| The History Chef" Book Signing Event A Special Wine Tasting Event Meet & Greet Andrew Caldwell, The History Chef Wednesday, December 16th Have someone on your gift list that loves History? |  | |
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Please Join For this Book Signing By Andrew Caldwell - (www.thehistorychef.net) Chef and Author of Their Last Suppers. The event will be from 5-8PM Wed Dec 16th - Andrew Caldwell will conduct discussions on his book and we'll have a wine tasting with finger foods. |
http://www.fireboat.org/n My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson, Jessica DuLong ditches her dot-com life for the diesel engines of historic fireboat John J. Harvey and along the way discovers four centuries of cultural history on the Hudson. The more she spends time with the boat's finely crafted machinery and learns about the river's industrial history, the more she wonders what America is losing in our shift away from hands-on work. DuLong, one of the world's only female fireboat engineers, offers a porthole-view narrative of the river and its social tapestry as a microcosm of post-industrial America. The book has been released by Simon & Schuster's Free Press in time for the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's historic voyage upriver.
http://www.millbrookbookfestival.org/
Friday May 15, 2009
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies hosting:
| 4:00 - 6:00pm | Open House Family friendly tours, science demos, hands-on-activities about the Hudson River, and science books for kids. |
| 6:15 - 7:00pm | Opening Reception Refreshments, posters, artwork, music, more! |
| 7:00 - 8:30pm | The Hudson: America's River |
| Featured speaker, Fran Dunwell, has spent over thirty years in a number of nonprofit and governmental positions dedicated to conserving the natural and historic heritage of the Hudson River. | |
| Copies of The Hudson: America's River, will be available for purchase after Fran's talk. All royalties from the sale of the book are being donated to the Natural Heritage Trust for conservation of the river. |
Saturday May 16, 2009
| Hosted by: | ||
| 10:45am - 6:00pm | Millbrook Library (Lawn) | READING CENTRAL TENT: Book Sales & Signings |
| 11:00am - 6:00pm | Millbrook Library (Great Hall) | BOOK ILLUSTRATOR EXHIBIT Display of paintings by six illustrators |
| 9:30am - 6:00pm | Merritt Bookstore | BARRETT ART EXHIBIT artwork by Barrett School of Art Faculty members teaching at Merritt Bookstore this summer. |
| 9:30 - 10:30am | Grace Church | SPIRITUALITY & MOTIVATION Jillian Quinn |
| 10:00 - 10:30am | Lyall Church | FICTION FEATURE Katherine Neville |
| 10:30 - 11:00am | Millbrook Library (Book Tent) | FICTION FEATURE Da Chen |
| 11:00am - Noon | Lyall Church | AROUND & ABOUT THE HUDSON VALLEY While Sheila Buff gives an overview of what can be enjoyed throughout the Hudson Valley, Shari Aber focuses on kayaking, Stephen Donaldson on barns, Cynthia Owen Philip on Rhinecliff, and Linda Zimmerman on haunted places. |
| 11:00am - Noon | Grace Church | IN & OUT OF BONDAGE: AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE HUDSON VALLEY & BEYOND Moderated by Valerie Martin, Orange prize winner for her novel PROPERTY, three historical researchers and writers, Gretchen Gerzina, Valerie Cunningham, and Elise Lemire, will share stories about Black American history in the Northeast. |
Noon - 1:30pm
| LUNCH at local restaurants
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| 1:00 - 1:30pm | PARADE from Thorne Parking lot to Millbrook Library |
| 1:30 - 2:00pm | Millbrook Library (Children's Room) | VOICES OF THE VALLEY Students from local schools read their prose & poetry. |
| 1:30 - 2:30pm | The Phoenix Gallery (Franklin Ave & Front St) | LIFESTYLE IN THE HUDSON VALLEY Keith Irvine, who has worked with an elite clientele to create unique interiors throughout the world, will speak with well-known designers and decorators, Elizabeth Mayhew and Carolyne Roehm, about their latest books. |
| 1:30 - 2:30pm | Lyall Church | HUDSON VALLEY POETS Hear a variety of poetic voices, from Tom Flynn’s amazing personal story of 9/11, to Will Nixon’s Catskill meditations, to Raphael Kosek’s thought-provoking lyricism. |
| 1:30 - 4:30pm | Millbrook Library | POSTCARD EXHIBIT Laszlo Nagy's Collection of postcards of the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration and of Vassar College. |
| 2:15 - 3:00pm | Millbrook Library (Children's Room) | FOR KIDS: HONDO, HEROS & HAPPY TUNES Authors and illustrators read from their latest books. Featuring Caldecot Honor winner Peter McCarty, artist Robin Brickman, Jacky Davis, David Soman, Suzanne McGovern, Iza Trapani, and Gloria Smith Zawaski. |
