Welcome to the December 2009 edition of “Jud’s New England Journal,” the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire. Revisiting the Imperfect Little Angel Thirty years ago this month, I wrote about a little boy named Primo. Many people found it hilarious and have […]
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Pansies Still in Bloom
The first snow appeared on Mt. Monadnock this morning, the dark profile arching white in the morning’s new light. Rain pelted the windows down here all night long with a thunderous, roaring wind that set one of the shutters loose. But no snow, not even temperatures below freezing. In the old iron kettle on the […]
Drawing is the most immediate and intimate of art forms, at once direct and often tentative or preparatory. Modernist master Paul Klee called it “taking a line for a walk.” Traditionally drawing has tended to be a linear pursuit in graphite or pen and ink, but in the prevailing pluralistic aesthetic of the 21st century […]
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Ice Storm Futures
I’m burning ice storm wood now. After the big storm and after the snow and ice of last winter had melted, the trees at the edge of the north field remained, bent, broken. Their high tops bowed down, their crowns touching the earth, surrendered to the ice. The warming sun of the new season could […]
Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, has organized a multimedia celebration of contemporary West Indian culture that includes videos, films, live music, readings, and a wide ranging art exhibition. Entitled Rockstone and Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art, the exhibition (through March 14) was curated by Real Art Ways director of visual arts Kristina Newman-Scott and […]
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Silent, Brilliant Storm
It’s been calm here this week, unusually mild for November. Temperatures have been in the 50s, skies are a light blue, the sunlight pale and weak on the bare trees, bare ground. This exposure is fleeting. It will be covered soon. But there has been a peaceful feeling all around, a sharp contrast to the […]
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Four Poems by Paul Marion
All of the following poems can be found in Paul Marion’s What is the City?, copies of which may be purchased from Loom Press. Merrimack Street The place yours for once, or again, you walk down Merrimack, past Jordan’s minimalist window dressing, one black torso filling a yellow sweater, and the CVS, door open, scent […]
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25 Cent Children’s Classics
What is the best-selling children’s book of all-time? My first guess would have been The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. My second guess would have been The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. But in fact, the best-selling children’s book of all time is The Poky Little Puppy written by Janette Sebring […]
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VIDEO: Meetinghouses
Photographer Paul Wainwright has been recording New England meetinghouses with large-format black-and-white photography since 2004, capturing their dual functions of church and town hall — and preserving the sense of history within their spaces. His book, A Space For Faith: The Colonial Meetinghouses of New England, is scheduled for release by Peter E. Randall Publisher […]
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Deer Strike
This past Sunday I was slated to do a program in Kennebunkport with my friend, the author Carolyn Chute. Carolyn doesn’t drive so I was going to go pick her up which meant I was basically going to drive three sides of a triangle, from my home to Parsonsfield, Maine, down to Kennebunkport, and then […]
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Everything Old Is New Again
Art and technology tend to have a love-hate relationship. Some artists embrace the latest technologies as new tools with which to create. Other artists react against new technologies, embracing instead traditional even antique mediums. Examples of both impulses can currently be seen in a pair of remote and unrelated exhibitions that nonetheless beg to be […]
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Puddings, puddings, puddings
We sat sequestered in the Sunday School room of the Charlemont Federated Church, three of us, twenty-seven glorious puddings set on the Sunday School tables, which had been covered with bright red and yellow Provincial table cloths for the occasion. For almost two hours, the puddings had been carried in through a light rain, cradled […]