
See also Massage Therapy directory. (845) 679-0512. japter@ulster.net. www.apteraromatherapy.com.
ART THERAPY Deep Clay Art and Therapy Deep Clay Art and Therapy with Michelle Rhodes Licensed Master Social Worker, ATR-BC. A creative and grounding approach for crisis management, transitions, and deep healing. Individual, couple, and group arts based psychotherapy. "Dreamfigures" group for women in transition. Gardiner, NY. (845) 255-8039. deepclay@mac.com. www.deepclay.com.
bodhi studio Offering Massage, Acupuncture, Natropathic medicine, Cranio sacral therapy, Skin Care, Body waxing,earconing, Reflexology and Reiki. See also our Massage directory listing. (518) 828-2233. www.bodhistudio.com.
ASTROLOGICAL CONSULTING
Dylana Accolla, LAc
Consultations by Phone. Special discount on follow-ups for previous clients from the Hudson Valley. Lots to explore on the Web at www.PlanetWaves.net. (206) 854-3931. eric@ericfrancis.com. www.PlanetWaves.net.
Treat yourself to a renewed sense of health and well-being with acupuncture, herbal medicine, Chinese bodywork, and nutritional counseling. My emphasis is on empowering patients by teaching them how to practice preventative medicine. Great for gynecological problems, chronic pain, and managing chronic illness. Two locations: Haven Spa, 6464 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck, and Woodstock Women's Health, 1426 Route 28, West Hurley. (914) 388-7789.
whole living directory
Hoon J. Park, MD, PC For the past 16 years, Dr. Hoon J. Park has been practicing a natural and gentle approach to pain management for conditions such as arthritis, chronic and acute pain in neck, back, and legs, fibromyalgia, motor vehicle and work-related injuries, musculoskeletal disorders, and more by integrating physical therapy modalities along with acupuncture. Dr. Hoon Park is a board-certified physician in physical medicine and rehabilitation, pain medicine, and electrodiagnostic studies. His experienced, friendly staff offer the most comprehensive and individualized rehabilitative care available. Please call the office to arrange a consultation. New patients and most insurances are accepted. Half mile south of the Galleria Mall. 1772 Route 9, Wappingers Falls, NY 12590. (845) 298-6060.
Stephanie Ellis, LAc, Chinese Herbalist Ms. Ellis is a magna cum laude graduate of Columbia University in pre-medical studies and has been practicing acupuncture in Rosendale since 2001. In 2003 she completed post-graduate work in the study of classical Chinese herbal medicine. Ms. Ellis trained at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for the treatment of cancer patients with acupuncture. Ms. Ellis also has special training in infertility treatment, facial acupuncture and chronic pain. Her new, expanded location is at the medical offices of Rosendale Family Practice. Evening and weekend hours and sliding scale rates. Phone consultations available. Rosendale Family Practice, 110 Creek Locks Road, Rosendale, NY. (845) 546-5358. www.HudsonValleyAcupuncture.com.
ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE Judith Muir—The Alexander Technique The Alexander Technique is a simple practical skill that when applied to ourselves enhances coordination, promoting mental, emotional, and physical well being. Improve the quality of your life by learning how to do less to achieve more. Judith Muir, AmSAT. (845) 677-5871.
APOTHECARY
Eric Francis: Astrological
Essential Astrology Free Astrology Consultation. Call with a question and I'll give you a free 15 minute consultation to introduce you to my work and to the helpfulness of the Western and Vedic astrological traditions. Penny Seator, Essential Astrology. (518) 678-3282.
AURAS AND ENERGY The AURACLE A Spirit shop offering aura photos/ readings, Reiki attunements/ certifications, Reiki healing, meditations, gifts, and tools for the mind/ body/ spirit. Specializing in aura/ chakra imaging. Come discover your personal aura colors, and the health and balance of your aura and chakras! Join us in our weekly Sunday chakra balancing group at 11am! Couples and pet readings available. 27 North Chestnut Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-6046.
One Light Healing Touch: Energy Healing & Mystery School Also see Schools & Training category. Penny Price Lavin (845) 876-0239: pricemedia@aol.com. Nancy Plumer (845) 687-2252: nplumer@hvi.net. Check ad for One Light Healing Touch summer workshops. Rhinebeck, NY. www.OneLightH ealingTouch.com.
BODY & SKIN CARE Absolute Laser, LLC Absolute Laser offers commitment to beautiful skin through outstanding care and service. Offering Laser Hair Removal, Microdermabrasion, Vitalize Peel, and Fotofacial RF. The Fotofacial RF is the next generation in high-tech skin enhancement. These gentle, no downtime treatments are used to improve cosmetic appearance of the face, neck, hands, and body. The results are brighter, smoother, more radiant and luminescent skin. This process delivers results that skin care products alone cannot do! Recover and rediscover the youth and vitality of your skin. Call for a complimentary consultation: Janice DiGiovanni. Springbrook Medical Park, Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-7100. www.absolute-laser.com.
BODY-CENTERED THERAPY
Dr. Tom's Tonics—A Modern Apothecary A vision of Dr. Tom J. Francescott, Naturopathic Doctor, Dr. Tom's Tonics is inspired by the old apothecaries from years ago filled with cutting edge and professional grade products backed by the expertise and support of a Naturopathic Doctor. Walk into Dr. Tom's Tonics and ask Dr. Tom or Dr. Winnie your health questions. Closed Wednesdays. (845) 876-2900.
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Irene Humbach, LCSW, PC— Body of Wisdom Counseling & Healing Services By integrating traditional and alternative therapy/healing approaches, including Body-Centered Psychotherapy, IMAGO Couples' Counseling, and Kabbalistic Healing, I offer tools for
self healing, to assist individuals and couples to open blocks to their softer heart energy. Ten-session psycho-spiritual group for women in recovery. Offices in Poughkeepsie and New Paltz. New Paltz, NY. (845) 485-5933.
Dr. Bruce Schneider
Julie Zweig, MA
Come visit Dr. Christopher Gabriels at 381 Washington Avenue in Kingston. Experienced in a myriad of techniques (Diversified, Applied Kinesiology, SOT, Activator, Nutrition) and providing gentle adjustments in a comfortable atmosphere. You only have one body, let me help you make the most of it by restoring your body's natural motion and balance. Call (845) 331-7623 to make an appointment. 381 Washington Avenue, Kingston, NY. (845) 331-7623.
Verbal Body-Centered Psychotherapy utilizing doctoral level training in psychology and 15+ years of experience as a therapist, as well as the principles of Rosen Method Bodywork, but without touch. New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-3566.
BODYWORK
Dr. Bruce Schneider. New Paltz, NY 12561. (845) 255-4424.
Gabriels Family Chiropractic
Nori Connell, RN, DC bodhi studio See also Massage Therapy directory. (518) 828-2233.
CAREER & LIFE COACHING Allie Roth Center for Creativity and Work Career and Life Coaching for those seeking more creativity, fulfillment, balance and meaning in life and work. Offer a holistic approach to career and life transitions. Also specialize in executive coaching, and coaching small business owners, consultants and private practitioners. 25 years experience. Kingston and New York City offices. Kingston, NY. (845) 336-8318. Toll Free: 800-577-8318. allie@allieroth.com. www.allieroth.com.
David W. Basch, CPCC Transition Coach
CHI KUNG
COACHING Jeanne Asma, LCSWR See also Psychotherapy directory. (845) 462-1182. www.JeanneAsma.com.
COLON HYDROTHERAPY Connie Schneider, Advanced Level I-ACT Certified Colon Hydrotherapist Colon Hydrotherapy is a safe, gentle, cleansing process. Clean and private office. A healthy functioning colon can decrease internal toxicity and improve digestion; basics for a healthy body. See display ad. New Paltz, NY. (845) 256-1516.
whole living directory
Change is inevitable; growth is optional. Get your life, business, or career unstuck and moving forward. You become clearer about who you are and what you really want. We don't fix you because you aren't broken. Transitions occur more naturally and powerfully. Whatever you are up to in your career, business or key areas such as money and relationships, coaching can assist you in creating a fulfilling life, achieving goals and being more focused, present and successful. Contact David for a free session. (845) 626-0444. dwbasch@aol.com. www.dwbcoaching.com.
Nori combines 28 years as a registered nurse with 18 years of chiropractic experience to offer patients a knowledgeable approach to removing the interferences in the body that lead to disease. She combines accredited techniques such as Neuro-Emotional technique, kinesiology, and Network Chiropractic to work with the body's innate intelligence and its ability for healing. Dr. Connell also offers workshops on natural health care for the family and is also one of the directors of Alternatives Health Center of Tivoli (845) 757-5555 and Rhinebeck Cooperative Health Center (845) 876-5556. Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 757-5555 or (845) 876-5556.
CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY
Ada Citron Explore the basics of Mantak Chia's Healing Tao System with Ada Citron, Taoist counselor and Healing Tao Instructor for over 10 years. Meet the Six Healing Sounds which transform stress into vitality. Learn the Inner Smile and the Microcosmic Orbit meditations. Also learn standing and gently moving practices that relax and rejuvenate. (845) 339-0589. www.adacitron.com.
CHILDBIRTH Catskill Mountain Midwifery— Home Birth Services
Craniosacral Therapy A gentle, hands-on method for enhancing the body's own healing capabilities through the craniosacral rhythm. Craniosacral aids in the release of stress-related conditions such as anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, depression, digestive, menstrual, and other problems with organ function, breathing difficulties, and headaches. Increase energy, reduce pain, and improve immune system function. Effective for whiplash, TMJ, sciatica, fibromyalgia, scoliosis, arthritis, low back tension, and chronic pain. Also helpful for children with birth trauma, learning difficulties, chronic ear problems, and hyperactivity. Hudson Valley Therapeutic Massage, Michele Tomasicchio, LMT. (845) 255-4832.
See also Midwifery directory. (845) 687-BABY.
Homebirth and Gynecology Practice of Judy Joffee, CNM This practice offers a unique and exquisite opportunity for woman care in a powerfully compassionate and sacred manner. I offer complete prenatal care focused toward homebirth. For the nonpregnant woman, individualized gynecological care, counseling, and self-determination await you. Also offering school, work, and general physicals for all ages. Call for consultation. (845) 255-2096.
Kary Broffman, RN, CH See also Hypnosis directory. Hyde Park, NY. (845) 876-6753.
DENTISTRY The Center For Advanced Dentistry— Bruce D. Kurek, DDS, FAGD; Jaime O. Stauss, DMD Setting the standards for excellence in dentistry for more than 25 years, the Center for Advanced Dentistry attracts clients from throughout the northeast and abroad. Their client-centered approach to providing comprehensive dental services for adults and children includes "old school" care and concern combined with the latest technologies. The office is conveniently located 1.5 miles east of the NYS Thruway, exit 18. 494 Route 299, Highland, NY. (845) 691-5600 | fax: (845) 691-8633. www.thecenterforadvance ddentistry.com.
CHIROPRACTIC EQUINE FACILITATED HEALING Dr. David Ness Dr. David Ness is a Certified Active Release Techniques (ART) Provider and Certified Chiropractic Sports Practitioner specializing in helping athletes and active people quickly relieve their pain and heal their injuries. In addition to providing traditional chiropractic care, Dr. Ness utilizes ART to remove scar tissue and adhesions in order to restore mobility, flexibility, and strength faster than standard treatments will allow. If you have an injury that has not responded to treatment, call Dr. Ness for an appointment today. (845) 255-1200.
Ada Citron— Taoist Counselor and Instructor Equisessions® with Ada, a life long rider, are therapeutically oriented, equine facilitated encounters based on the Epona Method from The Tao of Equus, by Linda Kohanov. Riding is involved in later sessions. This year Ada will present an all day pre-conference workshop for Region 1 of NARHA, the North American Riding for the Handicapped
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Association, on Chi Kung as a tool for mounted equine facilitated healing work. She will also present, for the second time, her Chi Kung for Horse People at the conference itself. Kingston. (845) 339-0589. www.adacitron.com.
the year. Contents are also available on the Web at www.hvhealthyliving.com. See our website for advertising rates or call the HVHL sales team. (845) 334-8600. www.hvhealthyliving.com.
FENG SHUI
HERBS
DeStefano and Associates
Monarda Herbal Apothecary
Barbara DeStafano has been the owner of DeStefano and Associates, an interior design business, for 18 years. She received certification in Feng Shui from the Metropolitan Institute of Interior Design and has completed advanced work with several Feng Shui Masters. Feng Shui is the perfect marriage to interior design. It brings a spiritual dimension to your space. Barbara can create a kind of beauty that touches your spirit, and brings balance and harmony to a level that transcends the superficial. Barbara is available for consultations, guest speaker engagements, and workshops. (845) 339-4601.
In honoring the diversity, uniqueness, and strength of nature for nourishment and healing, we offer organic and ecologically wildcrafted herbs using tradition as our guide. Certified Organic Alcohol Tinctures, Teas, Salves, Essential Oils, and more. Product Catalog $1. Workshops and Internships. (845) 688-2122. www.monarda.net.
HOLISTIC HEALTH John M. Carroll, Healer
FLOWER ESSENCE THERAPY Cheri Piefke— Bach Foundation Registered Practitioner Flower essences are a unique vibrational healing modality for mind-body health and emotional well-being, that are safe, effective and compatible with other medications or therapies. If you are seeking the missing piece in recovering from crisis, breaking behavioral patterns that no longer serve you, or if you simply desire support for personal growth, an individualized blend of flower essences can be the gentle loving partner that makes the difference. Call (845) 266-0230 for more information or to schedule your personal consultation. (845) 266-0230.
HEALTH & HEALING FACILITIES
John Carroll is an intuitive healer, teacher, and spiritual counselor who integrates mental imagery with the God-given gift of his hands. John has helped individuals suffering from acute and chronic disorders, including back problems and cancer. Remote healings and telephone sessions. Call for consultation. Kingston, NY. (845) 338-8420.
Julie Barone, Certified Holistic Health Counselor Live with vibrant energy! Whole foods nutrition and lifestyle consulting can help you kick the junk food habit, achieve better health, tune in to your body, and eat well for life. Individual programs are customized to your health goals. Special People Pet Wellness program for you and your pet. Whole foods cooking parties – fun, educational, and delicious! Free consultation. (845) 338-4115. julieabarone@yahoo.com. www.peoplepetwellness.com.
Heart-based Intuitive Healing, Karma Release with Crystals, Space Clearings & Blessings, Long Distance Healings, Endof-Life Transitions, Guided Meditation/visualization. Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm. Self healing is a process of self-discovery. Within the space of the heart discover what you need to heal. Kate DeChard M.Ed. The Soul Sanctuary, 6052 B Route 9, NY 12572.
You were meant to lead a happy and fulfilling life. What's holding you back? Create change now. Discover the foods and lifestyle that truly nourish your body and soul. Infuse your life with radiant health! One-on-one counseling, lectures, wellness workshops, whole foods cooking classes, yoga, summer retreats. Beacon, NY. (646) 241 8478. marika@delicious-nutrition.com.
The Sanctuary: A Place for Healing
Priscilla A. Bright, MA— Energy Healer/Counselor
A quaint healing center in a quiet part of downtown New Paltz. Specializing in Craniosacral Therapy, Stress Point Release through Chiropractic, Swedish & Sports Massage, Shiatsu, and Energetic Reiki. New offerings include meditation and nutritional counseling. Call for an appointment. 5 Academy Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-3337 and (845) 853-3325.
HEALTH PUBLICATIONS Hudson Valley Healthy Living A comprehensive directory of Mid-Hudson health services, products, and practitioners, along with articles on health issues of interest. Published biannually (April/October) by Luminary Publishing, Inc., the creators of Chronogram, 50,000 copies are distributed in the region throughout
whole living directory
Guidance of Spirit, Wisdom of Heart
Marika Blossfeldt, HHC, AADP Holistic Health and Nutrition Counselor, Yoga Instructor
Specializing in women's stress, emotional issues, and physical illness, including stress-related anxiety, depression, and physical burnout. Women in transition, businesswomen, mothers, all welcome. Experienced counselor. Faculty, Barbara Brennan School of Healing. Convenient offices in Kingston & New Paltz. Initial phone consultation no charge. Kingston, NY. (845) 688-7175.
HOMEOPATHY Kimberly Woods C. HOM. With 25 years of experience and extensive training with world renowned master homeopaths and herbalists, she has helped 1000's of individuals suffering from acute and chronic disorders, from physical problems to psychological
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illnesses. Kimberly is truly gifted at educating the individual in natural approaches to health and well being. (845) 688 2976. www.naturalhealthsource.us.
HYPNOSIS Achieve Your Goals with Therapeutic Hypnosis— Sharon Slotnick, MS, CHt. Increase self-esteem and motivation; break bad habits; manage stress, stressrelated illness and anger; alleviate pain (e.g. childbirth, headaches, chronic pain); overcome fears and despondency; relieve insomnia; improve learning, memory, public speaking and sports performance; enhance creativity. Other issues. Change your outlook. Gain control. Make healthier choices. Certified Hypnotist, two years training; broad base in Psychology. New Paltz/Kingston, NY. (845) 389-2302.
Kary Broffman, RN, CH A registered nurse with a BA in psychology since 1980, Kary is certified in Ericksonian Hypnosis, Hypnobirthing, and Complementary Medical Hypnotism, hypnocoaching with the National Guild. She has also studied interactive imagery for nurses. By weaving her own healing journey and education into her work, she helps to assist others in accessing their inner resources and healing potential. Hyde Park, NY. (845) 876-6753.