| 3:00 - 4:00pm | Millbrook Library (Bennett Community Room) | THE RIVER Take a closer look at the Hudson and its shores with a slide presentation by Nancy Willard and Eric Lindbloom, based on their poetry/photography book, THE RIVER THAT RUNS TWO WAYS. Delve into The River’s history, geography, and inspirational beauty with authors Akiko Busch, Tom Lewis, Edward Goodman, Steven Stanne, and Roger Panetta. And sample the voices of “river” writers in RIVERINE, edited by Laurence Carr. |
| 3:00 - 4:00pm | Millbrook Farm and Garden | FOOD & FLORA IN THE HUDSON VALLEY Learn cooking and gardening “how-to” from the experts: how to keep the deer away, from Neil Soderstrom; how to incorporate fruit trees into your landscape, from Lee Reich; how to cook and eat healthy foods, from Nava Atlas. |
| 3:15 - 4:00pm | Millbrook Library (Children's Room) | FOR PRETEENS & YOUNG ADULTS: HISTORY TO FANTASY Authors and illustrators offer a sampling of the rich variety of books available to teens. The panel includes Ann Burg, Katie Davis, Claudia Gray, Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, Scott Mebus, Robin Palmer, Hudson Talbot, Timothy Tocher, and Daniel Wolff. |
| 4:30 - 5:30pm | Millbrook Library | FICTION & MEMOIR Walter Keady introduces an eclectic mix of local writers. Gwendolyn Bounds and Laura Shaine Cunningham share memories of living in the Hudson Valley, while Elizabeth Cunningham, Marshall Karp, Nina Shengold and Daphne Uviller take us elsewhere in their imaginative novels. |
| 6:00 - 7:00pm | St. Joseph's School | LASAGNA DINNER (Suggested donation $10 adults; $5 children) |
| 7:30 - 8:30pm | St. Joseph's School | ONE-ACT PLAY (Not for small children) |
| Hudson Adrift: The Bitter End of Henry Hudson written by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel; performed by Donald Kimmel |
EVENTS ARE FREE UNLESS NOTED
For a complete listing of authors, click here.
http://www.pr.com/press-release/136746
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/nyregion/thecity/22rive.html
NEW YORK OBSERVED
His Kind of River
When I was growing up, in a steel town in northwestern New Jersey, I could see a sliver of the Delaware River from the top step of my backdoor stoop, but only in the winter, when the trees were bare, and only after mill hours, when the air cleared up. A freight line ran along the riverfront on the Jersey side of the Delaware, and my friends and I were forbidden to play there.
With great conspiratorial fervor transparent to our parents, I’m sure, we would bike down to the tracks after school and goof around or sit on the rails and watch the water until the freight-yard guards chased us away. We were bookish, nerd kids, my buddies and I; more than once, we did our homework on the tracks. Then one summer, a boy in our elementary school — Bob Frankenfield, whose older brother later married my big sister — drowned in the Delaware, and the dangers of the riverside no longer seemed so romantic.
Much has been made, in Bruce Springsteen songs, of the import of crossing the Hudson River for kids from New Jersey. When I moved to Manhattan in the mid-’70s to go to New York University, I thought of the Hudson in those Boss-ish terms, vainly, as no more than the symbol of a border that I thought I had crossed, an imagined line between youth and adulthood, between provincialism and cosmopolitanism.
Since college, I have lived mostly on the Upper West Side, and I’ve done a great deal of work in Riverside Park. By work, I mean not just the labor of making sentences; I mean the different sort of effort involved in reading or listening to music that I want to write about. I had the author photos for my first two books (“Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn” and “Positively 4th Street”) taken in Riverside Park, because the books were essentially made there. The park is where I did the musing that can be the most important part of writing.
Working in Riverside Park, one is reminded from time to time of the porous line between musing and daydreaming. My bench of choice faces the river, and I sometimes find the steady, endless rolling of the water lulling me to dreaminess. I like to think of this state as one conducive to epiphany, although it more often leads, in my case, to naps.
Gazing at the Hudson River can be, by turns, tranquilizing, intellectually nourishing or disorienting. Because the stretch of the Hudson that divides Manhattan and New Jersey is not a typical river but, rather, a tidal estuary, it ebbs and flows. As I understand, the Mahicans called it by a phrase that meant “the river that runs both ways.” In wintertime, it’s not uncommon to see hunks of ice drifting upstream, toward the river’s sources upstate. For self-styled contrarians like me, the majestically freaky nature of the Hudson makes it very much my kind of river.
