Seth Rogovoy's blog

Memorial Day weekend is one of several mileposts that act as harbingers of the full-fledged summer cultural season. Several arts venues begin their summer programming this weekend.

Yesterday, Beacon Cinemas developer Richard Stanley took publisher Michael Zivyak and me on a walk through the project's construction site. Work is proceeding apace, and while the site is still raw, Richard was able to sketch out for us in our minds what is obviously going to be a cultural gathering place the likes of which has never been seen in downtown Pittsfield.

I brought my camera along with me and here is some of what I saw:

BIFF UPDATE #3, Sunday, May 17, 2009

Film criticism documentary For the Love of Movies was a bittersweet portrayal of rise and fall of movie criticism. At one time, film reviewing raised the bar for everyone, or at least was a lively, engaging cultural conversation. Then they fired almost all the newspaper film critics to cut budgets. Today, everyone's a critic; we're all the lesser for it.

I tried the Shorts #2 program. Walked out after the third one. Whoever chose this year's short films has very different taste from me.

Prince of Broadway was gritty and complex look at downtown New York hustling life, filmed very much in Dogme style, with no extraneous music, handheld cameras, natural illumination, and acted seemingly by non-actors.

The Berkshire International Film Festival got off to a great start last night with a fascinating documentary, WILLIAM KUNSTER: Disturbing the Universe, made by the lawyer/activist's daughters Emily and Sarah Kunstler, who were in attendance at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., for the screening, along with other family, friends, and people who apppeared in the film.

If all goes according to plan, I will be posting, blogging, and tweeting regular updates and reviews in real time from the Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF), taking place starting tonight and running through Sunday night at the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington, Mass., and at other nearby locations in downtown Great Barrington.

Check back here often for updates, or visit The Rogovoy Report if updates don't seem to be appearing here.

After dinner recently, sitting around with a dozen or so friends brought together for the first time through an online group with common local interests, I marveled at the overlapping nature of communities, the depths of their ties, and the uniquely Berkshire nature of this and other such gatherings.

I’ve been reading my way through books by Mark A. Hyman, M.D., a nationally bestselling author who runs the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts [profiled in “Dr. Feelgood” by Bess Hochstein, October 2009].

        In UltraMetabolism, Ultraprevention, and his latest, The UltraMind Solution, Hyman makes a strong case that food is medicine—if I may be so bold as to distill his work into a phrase.

In years past, friends and colleagues would have taken such a person out for her (presumably) first drink (or at least her first legal drink). Of course nowadays, with the drinking age at twenty-one, you can't do that (and I'm not complaining about that, either).

So just what will Anna's friends and colleagues do with her to help mark her eighteenth birthday, her semi-entry into adulthood?

This Mother’s Day weekend, the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield has programmed a veritable festival of one-women plays, called WAY THE HECK OFF BROADWAY.

I love a good headline as much as the next guy, but the Berkshire Eagle really outdid itself today.

Here at Berkshire Living this morning, titans of the creative economy are gathering around our conference table for a freewheeling, roundtable discussion about the creative economy in times of economic downturn. Highlights of the conversation will be featured in the summer/third quarter issue of BBQ: Berkshire Business Quarterly, due out in mid-July.

In the beginning, there was chaos and void. And the webmaster saw it, and saw that it was good.