If you haven’t done so already: Vote the straight Democratic ticket to save our democracy, and then flip the ballot over and vote YES ON PROP 1, to save our environment!
Vote the straight Democratic line on Nov. 8 if you haven’t done so already, and don’t forget to flip your ballot over to VOTE YES on PROP 1!
Well, it’s not just an ice-cream store, and it’s not really new, but since I recently discovered it, it’s new to me:
The wonderful G&H Deli, at the corner of Liberty and First streets, has terrific hard and soft ice cream in cups and cones, as well as fresh, hot chicken and rice, greens, gravy, oxtail, pork and a wide variety of other Soul-Food and Caribbean-influenced dishes to go. You may remember (as i well do) getting hot food there, passed from a little window on the Liberty Street side of the building. i could never find the name of that shop; the front door (on First Street) was covered with chicken wire, and it always appeared to be dark inside, like a small bodega. Now they have ice cream in an amazing array of flavors — my favorite so far is the rum raisin, $2 for a very generous cupful — as well as other sweets and the same great food as always, in their beautifully renovated building. No more “little window!”
It was a blow to the whole city when Nancy Colas’s Simple Gifts and Goodies closed, and then Dairy Island as well, leaving Newburghers with no ice-cream shops. To make matters worse, our only swimming pool will be closed for the next three years, turning summers into a sad season here. But: G&H Deli has come to our rescue! All ice-cream lovers (as well as lovers of fresh, hot, Caribbean-style and Soul Food) should drop in to this hidden gem, in ANY season.
Call to order: 845-420-6175. They cater, too!
A message from Kevindaryan Lujan, Orange County Legislator and 2022 Orange County Latinos Leadership Awardee:
An extremist group has been pretending that Orange County Latinos support Colin Schmitt’s bid to replace Congressman Pat Ryan. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As the first Latino elected to the Orange County Legislature, I want to set the record straight: Latinos absolutely DO NOT support Schmitt. In fact, we strongly support the fearless and effective Ryan, who is endorsed by the Democratic and Working Families parties.
As an Assemblymember, Schmitt’s deplorable positions are a matter of public record. He championed the expansion of Trump’s expensive, failed “Wall,” and applauded children being separated from their families as he held a photo op at the Mexican border. Locally, he tried to use immigrants as political pawns, claiming that families passing through could be a threat to Orange County residents. The most notable thing Schmitt has ever done was to stir division and hatred by cheering a busload of people who were on their way to protest against legitimate election results. Schmitt and his extremist pals are a danger to the very fabric of our democracy. He opposes affordable housing, he opposes healthcare for all, and he definitely does not care about the struggles of Black and Latino working-class families.
He also opposes a woman’s right to reproductive choice, even in cases of rape or incest. The only lie bigger than “Latinos for Schmitt” are his pink signs reading, “Women for Schmitt”. No one who actually cares about the rights of women or minorities would support Colin Schmitt for higher office.
Congressman Ryan’s leadership is already making a difference for millions of Americans. He supports women’s right to choose, and he will stand up against Big Pharma, gun lobbyists, and billionaires looking for more tax cuts for themselves. Finally, he will make the environment a priority, not a talking point.
We Latinos are smart, and we love this country. We’re voting for Pat Ryan.
Vote for Julie: We Need Her Truly!
For the first time ever, our Newburgh, N.Y., school-district tax bill arrived with no return envelope. i thought: Maybe they want us to pay online from now on; that's why they've omtted return envelopes. And yet: The bill itself arrived via snail-mail. And also: There was not a word from the District enouraging us to pay online, nor explaining how.
Anyway, I've been trying to do this for 45 minutes, my master’s diploma snickering on the wall. Apparently one or more of these: Name, Street Number, Property location, SWIS Code, Tax Map Number, and Tax Bill Number, all of which i assiduously copied from the bill, is incorrect. No matter how cleverly i adjust the case, font, punctuation and spacing of my responses, this screen screams back, “There are no properties that match your search information.”
I shall now return to my regularly scheduled life. But if you have any clues about how to do this, please let me know.
My Dad was a Republican. I wouldn’t say he was a “proud” one, especially after Goldwater became its presidential nominee in 1964, but rather a “loyal” one, working hard for his boss, New York State Sen. Thomas C. Desmond, in the 1930s and doing his best to see that Desmond got reelected again and again.
