If your zip code is 12866, you’re living in an Upstate goldmine.
The Times Union recently reported that Saratoga Springs’ was the highest-earning zip code in the Capital Region. With an average annual income of about $230,000, that well exceeded the average income of residents everywhere else in the area: a paltry $67,000.
In fact, residents in the 12866 made almost $100,000 more per year than the second- and third-highest earning cities in the region: 12159 (Slingerlands) earned an average of $138,00 per year; and 12211 (Colonie and Loudonville) earned an average of $134,000.
reported that residents under Saratoga’s zip code gave the most to charity, not only in terms of the amount of money donated, but also the average percentage of income donated. According to the report, of the over half a billion dollars donated by Capital Region residents, Saratoga Springs contributed just over $125 million. That means the average contribution per household was about $26,000 or 3.9 percent of a household’s annual income. This is considerably high given that the statewide ratio is 2.1 percent and the Capital Region is 1.7 percent.
“We’re so fortunate to live in a community where there is such generosity and I know of so many charitable organizations locally who appreciate the tremendous support provided by local residents and businesses,” said Todd L. Shimkus, President of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. Shimkus was quick to point out that charities rely not only on donations, but also on employees and volunteers to function. “I think we also have a substantial percentage of local residents who donate their time and expertise to helping others and getting things done to make this area a great place to live, work and play.”
While Shimkus is proud that Saratoga is as charitable as it is, he also sees room for improvement. In order to allow for wealthy donors and committed workers to coexist here, Shimkus supports constructing workforce housing on specific sites within 12866 as well as holding meetings for local nonprofit execs that will enable them to collaborate and work more efficiently. “As generous as we truly are, there is more we can all do to ensure we are a community that is welcoming to everyone,” he said. “I’m inspired by the work of our local nonprofits and the generosity of this community, both in terms of money and time being contributed for so many important causes.”
A plethora of at-home entertainment options have cut into moviegoing time for many audiences, but it’s still tough to beat the theatrical experience, especially with more options than ever in the Capital District. So saratoga living has sorted through the current 2018 release schedule and recommended not just what you might want to see, but where you might want to see it. Remember: release dates are always subject to change (and happy additions), so consult local listings before heading out to the theater.
The Bow Tie Criterion is one of the local locations moviegoers can catch movies on this list. (Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas)
Bow Tie Criterion 11 (Saratoga Springs) The reliable and conveniently located downtown theater (so many ice cream options nearby!) plays both mainstream would-be blockbusters and limited-release movies as they expand.
Fifty Shades Freed (February 9) Look, if you’re in for the third and final installment of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, you’re probably going to want to see it someplace where it’s easy to have a glass of wine or three before walking over to the theater. (We suggest the Wine Bar on Broadway.) Just be thankful this is one book series that hasn’t been split up and stretched into four movies—torture even Christian Grey would not sign off on.
Annihilation (February 23) Alex Garland made the excellent Ex Machina, and he’s back with a new, equally mysterious sci-fi picture starring Natalie Portman.
Unsane (March 23) Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven) is back making movies after a hiatus, and he shot this one—some kind of horror thriller—entirely on an iPhone. There’s no one more trustworthy in cinematic experimentation.
Ocean’s 8 (June 8) In a riff on Soderbergh’s Ocean’s movies, A-list actresses assemble for a heist. Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna and Mindy Kaling all co-star.
Crazy Rich Asians (August 17) Hollywood still has major work to do in the diversity and inclusivity departments, which means this adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s bestseller is still a rarity: a big studio movie with a cast that’s almost entirely Asian and Asian-American.
A Star is Born (October 5) The newest version of this thrice-made musical, now starring pop star Lady Gaga and directed by actor Bradley Cooper, sounds fresh.
Mary Poppins Returns (December 25) A decades-later sequel to the beloved Disney classic might seem like an iffy idea, but the cast includes Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame alongside Emily Blunt, who takes over Poppins’ duties.
