The Catskill Floods of 2011

My thoughts and hopes with are friends and family in Ulster and Delaware Counties picking up from Irene’s devastation that made the March 1980 floods feel less significant and more distant.

More up-to-date information is at the Watershed Post.


More Serene Times (a few weeks before Irene)

of Empathy and Sentience

Stanley Bosworth, the founder of Saint Ann’s School died this week. How pivotal he was in altering the life arc of thousands of students is a given. Where we would be today without his “Question Authority” attitude, I don’t know. Nancy Rommelmann might, and “What Stanley Knew” rings beautiful, kind and true. Me? In his own words, this is what Stanley knew 40 years ago…

A Day in Woodstock - August 2011

I suppose the range of emotions felt when separating from the home one grew up in can be large. At least on the surface, it feels like no big deal; maybe even a good thing. Too much baggage weighs you down. Catalyzed by the thought that this could be the last time I sleep at Manitou House, I plan an overnight to Woodstock. Disclosure: I really wanted to see Patti Rothberg.


Redrocks West Shokan (2011)

Surprise karma has me in town for “Traum Day” with Happy, Levon, and Sebastian making a hundred or so people on the village green feel good and smile – just as Artie would have done. Monique, her son, her nephew, and his dog and I take a stroll through town where it is a nice cloudy and breezy day ahead of the rain that would fall later. A totally organic kind vibe.

After dinner at YumYum we arrived at Colony Café. I had never heard music there before. What a nice venue. Big hugs and my usual incoherent ranting/gushing with Patti, ahead of Big Sister. These girls are the shit. I’m embarrassed that I hadn’t heard them before; but I guess they came to be after I left Bearsville. Patti, of course, was her extra-awesome acoustic self. Sorry, no set list, but she started with “Flicker” and followed with “Inside”, which spontaneously motivated the lead singer from Big Sister, sitting at the table next to us, to sing pitch-perfect backgrounds matching the album track. Sweet!

The music business is not what it was decades ago. And I was bummed at the small turnout. These artists work hard. This is an artists’ colony, not the new trendy place to live. I’m wrong of course; so I guess in that way, I do want to cling to the past. But as Juliana says “the past is gone, and wasn’t it great?”



Artie in the Bearsville Studio shop (1978)