One-Session Hypnosis with Frayda Kafka CHT
whole living directory
Building on my success with smoking cessation in 1978, I have continued to help clients with weight loss, pain, childbirth, stress, insomnia, habits, phobias, confidence, and almost any behavior you can think of. Known for my easy, light manner and quick results, I have an intuitive knack for saying just the right thing at the right time so that a major shift can be initiated. Groups, home visits, gifts and phone sessions are available. Please call me at (845) 336-4646. Kingston, NY. (845) 336-4646. info@CallTheHypnotist.com. www.CallTheHypnotist.com.
OASISOUL for the
INTUITIVE HEALING Guidance of Spirit, Wisdom of Heart Heart-based Intuitive Healing, Karma Release with Crystals, Space Clearings & Blessings, Long Distance Healings, End-of-Life Transitions, Guided Meditation/ visualization. Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm. Self healing is a process of self-discovery. Within the space of the heart discover what you need to heal. Kate DeChard M.Ed. The Soul Sanctuary, 6052 B Route 9, NY 12572.
JEWISH MYSTICISM/ KABBALAH Irene Humbach, LCSW, PC Kabbalistic Healing in person and long distance. See Body-Centered Therapy. (845) 485-5933.
LIFECOACHING Shirley Stone, MBA, Certified Empowerment Life Coach Want to convert fear into courage, stress into power, depression into joy, worry into satisfaction? Consider empowerment life coaching. Get clarity on the life you want plus the tools and techniques to
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make your dreams a reality. Stop being a problem solver and become a vision creator. Rhinebeck, NY. (845)8762194. Shirley@findingthecourage.com. www.findingthecourage.com.
Shannon Fasce—Certified Holistic Life Coach Medical intuitive-Intuitive consultantRestoring balance for the Body, Mind,& Spirit.Using techniques such as Energy Medicine,Guided meditation,Chakra Balancing, Bach Flower Remedies & Integrated Energy Therapy .To schedule an appointment Call (845)758-8270.
MASSAGE THERAPY Ada Citron, LMT Practicing since 1988, Ada Citron, LMT, has offered Swedish, Sports Massage, Reiki, Pranic Healing, Chair Massage, Shiatsu, Barefoot Shiatsu and Chi Nei Tsang (CNT) Chinese abdominal massage. Shiatsu and CNT are currently her preferred modalities. Classes offered in CNT. House calls fee commensurate with travel time. (845) 339-0589. www.adacitron.com.
Affinity Healing Arts Alice Madhuri Velky LMT, RYT Massage Therapy - Reiki - Yoga Deeply effective, intuitive and client-centered bodywork incorporating Swedish/ deep tissue, myofascial, aromatherapy and energy balancing. Integral Yoga® private, restorative, group classes. Poughkeepsie location. (845) 797-4124. home.earthlink.net/~affinityhealing.
whole living directory
bodhi studio Bodhi Studio is a lovely and calm space nestled in the heart of downtown Hudson. We have brought together experienced and caring therapists to give you the care you need at an affordable price, so that taking care of yourself can happen often and easily. Offering Massage, Acupuncture, Natropathic medicine, Cranio sacral therapy, Skin Care, Body waxing, earconing, Reflexology and Reiki. (518) 828-2233. www.bodhistudio.com.
Hudson Valley Therapeutic Massage Michele Tomasicchio, LMT, specializes in Integrative Massage – incorporation of various healing modalities: Swedish, Myofascial Deep Tissue, Craniosacral, and stretching to facilitate the body's healing process. A session may include all or just one modality. No fault accepted. Gift certificates available. By appointment only. 243 Main Street, Suite 220, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-4832.
Joan Apter Offering luxurious massage therapy, including Raindrop Technique, with therapeutic essential oils to relieve stress, boost the immune system, and address system imbalances. Natural animal care, individual consultations for a healthy home and personal concerns, spa consultant, classes, and keynotes. Essential Oils, nutritional supplements, personal care, pet care, children's and home cleaning products from Young Living Essential Oils. For more information, contact Joan Apter. (845) 679-0512. japter@ulster.net. www.apteraromatherapy.com.
The Living Seed Yoga & Holistic Center See also Yoga directory. 521 Main Street (Rte. 299, across from Econo Lodge), New Paltz, NY. (845) 2558212. contact@thelivingseed.com. www.thelivingseed.com.
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Susan DeStefano, LMT Healing Massage Swedish. Deep Tissue. Hot Stone. Shiatsu Craniosacral. Lymph Drainage Tibetan Reflexology. Reiki. Touch For Health. (845) 255-6482.
Sunflower Healing Massage
naturopathic expertise in a sacred space to help you feel better. Graduate of the prestigious Bastyr University. Call Rhinebeck Cooperative Health Center (845) 876-5556. Rhinebeck Cooperative Health Center, Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-5556. www.drfrancescott.com.
See also Midwifery directory. (845) 705-5906.
NUTRITION Sublime Bodywork—Sabura Goodban Healing from the inside out. Zen Shiatsu. Raindrop Therapy. New York Licensed Massage Therapist. (845) 246-4180.
Woodland Massage A healing practice for body, mind and spirit. Attention artists, activists, farmers, executives, builders, teachers, truckers, healers, helpers, merchants, mothers, and weekend wanderers. Strong, gentle, knowledgeable bodywork, personalized to meet your treatment goals. Flexible schedule and fees. Accord office/home visits. Mark Houghtaling, LMT. Keep in touch. (845) 687-4650.
MEDITATION Zen Mountain Monastery Offering year-round retreats geared to all levels of experience: introductions to Zen meditation and practice; programs exploring Zen arts, Buddhist studies, and social action; and intensive meditation retreats. South Plank Road, Mt. Tremper, NY. (845) 688-2228.
MIDWIFERY Catskill Mountain Midwifery— Home Birth Services
whole living directory
Give birth as you wish, in an environment in which you feel nurtured and secure; where your emotional well-being, privacy, and personal preferences are respected. Be supported by a tradition that trusts the natural process. Excellent MD consult, hospital backup. (845) 687-BABY.
Homebirth and Gynecology Practice of Judy Joffee, CNM See also Childbirth directory. (845) 255-2096.
Suzanne Berger Certified nurse midwife at the Women's Care Center offering a full range of holistic, alternative and traditional services. Serving Kingston, Benedictine and Northern Dutchess Hospitals. Kingston, NY. Rhinebeck (845) 876-2496. Kingston (845) 338-5575.
Sunflower Healing Massage Kim Beck, RN Certified Nurse, Midwife and Licensed Massage Therapist. In home prenatal and postpartum massage. (845) 705-5906.
NATURAL FOODS Beacon Natural Market Lighting the Way for a Healthier World... Located in the heart of historic Beacon at 348 Main Street. Featuring organic prepared foods deli & juice bar as well as organic and regional produce, meats and cheeses. Newly opened in Aug. '05, proprietors L.T. & Kitty Sherpa are dedicated to serving the Hudson Valley with a complete selection of products that are good for you and good for the planet, including an extensive alternative health dept. Nutritionist on staff. 348 Main Street, Beacon, NY. (845) 838-1288.
Sunflower Natural Food Market At Sunflower we know the food we eat is our greatest source of health. Sunflower carries certified organic produce, milk, cheeses, and eggs; non-irradiated herbs and spices; clean, pure organic products to support a healthy lifestyle; large selection of homeopathic remedies. Sunflower Natural Foods is a complete natural foods market. Open 9AM-9PM daily. 10AM-7PM Sundays. Bradley Meadows Shopping Center, Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-5361.
NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE Naturopathic Medicine Dr. Thomas J. Francescott, ND. Free Your Mind - Release Your Body - Energize Your Spirit! Solve health issues, enhance wellness, and gain awareness. Scientifically proven naturopathic solutions for challenging and/or chronic health concerns. I offer
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Ilyse Simon RD, CDN Nutrition Therapist Diet is a four letter word. Nutritional therapy for emotional eating to chronic eating disorders, body image issues, insulin resistance and diabetes. Teaching normal eating based on hunger cues. Specializing in teens to adults. Bastyr University of Natural Medicine educated with non-diet approach including whole foods. Many insurances accepted. "Life is not black and white. Living is the full spectrum in between." 318 Wall St, Suite 3A, Kingston, NY. (845) 331-6381. ilysefood@yahoo.com.
Jill Malden, RD, CSW Prominent Nutritionist specializing in eating behavior and eating disorders for 15 years. Warm, nonjudgmental treatment. Understand the effects of nutrition on your mood, anxiety level, cravings, concentration, energy level, and sleep, in addition to body weight. Recover from your eating issues and enjoy a full life! 1 Water Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 489-4732.
Vicki Koenig, MS, RD, CDN Creating Wellness for individuals and businesses. Nutrition counseling: combining traditional and integrative solutions to enhance well-being. Health Fairs for Businesses wanting to improve employees' productivity. Providing help with Diabetes, Cardiovascular conditions, Weight loss, Digestive support, Women's health, and Pediatric Nutrition. Many insurances accepted. Offices in New Paltz and Kingston. Call (845) 255-2398 for an appointment. www.Nutrition-wise.com.
Vitamin Navigator Confused about what to eat and what not? Find your own bioindividuality, your diet is as unique as you are, your optimum health can be achieved without serious deprivation. Andrew Wright Randel HHC AADP has 15 years experience with alternative and complementary health care. (914) 466-2928. www.vitaminnavigator.com.
Valerie Crystal, MS, Clinical Nutritionist "If I don't make time for healthy eating, I'll have to make time for illness." Valerie Crystal, MS, Clinical Nutritionist. Assessments and diagnostic testing for chronic disorders caused by poor eating habits. Learn how, what and when to eat and heal yourself! House calls available. Free Phone consultation. (518) 678-0700.
ORGANIC PRODUCTS NewAgeProducts.Org Offers handmade Organic Soaps, All Natural & Organic Herbal Juice Supplements and many Organic Bath & Body Products. All high quality and very competitively priced. Your #1 place to get all your organic body care needs. An easy and convenient way to experience the difference of Organic & All Natural Body Care. www.NewAgeProducts.org.
OSTEOPATHY Applied Osteopathy— Joseph Tieri, DO, & Ari Rosen, DO. Drs. Tieri and Rosen are New York State Licensed Osteopathic physicians specializing in Cranial Osteopathy. As specialists in Osteopathic manipulation, we are dedicated to the traditional philosophy and hands-on treatment of our predecessors. We have studied with Robert Fulford, DO, Viola Freyman, DO, James Jealous, DO, and Bonnie Gintis, DO, and completed a two-year residency in Osteopathic Manipulation. We treat newborns, children, and adults. 3457 Main St, Stone Ridge, (845) 687-7589. 138 Market Street, Rhinebeck, (845) 876-1700. 257 Main Street, New Paltz, (845) 256-9884. By Appointment. For more information call or visit the website.. www.appliedosteopa thy.com. New Paltz (845) 256-9884; Rhinebeck (845) 876-1700. www.appliedosteopathy.com.
PHYSICIANS Women Care Center Empowerment through information. Located in Rhinebeck and Kingston. Massage and acupuncture available. Gynecology - treating our patients through the most up-to-date medical
and surgical technologies available, combined with alternative therapies. Obstetrics - working with you to create the birth experience you desire. Many insurances accepted. Evening hours available. Rhinbeck (845) 876-2496; Kingston (845) 338-5575.
PILATES Beacon Pilates A fully equipped classical studio that tailors each workout to fit the individual's needs and abilities. Our class times and intro packages make it easy to get started. Beacon Pilates is a Power Pilates Participating Studio. For information on becoming a certified Pilates teacher please contact us. 181 Main Street, 2nd Floor, Beacon, NY. (845) 831-0360. www.beaconpilates.com.
The Moving Body 276 Tinker Street, Woodstock. (845) 679-7715. www.themovingbody.com.
PSYCHOLOGISTS Mark S. Balaban, Ph.D. Licensed Clinical Psychologist offering individual and group psychotherapy for adults and adolescents. Experienced in working with relationship/intimacy issues, loneliness, depression, anxiety, current family or family of origin issues, eating/ body image concerns, grief, stress management, and personal growth. Convenient after-work and evening appointments available. Rosendale, NY. (845) 616-7898. balabanm@newpaltz.edu.
whole living directory
Peter M. del Rosario, PhD Licensed psychologist. Insight-oriented, culturally sensitive psychotherapy for adults and adolescents concerned with: relationship difficulties, codependency, depression, anxiety, sexual/physical trauma, grief and bereavement, eating disorders, dealing with divorce, gay/lesbian issues. Free initial consult. 199 Main Street, New Paltz, NY. (914) 262-8595.
Rachael Diamond, LCSW, CHt See also Psychotherapy directory. (845) 883-9642.
PSYCHOTHERAPY Amy R. Frisch, CSWR Psychotherapist. Individual, family, and group sessions for adolescents and adults. Currently accepting registration for It's a Girl Thing: an expressive arts therapy group for adolescent girls and The Healing Circle: an adult bereavement group offering a safe place to begin the healing process after the death of a loved one. Most insurances accepted. New Paltz, NY. (914) 706-0229.
Change Your Outlook, Heal, and Grow— Sharon Slotnick, MS, CHt. With combination of "talk" therapy for self-knowledge and hypnotherapy to transform negative, self-defeating thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Faster symptom relief. Feel better and make healthier choices. Sliding scale, Certified Hypnotherapist and Counselor. New Paltz, Kingston. See also Hypnosis. New Paltz, NY. (845) 389-2302.
Debra Budnik, CSW-R Traditional insight-oriented psychotherapy for long- or short-term work. Aimed at identifying and changing self-defeating
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attitudes and behaviors, underlying anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. Sliding scale, most insurances accepted, including Medicare/ Medicaid. NYS-licensed. Experience working with trauma victims, including physical and sexual abuse. Educator on mental health topics. Located in New Paltz, one mile from SUNY. New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-4218.
Deep Clay Art and Therapy "Dreamfigures" group for women in transition. (845) 255-8039. deepclay@mac.com.
Heart Centered Counseling & Expressive Arts Therapy Dr. Nancy Rowe, PhD, LMHC Emotional healing for children and adults using talk, imagery, sandplay, expressive arts, and/or movement. Background in transpersonal psychology, play therapy, family therapy, spiritual guidance, authentic movement, and expressive arts therapy. Dr. Nancy Rowe, PhD, LMHC, Kingston, NY. (845) 679-4827. www.wisdomheart.com.
Ione Author and psychotherapist: Qigong, Meditation, Hypnotherapy, and Dreams. Specializing in the creative process. Healing retreats, Local and Worldwide. (845) 339-5776.
Irene Humbach, LCSW, PC Body of Wisdom Counseling & Healing Services
whole living directory
See also Body-Centered Therapy directory. (845) 485-5933.
Janne Dooley, LCSW --Brigid's Well--Psychospiritual therapy, Gestalt, EMDR, with a specialty in childhood trauma, relationship issues, recovery, codependency and inner child work. Brigid's Well also offers life coaching and workshops to intergrate healing and help create a richer, more satisfying life. Call for information or free consultation: New Paltz office. (347) 834-5081. Brigidswell@verizon.net.
Judy Swallow, MA, TEP Integrative body/mind therapist using Rubenfeld synergy and psychodrama in her work with individuals, couples, groups, and families. Inquire for workshops and training, as well as therapy. New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-5613.
Jeanne Asma, LCSWR PSYCHOTHERAPIST AND LIFE COACH Individual, couples and group sessions for adults. Women's issues groups now forming. Specializing in relationship issues, improving self esteem, binge eating and body image, life transitions including divorce and grief issues, trauma and abuse. Many insurances accepted or sliding scale available. Office located in Poughkeepsie location. (845) 462-1182. www.JeanneAsma.com.
Julie Zweig, MA See also Body-Centered Therapy directory. Offices in Poughkeepsie and New Paltz. NY. (845) 255-3566.
Kent Babcock, MSW, LMSW Counseling & Psychotherapy Development of solutions through simple self-observation, reflection, and conversation. Short- or long-term work around difficult relationships; life or career transitions; ethical, spiritual, or psychic dilemmas; and creative blocks.
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Roots in yoga, dreamwork, spiritual psychology, and existential psychotherapy. Sliding scale. Offices in Woodstock and Uptown Kingston. Woodstock, NY. (845) 679-5511 x4. kentagram@gmail.com.
Kathleen Calabrese, PhD Kathleen Calabrese has worked as a psychotherapist for over 20 years with offices in Buffalo, New York City, and now, Kingston. Her empathic, practical approach enables people to understand their past, assess present-day choices, and live more authentically and creatively in the future. Call for an appointment. 17 John St,. Kinston, NY. (845) 688-2645.
Martin Knowles, LCSW Taking a systemic approach to well-being and relationships for over 20 years, Martin Knowles works with individuals, couples and families in Uptown Kingston. His effective, down-to-earth style amplifies and encourages natural talents and resources, bringing out the best in each of us. (845) 338-5450 x301.
Rachael Diamond, LCSW, CHt Holistically-oriented therapist offering counseling, psychotherapy, and hypnotherapy. Specializing in issues pertaining to relationships, personal growth, life transitions, alternative lifestyles, childhood abuse, codependency, addiction, recovery illness, and grief. Some insurances accepted. Office convenient to New Paltz and surrounding areas. Free half hour consultation. New Paltz, NY. (845) 883-9642.
Wellspring Evolutionary coaching using movement and breath to access and clear lifelong patterns and transform relationships. Rodney and Sandra Wells, certified by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks. (845) 534-7668.
