In a contrary motion that J. S. Bach likely would have appreciated, Like Falling through a Cloud moves from an ethereal, poetic confusion in its earliest pages toward an all-too-grounded diagnostic clarity as the reality sinks in and the author advances, often with great reluctance, from consultation to consultation as the unnamable is named.
Woodstock reading on Sunday, November 3: Many of the myths regarding Joplin read out like cautionary, puritanical sermons, luridly celebrating her passionate performances as something inspired and beyond her control, meanwhile excoriating her for her weakness, the demons and hedonism that ultimately defeated her. The standard line on Janis has allowed precious little acknowledgment of her personal agency, her seriousness of purpose and her accelerating artistic growth and self-determination, all of which are major and richly substantiated themes in George-Warren’s deeply engaging new biography.
The book being discussed, Rising Out of Hatred: the Awakening of a Former White Nationalist, recounts how Derek Black, heir apparent to the “largest racist web site in the world,” learned to question the beliefs he’d been taught his entire life and repudiate the movement. From November 3-9 a number of community events have been organized to provide opportunities to grok the message of dialog and redemption central to Black’s transformed thinking.
Tuesday, Oct. 22: Kimball left city life behind and, with her new husband from New Paltz, took on the immense job of starting and running a CSA near Lake Champlain, known as Essex Farm. It currently comprises 1,100 acres and is managed with horsedrawn farm machinery rather than tractors, using no chemical pesticides or fertilizers. The goal was to supply its 150 members year-round (up to 200 now) with ingredients for three organic meals a day – not just vegetables, salad greens, herbs and a few fruits, but also grains, flour, beans, eggs, meat, dairy, honey, maple syrup, cut flowers, even soap. Kimball calls it “the world’s first full-diet CSA, as far as we know.”
“Ancient Baseball is a response, of sorts, to the way that Major League Baseball has ruined the game for me and so many others,” says author Mikhail Horowitz.
Saturday, Oct. 5: The 200th anniversary of the birth of American poet, journalist, essayist and humanist Walt Whitman is this month, and a dear colleague of his (or the people now taking care of his old cabin) will be throwing his birthday party — John Burroughs.
Thursday, Oct. 10: Isabella Tree, author of Wilding, comes to Bard to explain how England’s Knepp Castle was returned to nature.
When the young Leader first went to Europe on a food tour, bread was not on his mind. Things changed fast as he found himself thrust into a series of unplanned apprenticeships with some of Europe’s most revered traditional bakers.
Michael Maruti Projansky’s autobiographical memoir I Don’t Know…I Love (Epigraph Publishing, 2019) might have been restricted to the literary technique of episodic collage by the unique conditions of its writing. A genuine exit project, I Don’t Know…I Love finds the well-known New Paltz patriarch, psychologist, world traveler and spiritual seeker in his own words, “progressively disentangling from being human,” in his late 70s and five years into a struggle with a rare form of ALS that will claim his life – within half a year, by the author’s own estimation at the time of publication.
Lytle will read from the book, a child’s-eye tour of the Little BeaverKill Creek, and display the drawings on the walls at the Golden Notebook,29 Tinker Street, Woodstock at 4:30p.m. Saturday, September 14.
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