This week’s Calendar pick was a fairly obvious one. This Friday (July 20) is opening day at the Saratoga Race Course! (Cue the fireworks and fancy hats.) It’s not officially summer in Saratoga until the announcer at the track says, “And they’re off!” Besides all the obvious fanfare surrounding the track’s opening in and around town (see below), there’s a lot going on at the track itself (including the unveiling of saratoga living‘s “The Races!” issue; make sure you pick up a copy!). The first races will get underway Friday at 1pm with The Schuylerville Stakes and the G3, $150,000 Lake George Stakes. Saturday will feature the G3 Sanford and the 80th running of the G1 $500,000 Diana. And Sunday will be the 101st running of the $300,000 Coaching Club American Oaks, a Grade 1 stakes race.
There’s going to be a lot more than just all-day racing at the Saratoga Race Course this weekend. It wouldn’t be Opening Day without hats, and lots of ’em. The 27th Annual Hat Contest is a staple at the Saratoga Race Course and has become so popular that this year it will accept entries for three separate categories: Kreative Kids (for the 18-and-under crowd), Fashionably Saratoga (elegant hats) and Uniquely Saratoga (the hat, or invention, that most embodies Saratoga and its many attractions). Winners of the Fashionably and Uniquely Saratoga categories will receive a $100 gift certificate to Hatsational, while second- and third-place winners will receive $50 and $25 gift certificates.
Everyone wins on Sunday, July 22, when the track does its first über-popular “Giveaway Day” of the season. Purchase a ticket in, and you’ll receive a free, souvenir baseball cap, courtesy of the Saratoga Casino Hotel. (Don’t miss the other “Giveaway Days” scattered throughout the track season.) And certainly make sure to check out these other great events celebrating the track and Saratoga this weekend.
For the duration of the 2018 Saratoga Race Course season, saratoga living will be providing you with exclusive handicapping videos from our friends at the Daily Racing Form. Below, take a listen to DRF’s Dan Illman and Matt Bernier breaking down the Grade 3 Lake George Stakes on Saratoga Race Course’s Opening Day.
In 2015, there was American Pharoah. The following year, Songbird. Last year, the individual winners of all three Triple Crown races ran in the Travers for the first time in 35 years and the 4-year-old Gun Runner came out of upstate New York a legitimate Horse of the Year contender.
For the last three years, Saratoga has benefited from having the biggest stars in racing perform on its grand stage. As Saratoga prepares to open its doors Friday, it has already been announced that Justify—racing’s current biggest star—will not be appearing here (or anywhere else) this summer.
“It’s always of interest to know who are going to be the key horses racing and that certainly is important to a certain segment of our demographic,” said Chris Kay, NYRA’s president and CEO. “But a lot of people come because horse racing is fun, it’s colorful and whereas they may know American Pharoah ran in the Travers, they didn’t know who was running in the fourth race that day or who ran in the fourth race the day before. Our job is to make sure they have an experience, even if they don’t know all the names of our equine athletes.”
The Saratoga experience begins Friday for the first of 40 days of high-quality racing through Labor Day (Sept. 3). After an opening four-day weekend, racing will be conducted on a six-day week, this being the only track in the country operating under such a schedule.
Business has been monstrous the last three summers. Last year, all-sources handle was a record $682.1 million, the third consecutive year of topping the $650 million mark.
While Mother Nature has played a significant role in that department, Kay said the high quality of racing the New York Racing Association offers every summer as well providing something new for the fans have played equally big roles.
New this year is the introduction of The Stretch, which NYRA is saying is the first significant renovation to the grandstand since the mid-1960s. The Stretch is an area located in upper stretch—roughly around the three-sixteenths pole—and offers barstool seating, various types of social boxes, and regular seats with amenities including 10-inch to 15-inch tablets on which one can watch and wager on the races. Some of the social boxes come with couch seating, some have swivel chair seating and can accommodate from four to 12 people. The area has its own private wi-fi and restrooms. The capacity is from 650 to 700 patrons. Admission prices to The Stretch range from $25 to $150 per person, depending on location and day.