REBIRTHING Susan DeStefano
REIKI Affinity Healing Arts Alice Madhuri Velky LMT, RYT Massage Therapy - Reiki - Yoga Deeply effective, intuitive and client-centered bodywork incorporating Swedish/deep tissue, myofascial, aromatherapy and energy balancing. Integral Yoga® private, restorative, group classes. Poughkeepsie location. (845) 797-4124. home.earthlink.net/~affinityhealing.
Hudson Valley School of Massage Therapy
The Living Seed Yoga & Holistic Health Center
Student clinic supervised by NYS Licensed Instructor. www.HVSMassageTherapy.com.
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology ITP is an accredited graduate psychology school offering clinical and nonclinical certificates, MA and PhD degrees. The curriculum combines mind, body, and spiritual inquiry with scholarly research and self discovery. Graduates have strong clinical skills and can communicate in a variety of complex relational circumstances. (650) 493-4430. itpinfo@itp.edu. www.itp.edu.
Y
Joshua Pearl's Whole Musician Workshop Develop and liberate your unique musical potential through customized music lessons, workshops, or artist development programs. For aspiring and developing musicians and bands. Explore your music in a supportive environment. Call (845) 679-7599 and receive a free lesson during September. Studios in Woodstock and Manhattan. www.joshuapearl.com.
Workshops 521 Main St (Rt 299) New Paltz, NY 12561 www.thelivingseed.com (845) 255-8212
Thai Yoga Massage 8/5 - 8/6 to give a full body, * learn 1 hour massage in this wonderful workshop. CEUs available.
Yoga Classes ( all levels) Family & Kids Yoga Massage Acupuncture Sauna Bellydancing Capoeira West African Dance West African Drum
PALTZ
One Light Healing Touch: Energy Healing & Mystery School The OLHT Training is ideal for health care workers and those desiring transformational personal growth, physical and emotional healing, and spiritual develpment. Join us for an empowering, life-changing, six-month, training. 50 self-healing practices and 33 Professional Healing Techniques, Certification in OLHT Energy Healing and NYSNA CEUs. FREE OPEN EVENINGS: SPECIAL INTRO WEEKENDS: OLHT SCHOOL a six 3-Day Weekends of Training, starts Sept. 8th. For information & sessions: Penny Price Lavin (845-8760239: pricemedia@aol.com): Nancy Plumer (845-687-2252: nplumer@hvi.net) See ad for One Light Healing Touch summer workshops. Begins Sept. 8, 2006. Rhinebeck, NY. www.OneLightHealingTouch.com.
whole living directory
Heart-centered therapy for healing the body, mind, and emotions. Improve relationships, release the past, heal the inner child through personal empowerment. (845) 255-6482.
SCHOOLS & TRAINING
SHAMANISM, HEALING & TRAINING Janet StraightArrow—Woman of Medicine Energy Healer, Medical Intuitive, Shaman.
Heal and enjoy your entire life. No need for pain, depression, or disease. Holistic Healing System - Be The Medicine – works! Develop your innate abilities to be the self healing being you are. Learn to work with your body, mind, emotions, spirit and soul in new and exciting ways. Live your life purpose. Free initial consult. Exciting: classes, sessions, ceremonies, deep healing & training. Phone and in person work. Woodstock and other locations. Janetoasis@aol.com. www.oasisforthesoul.com (845) 679-7175
The Sanctuary—Reiki Rev. Denise Meyer offers Usui Reiki treatments. Experience the benefits of deep relaxation and energetic releases through this method of healing touch. Reiki energy supports and heals the mind, body, heart and spirit through the delivery of Light Energy into the energy field of the receiver. "Denise's work is way beyond the other Reiki treatments I have had." Vera P. The Sanctuary, 5 Academy Street, New Paltz, NY. (845) 255-3337 ext. 2.
SHIATSU Sublime Bodywork Sabura Goodban. Zen Shiatsu, Raindrop Therapy. New York Licensed Massage Therapist. (845) 246-4180.
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SPAS & RESORTS The Spa at Emerson Place The Emerson Spa is open! This Asian-inspired design invites guests into an oasis of relaxation that is surrounded by the Catskills' pastoral beauty. Individually-tailored treatments are created by the European-trained staff who are skilled at delivering virtually all the Emerson Spa's 40+ treatments. Men and women alike will enjoy the personalized attention they receive while enjoying experiences such as Ayruvedic Rituals, Aromatherapy Massage, Deep-Tissue and FourHand Massage, Hot Stone Therapy and Detoxifying Algae Wraps. (845) 688-1000. www.emersonplace.com.
SPIRITUAL Healing, Pathwork and Channeling by Flowing Spirit Guidance
whole living directory
It is our birthright to experience the abundance of the universe, the deep love of God, and our own divinity! It is also our birthright to share our own unique gifts with the world. We long to do it. So why don't we? Our imperfections get in the way. As we purify, we experience more and more fully, the love and the abundance of God's universe. We can have it in any moment. We can learn to purify our imperfections AND experience heaven on earth. Jaffe Institute Spiritual Healing; Pathwork; and Channeling available. Contact Joel Walzer for sessions. (845) 679-8989. www.flowingspirit.com.
Ione Egyptian Mysteries, Scarab TeachingsTM, Journeys to Sacred Sites. (845) 339-5776.
STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION Hudson Valley Structural Integration Structural integration is a form of soft tissue manipulation based on the lifelong work of Dr. Ida P. Rolf. It is a process-oriented whole systems approach that seeks to improve one's health and vitality by balancing the body and re-establishing appropriate relationships. Benefits include feeling lighter, more energy, greater freedom of movement, relief from chronic pain, and positive psychological effects. We offer a safe place for exploration and work with sensitivity and compassion. Krisha Showalter and Ryan Flowers are certified practitioners of the KMI method. Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-4654.
TAROT Tarot-on-the-Hudson Rachel Pollack Exploratory, experiential play with the Tarot as oracle and sacred tool, in a monthly class, with Certified Tarot Grand Master and international Tarot author Rachel Pollack. All levels welcome. Tarot Readings in person or by phone. Also see ad. Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-5797. rachel@rachelpollack.com.
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THERAPY Dianne Weisselberg MSW, LMSW Individual Therapy, Grief Work and Personal Mythology. Stuck? Overwhelmed? Frustrated? Depressed? THERE IS ANOTHER WAY! Dianne Weisselberg has over 16 years experience in the field of Counseling and over 8 years of training in Depth Psychology. Sliding Scale fees. Office hours in Woodstock and Willow. (845) 688-7570. dweisselberg@hvc.rr.com.
Legga, Inc. at Cedar Ridge Farm Specializing in Equine Assisted Discovery groups and individual sessions, for Children, Adolescents, & Adults. Saugerties, NY. (845) 729 0608.
Toni D. Nixon, Ed.D. Therapist and Buddhist Practitioner
whole living directory
Offering a unique combination of techniques that integrate therapeutic goals and spiritual practice. The basic principles of Buddhism and psychotherapy are concerned with the goal of ending human suffering. Both paths to liberation are through greater self awareness, a broader view of one's world, the realization of the possibility of freedom and finding the means to achieve it. In essence, effective psychotherapy moves toward liberation and Buddhist practice is therapeutic in nature. Eidetic Image therapy is a unique and powerful method that encourages the liberation of the mind and spirit from obstacles that block the way to inner peace. Specializing in life improvement skills, habit cessation, career issues, women's issues, and blocked creativity. By phone, online, and in person. (845) 339-1684. www.eidetictherapy.com.
VEGAN LIFESTYLES Andrew Glick— Vegan Lifestyle Coach
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The single most important step an individual can take to help save the planet's precious resources, improve and protect one's health, and to stop the senseless slaughter of over 50 billion animals a year...is to Go Vegan. What could make you feel better about yourself than knowing you are helping the planet, your own health, and the lives of countless animals all at the same time? If the idea is daunting and seems undoable to you, then let your personal Vegan Lifestyle Coach take you through steps A to Z. Whether you're a cattle rancher eating meat three times a day or a lacto-vegetarian wanting to give up dairy, it's a process that can be fun, easy and meaningful. You can do it easily with the proper support, guidance and encouragement from your Vegan Lifestyle Coach. (845) 679-7979. andy@meatfreezone.org. www.meatfreezone.org.
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Healthy Gourmet To Go Try our colossal coconut macaroons dipped in dark chocolate or our delectable pan-seared cornmeal crusted homemade seitan cutlets over rosemary smashed potatoes with mushroom gravy. From oldfashioned home cooking with a new healthful twist to live/raw foods and
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macrobiotics, HGTG has dishes to please every palate. Weekly Meal Delivery right to your door. Organic, vegan, kosher. Baby Registry. Gift Certificates. Catering. (845) 3397171. www.carrottalk.com.
WORKSHOPS Wallkill Valley Writers Creative writing workshops in New Paltz led by Kate Hymes, poet and educator. Aspiring and experienced writers are welcome. Wallkill Valley Writers provides structured time, a supportive community and a safe place for you to fulfill the dream of writing your stories, real or imagined. Many writers find the community of a workshop benefits their work and keeps them motivated. (845) 255-7090. khamherstwriters@aol.com.
YOGA Jai Ma Yoga Center Offering a wide array of Yoga classes, seven days a week, from Gentle/Restorative Yoga to Advanced. Meditation classes free to all enrolled. Chanting Friday evenings. New expanded studio space. Private consultations and Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy sessions available. Gina Bassinette, RYT & Ami Hirschstein, RYT, Owners. New Paltz, NY. (845) 256-0465.
whole living directory
The Living Seed Yoga & Holistic Center Open to the community for over 5 years. Inspiring movements of inner freedom and awareness. We offer Yoga classes for all levels of students, gentle/beginner to advanced. Including Pre & Post Natal Yoga, Family & Kids Yoga, as well as a variety of Dance classes, Massage, Acupuncture, Sauna & Organic Yoga Clothing. 521 Main Street (Rte. 299, across from Econo Lodge), New Paltz, NY. (845) 2558212. contact@thelivingseed.com. www.thelivingseed.com.
Satya Hudson Valley Yoga Center Satya Hudson Valley Yoga Center is located in the heart of Rhinebeck village, on the third floor of the Rhinebeck Department Store building. We offer classes for all levels, 7 days a week. There is no need to pre-register: we invite you to just show up. Rhinebeck, NY. (845) 876-2528. www.hudsonvalleyyog a.com.
Yoga on Duck Pond A new approach to yoga based on the premise that we develop habitual patterns of movement that can effectively be changed by bringing unconscious movement into conscious awareness. Only then can we explore new combinations of ways to move. Learn how to experience yoga poses comfortably and beneficially, from the inside out, without strain or struggle. When we slow down, we can sense and feel more clearly and comfortably how we move. Experience a style of yoga that is dynamic, rejuvenating, empowering and transformational. Donna Nisha Cohen, RYT with over 25 years experience. Classes daily. Privates available. (845) 687-4836. www.yogaonduckpond.com.
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EVENT LISTINGS FOR SEPTEMBER 2006
GIGI STOLL
the forecast
9.
FORECAST
PAM FLEMING, DEBORAH KARPEL, DEBRA KREISBERG, AND EVE SICULAR OF ISLE OF KLEZBOS, WHO WILL PERFORM AT UNISON ON SEPTEMBER
KLEZ-BIONIC WOMEN
The name is at once a rebuke of centuries of misogyny and a punny uppercut
lurking in either camp.
to Judaism-specific homophobia. It tells you everything about the jubilance of
“We found that audiences are really open to whatever we are presenting, with
this sextet, which deftly wrangles the raucous lingua franca of klezmer music.
all of our influences. Our potential fun, our quirkiness,” Kreisberg said. A significant
The Isle of Klezbos makes the journey from New York City to play New Paltz’s
evolution, when you consider that none of the Klezbos members originally played
Unison center on September 9.
klezmer. “The more we heard it,” she continued, “the more we played it, and
Need a frame of reference? Think “Fiddler on the Roof” or, better yet, “music
grew comfortable with the stylistic ornamentations.”
for those being chased by Cossacks.” Born in Eastern Europe more than a century
A worldwide reappraisal of the genre began about three decades ago, giving
ago, klezmer was folk music doing double duty as communal catharsis. Drawing
birth to a revival fueled by youthful audiences as likely to form hora dance circles
its vocabulary from clarinets, accordions, and percussion instruments, klezmer
as mosh pits. A sturdy musical Rorsharch, klezmer has mutated with influences
sounds like a collective sob; it deftly transmits the bittersweet machinations of
grafted on by practitioners of world-beat music.
shtetl life. But, like its cultural cousin, Borscht Belt humor, klezmer believes that
The bonus to an Isle of Klezbos gig is that while you’re welcome to dance your
empowerment springs from the rueful acknowledgment that life is a rotting gefilte
ass off, there is a history lesson up for grabs as well. Drummer and band founder
fish, so why not play on?
Eve Sicular earned her BA in Russian history literature from Harvard-Radcliffe
Spun off from the Metropolitan Klezmers, a Manhattan octet now in its 12th
and lectures extensively on the politics of klezmer, as well as the tenuous role
year, The Isle of Klezbos began in 1998 as rebels, salting Yiddish klezmer with
of lesbian-feminism in Jewish culture. (One such traveling show by Sicular is
numerous musical cross-pollinations, from merengue to swing to tango to jazz.
titled “The Celluloid Closet of Yiddish Film,” and it will surely tell you a thing or
Band member Debra Kreisberg, a native daughter of Woodstock, explained in
two about the cinematic iconography of Molly Picon.) But if you come for the
a telephone interview from Park Slope, Brooklyn, how the group maintains its
boogieing rather than the enlightenment, fret not, says Kreisberg: The musicians
pledge of “approaching tradition with respect and irreverence.”
don’t belabor the point.
“It’s fun that we are an all-female band,” she said. We play instruments that these days are not uncommon [for female musicians], but, traditionally, there
“If that exists, it comes out more in the fact that the band is all women. That speaks for itself. But when we’re playing, we don’t think of that. We’re just playing.”
were no women drummers or horn players.” For the past eight years, Klezbos
The Isle of Klezbos will play at Unison Arts & Learning Center, 68 Mountain
has toured through North America and Europe, deftly straddling two worlds by
Rest Road, New Paltz, on Saturday, September 9, at 8pm. (845) 255-1559;
playing both the über-festival KlezMore in Vienna as well as the famed Michigan
www.unisonarts.org, www.metropolitanklezmer.com.
Women’s Music Festival, proving an equal-opportunity offender to fundamentalists
—Jay Blotcher
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BOB GILDERSLEEVE
FORECAST
HIKERS ON A
2005 HUDSON RIVER VALLEY RAMBLE TRAVERSE THE ESCARPMENT TRAIL. THE HIKE WILL BE OFFERED AS PART OF THE ’06 RAMBLE ON SEPTEMBER 16.
RAMBLE ON Are you ready to ramble? Grab your sunglasses, stretch those hamstrings, and head
State” at the Hurd’s Family Farm in Modena. With the help of a map and clues, you can
for The Hudson River Valley Ramble. This annual event, now in its seventh year, offers
locate 15 interactive stations hidden along the pathways.
some excellent opportunities to explore the region on foot with a host of guided group
Guided by “Woody” Heyward Cohen on September 16, event-goers can pedal the
hikes. The Ramble also highlights more than 400 years of history, focusing mainly on
Harlem Valley Rail Trail on a 16-mile round-trip bike ride from Amenia to Millerton. An
the 153-mile estuary between Troy and New York Harbor.
historical overview of the railroad and the transportation services it provided will be
With events ranging from the 18th Annual Hudson Valley Garlic Festival sponsored
discussed. (A quick primer: It originated in the 1830s as an early commuter railroad
by Kiwanis Club of Saugerties to the Sloop Clearwater Tour and Sail, there’s sure to be
linking lower Manhattan with the affluent new “suburb” of Harlem in northern Manhattan.
something for everyone. On the Kingston Shoreline Paddle, guided by naturalists Steve
In 1852, the New York & Harlem Railroad was built north to Chatham. The Upper Harlem
and Julie Noble, participants will learn about the ecosystem of the Hudson as they paddle
Line was abandoned and the track was removed between Wassaic and Millerton and
from Kingston Point Beach to the historic Rondout Lighthouse. Sites like the brick-making
on northward to Chatham by 1981, but the Harlem Valley Rail Trail preserves a linear
factory that used to operate on the waterfront (plans for a housing development on the
corridor for alternative public use.)
land is in the works) are also on the route, as are sure to be a number of bald eagles, turtles, river otters, and other wildlife.
The Ramble was created in 2000 by The Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area Program and the Hudson River Valley Greenway. “What is unique about the Ramble is
If you still think Hunter Mountain is only good for skiing, snowtubing, or ice climbing,
the fact that most of the events are guided and interpreted so that people come away
try a 4.4-mile hike to the summit—with its 360-degree panorama of the Blackhead Range,
knowing something that they didn’t know before,” says Patricia Murphy, co-coordinator of
Indian Head, Twin, Sugarloaf, and Plateau Mountains—and beyond, where you’ll see a
the event and consultant for the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area Program.
60-foot restored fire tower. This hike takes place on September 24.
The Hudson River Valley Ramble will be held on September 16-17 and 23-24. (800)
On September 23 and 24, try the Colossal Corn Maze Challenge—a “crop art” maze
453-6665; www.hudsonrivervalley.com.
carved out of a four-acre field of 10-foot high corn honoring “The Big Apple: Our Empire
get it on. 120
FORECAST CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
short, long, baby, hoodie.
