The Rogovoy Report 3.27.23

From around the corner to around the globe...

Mar 27, 2023

Marriage Isn’t Hard Work; It’s Serious Play

(The Atlantic) What do we mean when we say that marriage is work? To me, it’s the idea that entering a long-term union requires essentially becoming an office manager. Partners manage communication, both emotional and logistical. They carve out time from busy social schedules to plan events, such as date nights and sex. They must learn the careful, tricky language of conflict resolution. Perhaps this conceit stems from a desire to make marriages happily long-lasting, and an uncertainty about how to do it. Conceptualizing marriage as work allows us to make happiness legible: Anyone can have a happy relationship, provided they are willing to do the necessary toil. There’s a kind of American bootstrap optimism in this. But thinking of our relationships as labor changes them, too. What if there were a way to think of marriage — the everyday action of it — as something less like work and more like play?

Sheffield Library to Host Traveling Smithsonian Exhibit on Rural America

(WAMC) SHEFFIELD, Mass. - Sheffield is playing host to a traveling Smithsonian exhibit on rural America for a six-week run. Bushnell-Sage Library is one of six Massachusetts sites hosting "Crossroads: Change in Rural America.” Accompanying the traveling exhibition will be a bevy of programming over the six weeks that explore Sheffield’s history. A look into the future is also part of the broad survey of Sheffield’s past.

READ ALSO:

Williamstown Theatre Festival summer season will have slimmed-down look, one fully mounted production (Berkshire Eagle)

Becket Arts Center kicks off new season (B Edge)

Berkshire performing arts centers receive state funding to offset revenues generated by casinos (B Eagle)

The Berkshires' Lauren Ambrose wants to go to French clown school (NYT)

Pittsfield emo band Bully Maguire releases debut EP (WAMC)

The newest cultural district in Massachusetts is in rural Cummington (WAMC)

46th Annual Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival preview (WAMC)

‘Sandman’ author Neil Gaiman headlines Woodstock Bookfest this weekend (Daily Freeman)

THE ROGOVOY REPORT

Bette Midler performs at the Continental Baths in New York (photo Getty Images/courtesy The Forward)

Why 1973 Was a Particularly Jewish Year in Pop Music

(Forward) by Seth Rogovoy - Fifty years ago, the pop charts experienced a bit of a lull in the aftermath of the dynamic years of 1971 and 1972 (about which entire books have been written). A close examination of the pop charts of 1973, however, reveals a surprising number of hits written by Jewish songwriters — including the year’s top song — and a handful of hit singles by Jewish artists, including Bette Midler, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, and Vicki Lawrence. Vicki Lawrence? Yes, Vicki Lawrence.

NEWS FROM THE BERKSHIRES

A Striking Yellow Void Punctuates Scalar Architecture’s Farm-Like Residence

(Design Boom) WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - Located in the Berkshires mountains and born within the time and budget constraints of the COVID epidemic, ‘Oblong Farm’ by Scalar Architecture is a restrained 204 sqm residential structure boasting a standard modular off-site construction that translates into a singular gesture, responsive to its context and environment. Testing the manufacturer’s limits for transportation, ‘Oblong Farm’ features two heavily insulated, 4.6 x 18.2m engineered wooden modules arranged side by side with a third module hinged by a large yellow spatial void – the color of the local forsythia plant. Both in their scale and non-domestic articulation, the yellow void and the repetitive cadence of its windows afford a dialogue between the residence’s exterior and interior and, by extension, between it and the nearby farm structures.

READ ALSO:

Antisemitic incidents rose to record levels in Mass. last year, including three in Berkshires (B Eagle)

With funding shortfall, Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington may be forced to close (Berkshire Edge)

The Bookloft, Great Barrington's long-running indie bookstore, changes hands but not mission (B Edge)

After series of accidents and near-misses, DeLillo-esque ‘Intersection Conflict Warning System,’ meaning flashing yellow lights, will finally be installed at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington (B Edge)

Embattled Housatonic water supplier demands more proof from customers on adverse effects of water (B Edge)

Berkshire Black Economic Council hopes to fill 15 vacant storefronts in downtown Pittsfield (B Eagle)

After report of involvement in ‘domestic incident,’ North Adams police chief fired; mayor claims firing not connected to incident (Berkshire Eagle)

MCLA in North Adams considers converting empty dorm into temporary homeless shelter (iBerkshires)

Lanesborough’s Red Shirt Farm CSA expanding with store and community commercial kitchen (iBerkshires)

New owner of Apple Barn in Bennington, Vt., hopes to continue legacy (iBerkshires)

Sen. Warren to run for re-election in 2024 (WAMC)

NEWS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

The New Lebanon train depot served the Corkscrew Railroad from 1863 to 1953 (photo Corkscrew Rail Trail)

New Lebanon Residents Work to Restore Historic Train Depot

(WAMC) NEW LEBANON, N.Y. - A long abandoned train depot in Columbia County is on the threshold of making a comeback. A group of New Lebanon townsfolk are working to restore the train depot that served the Corkscrew Railroad from 1863 to 1953. According to the Historical Marker Database, the line was built when a North Bennington entrepreneur was denied access to the Troy and Boston Railroad's New York lines. The name "Corkscrew" attests to "dozens of turns over 40 miles of hilly terrain” enabling the line to bypass Troy. With county involvement, the historic depot station could possibly be transformed into a visitor center or an ice cream shop or some other private entity that brings business to the town.

The Rogovoy Report