As far as the racing goes, there aren’t many changes to the stakes schedule. The $1.25 million Travers—and six other graded stakes—on Aug. 25 highlight the meet. The Grade 1, $1.2 million Whitney on Aug. 4 tops a five-stakes program.
While the Grade 1 Alabama on Aug. 18 is typically the biggest race for 3-year-old fillies at the meet, this year could be different. Sunday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Coaching Club American Oaks is scheduled to feature a meeting between the division’s two top fillies, Monomoy Girl and Midnight Bisou. Monomoy Girl is not expected for the Alabama.
The 2-year-olds are always a highlight of the Saratoga meet. Last summer, Caledonia Road and Good Magic both debuted up here and by year’s end were divisional champions.
Todd Pletcher won his 13th Saratoga training title last summer, besting Chad Brown—the 2016 leading trainer—by one. Pletcher didn’t think he had the depth to win the title last year and believes the same is the case this year.
“I don’t think we have the depth of older horses and maybe the range of claiming-type horses that you need to win some races,” Pletcher said. “I think we have a good 2-year-old group, it’s just that in 2-year-old racing, you’re going to need some first-time starters to win, things like that. Our success here always depends on how our 2-year-olds run, but I would say even more so this year.”
Brown won his third Belmont spring-summer title with 33 victories. Over his last 50 starters, he had 7 wins and 16 seconds.
“Saratoga, that’s a whole different animal,” Brown said. “I feel we’re prepared. We need the 2-year-olds to show up. We have a lot of turf horses, so we’re dependent on good weather. We have some really good stakes horses to run through the meet.”
The jockey race figures to be a battle between brothers Jose and Irad Ortiz Jr. Jose Ortiz has won the last two titles. Irad won the 2015 title and is coming off winning the Belmont spring-summer title.
There will be only six steeplechase races run this summer, down from nine in recent years. While noting a horse shortage, Bill Gallo, the director of racing for the National Steeplechase Association, said: “We are emphasizing quality. Four of our six races are stakes. We want to showcase the sport in the best possible light.”
Sure, Saratoga Springs is known for its mineral water, racetrack and arts scene. But ever since I first visited here during the summer three years ago, it’s also struck me as a surprisingly hip, literary hub, a place not only where good writing is appreciated, but also where many influential authors have passed through throughout the decades. In large part, that has to do with Yaddo, the historic artists retreat that neighbors Saratoga Race Course, and has hosted writers who have won an astounding 68 National Book Awards and even a Nobel Prize for literature (Saul Bellow). But the other funnel has arguably been the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College, which has brought the best-of-the-best in the literary game to the college during the summer for more than three decades.
What’s the Summer Writers Institute all about? It’s a month-long intensive workshop program—divided into two, two-week sessions—for college-level, professional and emerging writers of all ages (this year’s Institute kicked off on July 2 and will run through July 27). Every July, the Summer Writers Institute, which is an extension of the New York State Writers Institute in Albany, brings dozens of famous and award-winning artists from all over the country not just to read from their own works, but also to actually lead these workshops, critiquing and encouraging new and emerging writers, including yours truly. That first visit to Saratoga I mentioned earlier? It’s all because of a scholarship I received to the Summer Writers Institute in 2015.
Both Institutes, the one in Albany and the summer program in Saratoga, were the dream (realized!) of William Kennedy, an Albany native and author of the seminal Ironweed, a novel about the Capital City during the Great Depression, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize (a movie version, starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, was shot in and around the Capital Region). The release of the book made Kennedy a literary superstar and garnered him a number of prizes and awards. The year he won his Pulitzer, Kennedy offered a large portion of his prize earnings to the State University of New York at Albany, where he had been teaching creative writing and journalism, on the condition that the university matched his endowment to start what would become the New York State Writers Institute. In addition to it, Kennedy had always thought that Saratoga would make the ideal location for a summer program. So he hired Skidmore Professor Robert Boyers, who had founded the prestigious literary magazine Salmagundi, to develop the month-long writing program.
