Author Archives: markorton

4/21/2020 Tuesday – HAL

Went for walk first thing after breakfast. I pooped out at 7th St. Karen walked all the way around.

Participated in Hudson Arts Task Force meeting. Run by Seth Rogovoy. over 30 people attended. Well organized and well run. Met some new people in the arts community. From my email to others:

Thanks to Julia for alerting us to this. I attended the Arts Task Force mtg. Tuesday 3pm.  About 35 people. Seth Rogovoy chaired the meeting.

I  attended with two hats – the Davis Orton Gallery and HAL. I specifically mentioned the library’s connections to the arts community and our early planning for an art auction with shared proceeds. Most of the meeting was taken up with setting up sub-committees to investigate various approaches to supporting the arts.

Here are some new (to me) contacts:

• Feliz Soyak    HudsonArts.org      hudsonartscommunity@gmail.com
• Marc Scrivo    FinchHudson.com    StudioScrivo.com
• Adam H. Weinert   adamweinert.com   promoting the Hudson Arts Coalition, dancer, faculty at Vassar, co-founder Hudson Dance Collective
• Marlene Martin, Exec. Director,   Council for Resources to Enrich the Arts, Technology & education (former Greene County Council on the Arts – supports arts in Coliumbia, Greene & Schoharie counties) – GreeneArts.org    executivedirector@greenearts.org      CREATE has fubnded projects with HAL in the past.

• Jonah Bokaer  – Jonah Bokaer Foundation, Jonah Bokaer Choeography, The Hudson Eye https://www.chronogram.com/hudsonvalley/space-428-choreographer-jonah-bokaers-church-of-dance-in-hudson/Content?oid=10283694     His foundation is active locally. He explicitly asked people to reach out to him about funding.
• Aaron Levi Garvey – staff curator Jonah Bokaer Foundation and The Hudson Eye
• Jane Ehrlich – organizer last fall’s Open Studios Hudson    openstudiohudson.com   She is moving to an online format. I know her personally.

Drinks and chat with Dave Drake in the evening.

4/19/2020 – Sunday NY Times, Zoom with family and friends, walk…..

Bought Sunday NYTimes paper. it included a separate section on Quarantine Parenting. Travel section was 4 pages, similar for Sports. Made whole wheat pancakes. Think I will experiment with half and half next week.

Visited Walmart for shopping and prescription.

Longish letter to Walter Stitt in production.

Visited with Leiden crew at 12:30. Good visit. The top floor house project is moving slowly. Only two guys working on it. No Andrea and her crew. Not even a note that they wouldn’t attend. I’m not surprised. Reflects her long term priorities.

Out for a walk…..2pm. Down to river and back up the 2nd st. Stairs, up Allen beyond the court house then home down Warren. Many, many more people out and about. Warm weather. Feels very Spring like. Continue reading →

4/18/20 – Saturday – library, exercise……

Up early. Listened to Only a Game podcast.

HAL Board of Trustees mtg – active, happy meeting. Received $58,500 PPP money from SBA. Good for 2 1/2 months salaries etc. Lots of talk about new fundraising strategies. Emily made extensive report on our online library programming.

Went to Letterbox Farm to pickup order of eggs and greens.

Karen participated in Balance for Seniors from the library. I did my exercises for the first time in weeks.

Ordered grab bars and other bathroom stuff from Amazon. This will allow us to make the first floor bathroom safe for us to shower in. Short term fix without all of the work planned for a walk in shower.

Karen made meatloaf and sautéed spinach. We drove a portion over to Dave Drake. Had lengthy drinks with Ted and Anne.

Watched the first 30 minutes of China Moon (1995). Gave up at that point. Back to Person of Interest

4/17/20 – Friday – various and list of Zoom meetings

Sent notices out to HAL board. Spent most of morning doing digital housekeeping.

Also time spent learning new things about Notability. Interesting feature of recording a lecture or meeting while making notes. The notes are synced to a time stamp during the recording. So, you can tap on a note and it moves the playback to that point.

Bought lunch at Cascades.

Talked with Kim Bach outside her store Verdigris. She complained about lack of workers to help with her online business. Her part time employees are financially better off on unemployment than coming back to work for her part-time. Continue reading →

3/18 – 4/7/2020 – Coronavirus Isolation

Wednesday 3/18/2020

Hudson Area Library closes; all programs stop.

Friday 3/20/2020

Gov. Cuomo announces shit down of all non-essential businesses.

Saturday 3/21/2020

HAL hold first online Board of Trustees meeting; library closed

Tuesday 4/7/2020

Today marks the end of the third week of isolation. Excepting for a couple of trips to the grocery, bank, and liquor store we have had no contact with any one closer than 6 feet.

Walks

Fortunately for us we have been taking daily walks, sometimes lengthy enough to be called hikes. It has been remarkable how few people we see during these walks. You might think that people would be getting out for exercise, air, nature…. maybe this reflects how sedentary we have become as a society. Our walks have mainly featured a route up Warren St. around the hospital and then back down the hill to home – about 2.5 miles (4K). We have extended and varied this to make it both longer and more challenging. 

Here are reports for a few.

Continue reading →