RIVERSIDE PARK was deeply important in the creative lives of two of my idols, a fact that has no doubt informed my own ardor for the park. Billy Strayhorn, the reclusive jazz master who composed “Take the ‘A’ Train” and other music associated with Duke Ellington, lived for many years in what was once the Master Hotel, a lush Art Deco tower on Riverside Drive and West 103rd Street.
He spent most mornings and a great many afternoons reading books and writing music in the park — on benches somewhere around the one I’ve chosen, I believe. Strayhorn gave one and only one concert under his own name during his abbreviated lifetime, an event staged at the New School in 1965, not long before he died at age 51, and he called the band he had organized for the occasion the Riverside Drive Five.
Stephane Grappelli, the French jazz violinist, once talked to Strayhorn about what the river meant to him.
“We walked along the Seine,” Mr. Grappelli recalled. “I was telling him how much I loved the river and how I loved to look at it as it ran through the city. Billy said it seemed to him to be, he said, the essence of life. It carried life through the city and beyond it, he said.” After Strayhorn’s death in May 1967, a small group of his friends gathered on a pier at the West 79th Street Boat Basin and emptied an urn of his remains into the Hudson.
About 50 blocks north of the Master Hotel, Ralph Ellison spent most of his own mornings reading and writing on a bench near his apartment at 730 Riverside Drive. There is a striking memorial to Ellison, who died at age 80 in 1994 — a figurative sculpture evoking an invisible man, by the artist Elizabeth Catlett — on the small traffic island across the street from Ellison’s building.
At the groundbreaking for the memorial, in November 2001, I had the considerable honor of reading a selection from Ellison’s prose and saying a few words. I wrote my remarks in Riverside Park, not far from where I’m sitting at the moment. I said that I had not known Ellison as well as I wished I had, but I remembered a little allegory he had told me.
It was about a man whom Ellison used to see picking the newspaper out of a trash bin in the park. Ellison said that when he wrote, he wrote with that man in mind, on the assumption that the fellow might be the best reader he could have. Fine for writing, the park on the river that flows both ways is not bad for reading, either.
http://www.registerstar.com/articles/2009/03/01/news/news02.txt
Hudson Valley author sets sail on ‘River of Dreams’
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WOODSTOCK — Catskill illustrator and author Hudson Talbott has officially launched his latest book, “River of Dreams: The Story of the Hudson River,” into the ethos of modern day children’s literature.
The beautifully crafted tale weaves the story of the Hudson River together with that of Talbott’s own journey through time. Yet, the visually stimulating book transcends all age groups, piquing interest and providing a learning experience at any level.
“This book in particular has lots of meaning to me, obviously because of the name,” Talbott said during a book launch at the Byrdcliffe in Woodstock. “It’s not that easy growing up ‘Hudson.’”
At the onset of his launch presentation, he showed his appreciation for being given the privilege to publish a book with the word “dream” prominent on its cover.
“Right now we all need our dreams so much,” he said. “It’s a dark time we’re kind of passing through right now. It’s certainly not the worst time that this valley has seen, and it won’t be the last, but we’re in it now. We all still need our dreams. It’s really important. And more than that our kids need their dreams, they deserve dreams.”
Talbott proceeded to then present an overview of each section of the book, highlighting the significance of each of it’s 37 pages. His dreams as a young boy growing up in Kentucky, with aspirations to “have a horse and go to New York,” sets the table for a journey through history “long before anyone called the river — or me — Hudson.”
From the geological birth of the Hudson River Valley and it’s first inhabitants to the spoils of industry and beyond, the story is a display of concise, well-researched history with unique flair tailored told youth.
“Writing and illustrating a book for young people is that you always have to take into consideration a couple things: a limitation in vocabulary and a limitation in attention span,” Talbott said. “My work, my job is to condense and distill as much as possible. I’ve always said writing for kids is sort of like writing haikus, it’s really about getting it done to the very essence so that every syllable carries some weight and has some meaning to it.”
The book illustrates the journey of Henry Hudson and his 1609 voyage from Europe to uncharted waters, with the hope of finding a seaway to the Far East. Then providing a graphical timeline of the establishment of the Dutch trading post New Netherland and its British acquisition and development into New York.
The Hudson Valley’s role in the Revolutionary War is highlighted with a depiction of Benedict Arnold and the strategic importance of West Point.