Since its inception in 1987, the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore has drawn students and award-winning writers from all over the world. Though the Summer Writers Institute started out with a faculty of just five—two fiction writers, two poets and one nonfiction writer—it has swelled to include 20 established authors for the 2018 faculty, and that doesn’t even include visiting authors, of which there are just as many. “I’ve been in the game for a very long time,” says Professor Boyers. “A lot of the writers I had contacts with and relationships with through Salmagundi magazine. So before I even started the Writers Institute, I had that foundation.”
The list of names that have either taught or read or, in many cases, done both at the Summer Writers Institute, embraces the highest echelon of contemporary authors, many of whom have won Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards—or are regularly shortlisted for myriad other literary awards. Some of the institute’s veterans include Michael Ondaatje, who wrote The English Patient, which was recently voted the best Man Booker Prize-winning novel ever; Joyce Carol Oates; Louise Glück; Marilynne Robinson (Gilead); Paul Harding (Tinkers); and of course, Kennedy, himself.
saratoga living was lucky enough to chat with four of the Summer Writers Institute’s award-winning visiting authors: Robert Pinsky, Mary Gaitskill, Rick Moody and Joanna Scott.
Poet Robert Pinsky (right), sharing a laugh with Skidmore College Professor Robert Boyers. (Jim McLaughlin)
ROBERT PINSKY
The former US Poet Laureate (1997-2000) is the author of 19 books, including a critically acclaimed and award-winning translation of Dante’s Inferno. Pinsky’s honors include the Los Angeles Times Book Award, Williams Carlos Williams Award and PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, among others.
How long have you been teaching and reading at the Writers Institute?
I’ve been coming to the institute for many years, beginning in the previous century when I used to teach for the full two weeks—I think maybe for two, two-week sessions. I’ve always loved the intensity of focus and the variety of writers. The Boyers-Kennedy spirit has always emphasized writing—not networking, publishing, schmoozing and academic foofaraw. Just writing.
Jazz has been a big influence on you and your work. Have you ever been to a jazz concert here in Saratoga? I’m well aware of Saratoga Springs as a jazz town. At the Skidmore Jazz Institute (brainchild of Don McCormack, the Jazz Dean), I’ve seen a demo/master class by Milt Hinton and gotten to do Poem-Jazz with Pat LaBarbera.
Does it inspire you to write when you’re around a bunch of other writers, like at the Institute? Or do you need a quiet spaceto work? I grew up in a noisy household, and sometimes I seem to work better with a lot going on around me. Calm, quiet surroundings can cause stage fright. So I’ve been known to write while at the Institute.
(Derek Shapton)
MARY GAITSKILL
The essayist, novelist and short story writer has had her work appear in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine and Esquire, among other top publications. The 2002 film Secretary, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, was based on the short story of the same name from Gaitskill’s breakout short story collection, Bad Behavior.
What’s your favorite memory or experience from the Writers Institute? Watching Joyce Carol Oates read a series of dramatic poems, one of which was about Marlon Brando. It was truly a bravura performance of brilliant material; she projected tremendous power, which was all the more impressive given her age and slight appearance. The audience was completely rapt. On a broader level, the experience of watching the program and the people in it evolve and respond to the changing times has been touching and profound for me. I’ve never had the experience of getting to know a group like this and its been nurturing in a subtle but important way.
While you’re in Saratoga, what do you like to do? My favorite thing here is taking long walks. I have been to the breakfast at the track a couple of times, and watched the horses train.
Do you find that you write more when you’re surrounded by lots of other writers, like at the Institute? I’ve never actually tried to write here. Too much going on. But that might be different if I had come for two weeks and stayed on the weekend. In fact, I’m here for the weekend now, and I’m going to try writing something, but that is unusual.
Rick Moody (Emma Dodge Hanson)
RICK MOODY
Moody was on The New Yorker’s list of “20 Writers for the 21st Century.” He has won the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Paris Review’s Aga Khan Prize and more. His 1994 novel, The Ice Storm, was made into a feature film of the same name by Oscar-winning Director Ang Lee.
