JULY 2020 COMPLIMENTARY GUIDE Catskillregionguide.Com
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Catskill Mountain Region JULY 2020 COMPLIMENTARY GUIDE catskillregionguide.com July 2020 • GUIDE 1 2 • www.catskillregionguide.com IN THIS ISSUE www.catskillregionguide.com VOLUME 35, NUMBER 7 July 2020 PUBLISHERS Peter Finn, Chairman, Catskill Mountain Foundation Sarah Finn, President, Catskill Mountain Foundation EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, CATSKILL MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION Sarah Taft ADVERTISING SALES Barbara Cobb Steve Friedman On the cover: Photo by Robert Hsu CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Maryna Bilak, Carlo DeVito, Rita Gentile, Karen 4 8 QUESTIONS FOR 4 WRITERS Schoemer, Jeff Senterman, Laura Taylor, Margaret Questions by & Compiled by Robert Tomlinson Donsbach Tomlinson & Robert Tomlinson CROSS CONTEMPORARY PARTNERS PRESENTS ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE 10 Candy McKee A FINE ART BENEFIT FOR THE WOODSTOCK Isabel Cunha, Justin McGowan & Emily Morse FILM FESTIVAL PRINTING Catskill Mountain Printing Services 12 THOMAS COLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE: A New Way to Visit with Outdoor Explore Kits DISTRIBUTION Catskill Mountain Foundation 16 TODAY BUILDS TOMORROW: EDITORIAL DEADLINE FOR NEXT ISSUE: July 10 Sustainability, Innovation, Culture By Robert Tomlinson The Catskill Mountain Region Guide is published 12 times a year by the Catskill Mountain Foundation, Inc., Main Street, PO Box 924, Hunter, NY 12442. If you have events or programs that you 11 QUESTIONS FOR ARTIST MARYNA BILAK would like to have covered, please send them by e-mail to tafts@ 18 catskillmtn.org. Please be sure to furnish a contact name and in- Questions by & Compiled by Robert Tomlinson clude your address, telephone, fax, and e-mail information on all correspondence. For editorial and photo submission guidelines send a request via e-mail to [email protected]. 20 RODNEY ALAN GREENBLAT: The liability of the publisher for any error for which it may be held legally responsible will not exceed the cost of space ordered SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO or occupied by the error. The publisher assumes no liability for errors in key numbers. The publisher will not, in any event, be liable for loss of income or profits or any consequent damages. 21 HUDSON RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM The Catskill Mountain Region Guide office is located in REOPENS ON JULY 11 Hunter Village Square in the Village of Hunter on Route 23A. The magazine can be found on-line at www.catskillmtn.org by clicking on the “Guide Magazine” button, or by going directly to www.catskillregionguide.com 22 SUMMER FESTIVAL 2020: KAATSBAAN CULTURAL PARK 7,000 copies of the Catskill Mountain Region Guide are distributed each month. It is distributed free of charge at the Plattekill, Sloatsburg and New Baltimore rest stops on the 24 MACHINEWORKS: DAVID EUSTACE New York State Thruway, and at the tourist information offices, restaurants, lodgings, retailers and other businesses throughout A GREENE COUNTY GARDEN IN JULY Greene, Delaware and Ulster counties. 25 Home delivery of the Guide magazine is available, at an By Margaret Donsbach Tomlinson additional fee, to annual members of the Catskill Mountain Foundation at the $100 membership level or higher. ©2000 Catskill Mountain Foundation, Inc. THE GREAT OUTDOORS IN THE CATSKILLS All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without 26 written permission is prohibited. The Catskill Mountain Region By Jeff Senterman Guide is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. All photo- graphic rights reside with the photographer. 29 NEW AUDIOBOOK FROM SILVER HOLLOW AUDIO: The Quarry Fox and other Critters of the Wild Catskills, by Leslie T. Sharpe THE CATSKILL MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION 7971 MAIN STREET, P.O. BOX 924 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS HUNTER, NY 12442 33 PHONE: 518 263 2000 • FAX: 518 263 2025 WWW.CATSKILLMTN.ORG 34 THANK YOU ESSENTIAL WORKERS! July 2020 • GUIDE 3 8 QUESTIONS FOR 4 WRITERS Writers have that uncanny ability to put the human condition into words. We wanted to know what inspires them and to learn about their creative process! Questions by and compiled by Robert Tomlinson Carlo DeVito What are you reading now (do you read more than one book at a time)? Please tell us about three books I read several books at a time always. Right now I’m reading: that have been meaningful to Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick you and why. