Jessica DuPont lovingly stocks shelves in Uptown Kingston, Tivoli and plans to open a science fiction bookstore in Midtown. She has twice come upon first US editions of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, found a first edition of On the Road haphazardly thrown into a plastic bin and even opened a poetry book to find that it had come from the private library of Orson Welles.
Sunday, Sept. 8: Ponckhockie Union’s Benedict Arnold “Ben” Rose is a struggling filmmaker who is in the early stages of producing a Howard Zinn-inspired documentary about the Burning of Kingston.
There is so much to love about The Peanut Butter Falcon that it’s tough to know where to begin praising it. Prepare yourself to fall head-over-heels in love with a lead character with Down syndrome on the big screen, portrayed by Zack Gottsagen, an actor who has genuinely walked the walk.
It’s one thing to consider an arts colony, such as Woodstock, in terms of its artists. You can also be impressed with the organizations that come to life and become institutions supporting those artists.
Usually, publications like this come up with lists of locally-created books at the start of summer. You know the
Lee Tannen, who lives near Hudson, wrote a memoir about his friendship with Lucille Ball during the last ten years of her life. When the theatrical version of the memoir, which has had success onstage in London, comes to the Woodstock Playhouse on Saturday, August 31, at 7:30 p.m., Tannen will be playing himself for the first time, in his two-person play I Loved Lucy.
Through Labor Day: Visits and pictures are free, with each flower costing $3, and $25 for a fill-your-own bucket of eight flowers or more. A portion of food and drink concessions goes toward local charities like the Sparrow’s Nest, whose mission of providing meals to cancer patients.
Sunday, Sept. 1: Upstate Reggae is equally about the preservation of the reggae tradition and the curation of the up-and-coming. Now that the Bearsville Theater is ominously dark, Upstate Reggae has taken to the water. This sunset cruise features music by Vybz Eurostar Lord and DJ Kevin, as well as Jamaican food.
Sunday, Sept. 1: As is well-known among musicians, the Military Academy bands tend to be red-hot and stacked with serious players. The arts of war and brass, in particular, have always been closely allied. Although perhaps necessarily conservative in repertoire, the West Point Band never fails to bring the articulate thunder.
Saturday, Aug. 31: The Texas-bred Pentatonix have sold nearly 10 million albums worldwide, in an age when 100,000 is a lot, and boast new media stats on the order of 15.5 million YouTube subscribers and views in the literal billions. And they are really good, too!