How many years have you been teaching and reading at the Writers Institute? I can’t remember how many years. A lot of years! I think I appeared as a reader in the late ’90s, maybe 1998 or so. And then within a year or two I was teaching there. And have ever since. I have a lot of great memories of my time there. I can tell you a very personal memory, and that is that Bob and Peg [Boyers] have allowed me to bring my very young son in the last couple of years, which is kind of them. This will be his third visit this summer, and his first was when he was only a month old. Last summer, he took some of his very first steps on campus, in the non-denominational chapel at Skidmore, as we were waiting to go over to Bob and Peg’s place for dinner. I never will forget that, ever.
What do you like to do while you’re in Saratoga? Go to Lyrical Ballads. Go to Four Seasons for meals here and there. Every now and then I go to the Roosevelt Baths. I have visited Yaddo a few times over the years. Also, we like to go to the Tang Museum on [Skidmore’s] campus quite a bit.
You wrote about Saratoga’s Gateway Motel in your novel Hotels of North America. Did you actually stay there, and would you leave them a Yelp review? It’s been a long time since I saw the inside of the Gateway, but I have in fact been in there, way back when. The Gateway, as it appears in the novel, is an imaginary, hyperbolic version of the real one, and the opinions expressed about it are the opinions of a fictional character. I love all Saratoga area businesses, and wish them all well!
Joanna Scott
JOANNA SCOTT
Scott is a Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester and the author of a dozen books. She has won the Pushcart Prize, the Aga Khan Prize and her books have been finalists for the Pulitzer, the Pen-Faulkner and the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
What’s your favorite memory or experience from the Writers Institute? I’ve been coming to the Writers Institute (with an occasional year off now and then) since my older daughter was a toddler, and she’s 26 now. Favorite repeated memory? Working with amazing participants on their writing. Favorite one-time memory? Riding a polo pony (one of the participants in my workshop was a groomer for a polo team!).
What do you like to do in Saratoga, when you’re not hard at work at the Writers Institute? I like to get on my bike, glide down Broadway past the beautiful old houses and treat myself to a cappuccino and a custard rum raison pastry at Mrs. London’s. Then, of course, I have to peddle back up the hill to campus.
You’ve been teaching at the University of Rochester for 30 years now. What do you enjoy most about living and working in Upstate New York? I like living in a small city. At the same time, it’s comforting to know that the lakes, mountains, New York City and all the smaller jewels like Saratoga, Skaneateles and Cooperstown are not too far away.
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Many of these writers do public readings at Skidmore’s Palamountain Hall during the summer sessions, and upcoming events include readings by literary luminaries such as Moody (tonight!), Pinsky (July 20) and Oates (July 25). Check out the full schedule here.
In saratoga living‘s 20th Anniversary issue, we introduced you to native Londoner William Roach, the Wine Director at Putnam Market’s Wine Room on Broadway in Saratoga Springs, who provided you with 20 incredible pieces of wine knowledge that he learned throughout his 20 years in the business—and has taught many a connoisseur-in-the-making (he holds a level four diploma in Wine & Spirits from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust). Now, he’ll be contributing a regular wine column to saratogaliving.com. Here’s the first installment of what we’re calling Wine Wednesdays With William.
Sir John Falstaff will be making an appearance in Saratoga Springs this summer, thanks to The Saratoga Shakespeare Company’s production of Henry IV. With him will come a soliloquy celebrating sherry. Then, as now, sherry was a fortified wine from southern Spain, made stronger by the addition of distilled spirits, the secrets of which spread into Europe with the Moors, who held sway over the region of Andalusia for seven centuries. Sherry is between 15.5 percent and 20 percent alcohol: cream sherries have been sweetened.
Falstaff argues that sherry promotes a quick mind and a nimble wit, a warming of the blood and a rousing of valor. Abstinence leads to cowardice, no sense of humor, and the inability to father sons. Shakespeare’s audience would’ve known all about the effects of drinking sherry. England was at war with Spain for most of Elizabeth’s reign and twice, in the decade before Shakespeare wrote Henry IV, England attacked the harbor and town of Cadiz, sank the Spanish fleet and made off with thousands of barrels of wine. For the Elizabethans, sherry was strong, plentiful and made for perfect stolen goods; quite enough to account for its popularity with the English.
