Spice is nice; Crewdson shoots; alabaster and toes
01/02/06
Pittsfield, Mass.
The bibbler is back, on the prowl in Pittsfield, the Berkshires and beyond, after an eight-month hiatus. It was a productive sabbatical, for myself and my partner Jacuzzi. Among other creations, Isaac Julian was born the Ides of April, a precocious 8-month-old at this writing who my sister in Paris describes from e-mailed photos – having never seen him in person – as having the look of a young rabbi. A very flirtatious, smiling rabbi, at that, who takes, even at this age, a capacious pleasure in being alive. He wanted to be born. It’s in the name.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this column of observations, scoops and queries — based at the moment in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts but spiced with freewheeling curiosity about the world at large – it’s made up of items oftentimes suggested by readers. So send in your ideas: by e-mail to
bibblings@scribbyworld.com ; by phone at 413-441-4307; or drop by the Starving Artists Detective Agency, 467 North St., second floor, number 12. Call first. We may be out on a case.
It won’t be long — April, I hear — before Pittsfield will have a new restaurant row in the old Besse Clark building, extending from Summer Street for a good half block along North Street toward Barrington Stage’s new theater. It’s to be called Spice, the $2 million emporium envisioned by Joyce Bernstein and Larry Rosenthal. Construction on the restaurant, bar, lounge, cafe, and food hall are currently concealed behind sheets of aspenite, but reproduced here are preliminary sketches of how they’re going to look.
Upscale and classy. North Street will be brimming with SUV’s, Lexi and Beemers, Escalades and Excalibres, sure signs of success.
Won’t be long, nope it won't be long, before Pittsfield’s downtown will be a new diversion for Berkshire swells, when they get bored with Barrington and Lenox. And after sipping martinis or savoring lattes, they won't lack for entertainment. Within a year they'll have the Colonial Theatre, a cinema complex, and Barrington Stage, all within walking distance. Or they can sit tight, and watch the passing scene, right outside, street shows provided by people who dwell there – Light Cream Guy, Blade Man, Capote in Black, The Watchman, Tattoo Man, the Man with the Harpsichord — and their supporting cavalcade of scooterfolk.
At Gordon Hyatt’s annual holiday soiree in Stockbridge playwright Gregory Whitehead was beside himself with glee over his latest BBC radio play, “The Club,” premiering New Year’s Day on BBC Radio 3 in England but be available on the Web until Jan. 7
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/dramaon3
The 90-minute play takes place at the Lenox Club, or as the BBC describes it: “At the height of the American ‘Gilded Age,’ members of an elegant New England social and croquet club performed an elaborate if somewhat distasteful ritual.” You’ll have to listen in to find out what that ritual could possibly be — it involves foot fetishists and post-feminists, toes and alabaster. Typical of Whitehead productions, the cast is largely local, including Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Hillary Deeley, Mike Dowling, Karen Lee, Sara Paul, Anne Undeland, Jon Swan. Music by Richard Busch.
“ ‘The Club’ is my pass at capturing the vibe of neo-con gringolandia, with a musical feel of melted cocktail music,” Whitehead said.
With all the money being raised and spent on acquiring FM affiliates for Northeast Public Radio, you’d think that a little could be spared to nurture the quality creative radio broadcasts such as Whitehead’s. That’s what so-called Public Radio should be doing.
?
Guess who’s back in town — and just in time, before the tide of gentrification comes in. Gregory Crewdson, Brooklyn-based photographer, part-time Lee resident. Two summers ago, he and his film crew lit up the town — literally — to portray Pittsfield’s North Street, in one of his large, famously mysterious tableaus, as a silenced — though stunningly haunting — mill town relic, as ghostly as a deserted mining town in Nevada. His creation was a thoroughly fitting tribute to the house that GE built.
But town fathers themselves had a fit when a London art critic for The Times, reviewing the Crewdson exhibit at the Tate Gallery last year, described Pittsfield as an emblem of backwater, post-industrial New England. That’s my hometown for you, ever in denial.
Scouting for a new shoot of downtown Pittsfield, Crewdson stopped in for coffee at Bellissimo Dolce. He said he’s planning to revisit North Street in early February, to reshoot the scene in winter. The concept is chilling indeed. How much more frozen in time could an urban environment look?
Irony of the Week, from a warning on the entrance to Pittsfield’s Armed Services recruiting station: “Federal law prohibits the possession of firearms or other dangerous weapons in designated federal buildings, with or without intent to commit a crime. Conviction carries penalties of up to five years imprisonment and $5,000 fine.” Aha! So that’s the way to end the Iraqi conflict: Make it federal property. Simple.
