1 October

Main Street, Cambridge, N.Y. Yes, Finally, I Am Home

by Jon Katz
Cambridge, N.Y. My Home.
Cambridge, N.Y. My Home.

This is a photograph of Main Street, Cambridge, N.Y., a small town with a rich mix of writers, artists, farmers and working people. Bennington College is nearby. It is not too far from Albany or New York City. It has an arts center (Hubbard Hall, an old Opera House) a diner called “Country Gals” and the Round House Cafe, where my friend Scott makes wonderful farm-fresh omeletes and sandwiches, muffins, cookies, pizza and bread, and the Cambridge Hotel (up for sale) where Pie A La Mode was first served. Down the road is Battenkill Books where Connie and Marilyn Brooks hang out and Mandy Meyer-Hill’s Stairway Healing Arts Center, where I get healing and healthy massages.

George Forss is usually hanging around his darkroom a couple of blocks down, he is happy to sit and talk with me about aliens and photography and his visions of the new world. At the bank drive-in window, the teller often asks me if Lenore is in the car, and if she is, a biscuit comes sailing through the pneumatic tube.

I first drove through this town about 15 years ago and saw a dog lying in the road. I stopped and got out to help him, and he growled at me, got up and circled around and went back to sleep. His owner shouted from the side of the road that this was his favorite mid-day napping spot, I shouldn’t bother him. I fell in love with Cambridge, even though it’s too busy now for a dog to sleep on Main Street. I have been many places in my life – born in Providence, lived in Atlantic City, New York City (three times), Northern New Jersey (one long stay), Boston, Philaldelphia, Dallas, Washington, Baltimore and a few places in between.

I have lunch sometimes with my friend Tom, an irascible and much loved vet who tries to hide his love of animals, and I go and see Scott for Tai Chi lessons once a week far out in the country, and I see my pal Jack Macmillan driving his truck around and fixing things and I have a good friend Davis who travels the world managing new technologies. You pretty much see everyone you know at the Round House, it has become the heartbeat of the town.

In Cambridge, I have found my home, after all these places. I am not going anywhere, not just because I am older but because this is the place I want to be, to stay. I have learned that to love a place, you have to choose the place well and stay there to make the friends and connections you need.  At the hardware store, they won’t sell me anything with sharp edges unless Maria approves in advance. At O’Hearn’s Pharmacy, Bridget knows my prescriptions by heart and reminds me when I need another insulin pen. Cambridge is not a perfect place, it is no nirvana, like any small town it can be insular and inbred, it struggles with jobs and schools and budgets as most rural communities in America do, they are not considered efficient by the economists who run the world’s global economies

In Cambridge, you might not often see your neighbors, but if you are in trouble and need help, there is an Army at your door.

Cambridge is a beautiful little town, it has the most beautiful shaded streets with a lot of neat old homes lovingly preserved. It has a wondrous mix of people, artists from Manhattan side by side with nurses and truck drivers. I am going to take more photos of Main Street.

Cambridge is the best place I have lived, it fits me. Maria too. When I got to buy stamps, Wendy reminds me that Maria likes animal stamps, she usually puts my choices back in the drawer.  The mayor came out to the farm to thank me for the Open House and the business it brought in, she is rumored to serve a whopping good breakfast at the B&B she runs. I am not moving any more, I have come home, it is not a place I ever would have imagined living for much of my life, it is not the place my parents would ever have chosen for me, it is just the place where life pushed me, like a big wave rolling towards the beach and I look around me every day, and say, yes, this is the place, finally, this is home.

1 October

Video: Marilyn Brooks On “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story”

by Jon Katz
Marilyn Brooks On "Second Chance" Dog
Marilyn Brooks On “Second Chance” Dog

One of my favorite new book rituals involves one of my favorite people, Marilyn Brooks, the mother of Connie Brooks, who owns Battenkill Books, my local bookstore and my favorite bookstore. When I get a galley of a new book, I rush it to Marilyn, an artist, friend and shy person, and she takes some notes and agrees to do a video for me. Marilyn is a good pal and I don’t expect her to be totally objective, yet I really think she is. Marilyn is one of those people who is completely without guile or pretense, and I don’t think she is capable of dissembling. She has quite a following on the Web and  YouTube by now, she sees my books in a fresh and direct way, she always tells me something about them I don’t know.

Marilyn is one of the nicest people I know, and one of the most credible. I am very happy to have her talk about my new book.

So today, Red and I went to the bookstore – Marilyn was working today – and we video’d Marilyn about “Second Change Dog.” I also give a video of Connie talking about bookstores and the different ways to buy “Second Chance Dog.” I’ll run that video later in the week.

This video launches the new and mostly online book tour I’m doing for this book. As Marilyn and Connie both mention, if you pre-order “Second Chance Dog” through Battenkill Books, Maria and I will both sign and personalize the books any way you wish. The orders are beginning to come in pretty steadily. If you sign up early, you will be sure to get a book sent as soon as it comes out. You can pre-order the book easily online by going here, or by calling the bookstore at 518 677-2515 and speaking with Connie, Marilyn, Kate or Colleen. You can also e-mail Connie at [email protected].

We will be offering some prizes for some of the people who pre-order – there will be a drawing or some other selection. Might be dog or cat food, or free books, or a photo or notecards. I’ll keep you posted, but if you pre-order now,  you will be eligible for any give-a-ways.

This is a way of getting a new book, supporting a great independent bookstore, and supporting my work as well. Buying local has never been more important or meaningful, no place is more deserving than this wonderful and very unique community bookstore.

See the video here.