The other reason for sherry’s success was uncovered eventually by biologist Louis Pasteur. Alcohol in a concentration of around 18 percent has an anti-microbial effect. Despite the long sea voyage from Jerez—or Cadiz as the English have it—where other wines would have spoiled, sherry was drinkable. Good relations between Spain and England resumed after Elizabeth’s death, but the almost continual global wars of the 18th century shrank sherry’s export business, and the Peninsular Wars, at the culmination of the fighting, devastated Jerez. From 1820 onwards, the industry regrew. Sherry’s ability to survive an ocean passage made it the wine of choice for an increasingly prosperous and curious world, not least in the United States.
By the mid 19th century, about the time of the first running of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course, America was drinking sherry and madeira—but not during the summer months, as they are heavy, non-thirst-quenching drinks. Into this picture, from the north, came ice, harvested on an industrial scale from frozen lakes and rivers, shipped by rail, and stored across the country in insulated buildings known as ice houses. Simultaneously, from the south, particularly from the recently assimilated state of Florida, came sugar and citrus fruits.
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A Sherry Cobbler.
So now that you’ve brushed up on your Shakespeare and sherry, let’s turn your attention to William’s weekly Taste Challenge, which puts the onus on you to roll up your sleeves and, well, drink a little bit.
Taste Challenge No.1
Grab the following ingredients: oloroso sherry, simple syrup, oranges and ice. Using your sense of taste—and your good judgement to determine the proportions—turn them into a Sherry Cobbler. It should be light, citrus-y, gently nutty and refreshing. This is the cocktail that Dickens celebrates in his novel Martin Chuzzlewit, and which captivated the United States 150 years ago.
If that’s too much to ask, you can go and see my friend, former colleague, and master mixologist, Brendan Dillon, whose excellent establishment on Caroline Street, Hamlet & Ghost, has its own Shakespearian connection front and center. Tell him William sent you.
The Saratoga Shakespeare Company perform As You Like It July 17 – July 28, and Henry IV July 31 – August 4. Performance starts at 6pm. No Performances Sunday and Monday.
To me, Saratoga Springs has always felt like a little neighborhood someone cut out of Manhattan and pasted in Upstate New York. It has the pulse, hipness, culture and arts scene of the Big Apple. The only major thing that seemed to be missing (other than, blessedly, the NYC traffic and noise pollution) was a good Jewish deli.
Well, those days are finally over. Today, July 17, marks the opening of Saratoga’s Broadway Deli, which opened its doors for the first time, just in time for the lunch-hour rush. Opening day included a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce and lots (and lots) of eager customers, looking to dig in to its menu of delicious Jewish deli delicacies, such as chopped liver, matzo ball soup and the hot pastrami sandwich. Did I mention the fried latkes? It was well worth the wait. I know because I buzzed down there for lunch today with my girlfriend. It’s located at 420 Broadway, right behind Kilwins, in what used to be Berkshire Mountain Bakery. (Basically, right below saratoga living‘s headquarters in the Washington.)
One of the dishes you can order at Saratoga’s Broadway Deli: latkes with smoked salmon. (Sarah Storrer)
The store has an entrance from Broadway (just look for the little chalkboard sign next to Kilwins – see below) as well as one inside Northshire Bookstore, so you can eat your Reuben and browse the fiction section at the same time (actually, those sandwiches have a lot of dressing on them, so that’s probably not such a good idea).
The deli has a chalkboard pointing new customers to its main entrance, just off Broadway. (Jeff Dingler)
Scores of locals came by for lunch today—including a few of my colleagues from saratoga living. Some patrons didn’t even know that the store had just celebrated its grand opening. Andrea Toole and Anna Knapp, who both work at Fingerpaint Marketing across the street, came on their lunch break. “I had no idea it was their first day,” said Knapp. “The pastrami’s good, the coleslaw’s good.” Toole got the latkes with smoked salmon and said, “It’s delicious. It has great flavor. I would definitely recommend it!”