Albert J. Abrams was a classic “Rocky Republican,” admiring the policy positions of our liberal Governor Nelson Rockefeller and flying with him (and their colleague Jackie Robinson) to the Republican National Convention in San Francisco in 1964 in a doomed attempt to prevent Goldwater from getting the GOP nod. Dad looked upon Desmond, Rocky, Jackie and other Republicans of his day as smart, good-hearted, forward-thinking and open-minded, and optimistically believed they represented the “silent majority” of their party.
Hear that buzzing sound? That’s Dad, spinning in his grave.
Good job, Rhyan Maier! We may never see a photo like this again.
Good old Newburgh Democratic Committee (I’m guessing they’re responsible for this) strikes again: Today was the last day to vote in the primary for our new Congressional District, NY-18. At my usual polling place, South Middle School, I went around back. It was there, during the Early COVID Period, that we started having to enter through the gymnasium doors to vote, instead of the doors we had always previously used — the front doors, facing Monument Street.
Doors locked! No one home! i peered; i knocked. Silence and darkness inside! No sign at all was on the gym doors. Did i have the wrong day? No; impossible. A former City Council member, i don’t know much, but i know how, where and when to vote. Or at least, i thought i did.
Annoyed, i went around to the front of the school, thinking that voting was now back in its “regular” place — the hallway just off the school’s Monument Street parking lot. But again, i found the building dark and all the doors locked. NOW, WHAT THE … ???
Then i noticed a single, yellow sheet of paper, taped to a window pane. I attach a photo of it here, as i find it to be a classic of its kind (that kind being, “Screwed-Up Newburgh Communications.”) A few questions about this flier:
Could they make the “headline” any smaller? “POLLING PLACE CHANGE” should fill the entire sheet, left to right, no? i ask you.
What are the words, “CITY OF NEWBURGH” doing there? The City of Newburgh has nothing to do with this … or if it does, it’s for some “Inside-Baseball” reason that no one cares about. And look: They used a new typeface, too! Someone must have been having some fun with this.
In the fourth and fifth lines, we finally get to a sentence* that seems as if it’s going to be important: “Your polling place has been changed for only the … “ and then, right there in the middle of the sentene, they switch to Spanish.
OK, so, “only the” WHAT? Only the “second time in history,” maybe? In tiny type, the next line reveals the finale of this cliff-hanger: “August 23, 2022, Primary Elections.” Except there’s no period at the end, so it’s not really a “sentence” (see #3 above). Does no one around here know an English teacher, or a good 6th-grader, who could proofread this stuff?
They then took three more lines to tell us that we won’t have to go to 401 Washington Street to vote anymore, after today. Again, there’s no period after that three-line “sentence.” (The Spanish version beneath it has one, though!) Anyway, to all those who took a cab to South Middle School to vote today: i pray you didn’t dismiss the driver before you read the sign on the door.
PS: Are you wondering why the voting location was changed? Me too.
Here’s the one and only sign at South Middle School tellng us where to vote today. Note the glare, which added to the fun!
The air is airier out West.
The light is lighter, and longer.
The days are drier.
No matter how high you get,
you can always get higher.
To the Force that revealed these mountains,
redolent of the glorious glaciers
that carved the rivers, leaving rubble, runnels and rivulets
for eons, and for us all:
Thank you.
Yeah. Tim and I took the famous Rocky Mountaineer train trip from Vancouver to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. Then stayed overnight and hiked up Tunnel Mountain. Yeah. This photo is one of about 500 i took along the way and in Banff, which i believe is the consensus “Most Jaw-Dropping Place in North America.”
I’m watching birds from my glass-enclosed front porch on a late June afternoon, binoculars and tea on the table before me, when here come three Black girls, about 13 or so. They’re walking in the middle of the street, talking all at once, loud and fast, laughing, shoving and clutching one another, enjoying their lives and their lives-that-could-be, the possibilities that are floating like colorful soap-bubbles all around them, just out of reach.
The sight of them reminds me so much of myself at 13 that my heart is pierced and love for them leaks out of my eyes. When you’re 13 and school’s out for the year, the whole city lies before you: new neighborhoods to be explored, new people to meet, new teachers to love or hate, new opinions and personalities to try out, new games to play, new things to learn -- a whole new person to become, with new strengths and skills to be famous for. The sentences you’ve never said or written before; the jokes you’ve yet to tell! There are new friends to make and new enemies to imagine. You’re becoming you; you’re making yourself up and writing your own story. Every moment is an adventure.