—Patrick Shields
buy online.
www.chronogram.com/tshirts
BOB GILDERSLEEVE
calendar FRI 1 EVENTS Christmas Ornament Sale
10am-4pm. Vanderbilt Mansion Visitor Center, Hyde Park. 229-6432.
FILM 7th Annual Woodstock Museum Film & Video Festival
Call for times. Theme: Transformation. Woodstock Museum, Woodstock. 246-0600.
SAT 2 ART Armand Rusillon: Paintings and Drawings
5-7pm. Coffey Gallery, Kingston. 339-6105.
Works By Joby Baker and Bernd Haussmann
5-7pm. S.K.H. Gallery of Fine Art and Craft, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 523-3300.
Ink Paintings MUSIC
5-8pm. Works by Anna Pardini. Donskoj & Company Gallery, Kingston. 338-8473.
Duo Loco: Mark Dziuba & Studio Stu
Fairview: The Strip
6:30-9:30pm. Evocative jazz, exotic lounge. Neko Sushi & Sake Bar, Wappingers Falls. www.studiostu.biz.
Traditional Irish Music with Dan Gurney, Dylan Foley, and Ryan McGiver
7pm. Concert of fiery reels, plaintive airs, and spirited jigs. Morton Library, Rhinecliff. www.dangurney.net. $10/ children $5.
Sol Sonata
7:30-9:30pm. Chamber music, world. Espresso Cafe, Rosendale. 658-8269.
Helen Avakian
8-11pm. Acoustic, alternative, original, solo. Maia Restaurant and Lounge, Poughkeepsie. 486-5004.
Nicki Denner Latin Jazz All-Stars
Salsa Funk Party
8-11pm. Featuring the Nicki Denner All-Stars. Ancram Opera House, Ancram. (518) 789-4182. $20.
Wet Paint
8:30pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
Patti Rothberg Band
9pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $17.50/$15 members.
The Relatives
10pm. 70’s and 80’s punk rock. New World Home Cooking, Saugerties. 246-0900.
SPOKEN WORD Irene O’Garden and Carl Welden Call for times. Calling All Poets series. Howland Cultural Center, Beacon. 831-0077. $4.
THEATER The Two Gentlemen of Verona
5pm. Bird-On-a-Cliff Theatre Company. Comeau Property, Woodstock. 247-4007.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
8pm. 20th season of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Boscobel, Garrison. 265-9575. $25-$42.
Community Playback Theatre
Photographs and Works on Paper
6-8pm. Lee Anne Morgan and Traci Horgen. Hudson Opera House, Hudson. (518) 828-7042.
DANCE Dance Fury
8pm. Premiere of “A Bossa Nova Fantasy”. Windham Performing Arts Center, Windham. (518) 734-3868. $20/seniors $17/students $5.
Michael Bernier and the Ensemble Fugue
8:30pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
Marc Black’s Woodstock Warriors
9pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $20/$17.50 members.
Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys
9pm. Club Helsinki, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 528-6308.
9pm. Blues & roots. Aroma Thyme Bistro, Ellenville. 647-3000.
8pm. Tango, salsa, West Coast wing, swango and saltango. Bearsville Theater, Woodstock. 246-1122. $20 show/$25 show and dance.
Albert Carey Project
EVENTS Antique Show and Flea Market
Murali Coryell
Stormville Airport, Stormville. 221-6561.
10pm. Blues, soul. New World Home Cooking, Saugerties. 246-0900.
Woodstock-New Paltz Art & Crafts Fair
Burning Sky A Tribute To Bad Company
Kingston Old Town Stockade Farmers’ Market
THE OUTDOORS Mohonk Preserve Singles Hike High Peters Kill
Call for times. Over 300 craftspersons and artisans from across America. Ulster County Fairgrounds, New Paltz. 246-3414. $8.00/seniors $7/children $4.50.
9am-2pm. Organic and traditional fruits & vegetables, breads, flowers. Wall Street, Kingston. 331-3418.
Mower’s Saturday Flea Market
9am. Maple Lane, Woodstock. 679-6744.
Family Fun on Historic Huguenot Street
10-11:30am. Tour the Bevier Elting House. Huguenot Street, New Paltz. 255-1660.
KIDS The Great All-American Audience Participation Magic Show
11am. Center for Performing Arts, Rhinebeck. 876-3080. $8/$5 children.
MUSIC Michael Dmoch
12-8pm. Willow Kiln Park, Rosendale. 658-3159 ext. 3.
10pm. Bluesy rock. Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
10pm. Alternative, rock, Bad Company Tribute. East Side Bar and Grill, Walden. 778-2039.
9:30am-4pm. Meet at Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0919.
SPOKEN WORD Book Signing with Marlene Newman 2pm. Author of Myron’s Magic Cow. The Golden Notebook Children’s Store, Woodstock. 679-8000.
Woodstock Photography Lecture Series
8pm. Featuring photographer Michael Mazzeo. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-6337. $7/5.
Hotflash and the Whoremoans
8:30pm. Variety, comedy. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595.
THEATER First Looks at the Fringe
2pm. Byrdcliffe Theater, Woodstock. 810-0123. $20/$17 students and seniors.
The Mountainville String Quartet
3pm. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
Erik the Amazing and the Shallaballah
3:30pm. Wakka Wakka Productions: 42nd Street Puppets. Red Barn Performing Arts, Hunter. (518) 263-4908. $7.
On My Own
Closing Anniversaries: The Composer Speaks
Play Fair
Windham Chamber Music Festival
Lowry Hamner
8pm. Improvisation based on real-life stories of audience members. Boughton Place, Highland. 691-4118. $6.
8pm. One-woman show by Kimberly Kay. Center for Performing Arts, Rhinebeck. 876-3080.
8pm. Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals, Orleans, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train. Belleayre Mountain, Highmount. (800) 942-6904 ext. 406. $15-$65.
6pm. Maverick Concerts 2006. Maverick Concert Hall, Woodstock. 338-5254.
Bovane with 100% Used & Six7
Play Fair
8pm. One-acts and shorts by local playwriting talent. Shandaken Theatrical Society Playhouse, Phoenicia. 688-2279.
The Mikado
8pm. The Light Opera Company of Salisbury. Walker Auditorium, Lakeville, CT. (860) 482-6586. $15-$25.
The Rivals
8pm. 20th season of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Boscobel, Garrison. 265-9575. $25-$42.
8pm. One-acts and shorts by local playwriting talent. Shandaken Theatrical Society Playhouse, Phoenicia. 688-2279.
7-11pm. Acoustic, alternative, blues, folk, punk. Chthonic Clash Coffeehouse, Beacon. 831-0359.
Highlights From The Footlights
The Mikado
2nd Annual Berkshires Blues-Fest
WORKSHOPS Wet Plate Collodion
8pm. The Light Opera Company of Salisbury. Walker Auditorium, Lakeville, CT. (860) 482-6586. $15-$25.
FORECAST
8-11pm. Funk, jazz, Latin. Ancram Opera House, Ancram. (518) 329-7393.
6-8pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448.
Groovin’ On Labor Day
8pm. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 528-0100.
8-10:30pm. Center for Performing Arts, Rhinebeck. 876-3080.
Call for times. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
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Working with Wood Hand Tools
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
SUN 3 ART The Art of Haiti
4-6pm. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559.
BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Quartz Crystal Singing Bowl Chakra Balancing Meditation 11am. Guided meditation for clearing and balancing the chakras. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $7.
EVENTS Woodstock-New Paltz Art & Crafts Fair
WORKSHOPS Working with Wood Hand Tools
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
MON 4 EVENTS Woodstock-New Paltz Art & Crafts Fair
Call for times. Over 300 craftspersons and artisans from across America. Ulster County Fairgrounds, New Paltz. 246-3414. $8.00/ seniors $7/children $4.50.
MUSIC Say Goodbye to Summer
Call for times. Sangria party. Benmarl Winery, Marlboro. 236-4265 ext. 100.
Call for times. Over 300 craftspersons and artisans from across America. Ulster County Fairgrounds, New Paltz. 246-3414. $8.00/ seniors $7/children $4.50.
Open Mike & Hootenanny with Seth Ray
Fourth Annual Fine Art Auction
THE OUTDOORS Mohonk Preserve— Peace in Nature 1
2pm. Benefit for the museum. Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, Woodstock. 679-2198 ext. 102.
MUSIC David Arner
Call for time. Piano. Deep Listening’s New Vanguard series. Alternative Books, Kingston. 338-5984.
Tomas Kubinek
8:30pm. The Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
2-4pm. Meet at Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0919.
SPOKEN WORD Poetry Open Mike
7pm. George Wallace, Steve Dalachinsky and Yuko Otomo. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 679-5342. $3.
Call for times. Vaudevillian style. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 644-9040 ext. 107.
33 1/3
2-5pm. Rock. Benmarl Winery, Marlboro. 236-4265 ext. 100.
TUE 5 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Soothing the Body, Settling the Mind, Illuminating Awareness
Menla Mountain Retreat, Phoenicia. (212) 807-0563.
Bari Koral Trio
FORECAST
5:30pm. Cold Spring’s Riverfront Park and Bandstand, Cold Spring. 265-3200.
MUSIC Shanghai Quartet
Teri Roiger & John Menagon
8pm. Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson. 758-7196.
Open Mike
THE OUTDOORS Early Birds
6-9pm. Jazz. Gadaleto’s Seafood Restaurant, New Paltz. 255-1717.
7:30-10pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
Guy Davis
8pm. Club Helsinki, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 528-6308.
John Jorgenson Quintet
8pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $20/$17.50 members.
8am. Bird walk. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
WORKSHOPS Wild Fermentation Workshop
1-3:30pm. Discussion, demonstration, sampling. Benedictine Hospital’s Administration Building’s Auditorium, Kingston. 256-9300.
WED 6
Lizzie West and the White Buffalo 8pm. Stissing House, Pawling. (518) 398-8800. $10.
The Flames of Discontent and Mancini & Martin
EVENTS Wine Tasting
7pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
8pm. Byrdcliffe Theater, Woodstock. 810-0123.
They’re Playing Our Song
8pm. Dinner/cabaret. Red Barn Performing Arts, Hunter. (518) 263-4908. $57.
KIDS Baby Signs Storytime
10am. Allison Boek gives a fun and educational storytime. Barnes & Noble Kingston, Kingston. 336-0590.
Meg Johnson Band
10pm. Grateful Dead covers. Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
SPOKEN WORD Book Signing with Jeff Cohen
5pm. Author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. Upstairs at Joshua’s, Woodstock. 679-5533.
THEATER The Mikado
2pm. The Light Opera Company of Salisbury. Walker Auditorium, Lakeville, CT. (860) 4826586. $15-$25.
Play Fair
4pm. One-acts and shorts by local playwriting talent. Shandaken Theatrical Society Playhouse, Phoenicia. 688-2279.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
6pm. 20th season of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Boscobel, Garrison. 265-9575. $25-$42.
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MUSIC Open Mike with Buzz Turner
8pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $4.
Open Mike
10pm. Featuring Gary Levitt. Oasis Cafe, New Paltz. 255-2400.
SPOKEN WORD Delicious Journey: The Sufi Poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Sidi al-Jamal
10:30am. Community Room of the Kingston Library, Kingston. 334-8404.
THU 7 ART Fall For Art Show & Sale
6-9pm. Benefits Jewish Federation of Ulster County, Family of Woodstock, Area Soup Kitchens, and Angel Food East. Wiltwyck Golf Club, Kingston. 338-8131. $30-$35.
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THE MANHATTAN STRING QUARTET PERFORMS AT STORM KING ART CENTER ON SEPTEMBER
30.
FORECAST
BEETHOVEN VISITS STORM KING “The best composers wrote their best music for the string quartet,” observes John Dexter, violist in the Manhattan String Quartet. On September 30, the quartet will perform at the Storm King Art Center. The program will include three Beethoven quartets: one early, one middle, and one late. In fact, Opus 18, No. 3 is the first quartet Beethoven composed, and Opus 131 one of the latest. “The last things Beethoven wrote in his life were five string quartets, and they’re just miracles,” Dexter remarks. “Most people feel Opus 131 is the best he ever wrote. Also, it was Beethoven’s favorite. It’s seven movements long, played without pause. It looks forward musically in its content, but backward to the Baroque in form.” The middle piece is Opus 59, No. 3, which was dedicated to Count Kirill Grigorievich Rozumovsky, a Ukrainian Cossack who was appointed president of the Russian Academy of Sciences when he turned 18 years old. (He was also a fine amateur cello player.) In this composition, the influence that Russian music had on Beethoven is clear. As for Dexter, he attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, then Juilliard, then received a master's at SUNY Binghamton. It was there that he studied with Dorothy Delay, whose Lenox Quartet was in residence at the school. The early ’70s marked a renaissance of chamber music groups, perhaps influenced by rock music, which was also often played by quartets. A number of groups emerged from the university: the Audubon Quartet, the Concord Quartet, the Chronos Quartet (not to be confused with the Kronos Quartet), and the Manhattan String Quartet. The Manhattan Quartet debuted in San Francisco in 1970. Dexter joined in 1980. Presently, the group is preparing a two-year series of all 16 Beethoven quartets, beginning this fall and continuing until 2008. Performances will take place at St. Bart’s Church in Manhattan, at Sarah Lawrence College, and at the University at Danbury, Connecticut. “String quartets are different from any other ensemble,” Dexter explains. “You have to just keep rehearsing, endlessly. The instruments are so closely and wellmatched—it’s like four singers, really.” When he attends concerts by other quartets, he sits up close to observe the subtle interactions of the players. A harmonious quartet becomes a 16-limbed being with two violins, a viola, a cello—and no mouth. Dexter’s history with the Storm King Art Center, a 500-acre sculpture park in the Hudson Highlands, goes back some time. Years ago, Dexter gave violin lessons to H. Peter Stern, the founder and current chairman of the board. Concert-goers can also explore Storm King’s current exhibition, which features more than 20 sculptures by Mark di Suvero—including the never-before-exhibited Beethoven’s Quartet (2003)—along with photographs of di Suvero works by Richard Bellamy. The Manhattan String Quartet will perform Saturday, September 30, at 3 pm in a tent near the museum building at the Storm King Art Center. Visitors are welcome to bring a picnic. (845) 534-3115; www.stormking.org. —Sparrow
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GUY DAVIS PERFORMS AT CLUB HELSINKI IN GREAT BARRINGTON ON SEPTEMBER
5.
FORECAST
THOSE BERKSHIRE BLUES Chicken thief. Clawhammer banjo. Railroad bull. If you are unfamiliar with any of these terms, you’d best check out Guy Davis at Club Helsinki in Great Barrington, on September 5 and sit yourself down—or better yet, get yourself up—for a schoolin’. You’ll be glad you did. They’re all a part of Skunkmello, the renaissance bluesman’s latest CD of sublime acoustic blues. Skunkmello was an infamous 19th-century chicken thief and raconteur who founded the Lazy Liars and Loafers Club, and the larger-than-life character is drawn by Davis as his ancestor in a long and continuing line of storytellers, keepers of a flame of community and culture. To create the people, places, smells, and tastes of his world, Davis draws from the deep well of African-American yarn-spinning and forges on in the musical mode first conceived by such masters as Blind Willie McTell and Skip James. Davis is funny, too, blending biting humor a la Garrison Keillor and Mark Twain. Somehow, it all appears seamless and potently contemporary, especially on Skunkmello’s “Uncle Tom Is Dead (Milk N’ Cookies Remix).” Originally released on his 2005 CD, Legacy, but banned from radio because of the “N word” and other profanities, the song has been cleaned up to allow airplay. It’s a duet between Davis and his son, Martial, in which the boy is taking the man’s blues to task and ripping them to shreds in favor of rap music: “Hip hop poetry, that’s what’s happenin’ / Blues is the bucket that I use for crappin’ in,” to which Dad replies, “To you it’s all a mystery / Blues is your legacy, you don’t know history.” It’s a valiant stab at strengthening the fruits by embracing the roots. Guy Davis’ career arc—which seems yet to have reached its apex—has taken him through endeavors as an actor, director, writer, composer, and musician, with a dizzyingly impressive array of projects that bear his name. Raised in suburban New York by his actor/activist parents, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, he played the lead in the ’80s film Beat Street, and Dr. Josh Hall on TV soap “One Life to Live.” Music was the predominant calling, however, and Davis finally began to incorporate his budding guitar talents on Broadway in the Langston Hughes/Zora Neale Hurston collaboration Mulebone. He then took his skills to new heights as the ill-fated King of the Delta bluesmen himself in the Off-Broadway hit Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil, for which Davis won the Blues Foundation’s “Keeping the Blues Alive” award. The past decade or so has found Guy Davis concentrating on writing, recording, and performing globally, for which he garners much acclaim. Skunkmello recently won a rare five-star review in DownBeat magazine: “Look no further for the most outstanding blues album of the past few years, one that likely won’t ever wear out its welcome.” And look no further than Club Helsinki for a chance to see and hear the best—make that the only— renaissance bluesman around, before he leaves in a cloud of dust in search of more stories to tell. —Robert Burke Warren
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BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Psychic Readings by Shyla O’Shea
12-6pm. Please call in advance. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $40.
Sufi Zikr: Chanting and Healing 5:45pm. Mount Tremper. 679-7215.
MUSIC David Kraai & The Saddle Tramps 11pm. Blues, country, folk, original, rock, rockabilly, soul, traditional. Snugs Harbor, New Paltz. 255-9800.
SPOKEN WORD Words Out Loud
7pm. Featuring poet Michael Houlihan. Deb Koffman’s Studio, Housatonic, MA. (413) 442-2223.
