The Rogovoy Report 6.17.24

From around the corner to around the globe...

Jun 16, 2024

The New Generation of Online Culture Curators

(New Yorker) - The current Internet landscape sometimes feels like the Zone in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film “Stalker”: directionless, inexplicable, bound to change in confusing ways. Our social-media feeds don’t offer much except the forward acceleration of algorithmic recommendations. Google and other forms of search are becoming clogged with content generated by artificial intelligence. Knowing what you’re looking for doesn’t always help you chart a path, because niche communities can be difficult to locate and to keep up with. We are in a transitional phase of digital culture, and thus more in need than ever of friendly faces, personable human guides (not unlike a “stalker” in the Zone), to help us navigate this treacherous ground. Such guides go by many names — call them influencers, or content creators, or just “this one guy I follow.” Guided by their own cultivated sense of taste, they bring their audiences news and insights in a particular cultural area, whether it’s fashion, books, music, food, or film. Perhaps the best way to think of these guides is as curators; like a museum curator pulling works together for an exhibition, they organize the avalanche of online content into something coherent and comprehensible, restoring missing context and building narratives. They highlight valuable things that we less-expert Internet surfers are likely to miss.

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For Martin Amis, language was a source of joy (The New Statesman)

The banishment of beauty from everyday life, by Ted Gioia (The Honest Broker)

KARMA-GEDDON? San Diego’s yoga crackdown leaves yogis bent out of shape (WSJ)

FASCIST TAKEOVER WATCH:

Draft-dodger Donald Trump would reinstitute mandatory military service (Mother Jones)

Trump gets name of his doctor wrong as he challenges Biden to cognitive test (The Guardian)

Just more evidence that J.D. Vance is a total fraud (The Nation)

How Europe’s hard right went mainstream (The New Statesman)

The forgotten history of Hitler’s establishment enablers (New Yorker)

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FOOD & DINING

Great Barrington’s SoCo Creamery Named Best Ice Cream in Mass. by Reader’s Digest

(Reader’s Digest) GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. - In a state-by-state tally, Reader’s Digest has named SoCo Creamery the best ice cream in Massachusetts, saying “Micro-batch ice cream never tasted so sweet.” The venerable national magazine went on to note that “This Great Barrington ice cream shop lists all its ingredients to ensure visitors know what’s in their homemade ice cream, and flavors at SoCo Creamery include blueberry honey lavender, ginger, and black raspberry, which pack a wallop of flavor in each bite.” But of course we’ve all known this for years.

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Cravins Ice Cream is opening a new location in Pittsfield (Berkshire Eagle)

The food truck Berkshire Cone has filled a void in Lenox after two ice cream parlors closed (B Eagle)

Supreme Soft Serve’s truck parks in Hudson (RI)

Shire Donuts set to open in Lenox next month (Berkshire Edge)

Owners of Cello restaurant in Lenox are aiming for a July reopening with a new culinary team (B Eagle)

Yao, a new Asian fusion restaurant, will open in downtown Lenox (B Eagle)

A revamped Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge seeks a stable future (B Eagle)

M&J’s Taste of Home opens in former Miss Adams Diner building (B Eagle)

Beloved former Debbie Wong restaurant in Pittsfield is about to get a new life — possibly as another restaurant (B Eagle)

Hudson’s The Hereafter a hidden hit of a cocktail lounge (ATU)

Return Brewing’s indoor taproom now open in Hudson (Chronogram)

The first plant-based burger spot at a gas station in the US opens in Poughkeepsie (Chronogram)

Say goodbye to summer oysters (The Atlantic)

The QR-menu backlash has won. Restaurants are ditching them for good. (WSJ)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

James Taylor performs for the first time at Tanglewood in 1974 (photo Heinz Weissenstein)

James Taylor to Receive 2024 Tanglewood Medal

(The Rogovoy Report) LENOX, Mass. – James Taylor will receive the 2024 Tanglewood Medal from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in recognition of his extraordinary accomplishments as a singer-songwriter and performer as well as his many significant contributions to the BSO and Berkshires communities. The Tanglewood Medal will be presented to Taylor during his July 3 concert with his All-Star Band, the first of his two sold-out shows in the Shed this summer. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Taylor’s first Tanglewood performance in 1974.

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Composer John Williams cancels Tanglewood engagements amid illness (ATU)

Rees Shad, Greg Glassman headline summer-long Berkshire Busk Festival in Great Barrington (The Rogovoy Report)

The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Tanglewood-bound, talkin’ ’bout his generation (Boston Globe)

Global dance lands at PS21 and Jacob’s Pillow this summer (ATU)

London’s Royal Ballet to visit Jacob’s Pillow for the first time (Boston Globe)

The Clark, Louvre join to reignite Caribbean star artist in new exhibit (ATU)

Hudson’s Linda Mussmann prefers the hard work to the parade (Hyperallergic)

Thomas Cole’s landscape painting through an indigenous lens (Hyperallergic)

’The L Word’ rock trio BETTY to kick off OutHudson Pride weekend with concert at Hudson Hall (HV360)

Tony Award-nominated ‘Stereophonic’ delivers second-hand blues (EIB)

Museum at Bethel Woods seeks stories from 1969 Woodstock attendees (WAMC)

Albany Symphony names former BSO-er Emily Fritz-Endres new executive director (ATU)

NEWS FROM THE BERKSHIRES

Vogue Names Miraval One of Top 100 Best Spas

(Vogue) LENOX, Mass. - The Life in Balance Spa delivers on Miraval’s name-brand standard, with a buffet of treatments so inventive and elaborately over-the-top, some are aptly called rituals. Nestled in the New England mountain range famed for its Instagram-baiting fall foliage, Miraval Berkshires creates the crackling-fire aura of a cozy cottage, with plaid accents, teddy bear blankets, and exposed wooden beams. The space is almost as toasty as its buttery robes and towels, which practitioners warm up mid-treatment — a divine detail. The spa aims for an “elemental” tone: I bobbed in the warm indoor-outdoor pool while inhaling crisp mountain air. But most transporting of all may be unplugging and opting into the serenity of Miraval mode: Guests sign a pledge promising to “be mindful, live in the moment,” and eschew phone use (except in designated areas) — an honor code that actually works.

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State Rep. Smitty Pignatelli to be interim town manager of Lenox (NEPM)

Thornewood Inn project in Great Barrington completed, now open to affordable housing units (Berkshire Edge)

Hancock Shaker Village hosting national launch of USPS’s ‘Shaker Design’ stamp series (Berkshire Eagle)

Rodents, raw sewage and mold are pushing Dalton police out of their headquarters (B Eagle)

Juneteenth, the newest federal holiday, to be celebrated throughout western Massachusetts (NEPM)

NEWS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

Crafting the Future: Rhinebeck

(Chronogram) RHINEBECK, N.Y. - It takes a village, they say. To do what? you might ask. Build new infrastructure? Support neurodiversity? Choose the best grocery store? The dozens of people combing over walls pasted with zoning maps, population charts, and housing data in Rhinebeck's Village Hall might not look like the soul of a community pondering these challenges, but many of them have been mulling the questions for more than two and half years. Not during a glitzy forum or in public debates, but quietly, methodically — through the sometimes-boring workings of government.

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Temperatures could reach 100 this week for only second time since 1874 (ATU)

Hudson-Athens Lighthouse celebrates 150 years (HV360)

Demolition begins on Hudson’s Ferry Street Bridge (HV360)

So-called Depot District in Hudson down to only one building without promised affordable housing (GoR)

Rhinebeck mulls extra $45K to study creating trail from Amtrak station to library (Daily Freeman)

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