“Whoever controlled the river controlled the colonies,” said Talbott motioning to his illustration of King George slicing a map of the 13 colonies down the Hudson Valley. “If the Brits could cut off New England from the rest of the colonies they could control the war.”
After becoming a hero in the immensely important Battle of Saratoga, Arnold became irritated by not being given enough recognition and turned traitor. The book tells that Arnold had secretly given the defensive plans of West Point to the British, forever making his name synonymous with betrayal.
As the book progresses through history it highlights the contributions of Robert Fulton in reinventing commerce with the steamboat, the importance of the Erie Canal in the development of the Midwest and the boom that would solidify New York as the business and trade capital of the world, at the mouth of the Hudson River.
Ice harvesting, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, the Hudson River School of Painting and the Industrial Revolution that followed the construction of railroads are gorgeously defined through illustration, as well as showing the progression toward environmentalism.
New York City soon became, not only the largest railroad hub in the nation, but also the beacon for a world of dreamers. Suddenly, the mouth of the Hudson boomed with industry and a flood of filth and pollution flowed from its banks.
A graphic picture in the book drew gasps from the standing-room-only crowd at the book launch Saturday, reinforcing the effectiveness of the imagery.
The story continues to tell the tale of the environment movement surrounding Storm King Mountain and a controversial power plant that was proposed there in 1963. Talbott claims that this moment in time inspired the environmental movement across the country and perhaps the world.
The story concludes with Talbott as a self-proclaimed “old geezer” under a picturesque twilight sky floating in a kayak on the river of his dreams.
During Saturday’s book launch presentation, composer Frank Cuthbert — also a Catskill native — performed three ballads inspired by “River of Dreams.” Uproarious applause received the folky, acoustic performance, with a warning by Cuthbert that his solo renditions are only the beginning of a more lavish production. He performed the title track, an environmentally charged tune called “Sludge” and the “Ellis Island Story.” The songs will be featured on a nine-song album and in a theatrical production this summer that is based on Talbott’s book.
Workshops associated with the production will be hosted by local thespian Casey Biggs in the coming weeks, designed to instruct children on script writing, set design, lighting design and costume design. Children participating in these workshops will then have an opportunity to craft their own performances or scripts based on “River of Dreams.”
The first of series of performances is scheduled for May 15.
The book is dedicated to Scenic Hudson, which was named after the “Scenic Hudson Decision,” denying plans for the proposed Storm King Mountain plant.
“River of Dreams” will be available nationwide in bookstores everywhere. It is published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of the Penguin Young Readers Group.
Further information on Hudson Talbott and his work is available atwww.hudsontalbott.com.
To reach reporter Colin DeVries, please call (518) 943-2100, ext. 3325, or e-mail cdevries@thedailymail.net.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=248&dept_id=462336&newsid=20252336&PAG=461&rfi=9
The Hudson in focus: Resolute photographer captures moods of the river, waiting for just the right moment
RICHARD ROTH
GETTING UP AND HIKING in the highlands at 4 a.m. is not for everybody. Neither is visiting a place again and again until the light is just right for a stunning photograph.
Photographer Greg Miller is willing to do both, and the results can be seen in his new book, The Hudson River: A Great American Treasure(Rizzoli International, 2008, $50).
Miller says the early mornings are worth the effort, because it's his favorite light of the day (sunset comes in second). And while there were times when he "got lucky" during the book project, the majority of his landscape photographs required careful planning.
"Most of the time I'll see a scene I like and pre-visualize the type of weather, time of day and quality of light I think would work best," he says. "My goal is to get the ultimate photo of any specific scene, and you can't just show up. For one shot I had to visit 12 times to get what I wanted."
The Hudson River, an all-color, large-format 224-page book, has been published in association with Scenic Hudson, Inc., which will share in the royalties. The book's introduction is by Scenic Hudson President Ned Sullivan, and there is a foreword by noted environmentalist Bill McKibben.
There was no shortage of material. "I knew a lot of places, and Scenic Hudson was helpful in building me a list of others," says Miller, who lives in Orange County. "I met with their staff, and we talked through all the places we thought should be represented. They knew a lot of places I was not familiar with."
The entire length of the Hudson Valley is represented, from Manhattan to the Adirondacks. Miller used a 4-by-5 view camera and photographic film for the earlier images and a Nikon digital single lens reflex for the later ones. A computer program was used to produce panoramic views, overlapping succeeding images into a seamless whole. But nothing about the photographs themselves has been altered digitally; that is, the light and color is reproduced exactly as it was recorded by the cameras.