Bill Shein, the Grand Wit of Monterey whose prize-winning columns, in their entirety, can be enjoyed at
http://www.reasongonemad.com , is wondering what books might seem so dangerously subversive that agents from Homeland Security would come visiting, having been tipped off by NSA secret snoopers tracking book sales and library transactions.
Shein suggests that at the top of the list, certainly, would be the U.S. Constitution. But what other books, or publications, can our readers nominate?
Here are two tales about how to deconstruct civilization: In Stockbridge, the village that Norman Rockwell deified as an icon of American life, there is no education for children. The elementary school is shuttered. Students are bussed to a new centralized regional facility down the road where instruction is juiced with technology. We spend money on computers but not on teachers. And without children, there is no community.
The destruction of Pittsfield’s industrial past continues, as General Electric tears down its PCB-laced former transformer manufacturing complex. GE, I’m told, is determined to remove any trace of its industrial legacy, fearing that it taints the company’s reputation. That may be so, but generations and generations of workers drawn to Pittsfield from around the world trudged to “The Works,” as it was called, and they deserve more than this. They deserve a tribute, a monument of some sort, to honor their efforts, hour by hour, day after day, week after week, year by year. At the very least, their story should be told. Why not have their names compiled on a wall?
A friend from Cambridge, Mass., considering an excursion in the Berkshires, asks: “Why is it called ‘Great’ Barrington? Where is Greater Great Barrington? And what’s so great about Great Barrington? Is it really just Good Barrington?”
Pity The Berkshire Eagle, a once great newspaper. It hasn’t been a good year for the old Big Bird. Not only has its circulation plummeted and half its newsroom staff departed for papers where professional excellence is respected and rewarded, but it resorted to plastering its front page with peel-off advertising stickers. Surely revenues aren’t declining. The paper had already contaminated its front page with ads top and bottom. It must mean Denver-dictated bottomline expectations are going up again. Thirty percent profit isn’t good enough, I guess, to pay off the corporate parent’s billion dollars in debt.
Things aren’t much better, I’d guess, for New England Newspapers, the regional roost The Eagle is part of — though if they keep reducing news hole in favor of advertising the term newspaper in their group will become an oxymoron.
Still, The Eagle and its Eaglets have become a media monopoly in this region. Let’s see: the chain owns The North Adams Transcript; has right of first refusal on The Berkshire Record in Great Barrington; and last year bought The Advocate, the weekly based in North Adams that publishes North and South County editions. If only they owned the radio stations, they could wrap things up.
Now why, with this stranglehold on information, do I think they might not be meeting corporate expectations? Because they’re so desperately afraid of competition. (They’re really afraid of unions, too, but that’s a story for another day. And come to think of it, they’re scared by their own history – Publisher Mick had all the historical photos of the Eagle’s distinguished editors, reporters, and founders removed from the walls of the newsroom.) As I say, they don’t like competitors. For instance, by threatening a lawsuit because the titles are similar, they’ve prevented the Valley Advocate, which has quite distinctive format and offers news of the Pioneer Valley, from appearing on county newsstands. We’re not supposed to know anything about Northampton or Amherst, it seems.
By the way, here’s a prediction, for Berkshire media buffs: The Advocate will inevitably replace the Eagle’s top shelf, seasonal arts and entertainment publication, Berkshires Week.
But back to those stickers. I have a hunch whoever lays out the front page, careful to make news stories appealing and relevant to readers, is furious at having the design covered up by an ugly advertisement. But then, journalism isn’t really appreciated by The Big Bird’s management any more; providing the public with the information we need is beside the point. It’s all about squeezing as much money as possible out of the local community and sending it to Denver via a bank in Delaware. No different than Wal-Mart. Only the bank account is different — I think.
So I took the yellow sticker and sent it back to Eagle publisher Andy Mick. I suggest we all do the same. Render unto Caesar.
Finally, thanks to David Minton, the itinerant Web guru whose clients also include Club Helsinki and the Rogovoy Report, for helping me reassemble Scribbyworld. You can reach him at
dlm@dlmweb.com
Send in your ideas, observations, queries: by e-mail to
bibblings@scribbyworld.com ; by phone at 413-441-4307; or drop by the Starving Artists Detective Agency, 467 North St., second floor, number 12. Call first. We may be out on a case.