It’s not easy to find good Jewish deli-style food this far north of NYC. “I thought there were really only three things missing in Downtown Saratoga: a diner, a deli and a taco place,” says Saratoga’s Broadway Deli’s Owner, Daniel Chessare. “But I didn’t feel like working nights anymore, so I went with the deli.” Chessare started in the Saratoga restaurant scene while in high school, busing tables at Little India when they were still located on Broadway. Since then he’s worked in various restaurants around town, working his way up to sous chef at the Wine Bar and Head Chef at the Merry Monk. But after such a long time in the restaurant business, he wanted a place he could finally call his own. “It’s more stressful than just working in a restaurant—but more enjoyable,” says Chessare of his deli’s opening.
For vegetarians like me who wish they could get the full Jewish deli experience like they did back in their meat-eating days (glorious bacon, drool), don’t worry that you’re missing out: Saratoga’s Broadway Deli has a number of tasty vegetarian options, including what I ordered, a creamy hummus wrap with a side of latkes (sans lox). But if you want to get a knish, you better go early, because they’re selling like hotcakes.
Pretty much every horse racing fan in the country—and especially, those in Saratoga Springs (including me)—were hoping to catch a glimpse of recent Triple Crown winner Justify at Saratoga Race Course this August in the Travers Stakes. But according to his connections, chances are slim that he’ll be able appearing in the race.
Per NBC affiliate WNYT, Justify’s trainer Bob Baffert told reporters at Del Mar Racetrack on Monday that “The Travers would be out….He wouldn’t be able to make [the Travers].” Earlier, Baffert had also confirmed that Justify would likely not be running at Del Mar either, due to a left front-ankle injury. (As far as I’m concerned, that “would” makes it sound like a “maybe” still, but that’s because I’m a wordsmith and a big fan of the English language, not a horse trainer.)
Last week, the Saratoga County Chamber launched a campaign to coax Justify to the Spa this summer and contend in the Travers, with its #JUSTDEFY viral hashtag—but that same day, tweeted out a “get well soon” (see above) to the star Thoroughbred, noting that “When you’re ready, greatness awaits in Saratoga.”
It’s worth noting that just a single Triple Crown winner has ever won the Travers, too. That would be Whirlaway in the 1941 race. To that end, aside from the apparent injury keeping Justify clear of Del Mar and Saratoga, our racetrack has long been known as the “Graveyard of Favorites,” and many a top horse has lost big in the Travers—including 2015 Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah.
All potential winning or losing narratives aside, Justify still has a bright future ahead of him at the farm. His stud fees are already being estimated at $75 million a pop. Not too shabby, right?
Hello, it’s Woody again, from Woody’s Barbershop in Saratoga Springs, and well, things have taken a turn for the scary here in the last few days. Truth be told, I’m writing this from a hospital bed and am about to go under the saw for a little open heart surgery and a triple bypass—give or take an artery. But don’t worry about me; I have complete faith that the surgery will be a major success, and I’ll have a speedy recovery.
I hope all’s well with everyone out there in Saratoga (and cyberspace), and that you’re healthy, happy and getting yourself outdoors and enjoying the Saratoga summer. Need I remind you how punishing a winter it was? If you’re not, get on up outta that chair, pour yourself a cold one and enjoy some fresh air. And then enjoy one for me, too. (Really, please don’t forget to toast to my health!)
So as I was saying in my last Horse Hunch column, no need to pinch yourself, because this Friday, July 20, is Opening Day at Saratoga Race Course! And horses (and horsemen) have all but invaded our little town. Now, I’ve spent the last couple of months over at the track researching and learning everything that I could to pass on a few great tips and winners to you—but lo and behold, I’ve got this clogged artery here, and it’s going to be slowing down my handicapping for the first few weeks of the meet. (Make sure to grab a copy of saratoga living‘s “The Races!” issue on Friday to read my debut article in the magazine!)
All handicapping and print articles aside, I’ve still got a few pointers up my sleeve that’ll do you right, wherever you set up shop at the track on Friday and beyond. For starters, José Ortiz is the best jockey on the planet. Bet him, not the horse, and you’ll never go broke. Kendrick Carmouche is my personal favorite jockey, and you should bet on him if you want to win the big bucks. Nobody gives you more of an honest ride time after time, race after race. When it comes to saving a horse on the lead, seriously, Carmouche’s far and above the best.