FRI 8 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Live Natural Foods/Vegan/ Vegetarian Weekend Experience
Call for times. New Age Center and Point of Infinity, Nyack. 353-2590.
CLASSES Healer Training School
Anthill Mob
10pm. Country rock. Michael’s Sports, Fishkill. 896-5766.
Captain Squeeze and the Zydeco Moshers
10pm. New World Home Cooking, Saugerties. 246-0900.
THE OUTDOORS Mohonk Preserve—The Trapps Hamlet Child/Parent Sleepover
4pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
SPOKEN WORD Open Mike Poetry Reading
7pm. Featuring Terrence Chiesa and Ken van Rensselaer. Morning Brew Cafe & Coffeehouse, High Falls. 687-4750.
Woodstock: History and Hearsay
7pm. Celebrate the reprinting of this local classic. Barnes & Noble Kingston, Kingston. 336-0590.
Poetry Reading by Jeffrey McDaniel
7:30pm. The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, Sleepy Hollow. (914) 332-5953. $5/$3 members.
BODY / MIND / SPIRIT A Personal Trainer’s Guide to Wellness
Call for time. Jim King hosts. Live music by Matt Fink. Inspired! Books and Gifts, Kingston.
An Introduction to a Silent Retreat
Call for times. New Age Center and Point of Infinity, Nyack. 353-2590.
Understanding Fitness from a Trainer’s Perspective
1-2:30pm. Fitness from a holistic perspective: physical, mental, spiritual. Inspired Books and Gifts, Kingston. 331-0644.
CLASSES SAT Preparation
9:30am-12pm. 8 Saturday sessions. Business Resource Center, Kingston. 339-2025. $190.
DANCE Contradance
8pm. Peter Blue calling, music by George Wilson and Susie Deane. Woodstock Community Center, Woodstock. 246-2121. $8/$7 members/$4 children.
Freestyle Frolic THEATER Grease
8:30pm. Smoke, drug, alcohol, and shoe-free environment to a wide range of music. Center for Symbolic Studies, Tillson. 658-8319. $7/$3 teens and seniors.
6-8pm. 4 sessions to create a family heirloom. Business Resource Center, Kingston. 339-2025. $79.
The Good German
EVENTS 4th Annual Evergreen Renewable Energy & Music Festival
DANCE Cajun Dance
One Short Shy of a Minyan
Call for times. 33 healing techniques from shamanic, holistic and esoteric traditions. One Light One Touch, Rhinebeck. 876-0239.
Crocheted Baby Blanket
8-11pm. Jesse Lege & Bayou Brew. Beginner lesson 7:00pm. White Eagle Hall, Kingston. (914) 388-7048. $10.
Call for times. Center for Performing Arts, Rhinebeck. 876-3080. $22/$20 students and seniors.
Call for times. Shadowland Theater, Ellenville. 647-5511.
8pm. 10-minute plays from Actors & Writers. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $15/$11 members.
Tooth of Crime
Call for times. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 5865310. $15 both days/$10 one day.
Hudson Valley Wine & Food Fest Grand Reserve Tasting
6-9pm. Reserve vintages, Hors d’eourves, silent & live auction. Greig Farm, Red Hook. 658-7181. $50.
FILM Heading South
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
8pm. Presented by Star Mountainville Group. Marbletown Arts, Stone Ridge. 679-4561.
ASK Theater Cabaret
9pm. Play reading. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
WORKSHOPS Introduction to Zen Training Retreat Call for times. Zen Mountain Monastery, Mount Tremper. 688-2228.
6:30pm. Emerging Opportunities for GrassBased Production in the Hudson Valley. Glynwood Center, Cold Spring. 265-3338. $75.
SAT 9 ART Current Works
4-6pm. Berkshire Photography group exhibition. Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, Pittsfield, MA. (413) 499-9348.
MUSIC Peter Rowan & Tony Rice Quartet
Nexxxt- In The Waiting Room
Shannon Early
Perfectible Worlds
Duo Loco: Mark Dziuba & Studio Stu
Relationships: A 10 Year Bond
Call for time. Bearsville Theater, Beasrville. 679-4406.
Sat 11am-6pm/Sun 11am-5pm. Exclusive wine-related gifts, cooking demos and musical performances. Greig Farm, Red Hook. 658-7181. $20 with tastings/$10 no tastings.
Crafts on John Street
9am-2pm. Juried crafts marketplace. Kingston. oxbowart@hotmail.com.
Kingston Old Town Stockade Farmers’ Market
9am-2pm. Organic and traditional fruits & vegetables, breads, flowers. Wall Street, Kingston. 331-3418.
Paws in the Park Petwalk Go Grass
KIDS Music Together Sample Class
9:30am. Innovative music and movement program for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Mid-Hudson Music Together, New Paltz. 658-3655.
Hudson Valley Wine & Food Fest
FORECAST
EVENTS 4th Annual Evergreen Renewable Energy & Music Festival
Call for times. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 5865310. $15 both days/$10 one day.
5-7pm. Works by Harald Plochberger. Bau, Beacon. 440-7584.
11am-3pm. Benefits the homeless animals of the Dutchess County SPCA. Bowdoin Park, Poughkeepsie. 431-6713. $25 in donations/ collected pledges.
FILM Heading South
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
KIDS Music Together Sample Class
9:30am. Innovative program for infants, toddlers, preschoolers. Mid-Hudson Music Together, Poughkeepsie. 658-3655.
Learn about Lady Bugs 5:30-8:30pm. Jazz. The New York Cafe, Poughkeepsie. 452-7001.
5-7pm. Works by Sage Sohier. Center for Photography in Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
6:30-9:30pm. Evocative jazz, exotic lounge. Neko Sushi & Sake Bar, Wappingers Falls. www.studiostu.biz.
5-7pm. Selections from CPW permanent print collection. Center for Photograhy in Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
Daniel Pagdon and Denise Jordan Finley
Tseno
8pm. Peekskill Coffeehouse, Peekskill. (914) 739-1287.
5-7pm. Recent photographs. Galerie BMG, Woodstock. 679-0027.
Works Red Molly and Moonshine Creek 8pm. Americana. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595. $15.
5-7pm. Series of photographs glorifying spiritual beauty by Tseno. Galerie BMG, Woodstock. 679-0027.
Sara Grey & Kieron Means
Robert Trondsen
8pm. Old Songs, Inc., Voorheesville. (518) 765-2815. $17/$5 children.
6-8pm. Recent paintings. Mark Gruber Gallery. 255-1241.
The Highwaymen
Susan English & Kathy Feighery
9pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $25/$22.50 members.
6-9pm. New paintings. Van Brunt Gallery, Beacon. 838-2995.
10am. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwall-on-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
MUSIC Studio Stu
1-3pm. Evocative jazz, exotic lounge. Joshua’s Java Lounge & Liquor, Woodstock. 679-5533.
Project Mercury
1-5pm. Acoustic rock & modern folk. Warwick Valley Winery, Warwick. 258-4858. $10.
Celebration of the Flute Family
3pm. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
Big Band Evening and Sunset Picnic
6-8pm. Boscobel Restoration, Garrison-onHudson. 265-3638 ext. 115.
Matthew Finck and Jay Anderson
7-9pm. Jazz/blues guitar teams up with bassist. Inspired Books and Gifts, Kingston. 331-0644.
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AUTHOR AND PYSCHONAUT DANIEL PINCHBECK WILL SPEAK AT THE LIMINAL WORLDS CONFERENCE ON SEPTEMBER
23 AT THE COLONY CAFE IN WOODSTOCK.
APOCALYPSE NEVER Daniel Pinchbeck is the son of Joyce Johnson, the Beat memoirist, and Peter Pinchbeck,
that’s a really bad place to be. And I felt it in myself. I had to deprogram myself from it.
an abstract painter. He grew up in New York City, dropped out of Wesleyan University, S: Particularly, if you’re a literary person, you want to see all the editors that
media, Pinchbeck experienced an existential crisis, which led him to drink ayahuasca,
rejected you—
a visionary drug, with the Secoya tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon. His book Breaking
DP: Burned at the stake? [Laughs.] Yeah, we have to get over that desire for gleeful
Open the Head recounts his experiences with the world of shamanism. Since then, he has
vengeance.
FORECAST
then wrote for Esquire, the Village Voice, and Rolling Stone. After years of work in the
studied the prophecies of the Mayan calendar. Pinchbeck’s new book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, draws on the work of José Argüelles to suggest a “meltdown of the current
S: I’m slowly reading Dante’s Inferno, in Italian, and there are despots resembling
civilizational paradigm” in 2008, and “a new harmonic planetary culture” by 2010.
Dick Cheney who are forced to stand in a river of blood for eternity, and I just
When he first heard these ideas, Pinchbeck said, “José, what the hell are you talking
feel: “Good! They deserve it!”
about? The world is going to shit! People are killing each other!” Argüelles answered:
DP: I’m really interested in the idea of reincarnation. And I remember watching one
“Look, I’m a visionary, and my job is to envision the best possible outcome for humanity.”
State of the Union address where Cheney was standing behind Bush, a shadowy figure.
After thinking for a while, Pinchbeck decided: “That’s my job, too!”
And I began to sense that Cheney might be a very old spiritual entity who’s done this
When I spoke to Pinchbeck in mid-August, he was preparing to visit the Burning Man
work on planet after planet. I discuss this in the book in relation to the alien-abduction
festival, an annual neotribal gathering in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. He continues to
stories—that there may be entities who thrive on fear. Fear is an energy emitted by the
live in New York City, which he sees as a “battle zone” of world visions. Pinchbeck recently
human energy-body, and that’s what keeps them going.
launched Evolver, an online magazine (www.evolver.com). He will appear Saturday, September 23, at the Liminal Worlds conference, held from 12 to 6pm at the Colony
S: Right. Because they lack the finer emotions. They can’t listen to a Bach concerto
Cafe, 22 Rock City Road, Woodstock. (845) 679-5342; www.liminalworlds.com.
and be stirred. They can only feel an emotion when someone’s being tortured.
—Sparrow
DP: Yeah. They’re sad.
Sparrow: I found it very odd that when Israel invaded Lebanon, lots of my
S: So, what can we concerned Americans do?
friends were saying: “Is this the beginning of the Apocalypse?” I don’t know if
DP: I’ve been getting that question a bit, and the best thing I can say is: people have
this is coming off the media—
to make a shift from thinking of themselves as ego-based individuals trying to get
Daniel Pinchbeck: People are always asking: “Is it the Apocalypse?”—and it actually
ahead in this structure, and reconceive themselves as sentient aspects of the planetary
is the Apocalypse, and it’s been the Apocalypse for awhile. But the word apocalypse
ecology. And the question, from that perspective, is: “What’s the best project you can
itself does not necessarily connote destruction. The word literally can mean “uncovering”
do, using the skill sets and techniques you’ve developed, to help in the transition?” For
or “revealing.” So it’s a time when everything that has been hidden becomes known.
some, that might be organic gardening, or making the step from normal gardening to
If you have lots of beautiful things to uncover, it’s a great time for you. If you’re full of
permaculture. Relocalization is going to be necessary, and we’ll have to set up systems
hate and misery, then it’s not going to be so good.
for alternative energy—decentralizing the energy grid. And what I’m doing, from my perspective is, through Evolver, trying to encourage collaboration and problemsolving,
S: What troubles me is people praying for the Apocalypse.
maybe exchanges that are nonmonetary, to take people off the monetary grid a little
DP: Yes, it’s a disaster. My talk at Burning Man in a couple of weeks is called “Cancel the
bit. Some people are going to be better at fighting the battle in the mainstream; some
Apocalypse.” Part of the thesis of my book is that consciousness and intention cocreate
will be better at retreating, and trying to come up with sustainable solutions in their
reality, and manifest real possibilities. So a lot of people in the realm of post-hippie or
local communities. It’s going to require all these different efforts.
Burning Man or New Age have this cathartic desire to see things flame out. And I think
And we may go through a very difficult period, even with the best intentions in mind.
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Jeremy Kittle Trio
8pm. Celtic, jazz, bluegrass. Old Songs, Inc., Voorheesville. (518) 765-2815. $17/$5 children.
Isle of Klezbos
8-10pm. Folk, klezmer, swing. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559.
Virgo Bash 06
8-11pm. AIR Studio Gallery, Kingston. 331-2662.
The Kennedys
9:30am. Emerging Opportunities for GrassBased Production in the Hudson Valley. Glynwood Center, Cold Spring. 265-3338. $35.
Working with Wood Hand Tools
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
SUN 10 ART Small Matters of Great Importance
8:30pm. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595.
2-5pm. Many subjects and genres and no piece larger than 12x12 inches. Hopper House Art Center, Nyack. 358-0774.
Popa Chubby Band
About Cats and Dogs
9pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $22.50/$20 members.
3-6pm. Elisa Pritzker Studio & Gallery, Highland. 691-5506.
Machan
BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Pathwork Spiritual Lecture Reading/ Discussion/Potluck
9pm. Brazilian jazz trio. Aroma Thyme Bistro, Ellenville. 647-3000.
Deuce
9pm. Acoustic, oldies, original, rock, rockabilly. Rondoutbay Cafe & Marina, Kingston. 339-3917.
Strange Lloyd
10:30pm. Blues, funk. Max’s Memphis Barbeque, Red Hook. 758-MAXS.
THE OUTDOORS Mohonk Preserve—Migrating Monarchs, Myths, and More 1-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
SPOKEN WORD Aesthetician from Dr Hauschka Cosmetics
11am-2pm. Answering questions, demos. Beacon Natural Market, Beacon. 838-1288.
FORECAST
Go Grass!
Discussion with Author John Gray
12-2pm. Author of Conversations on Health and Wellness. Bohemian Book Bin, Kingston. 336-6450.
Reading of American Hostage
2pm. Memoir of Micah Garen’s harrowing abduction and survival. Hudson Opera House, Hudson. (518) 828-7042.
Woodstock Poetry Society Meeting 2pm. Featuring poets Craig Hancock and Michael Suib. Woodstock Town Hall, Woodstock. pprod@mindspring.com.
Seminar on Energy 24/7
3pm. Beacon Natural Market, Beacon. 838-1288.
Book Signing with Abigal Thomas
5pm. Author of A Three Dog Life. Upstairs at Joshua’s, Woodstock. 679-5533.
Anthony Kraus: New Art International 20
7pm. Book signing. Barnes & Noble Kingston, Kingston. 336-0590.
Words and Music: Tales From Grimm and Romantic Visions
8pm. Spencertown Academy, Spencertown. (518) 392-3693.
THEATER Tooth of Crime
8pm. Presented by the Star Mountainville Group. Marbletown Arts, Stone Ridge. 679-4561.
10:30am. Phoenicia. 688-2211.
Quartz Crystal Singing Bowl Chakra Balancing Meditation
11am. A guided meditation for clearing and balancing the chakras. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $7.
DANCE Woodstock Hoedown at the Playhouse
6pm. Square dancing for dummies. A fund raiser for the Woodstock Playhouse. Woodstock Playhouse, Woodstock. 679-4101. $65.
EVENTS Hudson Valley Wine & Food Fest
Sat 11am-6pm/Sun 11am-5pm. Exclusive wine-related gifts, cooking demos and musical performances. Greig Farm, Red Hook. 658-7181. $20 with tastings/$10 no tastings.
6th Annual Celebration of Peace
11am. Guest speakers, music, poetry, prayers, 1000 paper cranes, pot luck lunch. The Stone Church, Cragsmoor. 647-6487.
Family Farm Festival
11am-5pm. Food, vendors, animals, kids’ activities. Epworth Center, High Falls. 6878938. $5/children 12 & under free.
Fall Motorcycle Run
12pm. Buffet, live music and 1/2 of proceeds benefit DCASPCA. Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686. $15/$20 couple.
First Annual Playhouse Iron Chef of Woodstock Contest
6:15pm. Woodstock Playhouse, Woodstock. 679-8101. $100.
FILM Heading South
5pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
KIDS Shel Silverstein Party
7pm. Celebrate his poetry. Barnes & Noble Kingston, Kingston. 336-0590.
MUSIC Connie Crothers & Kevin Norton
Call for time. Piano & percussion. Deep Listening’s New Vanguard series. Alternative Books, Kingston. 338-5984.
School House Concert: Handel WORKSHOPS The Essence of Tantric Sexuality
Call for times. Book signing and workshop with authors Mark Michaels and Patricia Johnson. The Dreaming Goddess, Poughkeepsie. 473-2206.
Intro to Photography
Call for times. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
Re-Imaging the Landscape
Call for times. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
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2pm. Spencertown Academy, Spencertown. (518) 392-3693.
Hudson Valley Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts
3pm. Featuring the HVP Families Quintet. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
Andy Lewis & Chris Macchia
6-9pm. Jazz. Gadaleto’s Seafood Restaurant, New Paltz. 255-1717.
Tequila Sunrise
7pm. Eagles tribute band. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595. $25.
Peter Tork and James Lee Stanley
8pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $20/$17.50 members.
Songwriter’s Series
8pm. Featuring Jodi Shaw. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 679-8639. $5.
THE OUTDOORS Walking and Wheeling: Hiking and Biking in the Catskills Call for times. Frost Valley YMCA, Claryville. 985-2291 ext. 205.
Mohonk Preserve Singles Hike— Walkabout 7
9:30am-4pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
Millbrook Mountain Hike
10am. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
SPOKEN WORD Poetry Readings
4:30pm. The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, Sleepy Hollow. (914) 332-5953. $5/$3 members.
WORKSHOPS Working with Wood Hand Tools
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
The Artist’s Way
11am-1pm. With open mike. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
Felted Bags
11am-4pm. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559.