Later this week, I’ll be reviewing “One Woman Farm,” the very beautiful new book by Jenna Woginrich of Cold Antler Farm. That book can also be pre-ordered through Battenkill Books and Jenna will sign and personalize any copies bought at Battenkill.

Come and listen to Marilyn Brooks talk about “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story.”

 

1 October

Red Leaves. Coming To Terms With Foliage Photos

by Jon Katz
Coming To Terms With Foliage
Coming To Terms With Foliage

I never like taking foliage photos, they seem like cliches to me, like photos of pristine Vermont Farms. I am drawn to photos I don’t see all the time, and I see foliage photos everywhere, and thousands of tourists with cameras are already here, snapping away. I also find them irresistible, where do you see colors like this, and soon enough, there won’t be much color for me to shoot. Foliage photos are cliches, but there are reasons why cliches are cliches. It’s because lots of people love them.

1 October

Beautiful Things: Living In Nature. Life As A Fairy Tale

by Jon Katz
Beautiful Things: Fairy Tales
Beautiful Things: Fairy Tales

From my vantage point, I get and see a lot of messages swirling around the ether and it seems to me there are a lot of people who are unhappy with their lives, bombarded with bad news, overwhelmed by too many messages and passwords, disconnected with their work, disconnected from the natural world and yearning for a simpler and more peaceful life. It is so easy to romanticize other things – animals, nature, people who live on farms.

I think I once thought of living on a farm as a kind of fairy tale, walks in the woods, misty mornings, animals grazing, a life among nature. I love living on a farm, I think the thing I most love about where I live is that I can see beautiful things every time I take a drive, every time I take a walk, every time I look outside the window. I never run out of beautiful things to photograph, they are all around me.

I have also learned that fairy tales do not generally exist outside of books. People who present their lives as fairy tales are not always in reality, not always telling the truth. Sometimes they are marketing themselves, sometimes they really believe it. I used to do it, it worked well for me, but only for awhile.

Life is a reality show, it makes itself felt. I think of all these biographies about beautiful movie stars that everybody things have the most perfect lives, yet the reality of their lives are not all that different from ours – life happens to them, too, all the time, and sometimes pretty severely. I see a lot of farm books that offer farms as a new kind of American fairy tale – they seem so different, so pure, so independent. That is the story a lot of people want and need.

I try to be authentic in my writing, I sometimes succeed, I am working at it. I have endearing donkeys here, great dogs, affectionate barn cats, easy going sheep, a beautiful pasture.  But I never see a farm as a perfect life, I never see myself as living a fairy tale. Real life has caught up with me here, life happens just as much here as it does any place else, I have learned that I can be happy anywhere if I do the work I need to do and face up to the truth about myself.

I thought the first Bedlam Farm was a fairy tale, I wrote about it in that way. But it was as much of a trap as it was a fairy tale, as much a cautionary tale as a magical one. What I have learned is that we can write our own story anywhere we are, we don’t have to flee our lives to do it, or covet someone else’s life.

I have learned this about fairy tales: They are cautionary tales. Be careful about them. I love my life, but I will never again dishonor it by turning it into a fable.

 

The problem with all my moving, I learned – I moved about 15 times in  my life – was that I always came along. The face I saw in the mirror was the same one I always wanted to run away from. He was a tenacious little sucker, he kept following me. Now, I am done with moving, I have made my stand, am standing in my truth, have found my place. I no longer think there is a fairy tale a waiting me in another place – the ocean, a writer’s colony, magical helpers

1 October

Red, Sheep In Standoff: Bedlam Farm Is Shutting Down!

by Jon Katz
Bedlam Farm Shutdown!
Bedlam Farm Shutdown!

I am shocked to report that Bedlam Farm began shutting down all non-essential functions this morning. After weeks of confrontations, outruns and standoffs around the pasture, Red and the Zelda-led sheep are not able to reach any kind of agreement on who is in charge of the pastures, or who is the boss there. Zelda, an anti-herding radical,  is demanding the cancellation of all sheepherding, all sheepherding demos, all Open Houses and sales of yarn. She wants a smaller Bedlam Farm, no herding programs of any kind. Red, a sheepdog born and bred in Northern Ireland, says it is unthinkable that he will give up herding sheep on his own farm.

I’ve tried repeatedly to get them together and work something out, but Zelda says she is accountable only to the sheep, who chose her as their leader so that she would stop the dog from messing with their lives and pushing them around, and they don’t really care about the greater farm, or the Bedlam Farm brand, or the sales of books and e-books. In fact, they would be happy with a Bedlam Farm shut down. You got your wish, I told them this morning.

Three times, Zelda has knocked Red down, twice run right over him, two times led breakouts through the pasture fence and onto the road in front of the farm. So this morning, Bedlam Farm began shutting down. Although essential services – hay, water, the blog, Maria’s studio,  Facebook and photos – will remain in operation, some things will not.

Simon will not be available to cuddle visitors to the farm, nor will he bray his “call to life.”

Minnie and Flo will not chase or catch mice and rats in the barn.

The chickens will not lay eggs and crap on the back porch.

Maria will alter the messages on her message potholders.

Lenore will not eat the apples as they fall off of the apple tree and throw them up on the ground.

Frieda will not chase the trucks as they come past the house on the highway.

Lulu and Fanny say they will continue to kick Simon in the head each morning

as he tries to have sex with them. Sex, they point out, is irrational, given that Simon is neutered.

This marks the first time Bedlam Farm has ever shut down, I have urged everyone to stay calm

and proposed that Zelda and Red get together and try and work things out. Let’s be adults, I said,

we have to try and work these things out.

Red says he will never negotiate with a sheep, Zelda says there is nothing to negotiate about.

More later.

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