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The Berkshire Eagle’s got some video footage of Pittsfield’s new Beacon Cinema.
Now that the opening’s only a few weeks away, I can start guessing what our first movie will be….that new Nancy Meyers film starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin as exes who fall back in love? (update: that comes out Christmas Day. Damn.) The Road? Precious?
What will we do if all they offer are movies like that John Cusack end-of-the-world thing? Or Twilight: New Moon? Go and enjoy our pastries regardless?
Apartment Therapy’s food site The Kitchn has a lovely feature on Berkshire County resident and gardener extraordinaire Margaret Roach’s kitchen. It’s cozy, homy (homey?) and filled with personal treasures.
I think I can smell the fresh tomato sauce coming through my monitor.
Check out her vegetable garden.
If you live in the area, you may have seen it yourself in August as part of this.
Marketplace Kitchen, a catering company and cafe based in Sheffield, Mass is opening a second cafe in Pittsfield. It will be located on the ground level of the new movie theater that’s coming to North Street in November, a month ahead of schedule.
This news has me very excited for several reasons:
1. Pittsfield needs more businesses dedicated to local talents and resources.
2. The website makes specific mention of wanting a place where food could be enjoyed with friends and good tunes. (italics mine)
3. The cafe uses local ingredients and green products whenever possible. They even take suggestions.
4. They have a philosophy that includes providing wholesome food with a smile, a passion for food and fun, and working toward a healthy palette and planet.
5. Having a place to pick up fresh baklava before a movie is never a bad thing.
6. Having a place to pick up tarts, eclairs and artisanal cheeses after a movie (or for that matter, whenever the hell you feel like it) is occasionally a bad thing, but never discouraged.
7. They even offer cooking classes.
Some things remain to be seen such as how expensive it will be, but I’m happy to welcome them to this part of the county and look forward to checking it out in November when they open.
There’s a beautiful vista in Lenox, Mass. that we pass on our way to Tanglewood called Olivia’s Overlook. It’s on a mountain road with a small parking lot regularly filled with people like us stopping to take in the view.
Olivia’s Overlook is one of our stops on the Impress Our Visitors train – the drive we take visiting friends on when we want to show off Berkshire and Columbia County. Impressing Our Visitors includes any combination of dairy farms, cute downtowns, winding country roads, roadside vegetable stands, Edith Wharton’s house, Tanglewood, and scenic vistas like Olivia’s Overlook.
Sadly, I don’t have a photo of Olivia’s Overlook, I only have a photo of the sign. But if you’re reading this, chances are pretty high that you’ve already seen Olivia’s Overlook on one of our Visitor trains. So let me take a moment to introduce you to the other vista hidden across the road and up the mountain.
To get there, you have to walk (or bike) Burbank Trail. Anuj can tell you about Gorman the sheep farmer who lived on the mountain. All that remains of his homestead are the stones of the foundation.
The trail is a 3+ mile moderate hike and very popular with bikers. I’m not sure how they maneuver the rocks and dips and inclines. I was happy to slowly wander and snap pictures.
This was the beginning of my fascination with this pond. I liked how it was reflecting the trees and sky.
Check out how the shadows reveal the leaves underwater.
And the sky.
The map wasn’t entirely necessary, but it was nice to put a name to the pond, and get a hint that the view awaiting us was actually facing north – the opposite direction of Olivia’s Overlook.
You wouldn’t know it from my posts, but we’ve actually been pretty busy this summer hitting the local fairs and festivals. Some are on the small side, others bring folks from all over the county, some are focused on food, others on crafts, art or antiques, some are free and others have a small charge (to benefit the local volunteer fire department)…but all of them are focused on kids. Games, clowns, magicians, storytelling, rock climbing, balloon tossing – festivals are about the kids. Why? Probably because it’s the best way to bring the adults in. So when you don’t have kids…well, that leaves a lot of eating and watching birds of prey presentations. (Let it be noted that I am now officially fascinated by birds of prey and I will be posting photos from said presentation soon.)
As much as Anuj and I love a big blueberry breakfast, the big event of the summer for us is undoubtedly this Saturday’s First Annual Music Festival at MassMoCA. It’s an all day/night festival starring Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Josh Ritter, Ben Kweller and more. If you’ve read my posts, you know that MassMoCA is one of our favorite places in the area, so I’m super excited to see one of my favorite new musicians (Elvis) play there.
Elvis is the son of Anthony Perkins, famously known for his role as Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s Psycho. His music is mournful and soulful, but it’s not simple, and it’s definitely not sentimental. He writes a lot about death and the philosophy of the every day. He often brings in lots of circus-like instruments (reminding me of Neutral Milk Hotel), which adds to the ‘life is a scary magnificent mystery’ feeling of the music.
If you want to check out a few tracks from his 2007 album Ash Wednesday and his more recent self-titled album Elvis Perkins in Dearland, here’s a podcast from WAMC’s Performance Place that was broadcast yesterday. I’ll report back after the weekend!
Is this getting old? Pasting articles about Columbia or Berkshire county from the New York Times?
Well get used to it. We are the locus of all things cool. (But not too cool because we don’t ever want to become like the Hamptons – overrun with J.Crew stores, members only clubs and orange-skinned socialites. In fact, please don’t come here unless your idea of cool is weeding your garden or not showering for a few days or drinking wine while sitting on a blanket in a mosquito-infested field)
Herewith, a piece on the Berkshire Fringe Festival, now five years old. I must admit I scanned the lineup about a week ago and wasn’t interested in anything enough to buy tickets, but maybe I’m just a fringe curmudgeon, having participated in the New York Fringe myself (as staff and artist) many, many years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in fringe, I support fringe, I just think more often than not, it’s the people putting on the show more than the people watching the show that are feeling the ‘high’ of the experience. Fringe is about opportunity, ingenuity, asking your parents to help pay for your sets and programs, and a commitment to saying ’why the hell not’ in response to everything. (Example: ’should we schedule a midnight performance of the all-female Oedipus and offer free Dunkin Donuts to everyone who makes it through awake?’ ‘why the hell not?’ ). These can be a dangerous combination.
Then again, a gorilla, skunk, and unidentified pink animal jazz trio is pretty darn trippy, and probably worth every penny.