MON 11 6-8pm. 4 Monday sessions. Business Resource Center, Kingston. 339-2025. $79.
6:30-8:30pm. Writing Poetry, Short Story, Novel, Memoir, or Creative Non-Fiction. Woodstock. 679-8256. $15/$75 series.
WED 13 CLASSES Modern Dance Classes
5:30-7pm. Weds. through Dec. 6 with the Hudson Valley Modern Dance Cooperative. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $140/$120 members.
A Course In Miracles
7:30-9:30pm. Study group with Alice Broner. Unitarian Fellowship, Poughkeepsie. 229-8391.
MUSIC Baba’s Dance
8pm. Live drumming & dancing with Randy Ciarlante & friends. Omega Institutue, Rhinebeck. 266-4444. $10.
Open Mike
10pm. Featuring Gary Levitt. Oasis Cafe, New Paltz. 255-2400.
THE OUTDOORS Hikes for Tykes
10am. Explore at a toddlers pace (up to age 6). Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
SPOKEN WORD Delicious Journey: The Sufi Poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Sidi al-Jamal 10:30am. Community Room of the Kingston Library, Kingston. 334-8404.
Humanist Book Group
7pm. Discussing Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Barnes & Noble, Kingston. 336-0590.
The Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Writers’ Meetup Group
7pm. Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Poughkeepsie. http://writers.meetup.com/467/.
6:30-8:30pm. 5 Monday classes to cover basic phrases. Business Resource Center, Kingston. 339-2025. $89.
KIDS Music Together Sample Class
9:30am. Innovative program for infants, toddlers, preschoolers. Mid-Hudson Music Together, Stone Ridge. 658-3655.
MUSIC Open Mike & Hootenanny with Seth Ray 8:30pm. The Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
SPOKEN WORD Poetry Open Mike
7pm. Featuring Frank Boyer and Carey Harrison. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 679-5342. $3.
WORKSHOPS Prophecy and Soul’s Purpose with Barbara Threecrow
7-9pm. Learn about the soul’s original purpose. Mirabai Books, Woodstock. 679-2100. $15/$20.
TUE 12 CLASSES Tae Bo
6-7pm. 10 sessions of boxing/martial arts/ dancing aerobics. Ulster County Community College, Stone Ridge. 339-2025. $119.
MUSIC Lou Reed
8:15pm. Alternative rock/punk godfather makes rare Hudson Valley visit. The Bardavon, Poughkeepsie. 339-6088.
THE OUTDOORS Early Birds
8am. Bird walk. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
7-8:30pm. Mushroom identification, toxicity, and role in nature. Rosendale Library, Rosendale. 658-9013.
WORKSHOPS Strengthen the Self from the Inside Out 7-8:30pm. Peace Village Learning & Retreat Center, Haines Falls. (518) 589-5000.
FRI 15 ART Bronx Zoo Photo Series by Dr. Bernie Kessler
6-8pm. Belle Levine Gallery, Mahopac. 628-3664.
6-8pm. Belle Levine Gallery, Mahopac. 628-3664.
29th Annual Art Show
7-9pm. Starr Library, Rhinebeck. 876-2127.
EVENTS 17th Annual International Wine Showcase and Auction
Call for times. Benefits the Greystone Programs, Inc. Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park. 452-5772 ext. 350.
Women’s Sacred Moonlodge
7pm. Celebrate moon-time bleeding with ritual, song, and dance. Wise Woman Center, Woodstock. www.herbshealing.com.
An Evening of Songs, Sounds & Stories
8pm. Jim Metzner with sounds, folk music, and stories leavened with a wry sense of humor. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559.
FILM Heading South
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
MUSIC PJ the DJ
5-8pm. Alternative, blues, funk, hip hop, pop, r&b, reggae, rock, soul. The New York Cafe, Poughkeepsie. 452-7001.
Duo Loco: Mark Dziuba & Studio Stu Wing’d Word
8:30pm. Featuring local poets and performers. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
WORKSHOPS 5th Annual Conference for the Entrepreneurial Woman
8:30am-1:30pm. Sponsored by the Hudson Valley Women Business Owners Association. Deyo Hall, New Paltz. 255-6052. $65/$55 members.
THU 14 ART Occupation
6:30pm. Marine’s eye view of Iraq War in photographs by Major Benjamin Busch. James W. Palmer Gallery, Poughkeepsie. 437-5370.
BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Psychic Readings by Shyla O’Shea
12-6pm. Please call in advance. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $40.
11am-6pm. Focuses on the remnants of anxiety and plays with pathological fears. Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill. (914) 788-7166.
2-9pm. Landscapes by artist Roberta Griffin. Gallery 384, Catskill. (518) 947-6732.
New Works Exhibit
5-8pm. Roman Hrab, Grace Knowlton, and Jamie Hamilton. Pearl Gallery, Stone Ridge. 687-0888.
Nocturnes
Jonathan Edwards and Kenny White 8:30pm. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595. $25.
PeachJam
10pm. Swinging blues and shuffles. New World Home Cooking, Saugerties. 246-0900.
THE OUTDOORS Family Outdoor Sporting Weekend
Call for times. Hudson Opera House, Hudson. (518) 828-7042.
THEATER Tooth of Crime
8pm. Presented by the Star Mountainville Group. Marbletown Arts, Stone Ridge. 679-4561.
WORKSHOPS Introduction to the Buddhist Precepts
Call for times. Zen Mountain Monastery, Mount Tremper. 688-2228.
8pm. Acoustic guitar. Rosendale Cafe, Rosendale. 658-9048. $10.
Ernesto Tamayo
8pm. Classical guitar. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $15/ $11 members.
DANCE Learn to Dance in a Day: The Foxtrot
Hootenanny
10:30am-12:30pm. Reformed Church of the Comforter, Kingston. 338-6126. $30/$35.
8-10:30pm. Benefit Concert for glaucoma and S.A.G.E. Woodstock Playhouse, Woodstock. 679-4101.
8:30pm. Featuring Kelleigh McKenzie. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
David Wilcox
EVENTS Community Walk to End Domestic Violence
9pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $25/$22.50 members.
Registration 11am/walk 12pm. Benefit for Battered Women’s Services and create awareness about domestic violence. Family Partnership Center, Poughkeepsie. 452-1110 ext. 3299.
Trio Loco; Mark Dziuba, Studio Stu, Dean Sharp 9pm. Exotic, evocative jazz. Aroma Thyme Bistro, Ellenville. 647-3000.
John Schrader Band
Gifford Gala
9:30pm. Original, pop, rock. Backstage Studio Productions, Kingston. 338-8700.
Call for times. With music by Maude Maggart. Hudson Opera House, Hudson. (518) 822-1438. $150.
Head Soup
10pm. Alternative funk. Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
Rockland County Day
Call for times. Boscobel Restoration, Garrison-on-Hudson. 265-3638 ext. 115.
THE OUTDOORS Trapps to Gertrudes Nose Hike
Kingston Old Town Stockade Farmers’ Market
8am. Easy 9.75 miles. Meet at Dunkin Donuts, Poughkeepsie. 876-4534.
A Walk Back in Time Adult Hike
RVGA’s Annual Harvest Dinner & Barn Dance
8pm. Rosendale Cafe, Rosendale. 658-9048. $18.
David Grier
Buzzy Linhart and the Big Few
Pat Wictor and Joe Jencks
Steve Forbert
8pm. Benefit for SAGE. Woodstock Playhouse, Woodstock. 679-4101. $25.
5-8pm. Paintings by Robert Hacunda. Albert Shahinian Fine Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie. 454-2263.
11am. Casting & fly tying demonstrations, raffles, prizes. Hudson Valley Angler & Outdoor Apparel, Red Hook. 758-9203.
8pm. Acoustic, blues, folk. Peekskill Coffeehouse, Peekskill. (914) 739-1287.
Buzzy Linhart Band with David Maxwell
After Kubrick: A Landscape Essay
8pm. Rhythms of nature, culture and science. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $15/$11 members.
SPOKEN WORD Hudson Poetry Circle
7-10pm. Work by Elly Winninger, Elise Pittelman and other local singer-songwriters. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
6pm. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 528-0100.
Paranoid Survive
Dealers Day
Eating In The Light For Wellness and Weight-Loss
Songwriter’s Circle
Ann Hampton Callaway & Duke Ellington Orchestra
Works by over 111 artists. Sites throughout Peekskill. (914) 788-7166.
Jim Metzner
5:45pm. Mount Tremper. 679-7215.
6-9pm. Acoustic, rock. Gadaleto’s Seafood Restaurant, New Paltz. 255-1717.
ART Peekskill Project 2006
9am-2pm. Organic and traditional fruits & vegetables, breads, flowers. Wall Street, Kingston. 331-3418.
Call for times. Frost Valley, Claryville. 985-2291 ext. 205.
MUSIC Mike Chipak & Dave Ellison
2pm. Reggae legends play family-friendly outdoor extravagnza. Waryas Park, Poughkeepsie. www.bardavon.com. Free.
SAT 16
6:30-9:30pm. Evocative jazz, exotic lounge. Neko Sushi & Sake Bar, Wappingers Falls. www.studiostu.biz.
Sufi Zikr: Chanting and Healing
7pm. Geared to raise your vibrational rate, and promote balance, energy, and weight-loss. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $7-$10.
The Wailers at the Hudson River Arts Festival
7pm. Feautring Donald Lev. Bohemian Bookbin, Kingston. 331-6713. $2.
The Environmental Show
Scent of the Earth—Mushroom 101 CLASSES Traveler’s French
SPOKEN WORD Poetry Readings
10am. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwall-on-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
Mohonk Preserve Singles Hike— Millbrook Mountain 10am-4pm. Meet at the West Trapps Trailhead, New Paltz. 255-0919.
5pm. A benefit for Rondout Valley Growers Association, Inc. Kelder’s Farm, Kerhonkson. 626-7919. $50/$40 RVGA members/$25 for students/children free.
FILM Bridesmaid
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
KIDS Mad Science: Fire and Ice
SPOKEN WORD Treasures of the Bevier House
9:30am. Selections from the Collections of the Ulster County Historical Society. Bevier House Museum, Marbletown. 338-5614.
Woodstock Photography Lecture Series
8pm. Featuring photographer Andrea Modica. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-6337. $7/5.
Hotflash and the Whoremoans
10:30am. Kingston Library, Kingston. 331-0507.
8:30pm. Variety, comedy. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595.
Fun with Energy
THEATER Tooth of Crime
11am. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $10/$7 members.
8pm. Presented by the Star Mountainville Group. Marbletown Arts, Stone Ridge. 679-4561.
MUSIC A Day In The Terraces
10am-4pm. African, blues, classical, contemporary, jazz, vocals. Colonial Terraces, Newburgh. www.ctna.info/festival.htm.
Bernstein Bard Trio
1pm. Antiques Barn at the Water Street Market, New Paltz. 255-1403.
Studio Stu
FORECAST
BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Reiki 1 Certification
WORKSHOPS Woodstock Writers Workshop
WORKSHOPS Environmental Portrait
Call for times. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
Working with Wood Hand Tools
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
1-3pm. Evocative jazz, exotic lounge. Joshua’s Java Lounge & Liquor, Woodstock. 679-5533.
Herbs for Women
10am-5pm. Learn herbs that can help a woman’s body. Wise Woman Center, Woodstock. 246-8081. $75 includes lunch.
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SUN 17 ART 2006 NorthEast Watercolor Society Members Show 1-4:15pm. Orange Hall Gallery, Middletown. 341-4891.
BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Quartz Crystal Singing Bowl Chakra Balancing Meditation 11am. Guided meditation for clearing and balancing the chakras,. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $7.
DANCE Swing Dance Jam
6:30-9pm. Lesson at 6pm. White Eagle Hall, Kingston. 339-3032. $5.
EVENTS Terry Blaine and Friends
Call for times. Benefit for the Hudson Valley Hospice. Saugerties United Methodist Church, Saugerties. 473-2273 ext. 1109.
32nd Annual Alison Klepper Ride and Walk-A-Thon
8am. Benefit for Winslow Therapeutic Center. Warwick County Park, Warwick. 986-6686.
Wise Woman Work/Learn Day
10am. Two-hour herbal class in exchange for work. Wise Woman Center, Woodstock. 246-8081.
Celtic Day in the Park
11am-5pm. Staatsburg State Historic Site, Staatsburg. 889-8851. $10/children $2.
Taste of New Paltz
11am-5pm. 16th annual festival of food & fun. Ulster County Fairgrounds, New Paltz. 255-0243.
Mohonk Preserve Singles Hike— Rainbow Falls
10am-3pm. Meet at Minnewaska State Park Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
WORKSHOPS Working with Wood Hand Tools
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
MUSIC Michael Bisio Quartet
Call for times. Deep Listening’s New Vanguard series. Alternative Books, Kingston. 338-5984.
11am-1pm. With open mike. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
Your Soul’s Purpose: An Astrology Workshop
Healing Relationships with A Course in Miracles
2pm. Old Songs, Inc., Voorheesville. (518) 765-2815. $25.
7-9pm. How your birth chart reflects your soul’s purpose. Mirabai Books, Woodstock. 679-2100. $15/$20.
MON 18 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Holistic Eye Care
7:30-9:30pm. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559.
CLASSES Learn to Meditate
7:30pm. Woodstock Community Center, Woodstock. 797-1218.
Call for times. 2 six-week sessions for various ages. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559.
7:30-10pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
Open Mike & Hootenanny with Seth Ray
8:30pm. Featuring Cathy Young. The Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
SPOKEN WORD Poetry Open Mike
7pm. Featuring Dan Solomon and Roberta Gould. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 679-5342. $3.
Cultural Encounters in the New Netherlands
7:30pm. Lecture by Professor Scott Manning Stevens. Hurley Reformed Church, Hurley. 331-0593.
THEATER Bunker Mentality
WORKSHOPS Yes You Can Cure Fibromyalgia
7-8:30pm. LaGrange Library, LaGrange. 485-1770.
Swing Street Orchestra
Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society 4pm. Pre-concert talk at 3:30pm. Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck. 876-2870. $25/$5 students/children free.
Nancy Donnelly
6-9pm. Jazz, vocals. Gadaleto’s Seafood Restaurant, New Paltz. 255-1717.
THE OUTDOORS Around the World: Fly Fishing
Call for times. Frost Valley YMCA, Claryville. 985-2291 ext. 205.
Beacon Hill Hike
10am. Deep time geology, scenic 2-mile hike. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
Hudson River Valley Ramble: Bonticou to Table Rocks Hike
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
WED 20 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT New Moon Shamanic Drumming and Healing Circle 7-9pm. Mirabai Books, Woodstock. 679-2100. $25.
EVENTS Singles Wine-Tasting Mixer
KIDS DATA: Discovering Animals Together Activities
9:30am-10:30am/11am-12pm. Wednesdays. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwallon-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
MUSIC Open Mike
Alpha Centauri
3pm. Swing. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
7-9pm. Bring fresh light to your dealings with others. Mirabai Books, Woodstock. 679-2100. $15/$20.
8pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
KIDS Clay Shop
Unplugged Open Acoustic Mike
3pm. Classical. Wesley Hall, Montgomery. 457-9867.
Kabbalistic Learning
7pm. Kabbalistic interpretation of the Hebrew alphabet and how to apply them. Letters from Heaven Center, Saugerties. 246-1557. $15/ $20.
7pm. One-act tragicomedy written & performed by Bob Balogh. Berkshire S. Regional Comm. Center, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 442-2223.
Call for times. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $6/$5 members.
5:45-8pm. 6 sessions presented by the Poughkeepsie Area Chamber of Commerce. Poughkeepsie Galleria Conference Room, Poughkeepsie. 454-1700 ext. 1000.
Blues Guitar Master Class
Tibet House Benefit
Call for times. Benefit for the Tibet House Menla Mountain Retreat. Bearsville Theater, Beasrville. 679-4406.
Business Seminar
TUE 19 KIDS After School Program for K–2nd Grade Students
3:45-5pm. Pathfinders: Incredible Insects. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwallon-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
After School Program for 3rd-5th Grade Students
3:45-5pm. Explorers: Carnivore Craze. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwallon-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
FORECAST
FILM Bridesmaid
11am-12:30pm. LaGrange Library, LaGrange. 485-1770.
The Artist’s Way
Hudson Ferry-Go-Round
11am-6pm. Ride the ferry and participate in exciting rivertown events. Haverstraw ferry pier, Haverstraw. 352-3650. $10/seniors $5/children with adult free.
WORKSHOPS Yes You Can Cure Fibromyalgia
MUSIC David Darling and Ty Burhoe
8pm. Jazz fusion duet. The Omega Institute, Rhinebeck. 266-4444. $10.
Open Mike with Buzz Turner
8pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $4.
Open Mike
10pm. Featuring Gary Levitt. Oasis Cafe, New Paltz. 255-2400.
SPOKEN WORD Delicious Journey: The Sufi Poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Sidi al-Jamal 10:30am. Community Room of the Kingston Library, Kingston. 334-8404.
Social Welfare and Culture in Denmark Travelogue
7pm. Columbia-Greene Community College, Hudson. (518) 822-2027.
THU 21 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Psychic Readings by Shyla O’Shea 12-6pm. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $40.
Sufi Zikr: Chanting and Healing 5:45pm. Mount Tremper. 679-7215.
THE OUTDOORS Early Birds
8am. Bird walk. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
Nature Strollers & Hiking Group for Families 9:15am. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwall-on-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
SPOKEN WORD Lou Jones at Camera Club Meeting 7:30pm. Talks about his new book, “travel + PHOTOGRAPHY: Off the Charts.” Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA. (413) 298-5440.
