The Rogovoy Report 2.26.24

From around the corner to around the globe...

Feb 25, 2024

The Happy Way to Drop Your Grievances

(The Atlantic) - If you look around, you can always find something to complain about. But if you do so habitually, that is probably hurting you, bringing down others, and making you a less attractive person to be around. So you might want to buck the trend toward a culture of complaint. Fortunately, you can do a lot to quit the habit and so get happier.

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At Ease Amid the Ruins: Costica Bradatan and Geoff Dyer explore the virtues of failure and humility in the face of the next-to-nothingness of human existence. (NYRB)

Should I feel guilty about taking the best seat at restaurants? by Ralph Gardner Jr. (WAMC)

FASCIST TAKEOVER WATCH:

Trump and allies planning militarized mass deportations, detention camps (WaPo)

Trump says Black voters like him more because of his indictments and mug shot (WaPo)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson invoked God in a GOP presentation on keeping the majority. It didn’t land well. (Politico)

Trump’s plan to disappear millions, by Lucian Truscott IV (Salon)

Texas school can suspend black student for his hair, court rules (MoJo)

Peter Chapin and Maddie Austin, the owners of the Mill River Store in New Marlborough, have bought the Cantina 229 restaurant property and have hopes to reopen the restaurant by the summer.

Cantina Restaurant Lovers Have Questions for The New Owners, Specifically: Will There Be Soft-Serve?

(Berkshire Eagle) NEW MARLBOROUGH, Mass. - Fear not: Peter Chapin and Maddie Austin will keep the soft-serve ice cream flowing at Cantina when they open this summer. It’s an oft-asked question posed to the couple, who this month bought the foodie paradise Cantina 229 property off Hartsville-New Marlborough Road. They’ll also keep the name, “Cantina,” though without the “229.” The couple purchased the 4.5-acre property, with its circa 1911 home, the restaurant with its extensive patio and gardens from Emily and Josh Irwin, Cantina 229’s founders. The couple said they are staying flexible and creative about what kind of menu they’ll have, just like mother nature and her food cycles — which they intend to honor.

Stissing House Chef Clare de Boer, the Hudson Valley’s Ultimate Multitasker

(ATU) PINE PLAINS, N.Y. - When the New York Times declared its 2023 list of the 50 best restaurants in the United States, five spots from New York state made the grade. Four were in New York City. The fifth, however, was Stissing House in Pine Plains, a small town at the northern edge of Dutchess County. The Times praised Stissing House with a glowing mention of its chef: “Clare de Boer is that dinner-party host whose spreads are simple, effortless and maddeningly good.” Having sat down with de Boer at the beginning of February, a week after she received a fourth James Beard Award nomination (Best Chef, New York), I can imagine her wincing at the word “effortless” — at least when it comes to her food. Yes, perhaps simple fare should appear effortless. However, it’s often anything but. And when I meet de Boer, who is British but had a globe-trotting early life — India, the United Arab Emirates, England, and the United States, where she studied at Brown University — she certainly doesn’t give the impression of someone living an effortless life.

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After January thaw, Berkshire maple syrup producers get a jump on boiling (Berkshire Eagle)

Pittsfield’s House of Seasoning is closed after a disagreement with its landlord, owners say, but they hope to reopen in a new location (B Eagle)

New owners of the West Stockbridge Public Market want to create a store where people in town ‘can grab what they need’ (B Eagle)

Banking on his experience at high-end restaurants, Billy Rose is opening the Billy Club in Hancock (B Eagle)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

‘Long Live Independent Cinema’: Small Theaters Persist Amid Struggling Industry

(ATU) - The reality of operating an independently owned theater: It’s a challenge that is only getting harder. “If I were running just dependent on movies, it would be very difficult to justify staying open,” said Linda Mussmann, co-founder and co-director of Time & Space Limited, a two-screen arthouse, gallery, cafe and performance space in Hudson. Some local theaters have been leaning into experiences. At the Crandell in Chatham, N.Y., that looks like bringing in live pigs for its March 4 screening of “Babe” or inviting Nina Bernstein Simmons, daughter of Leonard Bernstein, to speak after a showing “Maestro.” At Time & Space Limited, it’s leaning into its mission with niche film events, such as the dinner it held during a screening of the 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley.