Bow Tie 8 (Wilton) Not every studio-wide release will be playing downtown; some thrillers and broad comedies are more Wilton Mall fodder.
Halloween (October 19) John Carpenter’s classic gets revisited once again—but this time with superfans (and eclectic, accomplished filmmakers) David Gordon Green and Danny McBride behind the cameras.
Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 (November 21) This comes out over Thanksgiving, so if you’re taking the kids out for Black Friday, seek respite through a sequel to one of Disney’s recent best.
Holmes & Watson (December 25) Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly mark their third proper collaboration after Talladega Nights and Step Brothers as the detecting duo. Ferrell has big shoes to fill, following the likes of Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes.
Malta Drive-In (Malta) Even though it’s only open from April through September, the Malta Drive-In—about a 10-minute drive from downtown Saratoga—is still going strong, showing digitally projected double features on two screens.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (June 22) It’s a big-ticket summer blockbuster, but aren’t all Jurassic Park sequels B-movies at heart?
The Predator (August 3) and The Meg (August 10) These two are coming out close together, so hope for a monster movie double feature: Shane Black’s revival of the iconic alien hunter, alongside Jason Statham finding a worthy opponent in the form of a gigantic shark.
Albany’s Spectrum is the best place to catch the arthouse and indie movie releases in the Capital Region. (Landmark Theatres)
Spectrum 8 (Albany) The area’s best all-out arthouse theater often gets limited-release movies before other upstate locations.
Isle of Dogs (March 23) Wes Anderson’s movies usually roll out slowly, so his latest stop-motion animation project with an all-star cast (including Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand and Bill Murray, naturally) should hit the Spectrum first.
First Man (October 12) Fresh from his Best Director Oscar win for La La Land, Damien Chazelle returns with a Neil Armstrong biopic starring La La leading man Ryan Gosling.
Widows (November 16) A quartet of widows resurrect their husbands’ heist plans in the new film from 12 Years a Slave’s Steve McQueen (no, not the Great Escape guy).
Regal Stadium 10 (Clifton Park) The screens at the relatively new Clifton Park Regal are some of the biggest in the area (along with the Regal outposts at Colonie Center and Crossgates Mall in Albany).
Black Panther (February 16) There are at least seven other superhero movies coming out this year, but only one boasts a nearly all–African-American cast and the mega-talented Ryan Coogler (Creed) behind the camera.
A Wrinkle in Time (March 9) Ava DuVernay (Selma) makes the leap into blockbuster territory with this trippy looking adaptation of the beloved kid-lit fantasy.
Deadpool 2 (June 1) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (November 2) Fox goes all-in on X-Men movies this year, with a sequel to the irreverent mega-hit Deadpool, and a retelling of one of comics’ most famous storylines. For continuity’s sake, why not see them on the same big screen?
Ready Player One (March 30) Just months after his journalism drama The Post, Steven Spielberg returns to sci-fi and goes meta, adapting a novel that’s heavy with references to a number of ’80s movies that he himself either produced or directed. Hopefully he won’t wind up eating his own tail.
Avengers: Infinity War (May 4) So-named, apparently, because “infinity” is the closest approximation to the number of Marvel heroes who appear in this thing: Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man, Black Widow, Hulk, Thor, Non-Baby Groot, Ant-Man and some characters previously relegated to mid-credits scenes.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (May 25) Star Wars returns to the summer season with this Ron Howard–directed production exploring Han Solo in his younger years, who’ll be played by Hail, Caesar’s Alden Ehrenreich.
The Incredibles 2 (June 15) One of cinema’s best superhero teams didn’t originate from a comic book, but rather the brain of Pixar’s Brad Bird. The superpowered family returns for a long-awaited sequel.
Mission: Impossible 6 (July 27) It was bound to happen: Tom Cruise broke his ankle doing a crazy stunt for a Mission: Impossible movie. Don’t you want to see how?
Aquaman (December 21) The Justice League standout returns for his solo movie, the big-ticket holiday 2018 attraction for a Star Wars–less Christmas.