EVENTS Wine Tasting: The Wines of Australia
7pm. Includes dinner. Monteverde at Oldstone Manor, Cortlandt Manor. (914) 739-5000 ext. 1. $85.
KIDS Story Laurie & Ira McIntosh
6:30pm. Stories and music. Andes Library, Andes. 676-3333.
MUSIC David Kraai
6pm. Acoustic, country, folk, original, solo, traditional, vocals. High Falls Cafe, High Falls. 687-2699.
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Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
8pm. With a soulful, bluesy voice that draws frequent comparisons to Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin, Grace Potter and her band, The Nocturnals, are on the cusp of wider exposure. Authentic and original, the quartet’s rootsy sound has won it fans not just in its native Vermont, but also in cities all over the country. Bearsville Theater. 679-4406.
WORKSHOPS Euro Dance
1:30-2:30pm. Thursdays. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $8/$5 members per session.
FRI 22 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Earth Healing and Deep Earth Meditation
7pm. Connect with Mother Earth for the new moon on the Fall Equinox. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $5-$7.
DANCE Featuring Alan Thomson’s Little Big Band
8:30-11:30pm. Lesson at 7:30pm. Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie. 473-6955. $10.
EVENTS 10th Gifts of the Earth Weekend
Call for times. Workshops and activities all weekend. Ashokan Field Campus, Olivebridge. 657-8333. $58-$153.
Candlelight Tours of Historic Huguenot Street
FORECAST
Thunder Ridge
Kingston Old Town Stockade Farmers’ Market
THE OUTDOORS 7th Annual Hudson Valley River Ramble-Family Hike
Call for times. Ancient Celtic Fire Festival. Basilica Industria, Hudson. (518) 851-9670.
9am-2pm. Organic and traditional fruits & vegetables, breads, flowers. Wall Street, Kingston. 331-3418.
Hudson Valley Garlic Festival
10am-5pm. Food, music, dance, and the chance to taste the many exotic garlics. Cantine Field, Saugerties. www.hvgf.org. $7/$5 in advance/children free.
Liminal Worlds
12-6pm. Discussions & performances related to prophecies and future possibilites. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. www.liminalworlds.com. $10.
Universal Autumnal Equinox Celebration
1-2:30pm. Ritual celebration of the beginning of fall/end of summer. Inspired Books and Gifts, Kingston. 331-0644. $10.
Family Tours
3pm. Build relationships with art and creating a connection to the sculptures. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
Beginning of Ramadan
7pm. Mount Tremper. 679-7215.
FILM Following Sean
7pm. Huguenot Street, New Paltz. 255-1660. $10.
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7.50.
FILM Bridesmaid
KIDS PlaySing&See! Open House
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
MUSIC Shannon Early
5:30-8:30pm. Jazz. The New York Cafe, Poughkeepsie. 452-7001.
Big Kahuna
6-10pm. Dance, pop, rock. The Pavilion on The Hudson, Poughkeepsie. 471-2233.
GE Smith and Taylor Barton
8:30pm. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595. $20.
Crawdaddy
10am-12pm. Classes for pre-walkers through age 6. Hopper House Art Center, Nyack. 353-2268.
MUSIC Uptown Trio
1pm. Antiques Barn at the Water Street Market, New Paltz. 255-1403.
Music and Meditation with Premik Tubbs 5pm. Woodstock Community Center, Woodstock. 797-1218.
Songs From the Sidewalk
10pm. Cajun, blues, vintage rock and roll. New World Home Cooking, Saugerties. 246-0900.
6pm. Benefit dinner and concert with Sandy & Caroline Paton. Old Songs, Inc., Voorheesville. (518) 765-2815. $25/$15 children.
Allison Scola
Joel Newton
10pm. Original, pop. Peekskill Coffee House, Peekskill. (914) 739-1287.
THE OUTDOORS Babes in the Woods Hike
10am. Hike for grown-ups with babes in arms using a backpack or all terrain stroller. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
SAT 23 ART Far From Home: Interpretations of Natural Beauty
5:30-8pm. Works by Latin-American painter, Ximena Hormaza D featuring landscape abstractions. M Gallery, Catskill. (518) 943-0380.
Food! A Feast for the Eyes
6-9pm. Artworks in all media on the subject of food. Tivoli Artist Co-op, Tivoli. 757-2667.
Parallel Passages: Lynn Davis at the Sites of Frederic Church
7-7pm. Nicole Fiacco Gallery, Hudson. (518) 828-5090.
BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Universal Autumnal Equinox Celebration
Call for time. Marilyn Manos-Jones leads. Live music by Bill Cochran and Todd Elliot,. Inspired! Books and Gifts, Kingston. www.inspiredkingston.com.
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EVENTS RiverFire
7-9pm. Modern jazz, to funk, experimental with a touch of merriment. Inspired Books and Gifts, Kingston. 331-0644.
9-11pm. Country, rock. Hickory BBQ Smokehouse, Kingston. 338-2424.
10am. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwall-on-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
Mohonk Preserve Singles Hike— Ashoken Highpoint 10am-3pm. Meet at Knape Trailhead, New Paltz. 255-0919.
Interpretive Hike and Sunset Reading
5pm. Bonfire, refreshments and resident authors read their works. Poet’s Walk Park, Red Hook. 473-4440 ext. 210.
Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart
8pm. Rosendale Cafe, Rosendale. 658-9048. $12.
Terry Champlin and Friends
8pm. Bluegrass, classical, folk. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie. 437-7000.
Tony Curto
8-10pm. Strong vocals with acoustic guitar and harmonica. 410 Main Espresso Cafe, Rosendale. 658-3659.
Liminal Worlds
8:30pm. Performances by Tom Pacheco and Leslie Helpert. Bearsville Theater, Bearsville. www.liminalworlds.com. $15.
Bill Perry Blues Band
9pm. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 4694595. $12.
Roomful of Blues
9pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $35/$32.50 members.
Garland Nelson Soul Session
9pm. Motown funk. Aroma Thyme Bistro, Ellenville. 647-3000.
FORECAST CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
6-9pm. Jazz. Gadaleto’s Seafood Restaurant, New Paltz. 255-1717.
Sunday Night Jazz
6:30-9:30pm. Red Onion Restaurant and Bar, Saugerties. 679-1223.
THE OUTDOORS Catskills By Foot Featuring Photography
Call for times. Frost Valley YMCA, Claryville. 985-2291 ext. 205.
Mohonk Preserve Singles Hike— Mine Hole
7th Annual Hudson River Valley Ramble
10am-3pm. Hike out to the Castle Point Loop. Minnewaska State Park Wildmere Area, New Paltz. 255-2011.
Working with Wood Hand Tools
SPOKEN WORD Reading by Performance Poet Edwin Torres
Call for times. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
Drawing and Painting From Nature
2-4pm. Guided observations, color studies and watercolor painting. Sunbridge College, Chestnut Ridge. 425-0055 ext. 24. $35.
Healing Crystals for Well Being
2-4pm. Learn how to select, cleanse and work with crystals. Mirabai Books, Woodstock. 679-2100. $15/$20.
SUN 24 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Sparking Your Creativity series
Call for time. Lisa DeRensis hosts. Inspired! Books and Gifts, Kingston. www.inspiredkingston.com.
Pathwork Spiritual Lecture Reading/ Discussion/Potluck 10:30am. Phoenicia. 688-2211.
Quartz Crystal Singing Bowl Chakra Balancing Meditation 11am. Guided meditation for clearing and balancing the chakras. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $7.
Aromatherapy
2-4pm. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $10/$8 members.
4:30pm. The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, Sleepy Hollow. (914) 332-5953. $5/$3 members.
10am-3pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
11am-1pm. With open mike. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
MON 25 CLASSES Learn to Meditate
7:30pm. Woodstock Community Center, Woodstock. 797-1218.
MUSIC Open Mike
7:30-10pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
Open Mike & Hootenanny with Seth Ray
8:30pm. Featuring Split the Bill. The Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
SPOKEN WORD Poetry Open Mike
Hudson Valley Garlic Festival
THEATER Bunker Mentality
Olde Hurley Guided Walking Tours 2pm. Hurley Heritage Society Museum, Hurley. 331-0593. $3.
FILM Following Sean
5pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7.50.
MUSIC Aaron Johnson/Salim Washington Quartet
Call for time. Deep Listening’s New Vanguard series. Alternative Books, Kingston. 338-5984.
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
Call for time. Bearsville Theater, Beasrville. 679-4406.
7pm. One-act tragicomedy written & performed by Bob Balogh. Berkshire S. Regional Comm. Center, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 442-2223.
TUE 26 CLASSES Tai Chi Chuan Beginners and Intermediate
6-7:30pm. 8-session class. Poughkeepsie High School, Poughkeepsie. 452-7067.
EVENTS Women’s Networking Dinner
6pm. Share ideas and resources at the 1st women’s networking dinner. Sabroso’s Restaurant, Rhinebeck. 876-2194. $35.
THE OUTDOORS Early Birds
8am. Bird walk. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
Bennett Harris Acoustic Trio
2-5pm. Acoustic, blues. Benmarl Winery, Marlboro. 236-4265.
Traditional Irish and Celtic Music
3pm. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
Wing’d Word
8:30pm. Featuring local poets and performers. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
THU 28 BODY / MIND / SPIRIT Queen of Myself
Time TBD. A Mama Donna workshop on entering sovereignty in mid-life. I nspired! Books and Gifts, Kingston. www.inspiredkingston.com.
Psychic Readings by Shyla O’Shea
12-6pm. Please call in advance. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $40.
Sufi Zikr: Chanting and Healing
Opening To The Angelic Realm
7pm. A guided instruction and journey to invite the angels into your life. The Auracle, New Paltz. 255-6046. $7.
The Artist’s Way
7pm. Featuring Fonda Feingold and Marnie Andrews. Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 679-5342. $3.
10am-5pm. Food, music, dance, and the chance to taste the many exotic garlics. Cantine Field, Saugerties. www.hvgf.org. $7/$5 in advance/children free.
10:30am. Community Room of the Kingston Library, Kingston. 334-8404.
5:45pm. Mount Tremper. 679-7215.
WORKSHOPS Working with Wood Hand Tools
EVENTS Bike for Cancer Cure
Call for times. 3 different levels- 5, 25, and 50 mile rides. Kingston. 417-1865.
WED 27 SPOKEN WORD Delicious Journey: The Sufi Poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Sidi al-Jamal
9:30am-3:30pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
WORKSHOPS Encaustic & Photography
Gigantic
8pm. Pop, punk. The Colony Cafe, Woodstock. 679-5342. $5.
Steve Ralaigh & Chris Macchia
WORKSHOPS Woodstock Writers Workshop
6:30-8:30pm. Writing Poetry, Short Story, Novel, Memoir, or Creative Non-Fiction. Woodstock. 679-8256. $15/$75 series.
SPOKEN WORD Entrepreneurs’ Forum
8-9:30am. Hudson Valley Business Center, Lake Katrine. 943-5660.
Talk by Dr. Rolande Hodel Founder of AIDSFreeAFRICA
7pm. SUNY New Paltz Lecture Center, New Paltz. 800-66-MENSA.
Cultural Encounters in the New Netherlands
7:30pm. Hosted by the Hurley Heritage Society. Hurley Reformed Church, Hurley. 331-0593.
WORKSHOPS Queen of Myself Entering Sovereignty in Midlife
7-9pm. How to discover the queen in yourself. Inspired Books and Gifts, Kingston. 331-0644. $30.
The Prosperity Ritual
7-9pm. Receive a ritual remedy to overcome financial limitations. Mirabai Books, Woodstock. 679-2100. $15/$20.
FRI 29 EVENTS 8th Annual Charity Golf Tournament, Dinner and Dance Party Golf 11am/dinner 7pm. Benefits the Family Of Woodstock’s Family Inn. Woodstock Golf Club, Woodstock. 679-8652.
FILM War Tapes
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
MUSIC PJ the DJ
5-8pm. Alternative, blues, funk, hip hop, pop, r&b, reggae, rock, soul. The New York Cafe, Poughkeepsie. 452-7001.
Duo Loco: Mark Dziuba &Studio Stu
6:30-9:30pm. Evocative jazz, exotic lounge. Neko Sushi & Sake Bar, Wappingers Falls. www.studiostu.biz.
Xoch
9pm. Pop, rock. The Chance, Poughkeepsie. 471-1966.
DA411
10pm. Hip hop, funk. New World Home Cooking, Saugerties. 246-0900.
Setting Sun, Fink & Quitzow
10:30pm. Indie-pop, rock, experimental. Oasis Cafe, New Paltz. 255-2400.
Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra
8pm. Classical, solo, symphonic. Newburgh Free Academy, Newburgh. 625-0625.
Larry Chance & The Earls and Hotflash
THEATER Home
8pm. Mohonk Mountain Stage Readers Theater. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $15/$11 members.
Two Comedies: Helena’s Husband and Sisters of Susannah 8pm. Presented by The Present Company. Sunnyside Theater, New Paltz. 255-9081.
8pm. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595. $25.
Barely Lace and Rusty Boris Ensemble
8:30pm. Mezzanine Bookstore, Café & Wine Bar, Kingston. 339-6925.
WORKSHOPS Digital Color Management
Call for times. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
The Documentary Project
Call for times. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-9957.
Writing Workshop with Edie Meidav
4:30-5:30pm. Oblong Books and Music, Rhinebeck. 876-0500.
Helen Avakian
9pm. Contemporary folk. Aroma Thyme Bistro, Ellenville. 647-3000.
SUN 1
WORKSHOPS Introduction to Zen Training Retreat
Call for times. Zen Mountain Monastery, Mount Tremper. 688-2228.
StoneHaven
9pm. Alternative, rock. The New York Cafe, Poughkeepsie. 452-7001.
John Schrader Band
SAT 30 ART Less Is More
2-4pm. Contemporary artists. GCCA Mountaintop Gallery, Windham. (518) 9433400.
Fifth Saturday Art Show
4-8pm. Many venues in the town all featuring artists’ works. Town of Rosendale. 658-3713.
EVENTS Kingston Old Town Stockade Farmers’ Market
9am-2pm. Organic and traditional fruits & vegetables, breads, flowers. Wall Street, Kingston. 331-3418.
9:30pm. Original, pop, rock. High Falls Cafe, High Falls. 687-2699.
Reality Check
10pm. Rock covers. Firebird Lounge, Rhinebeck. 876-8686.
Trio Loco: Mark Dziuba, Studio Stu, Dean Sharp 10pm. Evocative jazz, exotic lounge. Joshua’s Java Lounge & Liquor, Woodstock. 679-5533.
THE OUTDOORS Annual Hawk Migration Workshop 9am-1pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
Mohonk Preserve Singles Hike— Gertrude’s Nose
American Heritage Festival
SPOKEN WORD Ledig House Writers Residency Program Reading
10am. 29th annual fest of art, food, & music. Main Street, Cold Spring. 265-3200.
10am-5pm. Revolutionary War re-enactors, storytellers, musicians. Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwall-on-Hudson. 534-5506 ext. 204.
Crafts at Rhinebeck
10am-6pm. 18th annual juried craft fair. Dutchess County Fairgrounds, Rhinebeck. 876-4001.
FILM Following Sean
5:15pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7.50.
War Tapes
7:30pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
KIDS Kid’s Day
10am-4pm. Hayrides, face painting, crafts, apple picking, cider. Prospect Hill Orchards, Milton. 795-5345.
MUSIC I Remember
8pm/9:30pm. Song cycle with music by Michael Cohen and libretto Enid Futterman. Diamond Opera House, Hudson. (518) 8287042. $15.
GaiaWolf
2-3:30pm. Acoustic, alternative, folk, r&b, vocals, world, environmental. Blooming Hill Organic Farm Barn, Blooming Grove. 7827310.
The Manhattan String Quartet
3pm. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
Call for times. Omi International Arts Center, Ghent. (518) 392-4568 ext. 100.
In Praise of Divine Mother: Ritual & Poetry
8:30am-8:30pm. Learn traditional Goddess worship. Part of 9-day goddess holiday. Vivekananda Retreat, Stone Ridge. 687-4574.
1-4pm. Boscobel Restoration, Garrison-on-Hudson. 265-3638 ext. 115.
Family Tours
3pm. Build relationships with art and creating a connection to the sculptures. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville. 534-3115.
FILM Shorty Shorts
Call for times. Film festival of films for kids by kids from around the globe. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA. (413) 644-9040 ext. 107.
War Tapes
5pm. Time and Space Limited, Hudson. (518) 822-8448. $7/$5.
KIDS Kid’s Day
10am-4pm. Hayrides, face painting, crafts, apple picking, cider. Prospect Hill Orchards, Milton. 795-5345.
MUSIC Gaelic Storm
7pm. Celtic. Bodles Opera House, Chester. 469-4595.
Al Stewart with Terrance Martin 8pm. Towne Crier Cafe, Pawling. 855-1300. $30/$27.50 members.
Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life
THE OUTDOORS Five Mountains in Five Days: Hiking the Catskill Peaks
9am-4pm. LGBTQ conference. Holiday Inn, Kingston. 331-5300. $15/$12 members, seniors and students.
11:30am-1:30pm. With Lama Pema Wangdak. Palden Sakya Center, Woodstock. sangye@aol.com.
Reading by International Writers-in-Residence
5pm. Reading followed by a barbeque. Omi International Arts Center, Ghent. (212) 206-5684.
