Welcome to September 1 and morning temperatures in the 40s for us up here in the hills of northern Columbia County. I sure am glad I risked electrocuting myself by installing a ceiling fan in the bedroom two weeks ago. Oh well, I guess I can always repurpose the fan blades as fire wood.
Here’s my calender for September,
Even the calender looks cold
I’ve always been a huge fan of going to the movies, which means leaving my home and traveling to a movie theater to watch, a movie as apposed to renting/buying the movie and watching it at home. During high school and college going to the movies was almost a weekly treat but then, shortly after graduating, I moved to the big city–Jersey City–and eventually over the bridge into NYC.
While living there, going to the movies became an ordeal and unless I went in the middle of the week during an obscure time, the theater would be packed with obnoxious, loud assholes who seemed to be under the impression that they were watching the film in their own living rooms, where taking a phone call or having an outdoor-voice conversation with the person next to them was completely acceptable. City crowds ruined the movie experience for me and I rarely went unless I had a few stiff drinks in me first.
Now I live in the bucolic setting of Upstate New York and going to the movies is like traveling back in time thanks to The Crandell Theatre in Chatham.
The Crandell was built in 1926 by Walter S. Crandell, as a vaudeville house, and not much has changed since then. The stage has been replaced with a screen but they still have one of those soda vending machines where the cup drops into an opening and then fills up with the beverage of your choice. There’s one large screen and all the movies are just five bucks!
I saw the new Harry Potter flick at the Crandell on Wednesday and I’m pretty sure I saw a girl in a poodle skirt necking with greaser in the balcony. If you ever have the chance to see a movie here, I highly recommend it.
Here is a lovely little film, made by a local film maker, all about the Crand
ell. Enjoy!
Last week our area in Columbia County (NY) was hit with several huge rain storms that left a lot of water behind. Here are some pictures of the mess.
This is usually a quiet, slowly trickling stream in our woods. There used to be a mess of fallen trees across the stream that we used as a bridge. The water took that mess away.
Another shot of our babbling brook during the storm
The water filled up our basement window well and began pouring in until we got outside with buckets and shovels. In this picture, a family of frogs outside in the basement well are trying to stay above the water level
A local campground
More from the campground
Check out the following trailer for Ang Lee’s new movie, Taking Woodstock, which was filmed in and around our town.
The motel prominently featured in the movie is a real motel, about a two minute drive down the hill from our house. The whole town was buzzing when Hollywood came a calling last summer and aside from the occasional traffic hickup (traffic does not normally exist in these parts) it was groovy times for all. We saw our hippie population (already fairly large) rise by one VW bus, selling tie-die t-shirts in the parking lot of our beer, booze, and head-shop strip mall (for real, this strip mall has four stores – the three I just mentioned and the world’s best Chinese take-out place) with said hippie staying in town after the filming wrapped (Hollywood lingo for ended).
Hopefully the only movie theater in town will be showing Taking Woodstock when it comes out this summer. If it does, I’ll be there with my new tie-died t-shirt and freak flag flying!
It’s been a year and a few days since Seth and I left the concrete jungle of New York City and became ruralpolitans in the mountains of upstate New York. In that time we have seen a lot of strange and mysterious things, such as competent AND friendly retail workers, a mailman who knows our name, low definition (LD) television, and flying turkeys.
Perhaps the biggest shocker has been the weather. In New York City you might go an entire season without any real snow-fall. If there is a storm that leads to an inch or more of accumulation the whole city goes into a tizzy and everyone from financiers to pastry chefs pull on their gloves and join in the world’s rowdiest snow-ball fight.
Travel just a couple of hours north and everything changes. Snow is something you deal with every day like herpes or children. Up here its odd not to have a few inches of snow on the ground and everything looks like its covered in marshmallows. So while my dear friends down-state or the citidiots as we like to call them, put on their big city suits and hop in their fancy livery cabs, I’ll be here in the mountains. Bundled up and doing something strapping.
PS. The picture is the view from my living room, taken this morning.