… Don’t Forget Netflix The theatrical experience is something special, but streaming service Netflix does put out plenty of its own originals—which can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home for the price of a monthly subscription ($10.99). Here are a few potential highlights coming in 2018 (streaming dates to be determined):
Hold the Dark Jeremy Saulnier made the white-knuckle thriller Green Room, which makes his wolf-ridden wilderness story an automatic must-see.
Apostle The director of the bone-crunching Raid movies returns with an English-language production, following a man attempting to rescue his sister from a mysterious cult.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs The new Coen Brothers project has been kept under wraps, even including what kind of project it is: This six-part “western anthology” will have some kind of hybrid release that resembles television while also including some kind of theatrical engagements. But Netflix financing means it will be most accessible at home.
“It’s hard to say what defines a zine,” writes co-author Mike Gunderloy in The World of Zines: A Guide to the Independent Magazine Revolution.“They’re created by one person, for love rather than money.”
Think of a zine as the distant cousin of saratoga living; whereas an editorial staff of writers, editors, photographers, designers and others tend to SL‘s eight annual issues, a zine would be the product of just a single person (or persons) with limited resources to his or her name. In turn, print runs would be minuscule, and publicity for the zine’s release would be slim to none. Which raises the question: How can you enjoy something that few people know exists?
Enter Gunderloy. For a decade, he acted as Editor in Chief of Factsheet Five, the first ever meta-zine to review other zines, large and small, from all corners of the globe. In 1992, after a decade of monthly zine-review zines, he decided to focus on computer programming and donated his collection of more than 10,000 titles to the New York State Library in Albany. It takes up more than 300 cubic feet.
Curious eyes are sure to find curious titles. Brimstone: Journal of the Ancient Brotherhood of Satan. Brat. Dumpster Dive. Liver and Lights. Drivel. There are zines for wrestling fans (CombatSports –“The Champion of Sports Fanzines since 1978”); LGBTQ readers in the Albany area (Community – “The Capital District’s lesbian, gay and bi newsmonthly”); science fiction lovers (The Dragon – “The Magazine of Fantasy, Swords & Sorcery and Science Fiction Gaming); price-conscious comic book enthusiasts (Comic Buyers’ Guide – Price Guide); and everyone in between.
And Gunderloy reviewed them all. “In fact, one of Gunderloy’s policies was to review everything that was sent to him, no matter how obscure or offensive,” writes Stephen Duncombe in Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. According to Duncombe, the subjects listed in Gunderloy’s first issue included anarchism (Church of the Anarchist Avatar [The Gospel According to Fred the Pelican]), computer programing and “experiments in extrasensory perception.”
“Gunderloy did a really good job at a really thankless task,” says John Marr, editor of Murder Can Be Fun since 1986. Marr’s comically morbid zine functions as an anthology of strange crimes and unusual disasters, like the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. “Being the gatekeeper as it were, people depended a lot on their zines being pinned and whether he gave a good or bad review was a big deal. And he was very even-handed.”
Ironically, Gunderloy’s exhaustive zine was originally born of laziness. Factsheet Five was meant to save Gunderloy from the tedium of re-writing his opinions about zines in letters to each of his friends. “Finally one day I said this is stupid, I’ve written the same things five times to five different people. I’ll publish it, it would be simple, it would be easier…that was Factsheet Five #1.”
After Factsheet Five‘s circulation grew past 10,000, Gunderloy became a quasi-spokesperson for the zine community and self-publishers alike. In ’88, he wrote How to Publish a Fanzine; the following year he wrote a 54-page zine entitled WhyPublish?;and in ’92, he and Janice Goldberg wrote The World of Zines.
As for the answer to “Why Publish?”: Gunderloy says that zines empower publishers and readers to take control of their personal media. “Certainly, the very act of taking over the entertainment portion of their life and dictating, ‘Here’s how it is, and here’s how it should be’ is inherently opposed to being fed your stuff by the mass media.”