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil de Grasse Tyson The Great Gatsby: I read it in Working by Robert Caro sixth grade and have reread it many times since. I have a If you could visit the home of any deceased writer from any first edition of it in my per- country, who would it be and why? sonal library. To me, other than Huckleberry Finn, it is the quintessential Great American Novel. I have done it many times. I have visited the houses of Hawthorne, Simple. Elegant. It is about the American Dream. Melville, Dickinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others. My favor- The World According To Garp: I fell in love with all its char- ite thus far was the Mark Twain house in Hartford, CT. I was so acters. I never wanted the story to end. Each time I reread it it is entranced I wrote a book about it, A Mark Twain Christmas. like going home. A Christmas Carol: I loved the story so much I wrote an Work habits can be so individualized … do you have a entire book about it. INVENTING SCROOGE about how, why, working schedule that you impose upon yourself? If so, and where Dickens drew his story lines from. please describe. I write when I can. I prefer to write in the morning or late at Is there a book or author that you have read that you feel is night. Sometimes both. I have a favorite writing quote by Jo under-acknowledged or notably underrated? Why? Miller: “I hate writing. I love having written.” I love Fredrick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes. It was a big deal when it first came out and his reputation and the book’s seems to have faded. What are you working on now? And what are the biggest It remains an important read. challenges you are currently facing? Another is Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara. O’Hara I’m writing a bio of Weeb Ewbank, who won the two most has faded immeasurably. But the book is a timeless study in man- important games in the history of the NFL. His Baltimore Colts ners, mores, and fate. beat the New York Giants to win the first overtime NFL champi- onship game which cemented the relationship between the NFL When you go to a bookstore—what section do you go to first? and television. He also won Super Bowl III when his New York Biography. Fiction. Poetry. History. In that order. Jets beat his old team the Baltimore Colts. This game cemented the merger between the NFL and the AFL, giving us the modern Have you ever bought a book that you knew nothing about game we know today. and ended up thinking it was really great? If so, what book? I have also been asked to revise my book Big Whiskey. The Bird Artist by Howard Norman. Wonderful story, beautifully I am writing a memoir about my father and step-father with set, extremely well told. Great story arc. a working title called Fathers and Son. A sequel will be entitled 4 • www.catskillregionguide.com Mothers and Son. It has been bittersweet to write. I hate writing I enjoyed reading a fiction novel called Let the Great World about myself. Spin by Colum McCann. Although it is not contemporary I have three more planned beyond that. (2009), it takes place during dramatic world events in NYC My greatest challenge is keeping focused. Balancing life, when people are confronting their own mortality, grapling with work, art, and family. fear, jealousies, dealings of power, greed, but, also summon great humanitarianism, generosity, random service, volunteerism, and Rita Gentile community outreach, and love. I guess, much like today. Please tell us about three books that have been meaningful to you Is there a book or author that you have read that you feel is and why. under-acknowledged or notably underrated? Why? I have often and again picked up I’m sorry, I don’t know. Some of the writers I’ve heard read in any collection of R.W. Emerson’s Catskill are captivating and should be published if they inspired essays and addresses. He are not already. was the romantic literary voice of reason, logic, common sense, When you go to a bookstore—what section do you go to first? and transcendence; writing about Art, which is process based, Philosophy /Spirituality, which is the self, divinity, human nature, result based (opposites?), Poetry, Contemporary Writing. the power of the spirit. Poems precede his prosaic essays which, imbued with soft spoken, authoritative wisdom, are quotable and Have you ever bought a book that you knew nothing about eloquent at every page. He lived for a time on my native Staten and ended up thinking it was really great? If so, what book? Island, NY where Emerson Hill was named for him. Not so directly, though, recently I bought Ocean Vuong’s On “The Paper Door” is a translation of original Japanese short Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, and was well pleased at how moving stories by Shiga Naoya. I like contemplating the author’s message and creatively written it is. I was already cued in to the concept of about characters and their take on particular events. The structure the book. I thought it was great for the untrodden path this young of the stories have a different sense of time and focus. It’s an excit- author pursued in writing this confessional in the way he did. ing and liberating to read and riddle out cultural differences inher- ent in the story-telling techniques and devices of foreign authors.