Readings From “Crawl Space” by Edie Meidav
7pm. Oblong Books and Music, Rhinebeck. 876-0500.
Woodstock Photography Lecture Series
8pm. Featuring photographer Antonin Kratochvil. Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock. 679-6337. $7/5.
THEATER The Vagabond Queen
11am. Story of a queen who disguises herself as a vagabond to rescue her king. Diamond Opera Theater, Hudson. (518) 828-7042.
Home
8pm. Mohonk Mountain Stage Readers Theater. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $15/$11 members.
All-Beethoven Chamber Concert
Two Comedies: Helena’s Husband and Sisters of Susannah
7:30pm. Traditional and contemporary chamber music. St. James Catholic Church, Chatham. (518) 325-5204.
Horse and Carriage Day
Come Out and Find Out
The Christine Spero Group
4-8pm. Fusion, jazz, Latin, original, vocals. Jubilee Restaurant, Hudson. (518) 822-8080.
10am-5pm. 18th annual juried craft fair. Dutchess County Fairgrounds, Rhinebeck. 876-4001.
8pm. Presented by The Present Company. Sunnyside Theater, New Paltz. 255-9081.
FORECAST
Cold Spring Harvest Festival
9:30am-3:30pm. Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz. 255-0919.
EVENTS Crafts at Rhinebeck
Call for times. Frost Valley YMCA, Claryville. 985-2291 ext. 205.
Rainbow Falls Hike
10am. Minnewaska State Park, New Paltz. 255-0752.
Michaelmas at Threefold: A Community Festival for All Ages 2:30pm. Puppet show, biodynamic preparations. The Pfeiffer Center, Chestnut Ridge. 352-5020 ext. 20.
THEATER Two Comedies: Helena’s Husband and Sisters of Susannah
4pm. Presented by The Present Company. Sunnyside Theater, New Paltz. 255-9081.
WORKSHOPS Tuning the Brain with Tuning Forks
2-4pm. Learn about brain wave patterns, balancing left and right brain hemispheres and how to use tuning forks. Mirabai Books, Woostock. 679-2100. $15/$20.
Firewalking
6:30pm. Unison Arts and Learning Center, New Paltz. 255-1559. $125/$85 in advance/$75 members.
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Planet Waves EMIL ALZAMORA
BY ERIC FRANCIS COPPOLINO
The Unbearable Tension of Water In the first hours after a stunning Full Moon set off the Saturn-Neptune opposition last month, British intelligence and police said they made arrests in an alleged plot to blow up airliners with liquid explosives. The Sun and Moon swept through the opposition, which occurs every 35 years, precipitating the events and setting a new era of history into motion.
T
he prior week in Planet Waves Weekly, I wrote, “This rare alignment, bringing together many cycles and factors, points to a big drama to which everyone who is alive will be compelled to respond. It seems we cannot do much about it, but we must deal with what we witness or learn.” Actual details remain foggy. The shameless stereotyping of Muslims continues. In the mist, or rather, midst of it all, what the astrology says is: Remember the involvement of Neptune in this event. Neptune often represents situations about which the truth is never found out, and where a smog of deception, confusion, and denial can linger. Yet with Neptune, if one takes a bit of distance from the noise and clatter of the world, it’s also possible to tune into the truth on a subtle but
134 PLANET WAVES CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
unprovable level. When you study the patterns of the outer planets, you see a compelling version of history played out following the themes of the cosmic backdrop. Nobody knows how this works, but using well-known astrological archetypes, you can observe consistent patterns going back as far as you can match up dates with history. Very often, Saturn, the planet that from antiquity to the 18th century was the most distant known planet, is often involved. The events of September 11, 2001, to which this is being compared, were used to galvanize massive political movements and what amounts to a world war. Five years ago, we were experiencing the meeting of Saturn and another slow-moving outer planet, Pluto, which resulted
in a fiery explosion setting the tone of the next half decade. Considering Saturn opposite Pluto, when you apply the dense, penetrating energy of Pluto to Saturn, the result was a lot of localized death, destruction, fire, and noise, which was then magnified to a worldwide scale and manipulated into an agenda. Throughout modern history, such alignments of Saturn and Pluto have nearly always come with contractions of mentality, crackdowns on liberty, tons of moralizing, nonstop accusations of evil intentions used for political ends, and the resulting “necessary” aggressions. Current developments—so well-soaked in Pisces—will more likely represent an undoing. Saturn-Neptune contacts tend to signify transitions in established structures on the scale of endings or total transformations. Often, as a result, there is a significant improvement. Yes, plenty of bad things have happened under Saturn-Neptune influences in past eras of history, and plenty are happening now. But with awareness, working with the incredible tension of Saturn and Neptune pulling the Earth in opposite directions, can be productive, both personally and in the historical process. In the summer of 2006, the influence has changed to the equally rare Saturn-Neptune opposition. Now we have had a kind of mirage, a scenario that might have happened. What is lacking in the current story, however, is the emotional impact, though this will not be apparent for some time. It is one thing to say, “They flew airplanes into skyscrapers,” and quite another to say, “We caught them planning to have explosives in baby bottles.” Note that this was done in the midst of the campaign for the midterm elections, and we all know that war tends to favor the party in power. Yes, it’s possible that there will be other global dramas that are used for political manipulation, but because of the planets now involved, the momentum of the UK’s liquid-bomber drama will be difficult to sustain with any credibility. Indeed, the whole story is very likely to fall apart. Here is how the aspect looks. Saturn, with an orbit of 29 years, and Neptune, with an orbit of 165 years, are now making their first opposition since April 19, 1972. That prior alignment occurred just eight weeks before the Watergate break-in that led finally to the downfall of Richard Nixon. The dissolving power of Neptune came face to face with the structure of Saturn, slowly melting away the latter. In the years immediately following the opposition, we also saw the end to American involvement in the Vietnam war, which had finally started to be acknowledged as the utter failure that it was. The 1972 opposition was followed by the 1989 Saturn-Uranus-Neptune conjunction associated with the fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall. Saturn and Neptune met in the same place, but were joined by another outer planet, with spectacular results. We last heard from this process from mid-1998 through mid-1999, when Saturn and Neptune met in a square aspect associated with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment proceeding against Bill Clinton. Essentially, recent Saturn-Neptune transits cost two powerful US presidents their political careers and dragged the nation through a huge drama. We have little reason, at this point, to believe that history won’t repeat itself; indeed, we seem to have witnessed the perfect setup. The current alignment is the “full phase” of what the first two represented as “new phase” (1989) and “first quarter” (1998-99). It made its first exact contact on August 31, though long before this was exact we were seeing its effects. These have included the hurricanes that wiped out much of the Southeastern United States at this time last year, and flooding on nearly every corner of every continent. Exact opposition continues, as often happens, in two additional stages through mid-2007, and the process will have aftereffects for a year or two. This aspect today stands with the tension of balancing two strong opposite polarities, which is something that typically humans can do only with great pain, and other times, with great progress. The sense of opposites is in part associated with the size of the planets involved, and also with the wildly differing archetypes of the planets involved—one representing solid matter, and the other representing liquid; one representing the slow creation of structure and one representing its dissolving. In mid-August, the Sun and Moon aligned extremely close to the axis of the SaturnNeptune alignment, precipitating tangible events within hours. Of all successive Sun-Moon alignments over the next two years, including those that square Saturn and Neptune, Wednesday’s Full Moon was the closest solar-lunar aspect to the opposition that we will have. There was a release point, and a threshold—but in truth, this was the opening move, the activation, of a process of change and evolution. We are going to be living with this tension for a while, and with it, the constant sense that “something might happen.” How do we deal with it? How do we deal with the annoying sense of dissatisfaction that there is not a fiery, cataclysmic orgasm to grab onto? That’s a choice that each individual makes. The opposition touches some deeply personal issues; embraces our relationship to authority, to truth and lies, and to how we maintain our identity in a culture so heavily dominated by media and advertising. Neptune’s presence makes it difficult to grasp tangibly, and always clouds both inner and outer reality in a shroud of deniability. But we do have choices, if we dare to see, and dare to make them. 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM PLANET WAVES 135
Horoscopes Eric Francis Coppolino
ARIES (March 20-April 19) You may be feeling like it’s time for a new job. Wider horizons are calling, perhaps painfully, but most definitely. Often we need to reach a limit to go beyond whatever familiar territory becomes enmeshed in our patterns of living. Even if rearanging your day-to-day affairs seems impossible right now, you have an opportunity to make an adjustment in the way you express or exert yourself in the place you call work. I suggest you look at how you use your energy; study the patterns; account for where your time goes and what you actually accomplish. Notice how you feel about it. Because this promises to be such an incredibly busy and productive month, it’s an interesting phase for a study. While you’re at it, notice what you like to do the most, and what you set out to do first when you have several choices. Getting a new job is precisely the time to choose, so practice now.
TAURUS
(April 19-May 20)
The great mystery is how you got into all of this, not how you’re going to get out. Mystery has its place, but I assure you, the answers about the past will be revealed. What counts most now is breaking free of the patterns of authority that have so completely characterized your life for so long. The struggle up until this point has had a subtle quality. You have brought emotion, feeling, and faith to where there was previously only structured ideology. You have gradually brought a sense of focused individual identity to where there was previously a long line of inheritance that seemed to dictate who you were. Suddenly, the process has come into focus. Who you are and who you are not have arrayed themselves in sufficient contrast so that it’s now possible to make tangible and, indeed, useful choices that allow you to put the information into action. You have done this before, but never so well.
GEMINI
(May 20-June 21)
Clearing the emotional and psychological clutter will proceed much more smoothly if you think your actions through in a few steps, rather than plunge into the work. What happens over the next few weeks is really the result of a significantly longer process of reconstructing your identity to the point where you exist on equal terms with the world. As you sort through your ideas about yourself and what makes you feel safe, you will see that some contribute to that sense of equality; some go distinctly against it; and others help you work with the fact that at times people exist on different levels. What’s different about the current phase of your life is a creative approach to these factors rather than one based on a sense of destiny or being trapped within a certain personality framework. That, in truth, was only a question of whether you felt safe walking around on the planet. Make up your mind about that and much else will seem obvious.
CANCER
(June 21-July 22)
Many developments point to this being a phase of your life characterized by an intellectual and creative peak. I could describe it in a few ways: You’re finding your voice; you’re becoming clear about what ideas mean the most to you; you are beginning to make an impact; you are letting go of a destructive way of thinking and in its place something magnificently creative is finding its way into your reality. I suggest you leave no problem unsolved, and no situation unresolved. But, more to the point, this is the time to enter new territory where your ideas are concerned. This will require discipline you may think you lack, as well as optimism, so that you can approach your work every day with a clear mind, faithful that you’re making progress. Most of all, you need to stay in the present and allow the power of your mind to work through each mental challenge, and reap its rewards. www.planetwaves.net 136 PLANET WAVES CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
Horoscopes Eric Francis Coppolino
LEO (July 22-Aug. 23) The metaphor of Saturn in Leo, borrowing from the language of alchemy, is turning lead to gold. One is cheap and alluringly easy to work with, but has the unpleasant property of being dangerously toxic, particularly to the mind. The other is both expensive and difficult to locate, extract, and refine, and also extremely challenging to work with—but makes the ideal substance for everything from surgery to electronics to fine art. In considering the personal transformation from lead to gold going on within you, we have one of the great esoteric symbols, looking right at us, waiting to be explored and brought to life. At its essence, this is about contacting and expressing your most authentic self. Yet it’s also about incorporating and integrating what you have long thought of as your most troubling personal trait, and turning this into your most valuable asset. The mystery of alchemy is very much alive right now, and the power is in your hands.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) The time has come to let go of an old grudge, grievance, or perpetual crisis. In the next year or two, you’ll be doing plenty of releasing the past, dropping outdated personality traits, and shedding various layers of thick skin that you’ve been collecting to protect your deep sensitivity. Yet something is stirring in the deeper layers of your psyche, and it would appear that you’re going to begin this process from the inside out, working from the core to the surface. This is in truth more efficient than peeling back the layers from the outside. What develops over the next few weeks is the direct result of two factors: of your tapping into an energy source that is beyond your power to resist; and consciously maintaining a sense of the direction in which you wish to guide your life. The image is less of a volcano and more of a turbine. You are developing the ability to bring fire under the power of spirit.
LIBRA
(Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
Boundaries of all kinds are vitally important now. One involves your role in the lives of people you work with, and their role in yours. There is a dualism involved, and I suggest you be vigilant about being aware of when something is becoming personal that needs to be left outside that particular door. The other boundary is between your inner life and your public life, however you define public: you amongst your friends, or fulfilling your role in the community, or who you are with your children, or standing in front of a classroom. For now, this is a different “you” than the one who is experiencing a profound inner transformation. The fear you may be experiencing is fear being let go of. The pressure you may feel is the sensation of pressure being released. The chaos you may feel is the movement of the elements reforming in your psyche. For now, I suggest you keep that process to yourself, or leave it as a subject between you and your healers.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) One challenge in life is learning how to be someone other than who others expect you to be. Fear of being rejected by one’s social set is perhaps the greatest inhibitor of individuality. Praise the gods that you’re a Scorpio. If there’s one thing you’re not doing, it’s being stuck, and nobody’s going to hold you back now. Indeed, in this process, you will see that the people who love and respect you the most are the ones who are facilitating your growth, setting the best example, and cheering you on. If anyone at all exhibits jealousy or resists your progress, politely ask them to stop, and be prepared to walk away. More to the point, be prepared to walk away from a former version of yourself, and to embrace what may not, in truth, be a “new you” but, rather, a deep and ancient core of wisdom and self-mastery. www.planetwaves.net 9/06 CHRONOGRAM.COM PLANET WAVES 137
Horoscopes Eric Francis Coppolino
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) You have, by now, noticed that you’re evolving in the direction of a breakthrough to a new evolutionary stage, toward a kind of quantum leap. Lately, despite your definite successes in certain key areas of your life, it would seem that the deeper process is moving slowly, stuck, or even going backward. Perhaps it will mean something if I say this is not something you want to proceed too quickly. You are still integrating the last round of developments that came to a peak in the early spring. You still have plenty of material to work with, and when that far-out galactic energy surges again later in the year, you definitely want to have your house in order, and a good handle on all your worldly affairs. Worldly would count for anything attached to or associated with a person, place or thing. When your inner growth process reaches full fire later in the year, you want those things to be well taken care of.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) Your ruling planet Saturn has been doing two things lately. One is that it’s been squared by Jupiter, which is leading you to expand your ambitions and sense of mission. At the same time, it’s been involved in a long opposition to Neptune, which is compelling you to let go of many old ideas about yourself, and to see the great mystery lurking behind the façade of life. In your worldly efforts, you know you can do more; but the cosmic level is what has your attention now. Let your life in the coming weeks and months be the marriage of Heaven and Earth. Be the one who is doing the creator’s work in the physical world. Look at and dance with the great mystery rather than getting caught up in its power and wonder. The gods are aware of your existence, your devotion and your willingness to help. They have faith in you; have some faith in them, and carry on.
AQUARIUS
(Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
By now, the process of quickening and undoing of the past has reached a peak in your life, and you’re getting used to the fact that a bold adventure awaits you. Indeed, you are realizing your life the past year or so has been just such an adventure. The challenges are all starting to make sense; the odd way you’ve been feeling, cut loose from your usual rationales and many of your usual problems, is beginning to have some tangible meaning. I don’t doubt you’re also brewing some mixed feelings deep in there about all that’s developed, including wondering whether some of the sacrifices you’ve made in recent years have been worth it. All progress comes at a cost, but remember, you have not begun to reap the benefits of so much thought, effort, and cooperation. For now, I suggest you take about 15 minutes each day and marvel at your successes. This will feed your faith in yourself for the many challenging achievements yet to come.
PISCES
(Feb. 19-March 20)
You have not lived through any of this recently—the challenges, the opportunities, and the sense of being in new territory. It would be fair to say that for a great many seasons, indeed, back into the prior millennium called the 1990s, you have coexisted with a certain unease that you could not quite name: perhaps the sense of a journey so long, you could not see where you were going, or how much territory you had covered. The place you’re at now is a checkpoint. It is more than a review phase, though some time for considering the past would be well spent. But there is too much happening now to dwell on the past, and many factors are commanding you to stay precisely in the present, focused on your present needs, relationships, and surroundings. You live in an environment not only of change, but of materialization. This is the moment to sculpt the great changes in your world—the ones that set you free. www.planetwaves.net 138 PLANET WAVES CHRONOGRAM.COM 9/06
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Parting Shot
Armand Rusillon, untitled, glue, ink, and pastel on gesso and paper, 12" x 19", 2006
Armand Rusillon's paintings and drawings take in a wide range of dark subject matter: dead landscapes, fragmented flora, anatomical diagrams, fighter jets, munitions, and chainsaws all appear in his recent work. Rusillon’s creations blend such raw materials as coffee grinds, eggshells, tar, wood, metal, and oils with subtle washes of color, frequently erupting into three-dimensional forms. His work has an ethereal quality, the materials used often directly reflecting in the subject matter. Rusillon finds much of his inspiration in nature, and many recent images focus on insects. Rusillon has lived in the Hudson Valley since 1989. In addition to the natural beauty of our region, his work is influenced by his upbringing in Brazil, Japan, Turkey, and Las Vegas. In the 1970s and ’80s, he lived in New York City and showed in several East Village galleries. Rusillon’s work will be exhibited at the Coffey Gallery, 330 Wall Street in Kingston, September 2 through September 24. A reception will be held Saturday, September 2, from 5 to 7pm. (845) 339-6105.
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