The Rogovoy Report 1.23.23

From around the corner to around the globe...

Jan 22, 2023

The Artist Whose Book Covers Distilled the Nineteen-Eighties

(New Yorker) - In 1983, Lorraine Louie was hired by Judith Loeser, an art director at Random House, to design a new imprint of quality paperbacks the publisher was launching called Vintage Contemporaries. An editor named Gary Fisketjon had been given the brief of publishing literary fiction — reprints and original, never-before-published books — in a trade-paperback format, distinct from the mass-market paperbacks in which most fiction was reprinted. Fisketjon and Loeser wanted the books to look like a series, and to look different from other books. From the 1984 début of those first seven books, the Vintage Contemporaries design attracted immediate attention. It felt perfectly of the moment, a snapshot of the mid-eighties. The imprint was instantly successful. “Bright Lights, Big City,” a slim second-person tale of eighties decadence by Pittsfield native Jay McInerney, Gary Fisketjon’s friend from Williams College, was a sensation, selling a reported half-million copies by the end of the decade.

READ ALSO:

Why is America the most violent country in the Western World? (Paul Auster/LitHub)

Free speech or out of order? As meetings grow wild, officials try to tame public comment. (WaPo)

Small interventions on electric cars and plant-based meat could unlock rapid emissions cuts (The Guardian)

Next Generation to Lead Guido's Fresh Marketplace

(iBerkshires) GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The future of Guido's Fresh Marketplace has been assured with a new generation preparing to take on the family business. Chris and Matt Masiero started with a roadside produce stand in 1979 on Route 7 in Pittsfield with a $2,500 loan from their father — after whom the store is named — and shuttled fresh produce from Chelsea Market in Boston. Forward 44 years and two grocery stores later, the brothers are looking at retirement and to handing off the enterprise they've built to their children Luke and Nick (Matt's sons) and Anna (Chris' daughter).

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Berkshire's ever-changing dining menu includes restaurants for sale, new establishments (Berkshire Eagle)

What’s the ‘secret sauce’ at Lenox’s new Italian restaurant? For chef/co-owner Luigi Iasilli, it’s his ‘Nonna’s’ recipes (B Eagle)

Bondhu, at former Mill on the Floss, a 'food experience business' with Bengali flavor (RI)

Owners plan to close Flat Burger Society in Pittsfield by month's end (B Eagle)

New Marlborough restaurant Cantina 229 to close after eight years (B Eagle)

Historic Otis Poultry Farm and Farmington River Diner are for sale (B Eagle)

Chef Dan Smith's John Andrews Farmhouse Restaurant in Egremont still seeks buyer (B Eagle)

North Adams bakery-cafe moves next door (B Eagle)

Otto's Kitchen & Comfort has had fun making light of negative reviews. Some say a new video goes too far (B Eagle)

Local startup redefining what ‘keeping it dry’ looks—and tastes—like (Berkshire Edge)

Amici restaurant in West Stockbridge damaged in early-morning fire (B Edge)

At Piaule in Catskill, prix fixe with an urban price tag (Chronogram)

An Asian street food makeover at the Notch in Tannersville (Chronogram)

Foodie fever dreams can’t keep restaurants afloat (NYT)

What does Noma’s evolution mean for fine dining? (Boston Globe)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Did Bob Dylan’s Landmark 'Time Out of Mind' Album Really Need a Do-Over?

(Forward) by Seth Rogovoy - When Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind album was first released in September 1997, it was hailed as a full-fledged comeback for the rock poet, who seemed to have lost his way for most of the previous decade. Many drew favorable comparisons to his greatest works, including Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks. Now, Columbia Records has released a five-CD box set called Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series Vol. 17. The collection includes alternate versions of all the songs on the original album, as well as outtakes and live versions of every song on the album recorded in the years immediately following its release. The highlight of the compilation, however, is undoubtedly an entirely remixed version of Time Out of Mind, which in its original form won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year (unbelievably a first for Dylan). And so you may ask, why the do-over?