In terms of trainers for opening week, it’s worth assuming that both Todd Pletcher and Chad Brown will be vying (and frontrunners) for the top trainer title at Saratoga and both will have horses shooting out of the gate opening weekend. So if your program says that there are Pletcher or Brown two-year-olds in X race, they’ll likely be winners. Of course, don’t forget about Ian Wilkes, George Weaver, Jimmy Bond, Mike Dilger and my buddy, Eric Guillot, who are all extremely talented trainers and can win any race and pay big anytime.
So until next week, when I’m home recovering and studying again, play it smart and have fun!
When I was a kid growing up in Saratoga Springs in the 1990s, the place to geek out on comic books was Spa City Comics on the bottom floor of the Saratoga Marketplace on Broadway. I would usually just go in on a Sunday and chill, flipping through the back issues and marveling (no pun intended—I think) at the pricey “key” issues and first appearances encased in hard plastic on the back wall. I was always an Amazing Spider-Man guy, buying anything and everything having to do with the photojournalist-turned-web-slinger. I quickly became obsessed with the storyline—and its countless superheroes and villains.
One of the books I’ve always coveted—but never owned—is Amazing Spider-Man No.129, which originally published in February 1974. An action-packed cover design, against a bright yellow background, it features a new character—The Punisher—decked out in a black suit, with a white skull emblazoned on the front (and no mask), aiming what appears to be a souped up .22 and firing off a few shots at Spider-Man, who’s locked into his crosshairs. (It regularly sells on eBay to the tune of $300-$5,000, depending on condition.)
I mean, at this point, I’d be buying the comic for an investment; it’s no secret what’s going on within its pages; The Punisher has gotten his own standalone comic series and countless offshoots, as well as three major motion pictures (the first of which starred Dolph Lundgren as the title character). The plot is basically this: New Yorker Francis “Frank” Castle, who witnessed the death of his wife and two children in Central Park, becomes a one-man wrecking crew (à la Charles Bronson in the Death Wish movies), murdering bad guys hither and yon, all in the name of revenge. So basically, for the last 44 years, the bodies have just been piling up—and comic book readers and moviegoers have eaten it up.
Enter streaming giant Netflix, who in November 2017 launched its own 13-episode series, aptly called The Punisher, which stars Walking Dead (and Skidmore College!) alum Jon Bernthal in the titular role. (It’s actually a spinoff of Netflix’s Daredevil series, in which Bernthal appeared as the character during its second season.) The show was green-lit for a second season just a month after hitting Netflix, and season two has already been tabbed for release in 2019. It’s been filming in a number of locations, but film crews recently set up shop on Monday, July 16, in Albany, which has seen its share of blockbusters filming within (or just outside of) city limits throughout the years. According to the local CBS affiliate, filming of the Netflix series has been causing a traffic snarl, and film crews will be apparently be onsite through Saturday, July 21. So if you’re a fanboy or -girl, now’s your chance to catch a glimpse of a Marvel universe series in action. But don’t make any noise when film’s rolling. Or you might be punished.
I grew up in a musical family, and as such, started taking piano lessons early on. Six years in, I switched to cello and excelled at the instrument—so much so that I took up lessons with the cello teacher at Skidmore College. I performed with the all-city and -county orchestras, did a number of those anxiety-inducing New York State School Music Association competitions and got into the Chamber Orchestra at Saratoga Springs High School. By college, I was working under the late, great cello teacher Frank Church at Connecticut College, performing in the college’s orchestra and doing ensemble work with the other cello students. Classical music was a big part of the first two decades of my life.
As I was learning how to play the cello, though, it quickly became clear that it wasn’t all that popular a thing to do. At least the high school jazz band had an electric guitarist and drummer—one-half of a rock band lineup. Those guys could transfer those skills over to Caffè Lena or the high school “battle of the bands.” I, on the other hand, was stuck with a piece of wood from the 19th century that I had to lug around in this giant coffin-like case (try getting attention from the opposite sex when you roll around like an undertaker). Sure, the cello had a “moment” in the early ’90s, when grunge kings Nirvana incorporated the instrument’s dour tone onto a few of their slow-burners on smash-hit record Nevermind—and later, on their much-publicized live album, MTV Unplugged in New York. But had you asked anyone I was going to high school with at the time what their favorite music was, it probably would’ve been Nirvana, not Bach. To this day, everybody knows who Kurt Cobain is, but just ask the average kid on the street who Yo-Yo Ma is, and you’ll get a “Yo-yo, who?” (He’s alive and a virtuoso cellist, by the way.)
