Sunday, July 23: This week marks the 90th birthday of Hudson resident, Pulitzer Prize-winner, retired Bard College professor and former New York State poet laureate John Ashbery. Small presses being the lifeblood of even poets as famous as Ashbery, it’s a natural fit for this weekend’s Read & Feed to pay tribute to the occasion.
The story is set in an animal sanctuary considering the needs of some endangered wild relatives and was written before the recent refugee crisis, but the resonance is there.
Next two weekends: On the surface, The Skin of Our Teeth couldn’t seem more different from the Thornton Wilder piece that everybody knows: the universally produced Our Town. It was written as a spark of absurd hope amidst the despair of World War II, but takes on new layers of meaning whenever troubled times roll around.
Good news: The Rosendale Street Festival will be back this month! The sort-of-annual event spans two days, this year July 15-16.
A bridge is a powerful symbol. When we dream of crossing a bridge, that’s usually a sign of going through a significant change in life — of crossing some Rubicon, leaving our past behind. We also use “building bridges” as a metaphor for repairing rifts between people, between nations. The latter was the theme chosen for the opening ceremonies of the brand-new, as-yet-unnamed Route 213 bridge across the Rondout Creek in downtown High Falls last Saturday.
July-August: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival spins up a giddy Jane Austen classic. Amazingly, deliciously, it all works; but purists should consider themselves forewarned.
Every white-knuckled swerve of the getaway car, every step or turn of an actor, every word or pause of dialogue is choreographed so exquisitely to the bouncy pop soundtrack that you will be awestruck.
When it finally got dark enough for the fireworks to be seen to best advantage, Soul Purpose ceded the stage to Esme Ariel Hyman, whose soulful, belting rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” has become a Fourth of July tradition in recent years. Then the rockets’ red glare began in earnest — along with plenty of other shimmering colors bespangling the sky. Once again, summer has officially come to New Paltz.
Once upon a time, street artists were widely regarded as mere vandals — as scourges to polite society. But graffiti has a long and honorable history, both as an artform and an expression of sociopolitical protest.
A friendly, familiar face to many in New Paltz after 15 years as manager/wine buyer at In Good Taste (not to mention as head chef at Main Course in its early years), Ken Maguire has nothing but good things to say about his former bosses, Deb and Rick Rauch.