Now the girls are drawing very near to my house. One of them, trailing a bit behind the others, surprises me by pausing to yank from my front garden a tall, perfect coreopsis, sun-yellow petals circling its cinnamon-red center. I lower my binoculars, grab my gardening shears and rise, angling to the door so I can call to her to wait, and then quickly pick an armful of flowers as a way of saying, Here, these are for you; welcome to my block; welcome to your lives.
From the corner of her eye, she sees an old white lady with long scissors, coming for her! Because of the stolen flower! She dashes off like a star sprinter, yelling to her friends, “Run! Run!” They all look back and see me outside now, confused at the top of my steps, binoculars still hanging from my neck and a metal thing in my hand. Maybe it’s a gun! They take off, all yelling, “Run! Run!” The neighbors’ dogs start barking, and the girls dart diagonally across the street: “Hurry up! Quick! Go! Go! Go!”
They never slow down. They disappear around the corner, and that’s the last I see of them.
What an adventure they’ve had! A whole exciting story, waiting to be told, about how they barely escaped with their lives from Bayview Terrace! And the lady with the gun who sent her dogs after us, because of the flower!
But if you’re reading this, girls, please know that I, alone again on my porch with my tea and memories, am sending all three of you a prayer for lives filled with joy, flowers, and many exciting adventures.
I still have plenty of coreopsis out front, if you want some.
If you ever hit a deer in Dutchess County and you don’t know what to do (hey, that sounds like the start of a country-music song, doesn’t it?), don’t hesitate to drive or drag your now-crumpled wreck over to Northside Auto Body on Parker Ave. I had to go there to get the plates off my daughter’s car, and they treated me like i was Kitty Wells.
They took off the plates for me and gave me a cold bottle of water and a Miky Way in this cool bag.
They took the plates off for me and gave me a bottle of cold water, a Milky Way and this cool cloth bag!
Lately I have begun re-reading books that either I never read in high school and college, or did read but didn’t appreciate. I donate them as I finish them, blithely telling myself that thereby I also am making progress on my Great Project of banishing from my house thousands and thousands of things I don’t need. This week I plucked from a shelf a yellow-paged paperback edition of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “King, Queen, Knave,” published in 1968 (cover price: 75 cents).
Well, the year 1968 gets an asterisk: It was published in 1968 in English. It was published in Russian in 1928. It’s a richly detailed psychological thriller, replete with the same kind of Nabokovian literary allusions and linguistic gymnastics that grace “Lolita.”
Finishing the book, I went straight to Wikipedia, to find out when “Psycho” came out. The Hitchcock movie “Psycho,” based on a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, came out in 1960.
What does that have to do with Nabokov? Well, here’s what: At the end of the movie, there’s that scary-as-hell scene in which a woman is sitting in a swivel chair, with her back to the camera and only her wigged head visible, and then the chair is turned around and in the chair is no woman at all. Instead, it’s demented Norman Bates’s mummified “mother” (which I recall as looking like a desiccated apple with a wig, stuck on a stick and “clothed” in a shawl).
To me, that was just as spooky as the famed “shower scene,” after which, you’ll recall, protagonist Marion Crane did not need a towel.
And here I quote from the next-to-last paragraph of Chapter 11 of “King, Queen, Knave,” (published, don’t forget, in 1928):
“He … knocked hurriedly at the landlord’s bedroom door. No answer. He pushed the door and stepped in. The old woman whose face he had never seen sat with her back to him in her usual place. “I’m leaving; I want to say goodbye,” he said, advancing toward the armchair. There was no old woman at all — only a gray wig stuck on a stick, and a knitted shawl.”
YIKES! Somebody call Alfred Hitchcock: Forty years later, this will make a really scary movie!
Or, in a rare non-snarky note, I could point out that Nabokov’s son Dmitri, who did the 1968 translation of his father’s novel, may have seen that 1960 movie, and been inspired to add that scene to the book. Since I don’t read Russian, I guess I’ll never know.
The cover ironically relates to recurring references to a steamy movie of that name that’s showing in Berlin. The book is anything but a bodice-ripping romance novel: It’s an erudite Nabokov offering that does, however, share one scene with a very famous movie.
Recently my husband and I watched, on Netflix, an old movie called “Casino Royale.” I had mentioned to him (I forget in what context) during dinner that I had never seen a James Bond movie. Tim was scandalized, and we repaired to the livingroom to watch Daniel Craig driving, shooting, fighting and playing poker. Nearly three hours later, it mercifully ended. (The movie, not our marriage.) Tim thoroughly enjoyed it, and sat another 20 minutes watching the credits.
