From the road, the apartments at the Bearsville complex look like a more stolid version of Byrdcliffe’s classic artist housing. But then one enters one of the smallish apartments inside and a whole other side of Woodstock creativity springs to life. Brightly colored murals capture the local mountains, the wondrous fecundity of our nature.
A fascinating and underdiscussed consideration of popular music is how the compositional instrument – the instrument upon which a songwriter
Woodstock reading on Sunday, November 3: Many of the myths regarding Joplin read out like cautionary, puritanical sermons, luridly celebrating her passionate performances as something inspired and beyond her control, meanwhile excoriating her for her weakness, the demons and hedonism that ultimately defeated her. The standard line on Janis has allowed precious little acknowledgment of her personal agency, her seriousness of purpose and her accelerating artistic growth and self-determination, all of which are major and richly substantiated themes in George-Warren’s deeply engaging new biography.
Saturday, Nov. 2: The Chocolate Factory in Red Hook was founded in 1888 by William H. Baker – no relation to the older, more famous Walter H. Baker Company, but Red Hook’s Baker was not above exploiting the coincidence to promote his business, starting what became known as the Chocolate Wars. At the height of production, 20,000 pounds of chocolate were produced in Red Hook each day.
Saturday, Nov. 2: Are you a vegan or vegetarian who feels a little left out of the fun this time of year? Is your favorite part of Thanksgiving the presidential pardon for a couple of turkeys? The Catskill Animal Sanctuary is planning some festivities this weekend that will help get you into the holiday mood.
Sunday, Nov. 3: Even if Frances Perkins hadn’t been the first woman ever to serve in a US presidential cabinet, or the longest-serving Secretary of Labor ever (12 years), she would still deserve a shining place in 20th-century history. She was a suffragist, worked with Jane Addams as a Hull House volunteer, advocated passionately for female workers after witnessing the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, became the highest-paid woman in New York State government as Industrial Commissioner, taught Sociology at Adelphi University, fought against child labor and for unemployment and a minimum wage – all before she even joined the FDR administration.
Burns and Allen, Gypsy Rose Lee and Cary Grant, when his name was still Archibald Leach, were among the showbiz luminaries on record as having performed live at the Orpheum.
Saturday, Nov. 2: When Colony opens its woody, elegant and historic space to the surging popularity of the drag and cabaret arts this weekend, that’ll be my child – Strawberry, six-foot-seven in heels – commanding the stage on which they still occasionally let me play guitar, a six-string fretted instrument popular in the Renaissance. As I have watched Strawberry’s bookings rise in the last few years, taking them to Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Calgary and filling their pockets with bills, I can’t help but notice that locally, they play all the same rooms I do, or used to. From the New Paltz bars to BSP and now to Woodstock’s elegant and historic room, I struggle to find gigs, while my child and their ilk are “killing it.” Circle of Life stuff, I guess.
Friday, Nov. 8: Born in Barbados, the Bronx-raised Flash pioneered deejaying, cutting, scratching and mixing with the Furious Five. He will present a deep audio and visual dive into the history of an artform he helped create.
Wednesday, Nov. 6: Best known for his three Netflix specials, Disgraceful (2018), Mostly Stories (2016) and Completely Normal (2014), the red-hot comedian will be coming to UPAC.