Spreading good cheer: Kingston’s “Paint the Town Yellow” mental health campaign

March 1, 2018·Comments closed·

Kickoff parties on Saturday, March 3: Kingston-based artist/activist G. Riley Johndonnell has made it his personal mission to bring a little more yellow into this drab and dreary world. He founded a not-for-profit, UMEWE.org (as in you/me/we), dedicated to happy yellow subversion of the dominant social order of doom and gloom. In fact, he has made it the focus of an entire artistic and philosophical movement, frequently pressing the claim that Optimism is as valid an aesthetic as Modernism or Cubism.

Stage & Screen

Agnès Varda & JR blow up the French working class in delightful Faces Places

March 1, 2018·Comments closed·

In it, the celebrated filmmaker and photographer/muralist travel through the French countryside, learning the stories of the locals they encounter and producing epic-sized photographic portraits of them, which are then displayed in unexpected places.

Politics & Government

Gardiner seeks grant for community solar project

February 25, 2018·Comments closed·

Such a community-based installation “enables multiple customers to receive net metering credits from a single solar energy project” and “expands access to solar generation to any utility customers, including renters and customers who cannot install residential solar panels due to poor location, roof conditions [or] tree coverage.”

Politics & Government

Rosendale councilwoman plans State Senate run

February 23, 2018·Comments closed·

Two-term Rosendale councilwoman Jen Metzger announced on February 15 that she had filed the official paperwork to launch a campaign committee as she explores a run for New York’s 42nd District State Senate seat.

Stage & Screen

Black Panther delivers visibility for blacks & women, whizbang storytelling for all

February 22, 2018·Comments closed·

The fictional nation of Wakanda is how a Central African kingdom might have developed had it been blessed with an ultra-rare, ultra-useful mineral resource that somehow managed to escape colonial exploitation.  

Education

New Paltz Middle School performs Mary Poppins Jr.

February 22, 2018·Comments closed·

Feb. 23-25: More than 100 students will take to the New Paltz Middle School auditorium’s stage — and backstage, and even the auditorium’s floor — to present a gigantic and tuneful extravaganza.

Local History

Dutchess Community College’s Bowne Hall was once a sanatorium

February 22, 2018·Comments closed·

In its heyday, the Bowne Hospital was a state-of-the-art wonder. There were several spacious solaria, and every enclosed space was festooned with windows, awash with light. Adjustable beds lined the long porticos, open to the breezes.

Community

SubZero Heroes raise more than $90K for Alzheimer’s Association

February 17, 2018·Comments closed·

Dozens of volunteers jumped into Berean Lake in Highland last Saturday to raise funds for Alzheimer’s disease.

Books

New Paltz fantasy author Kim Ellis reads latest at Elting Library

February 16, 2018·Comments closed·

Feb. 16: Geared toward “middle grade” readers — third grade through middle school, depending on their reading level, Ellis says — the book is the first in a fantasy adventure series collectively titled The Karakesh Chronicles and projected to run to five volumes.

Art & Music

Sheila Jordan headlines Hudson Jazz Festival

February 14, 2018·Comments closed·

Feb. 16-18: One-of-a-kind bebop matriarch Sheila Jordan and vocalist/composer/lyricist/arranger Dominique Eade bring their world-class talent to the Hudson Hall stage.