It has been more than 11 years since I bought Mary’s farm. You, readers, have been patient listeners of its progress, as I’ve reported sporadically in this column. Work was so slow at times that the project moved more in the tempo of evolution. Money was always an obstacle, and the will of an old […]
Yankee
Living
The Art of Appropriation
The art of appropriation, the practice of using someone else’s work as an element of your own, has a long, distinguished history in modern art. It’s a game artists sometimes play to tweak the art establishment and get noticed. Back in 1917, for example, Marcel Duchamp, the father of conceptual art, submitted a porcelain urinal […]
Yankee classic from June 2001 The faint scent of sheep manure drifts up into this otherwise spotless kitchen in Northborough, Massachusetts. Pulling on well-worn brown duck coveralls, Mark Fidrych is on his way to the barn, where one of his ewes is about to give birth. On the island counter, beside a bottle of Gatorade, […]
If you’re planning to visit Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in early May, stop by historic Wahconah Park on Sunday, May 3, to catch the city’s celebration of the 150th anniversary of the first game of college baseball, between Amherst and Williams. On July 1, 1859, the two teams competed under “Massachusetts rules” — 12 to 14 players […]
Magazine
Pairings Hint — May/June
To respond, click on the link below. You will come to our Feedback page. Step 1. Fill in “Pairings” as the subject. Step 2. Fill in your name and e-mail address. Step 3. Type your answer in the box. Please include your city and state with your answer. Good luck! The Clues: FIRST: P.T. Barnum […]
Magazine
Best Dog
We are all excited about the passing of this winter in particular because of an ice storm that paralyzed us in many more ways than just the absence of electricity and the comforts of home. It came in December, before the first snow, but we are still talking about how it affected us. And so […]
If you’ve never had your portrait painted, you should. It is one of life’s enduring pleasures. I sat for a student at the old Portland School of Art back in the 1970s and, looking at the portrait today, I can still recall – and feel – how relaxing and soothing it was to have the […]
Magazine
Pairings for May/June 2009
To respond, click on the link below. You will come to our Feedback page. Step 1. Fill in “Pairings” as the subject. Step 2. Fill in your name and e-mail address. Step 3. Type your answer in the box. Please include your city and state with your answer. Good luck! The clues: First: Connecticut native […]
Magazine
Sandwich, MA, Weekend
My advice about visiting Sandwich is “go early and often.” And by “early” I don’t mean in the season, though that works, too. I mean early, like dawn. There’s no better way to begin your day than by watching the sunrise turning Cape Cod Bay a dusty rose. The beach is best accessed by a […]
He was lionized as the first man to reach the North Pole on April 6, 1909, then later accused of “the biggest lie of the 20th century.” Still today, Robert E. Peary remains an enigmatic hero. This Yankee Classic was originally published in April, 1989. At high tide Eagle Island is 17 acres of rocks and trees […]
Welcome to the April 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. The Five Men I Know in Every New England Town Last month I described the six women everyone knows. What about the men everyone knows? […]
Living
HOME at Westport Arts Center
As it celebrates its 40th anniversary, the Westport Arts Center in Connecticut invited artist Eric Aho to organize an exhibition focused on a sense of place. Aho, who lives in Vermont, decided to tighten the focus to visual ideas about a place both universal and particular – home. In HOME (through June 1) Aho has […]