As for me: I’m proud to say that I had heroically stayed awake for some of it.
The experience, though, gave me an idea that I hope will be implemented by producers of movies of the kind that are usually called “Action-Adventure.” It would save them millions in production costs and bless viewers with many free hours in which they can do more interesting and useful things, like working on the Wordle, or sleeping.
Here it is: Instead of filming scenes of the Good Guy jumping from one rooftop to another, or running to the end of a steel I-beam that’s being swung to the top of a skyscraper and leaping off only to land unharmed in a dumpster that apparently is filled with feathers or pillows or feather-pillows, or being shot at by the Bad Guy who keeps missing until the Good Guy finally falls and lands, oddly, on his back but gets off a clever line while the Bad Guy, snearing, goes to shoot him while standing practically right over him but it turns out he’s out of bullets so he just throws his gun at the Good Guy but the Good Guy rolls away so now it’s a fair fight … instead of all these, movies should just stop and instead put onscreen the words, “[“FIGHT ENSUES. GOOD GUY WINS/LOSES.” or, “CHASE ENSUES. AFTER MUCH CLINGING TO ROOFTOPS, HANGING FROM PLANES’ LANDING GEAR, FALLING INTO DUMPSTERS, NEARLY DRIVING INTO AMBULANCES OR INTO PLANES ON RUNWAY OR INTO WOMEN PUSHING STROLLERS, AND AFTER CAUSING MANY NOISY CRASHES, FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS, BAD GUY ESCAPES/IS CAUGHT.”] What do you say, producers? You can have a little soft music while this screen is shown, or not — your choice!
Here the movie can resume, with 90% of the cliches, 70% of the production expenses and half the running time excised from it. And to the world’s moviemakers and movie goers, I now say: You’re welcome.
For the 17th year in a row, the City of Newburgh has been named a “Tree City USA” by the Nebraska-based Arbor Day Foundation. The award recognizes nationwide excellence in municipal tree planting and maintenance. A city must spend at least $2 per capita on trees, have a tree ordinance and a tree council, and celebrate Arbor Day each year in order to win the award.
“We are proud to be recognized for the funding, time and effort we expend on maintaining and expanding our urban forest,” said Chuck Thomas, chair of the city’s Conservation Advisory Council. “We look at this award as a badge of honor for our city. Trees moderate temperatures, provide shade and beauty, clean our air, and result in a mentally and physically healthier populace.”
“Arbor Day is April 29 this year, and we look forward to celebrating it with the whole community.”
Thomas noted that the City’s Department of Public Works is the linchpin of Newburgh’s success in urban forestry, providing the crucial management, workers and equipment needed for this physically demanding and time-consuming work.
Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation is a nonprofit conservation and education organization dedicated to inspiring people to plant, celebrate and nurture trees.
Chuck Thomas, chair of Newburgh’s Conservation Advisory Council, displays the “Tree City USA” plaque and signs that the City has won for the 17th year in a row. Way to go, Newburgh!
Ana Maria Archila visited Newburgh recently at the invitation of County Legislator Kevindaryan Lujan. Ana Maria, a thoughtful and progressive Democrat, will make a great second-in-command to her running mate, Jumaane Williams.
Orange County Legislator Kevindaryan Lujan and future New York State Lieutenant Governor Ana Maria Archila dined and discussed strategies with other local civic leaders recently at Newburgh’s fabulous Machu Picchu Restaurant.
Have you been to 845 Halal yet? If not, stop reading this right now and get over to 216 Broadway in Newburgh! This restaurant is already wildly popular, even though it hasn’t had its official Grand Opening yet! Brother and sister Aaqib and Nissa Majeed run the shop, at 216 Broadway, between City Terrace and Lutheran Street. You can eat in or take out really good dishes like lamb with rice and salad, fried chicken and many more options. Aaqib and Nissa’s dad, Rafiq Majeed, is the gracious owner, laser-focused on greening the street with shrubbery and installing outdoor seating later this spring. Hope to see you there soon!
College grads Rafiq and Nissa Majeed and their staff are serving up really fine food in the heart of the city.
I’ll help remove spotted lanternflies, but I’d say humans have done more damage than these guys. And overall, they’re much better-looking.
Here it is: PROOF that i have the language, math, news literacy and fact-checking skills of a good 18-year-old. I took the online course offered by the Poynter Institute, meant for college journalists, and if you don’t think i’m taping these babies to my office wall, you’re very mistaken.
