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This weekend is the 10th annual FilmColumbia Festival. The festival is one of the most highly anticipated cultural events of the county (that’s county, folks, not country). It was started in 2000 by the Chatham Film Club and is currently run by journalist and cinephile Peter Biskind. This year they’ve got over 30 screenings, panels, readings and parties.
Here’s a peak at some of the lineup:
- Precious, early Oscar buzz, starring Mo’Nique, Mariah Carey, and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. Look for a HUGE feature on it in this week’s NYTimes Magazine.
- The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Heath Ledger’s last (half-completed) film, directed by Terry Gilliam. Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law complete Heath’s role in the second half of the film.
- The Men Who Stare At Goats, starring George Clooney. What is this film? Is anyone as confused as I am?
- The Maid, this year’s Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance.
- The White Ribbon, the latest from Michael Haneke, one of my favorite foreign filmmakers.
- An Education, Dogme 95 meets Nick Hornby. Literally.
There’s also the Coen Brothers, Barack Obama, Queen Victoria and Doctors Without Borders.
Anuj and I had a great time last year – we saw a few films, including The Class, one of our favorites of the year.
Screenings for this year’s festival start tomorrow night. Go! (Or should I say, “Come!”)
Fall festivals are in full swing, and the leaves are near peak color. The air is crisp and cool, fresh apple cider’s in the fridge, I’m even wearing flannel. This all means it is officially my favorite time of the year.
Two weeks ago we did our first apple picking of the season at Golden Harvest Farms. No baked goods came of it – just some tart, sweet snacks for the next week – but rest assured there are more apples to come, and hopefully a crisp, crumble or even pie along with them.
If the apples look a little worse for wear, they are. The area was hit with a bad hale storm which damaged a lot of them. There were still good ones to be found – you just had to venture deeper into the orchard and push through some layers of branches to find them.
“The Wettest July in 70 Years“.
And the third coolest June and July on record.
Now, I don’t exactly need a newspaper to tell me it’s been raining nearly every day this summer, but it’s nice to have a statistical report that explains my droopy hydrangeas, my spongy backyard, the weeds infesting my driveway, and my nonexistant tanline.
One of my favorite writers A.M. Homes profiles the Columbia County home of architect Steven Harris and interior designer Lucien Rees Roberts in June’s Elle Decor.
“Fourteen-foot glass pocket doors and sliding screens transform the [dining] room into a breezeway.”
I want this firepit!
Two winters ago when we bought our place upstate, not everyone got it. Either we were making an impulsive fantasy-purchase we’d soon regret, or we were sitting on a secret trust fund. Considering we looked at places for over a year, I don’t think our decision was impulsive. And a trust fund? Well that’s just funny (though if we did have a trust fund, it would have been better invested in a second home than the stock market).
The reality is, we could not afford to buy an apartment in New York. Let me amend that – we probably could have scraped together enough to buy a small one-bedroom somewere (not Harlem which we’re already priced out of) but we were living in a two-bedroom and itching for more space. Why would we spend more to have less?
Living in the country was a longtime dream of ours. We’d been visiting the Berkshires and Columbia County since we began dating, drawn by the good food, beautiful landscape, hiking, theater and music, skiing, antiquing, apple and berry picking – the list goes on. But our love alone could not finance a home – we had to crunch the numbers. And let me go Suze Orman on you and tell you that even before the financial meltdown, the numbers made sense. Our choice was either buy in the city and downgrade our standard of living (smaller apt, fewer weekends in the country, longer commute), or buy in the country and upgrade our standard of living (stay in our two-bedroom rental, regular weekends in the country, a place to raise children and host family, etc. etc.). Our decision was made: rent in the city, and buy in the country.
Fast forward a year and a few months. Now that the market has brought the country to its knees, it seems this crazy decision of ours had some legs. Click the photo to read more from yesterday’s New York Times (note: that is not a picture of us) .
I’m back!
I’ve actually been back since Memorial Day weekend, I just haven’t gotten my blog act together until now. But we’ve been busy. While my laptop and I were holed up in our little cabin in the woods, Anuj and his parents spent several days cleaning, weeding, and turning over every flower bed in our yard. And this is no small task. We have rose bushes and hydrangea and peonies and rhododendron and things I will never properly identify in beds all over the yard. And we have weeds. Lots of weeds. For all the hours the in-laws spent yanking the weeds out of the ground, there are countless new ones shaking their dander in our faces.
We also have a new furniture project we’ve been working on for a few weeks, but I’ll wait to reveal that.
The food at MacDowell was yummy. About five pounds too yummy. There was a homemade dessert for every meal, and I’m not one to pass up dessert, especially when it’s got wild Maine blueberries. Now I’m attempting to reverse the trend by getting some exercise (but continuing to eat dessert). Saturday Anuj and I went for a 2-mile run on the roads behind our house. And Sunday we did a small hike at Schor Conservation, 200+ gorgeous acres of Columbia Land Conservancy-owned land in Canaan, NY.
It was our first visit to Schor, a light, 2 1/2 mile walk through the woods, around a pond and up a short but steep hill to reveal stunning views of the Catskills and the Albany cityscape.
The cute pavilion for picnic lunches.
A memorial to the man who bequeathed the land to CLC: Jon Schor.
The view.