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Miri Navasky and Karen O’Connor never planned to make a bio-doc. Then they found Joan Baez’s family archives. Baez will attend a screening of the film at the Triplex in Great Barrington next Saturday. (Berkshire Eagle)

In his ‘quinceañera’ year of leading Ballet Hispánico - coming to the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington next weekend — Eduardo Vilaro says the most meaningful moments are seeing ‘the ripple effects of change’ (B Eagle)

Ukraine’s Grand Kyiv Ballet brings its ‘Giselle’ to Albany (Boston Globe)

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NEWS FROM THE BERKSHIRES

Moving the mural at the former Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams to the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst is estimated to cost $450,000. (S Gruber/courtesy Carol Clingan)

Woman Steps Up to Save Long-Lost Mural of 1800s Jewish Immigrant Congregation in North Adams

(Daily Hampshire Gazette) NORTH ADAMS, Mass. - Forgotten and gathering dust in the attic of a North Adams apartment building for more than a century, a mural that’s a part of eastern European Jewish immigrant history may soon see the light of day again. If it does, it will be thanks largely to the efforts of Dedham resident Carol Clingan, who has been working on a plan to preserve and display the artwork since she rediscovered it by happenstance almost 10 years ago. “I just felt like we can’t leave it there — it’s so much a reflection of the culture of the immigrant community,” Clingan said. She reached out to the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, which has agreed to display the mural. First, though, Clingan has to find the money to pay a team of people who can stabilize, protect and transport a delicate 25-by-5-foot, 1,500-pound work of art. The estimated cost is $450,000. The mural’s history starts in the 1890s when Congregation Beth Israel, consisting of people who had come to North Adams from the Lithuania-Belarus border area, hired a Lithuanian immigrant named Noah Levin to paint a mural typical of Lithuania’s wooden synagogues for their synagogue on Francis Street.

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More than 150 years later, W.E.B. Du Bois continues to inspire (though not everyone knows who he is) (Berkshire Eagle)

A plan to study affordable cottage clusters in Great Barrington gets a green light — and offers of help (B Eagle)

With a $1 million grant, MASS MoCA is poised to partner with North Adams on projects like housing and the Route 2 overpass (Berkshire Eagle)

Pittsfield nonprofit strives to build community around a food pantry (NEPM)

Pittsfield man in custody after alleged armed robbery at the Beacon Cinema Friday night (B Eagle)

NEWS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

Kathy Stevens of Catskill Animal Sanctuary in Saugerties, N.Y. “It is absolutely untenable to stay here and to wait until a true disaster strikes,” she said.

Effects of Climate Change Forcing Catskill Animal Sanctuary to Seek Higher Ground

(NYT) - About 18 months ago, Catskill Animal Sanctuary in Saugerties, N.Y., rescued 42 neglected and ailing sheep. Many were anemic and had foot rot, a contagious bacterial disease that can be life-threatening if left untreated in wet environments. For the animals to recover, they should be in a clean and dry place, said Kathy Stevens, the 150-acre sanctuary’s founder and executive director. But the sheep and their new caretakers faced a rapidly developing problem: soggy pastures and flooding barn stalls. Increased rainfall, among the weather distortions caused by climate change, has finally forced the sanctuary to search for a new home, a predicament shared by a growing number of animal refuges across the United States.

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Animal lovers want to start a shelter in a county (Greene) without one (ATU)

Plans rebooted for conversion of Hudson’s McKinstry Mansion into boutique hotel (GoR)

Hudson city council votes to oppose county use of downtown complex (HV360)

These small towns in the Hudson Valley have a big city problem: The rent is way too high (NYT)

City offices moving back to Hudson City Hall in March (HV360)

Plans for major overhaul to ‘Gateway to Greene County’ tourism center off Thruway Exit 21 in Catskill (ATU)

Democratic plans on redistricting remain unclear (ATU)

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