Fifty-seven-year-old Jeffrey Curnow, Associate Principal Trumpet in the Philadelphia Orchestra, is well aware of the bad rap classical music gets out there these days. After asking him to prove that classical music was actually cool, he laughed heartily for a good five count. “I think there’s an appreciation for classical music as an adult reaches the age where they look at pop music and can’t understand any of it,” he says. “I listen to what my daughter’s listening to—she’s 14—and I can’t relate to any of it. I see a lot of people my age, in their late 40s or 50s, coming over to classical music for, if nothing else, something to grab onto, musically.” It’s safe to say that, as we get older, we’re less apt to groan or fidget during a two-hour-long orchestra performance. The history behind the composer and the piece tends to excite us more, says Curnow. Who needs Bieber when you’ve got Bruckner?
Thankfully, Curnow’s not the type of classical musician who takes himself—or his craft—too seriously. A talented cartoonist, Curnow is currently churning out weekly cartoons for NPR, in the vein of Gary Larson (The Far Side) or John McPherson (Close To Home), that not-so-subtly make fun of classical music and its musicians. He tells me he’s been cartooning since his days growing up just outside of Philadelphia in Easton, PA. He and his cousins used to draw their own comic books and figure out how to make people laugh with the words and pictures they created. He ticks off Jack Davis (of Mad Magazine fame), Al Hirschfeld, Bernard Kliban and Robert Crumb among their earliest influences. “I had a fascination with how these guys could be funny and cartoonists,” says Curnow. “Artists like da Vinci and Van Gogh—they were great artists. But these guys were funny.” By the ’80s and ’90s, Curnow was getting a smattering of his cartoons published in national newspapers and kept up his craft while in the Empire Brass. And with the advent of social media, Curnow began posting his work to his Facebook page. A friend’s wife, Yolanda Kondanassis (she’s one of the top harpists in the world), became a fan of his work, and passed his name on to NPR Music’s Tom Huizenga. Soon, he hired Curnow to produce the weekly cartoon. “It’s very demanding,” says Curnow of his NPR gig. “I used to just draw when the ideas came to me. Now I have to craft the ideas and make it happen weekly, which can be challenging. But that’s the fun of it for me: Sometimes I’m pacing around the room, trying to think of a cartoon, other times they fall out of the sky.” (During our conversation, Curnow twice asked if he could use things I said as future cartoons.)
So what might you find Curnow cartooning about? A trumpet lambasting his player for bad breath. Trombonists using their instruments as fishing rods. An opera singer getting a warning from a police officer for singing too loudly during his backyard barbecue. (All of these you’ll have to seek out for yourself on his Facebook page.) Curnow also chose a number of his favorites—call them his “greatest hits,” including a few about Saratoga Springs—to complement this article (be sure to check them out in the gallery above). But with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s annual season set to kick off on Wednesday, August 1 at SPAC, the pressure will be on. Curnow notes the break-neck speed with which the Philadelphia Orchestra works—especially in Saratoga. “When we’re at SPAC, we do one rehearsal and one concert, and a different concert every night,” he says. “So it’s a whirlwind for us.” That leaves little room for error. “Everyone onstage is striving for perfection,” he says. “I like to think of it [as if we’re] an Olympic gymnast. You’ve got your floor routine that you’ve been working on for years and years and years, and you go out there and you have your five minutes to do it, and then it’s done.”
I went to see the Philadelphia Orchestra perform several times as a kid, but I never really paid much attention to what was going on down on the stage. I was usually with my family and just enjoying the delicious picnic my mother had packed for our lawn seats. Now, when I go as an adult this summer, I’ll read the program and listen attentively. I’ll be interested in the historical background of the composer and his composition. And I’ll also be searching for one specific chair in the trumpet section and realizing just how cool this all really is. Who knew?
