AZ: My journalism career was mostly as a writer and editor, but I did sometimes pick up the camera. My coolest thing was photographing a criminal in Ellenville. This guy had owned these run-down apartments in Ellenville and owed a lot of back taxes. I tracked him down in Israel, and casually chatted with him — asking about his business interests. He let slip that he was coming to New York in three days.
I let the police know, and they picked him up at JFK and I was the only photographer to shoot him on the “perp walk.” The Times Herald-Record had a headline like, “Slum Lord Caught!” That was cool.
CJR: Why are you always on your bicycle? And if you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?
AZ: Am I married to my bike! It’s my sole form of transportation — even in the winter. Everyone should bike. “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”
CJR: Tell me about the practice you want to open?
AZ: I just earned a master’s in social work, and would love to open a practice that helps people connect to the Earth in a meaningful way via nature therapy. We’ve lost that connection because we are all “plugged in.” I want to unplug people.
CJR: Name three not-often-thought-of awesome, low-cost things to do in Kingston.
AZ: Visit the Old Dutch Church cemetery, write down the names of those buried and research who they are at the local history room at the Kingston Library. The history of the city is amazing. Other free things? Stargaze in your backyard. And bike from the Forsyth Nature Center all the way down to the Strand. That’s awesome.
CJR: What’s the cheapest, healthiest and most delicious lunch deal in Kingston?
AZ: Anything at Sissy’s Café. It’s food that is made with love.
CJR: What does it mean that you are a “Pagan Buddhist”?
AZ: I practice meditation, but do not belong to a Buddhist community. Instead, nature is my temple.