"I don't do filters or digital manipulation," says Miller. "I get there by being there with the right light and weather conditions."
Miller, 48, has a day job as an information technology manager for Sony. But he has always been a photographer, and the advent of digital technology increased his interest in the art form.
"The last five years I got more serious," he says. "It was always hard to get prints made as a color photographer; even by professional labs. With digital printing I was able to make my own color prints, and they actually looked like the slides. It was very motivating to know that, by controlling the whole process, I was able to get a print that looked the way it was supposed to."
The book itself evolved from an earlier plan devised by Reed Spalding, a staff writer for Scenic Hudson, who suggested comparing photos of every section of the Hudson in a book published decades ago with contemporary photographs of the same scenes. The focus changed during a meeting with the publisher.
"Reed and Ned and I visited Rizzoli, and I showed my portfolio," says Miller. "The USA head [for Rizzoli] was in the room, and he decided to do this book rather than the original project."
Producing The Hudson River was a 10-month project for Miller. "Most photographers aspire to have a book of their work," he says, "but for me this was great because it benefits Scenic Hudson and builds awareness of what they do. That was a bonus, from my perspective."
Miller is chair of the New Jersey chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, which, like Scenic Hudson, is interested in protecting resources and helping spur smart growth and development.
"We felt it was important to remind people of the extraordinary beauty of the Hudson Valley," says Sullivan. "We wanted people to have the physical evidence in their hands and be reminded and inspired that the Hudson Valley is a treasure, that its beauty is the foundation of economic prosperity and quality of life."
The book is also an "underpinning," Sullivan says, of Saving the Land That Matters Most, the land conservation initiative Scenic Hudson has launched in conjunction with the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial. The Quadricentennial celebrates the 400th anniversaries of Henry Hudson's voyage up the Hudson and Samuel de Champlain's first visit to the namesake lake, as well as the 200th anniversary of Robert Fulton's maiden journey up the river on the first commercially successful steamboat.
"We felt very strongly that it was a crucial time to look ahead and ensure that we're laying the groundwork for the next 100 years," says Sullivan, "and that we're leaving a real legacy that contributes to the environmental health and economic prosperity of the Hudson Valley."
Saving the Land That Matters Most has a goal of protecting a total of 65,000 acres, in partnership with Audubon New York, the Columbia Land Conservancy, The Nature Conservancy, the Open Space Institute and numerous other organizations. More than 1,700 acres have been saved from development since the campaign began, including 320 forested acres visible from Olana State Historic Site, 19 acres of riverfront land abutting Clermont State Historic Site, 900 acres of working farmland in Dutchess and Columbia counties, and 116 acres of ecologically important Hudson River shoreline in Stockport and Greenport.
"We're very pleased that this partnership came together, that Rizzoli agreed to publish the book, and that we were able to publish at the beginning of the Quadricentennial year," says Sullivan. "We have already seen the impact. People are inspired by the beauty captured by Greg's photographs, and they want to know 'where?' so they can go hiking on that ridge, or sailing or kayaking in that bay."
The Hudson River is available from local bookstores, online booksellers, and area museum shops.
http://www.mitsuwanj.com
Heron, who will detail his book for the first environmental seminar of the season, is a retired Episcopal priest who serves on the staff of The Beacon Institute as project historian.
At the request of John Cronin, head of The Beacon Institute, Heron began researching the history of Denning's Point in August 2004. The initial goal was to publish a short historical pamphlet to provide background information to visitors at Denning's Point.
The results of Heron's research revealed a history so rich and, in some cases, so astonishing the Beacon Institute project became infused with Denning's Point's colorful past and a book was born.
Heron's findings were often dramatic. Two of the more stunning surprises were the proof of prehistoric habitation on the Point and proof Alexander Hamilton had not only resided there but had written significant letters and editorials whose themes found their way into the Constitution while he was living there. George Washington's visits to Denning's Point were already part of its history but even there surprises were revealed.
Heron uncovered the story of the people who walked Denning's Point throughout its history - prehistoric humans, American Indians, European settlers, Revolutionary War soldiers, extravagant owners of the 1800s, industrial barons. The site was finally purchased by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
"Denning's Point, A Hudson River History" was released Oct. 14, 2006.
The Beacon Sloop Club is adjacent to Metro-North's Beacon station on the riverside. The club is a volunteer, nonprofit, environmental organization dedicated to restoring and preserving the majestic Hudson River. Visit www.beaconsloop club.org or call 845-265-2969 for information.
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