Apparently, anyone can do it! Take the course yourself, here: https://bit.ly/3rK5EcH
In the very same month (January 2022) that the Times Herald-Record is hiking its online subscription price to $9.99/month, it has started producing papers just six days a week, instead of seven. This marks the first time the once-proud paper has ceased to be a daily since the mid-1950s, when the old Times Herald merged with the Daily Record. In the past decade, the quality and quantity of the TH-R’s journalism has steadily declined, along with the number of its local reporters. It failed to publish at all this past Christmas Day, for the first time ever — a new low in wretchedness that elicited an outcry of precisely zero decibels.
Almost all papers began seeing ad revenue and readership numbers slip, going back to the advent of evening news on television. Then came a little plateau as afternoon papers switched to morning editions; then, the crisis accelerated as readers began getting continuous updates, 24/7, about national and world news on the brand-new World Wide Web. At the same time, Craig’s List began offering ads for a tiny fraction of what an ad in the paper cost. Frantically, dailies began laying off reporters and even reducing their formats from the big (“broadsheet”) to the small (“tabloid”) size. Neither of these strategies stemmed the hemorrhaging of profits. To increase revenues, they tried raising their newsstand and home-delivery prices. That, too, backfired spectacularly, as it spurred families everywhere to ask themselves, “Why are we still paying for a paper, when we get all our news from (FaceBook/AOL/you name it)?” Many papers, like the TH-R, belatedly began producing badly edited or unedited online editions, with tragi-comic results and no idea how to profit from them.
So, yes, all papers have been in dire straits in the Twenty-First Century. But not all papers fell from such glory to such an abyss as the Times Herald-Record.
In the early 1970s, when I worked as a reporter in the TH-R’s main office on Mulberry Street in Middletown, the paper produced four editions per day, re-plating Page One for each with a new photo and new stories from Sullivan and Ulster counties; Pike County, PA; Newburgh; and Middletown (“Late Final”.) We also had a steady stream of late-night tourists from the U.S. and elsewhere — journalism junkies who wanted to see our state-of-the-art photo-offset (“cold type”) printing process in action. Number 40 Mulberry Street shook and rumbled as the huge, lightning-fast web press printed, trimmed and folded editions of 88 or 96 or 112 pages or more (far more, around Christmas-time, with the extra ads and inserts). Drivers waited at the loading dock to bundle and fling them onto waiting trucks. We copy-editors, done at midnight, would be able to read Late Final over coffee at the Colonial Diner around the corner at 12:30, where a dozen copies would already have been delivered.
Al Romm was a nationally renowned editorial writer; our daily was the first to call for Nixon’s impeachment during the Watergate scandal. Today, can you name the “editorial page editor” of the TH-Record? Neither can I. The once family-owned paper was sold, re-sold and re-sold to a series of ever-more short-sighted, bottom-line-addicted corporations and plutocrats like Rupert Murdoch, who was a Mr. Rogers compared with the current owner (Gannett, which was swallowed up by GateHouse Media, whose goal is to buy as many papers as it can and maximize profits by gutting newsrooms, trumpeting to investors the resulting “savings.”)
The press no longer rumbles at 40 Mulberry Street; last I heard, the building was for sale, with the idea that it could be subdivided and rented to several smaller, quieter businesses. Just a block away the street ends at, appropriately, a cemetery, and as you pass the old Record a sign says, “Dead End.”
Of late, the Record has been assembled each night in Austin, Texas, along with all the other rags that are part of the Gannett chain. Gannett’s flagship is USA Today, a paper that offers no local stories at all — just national pieces, or stories about “trends.” You may have noticed that most Record stories these days lack a local reporter’s byline, and say instead, “By the USA Today Network” or, “By the Hudson Valley Team.” Perhaps the saddest story about this sad story ran in the Record itself, at https://bit.ly/3KccnnQ. Check it out: It’s a nauseating euphemism-festival, complete with a headline that proves that its Texan copy-editors don’t even know the paper’s name.
In a few years, perhaps none of us will be able to recall it, either.
Trees provide beauty as well as clean air.
HAH, I’m not even in the Top Twenty, Brian!
Welcome to my website, featuring my podcast, The Newburgh News. Always on tap: ideas, photos, interviews with intriguing people, and news of the goings-on and comings-up around Newburgh, N.Y., and the greater Hudson Valley.
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