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Berkshire-based musician and producer Matt Cusson nominated for Grammy (B Edge)

North Adams-based singer-songwriter Ciarra Fragale releases new five-song EP (B Eagle)

At The Clark, an exhibition of never-before-seen 18th-century drawings from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (B Eagle)

Tickets for James Taylor at Tanglewood July 3 and 4 go on sale Monday morning (B Edge)

Pittsfield art theft prompts reflection on purloined paintings (B Eagle)

Karen Allen’s adaptation of Carson McCullers short story, filmed in Sandisfield, now streaming (B Edge)

New director of public programs at MASS MoCA leaves behind New Haven art gallery due to 'lack of support' (New Haven Independent)

Emerson String Quartet, the 'Fab Four' of classical music, says goodbye as door swings open to the Danes (Ed Siegel/WBUR)

David Byrne's 'Here Lies Love' disco musical about Imelda Marcos, which premiered at MASS MoCA, finds its way to Broadway (NYT)

No Ring Circus to bring grand-scale sideshow to Hudson Brewing (Chronogram)

Photographer David Ricci's Edge explores visual density and unexpected beauty embedded in abandoned spaces (Chronogram)

Expect more inclusion from new curator at EMPAC in Troy (ATU)

NEWS FROM THE BERKSHIRES

Historic Gilded Age Estate Sold for $8M

(The Real Deal) STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. - A massive, historic estate with direct ties to the Gilded Age in the Northeast has been sold and could be turned it into a luxury resort. Law and Associates bought the sprawling, 89-acre Vanderbilt Berkshires Estate, formerly Elm Court, located in both Stockbridge and Lenox, Massachusetts, from Amstar/Travaasa Experiential Resorts in a direct deal for $8 million. The estate, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, originally listed for $12.5 million in 2020, before Amstar took it off the market at the end of 2021. Built in 1886, the 55,000-square-foot, 106-room mansion — which lays claim to the largest shingled residence in the U.S. — has 46 bedrooms and 27 bathrooms. There’s no shortage of history connected with the property, which was originally owned by William Douglas Sloane and Emily Thorn Vanderbilt, a scion of industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt, and used as a country getaway for family and friends. The grounds, which include stables and greenhouses, were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the “father of landscape architecture." The 1919 Elm Court Talks, which took place on the home’s terrace, initiated the end of World War I by leading to the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of the League of Nations.

READ ALSO:

Will this week mark onset of snowy winter in Berkshires? (Berkshire Eagle)

Will Wayfair layoffs wipe out Pittsfield call center jobs? (B Eagle)

DA Shugrue alarmed after Pittsfield drug bust included 90 grams of meth (WAMC)

2023 brings new COVID challenges to Berkshires (B Eagle)

Pittsfield sees COVID spike in sewage testing, another death (iBerkshires)

Auction of Williamstown's Orchards Hotel postponed to February (iBerkshires)

Berkshire East owner Jon Schaefer reflects on family legacy (New England Ski Journal)

Egremont water system endangered by aging, 'unsafe' dam (B Eagle)

For 125 years, Pittsfield's Miss Hall's School has inspired boldness in girl teens (Study International)

West Stockbridge to ‘let dust settle’ over noise ordinance bylaws in wake of Foundry dispute (Berkshire Edge)

Adams officials conflicted on future of coal and grain building (iBerkshires)

Main Street Hospitality, owners of Red Lion Inn, adds two hotels to growing portfolio (Hospitalitynet)

North Adams Mayor Macksey takes stock after one year at City Hall (B Eagle)

NEWS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

Wait, Coxsackie Is Cool Now?

(ATU) COXSACKIE, N.Y. — To the extent that the broader world knows this town's name, it is probably due, alas, to the family of viruses that can give a person hand, foot and mouth disease. In a quirk of history, it was here that the viruses were first identified. Within New York, meanwhile, Coxsackie is also known for housing state prisons of maximum and medium securities. Lots of people arrive in town unhappily, then, and are eager to go when allowed to leave. Coxsackie never seemed likely to meet the definition of cool, not in the way that other nearby towns, of which Hudson is the most obvious example, have earned the adjective. And yet here is Coxsackie, newly announced as the future home of Dominick Purnomo restaurants. And here is Coxsackie, the town chosen by the former editor of a New York City-based gourmet food and travel magazine for her planned speakeasy — a speakeasy! — and a newly opened shop selling antiques, among other things, and described as a "cabinet of curiosities." And here is Coxsackie with a riverfront business district that has come to life, a place that is attracting dreamers and believers seeking to do things that may have been impossible in places with high rents and crowded sidewalks.

READ ALSO:

New Hudson housing developments granted tax-free status for up to 40 years (GoR)

Lumberyard Performing Arts Center in Catskill to be sold (NYT)

Columbia County to see rare tax rate decrease (HV360)

Longtime Columbia County district attorney Czajka will not seek reelection (ATU)

Carty declares candidacy for DA (HV360)

COVID rise spurs mask recommendation (HV360)

Opponents of Catskills glamping site see 'no compromise' (ATU)

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