Few vocalists hold the recital stage like British tenor Ian Bostridge, who brings his operatic chops to Union College’s Memorial Chapel on Feb. 10.
It has everything to do with how he conveys the meaning of the words he sings and what he does with his voice.
“You must grab people’s attention,” Bostridge told saratoga living last December from London. “You must engage them. You need to communicate. The voice is the servant of the interpretation,” he explained. “There’s too much pressure on having a beautiful voice and to sing loudly. Having a beautiful voice is not interesting to me. After two minutes it becomes boring. If a singer is doing a song cycle of 50 minutes, the listener’s ear adjusts to the voice, and they take it for granted. But beauty and ugliness captures their attention.”
Bostridge loves to sing songs that take his audience on an emotional journey. He works with texts that allow him to sing not just pretty tones, but also grunts, whispers, and other “weird colors,” as he puts it. Bostridge performs in a disarmingly casual way as he leans against the piano or walks about the stage to tell the song’s story.
Although he sings lieder by Mahler, Brahms, Wolf, Schumann, and Beethoven, his favorite material comes from the pen of Franz Schubert. “[Schubert] has a huge variety, and at his peak, the songs are incredibly powerful,” Bostridge said. Schubert (1797-1828) not only wrote symphonies, string quartets, chamber music, and piano works; but he also turned out more than 600 songs. “It’s quite a lot,” Bostridge told us with a laugh. “And they’re all pretty great. I’ve sung only about 200 of them and explored another 250. Some are not well known and they all vary in intensity.”
Schubert set his songs to the texts of almost 100 poets, particularly Goethe and Wilhelm Müller. Out of the 22 Schubert songs Bostridge will perform is the famed “Erlkonig” (“The Erl King”), which is set to a Goethe poem; and he’s opening with a trio of songs set to poetry. These include: Matthaus Kazimir von Colin’s “Wehmut” (“Melancholy”); “Der Zwerg” (“The Dwarf”), which in Bostridge’s opinion, is “not a good poem but Schubert turned it into a great song”; and “Nacht und Traume” (“Night and Dreams”).
Presenting these three songs together, Bostridge said, enables him to create an atmosphere, which sets the stage for what comes afterwards. “That’s part of why I’m drawn to Schubert again and again,” he said. “He was the first great lieder writer and he was writing for the new piano, which had become a more powerful instrument. It makes the partnership between the voice and piano more equal … almost symphonic. And he was inventing new styles and he was the first to create cycles. ‘Winterreise’ (‘Winter Journey’), based on Müller’s poems, is the greatest cycle in classical music.”
Performing a three-song cycle has become something of an obsession for Bostridge, who tours with the concept regularly—four of the six concerts he’s performing in February on his North American tour feature this cycle. He even wrote a book detailing how he came to interpret each of the cycle’s 24 songs in Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession. Bostridge sang the cycle in 2015 at Union with accompanist Wenwen Du, whom he recently worked with in California. He’s spent almost 30 years performing this work.
For the Union concert, Bostridge will be joined by his longtime pianist Julius Drake, who was the accompanist for their recent album Songs by Schubert, Vol. 3. “He’s great. He has the instinct as to how we phrase and we trust each other,” Bostridge said of his accompanist. “But I also try to work with younger people. They sometimes provide inspiration with new colors.”
Entering the One Big Roof space during a meditation session, one feels the powerful yet serene energy released when a group of people agree to sit quietly together. In the corner of the room, among plants and colorful wall hangings, is a tall statue of a goddess figure, her milky robes flowing as if lifted by a gentle wind. One hand is raised in a gesture that means “no fear.”
Meditation is the basis of the eight-week Stress Reduction Program at One Big Roof in Saratoga, which is taught by Selma Nemer, Caroline Russell Smith and Pierre Zimmerman. The 50th program ended last November, and graduates of all the stress-reduction classes, myself included, were invited to the “50th Mindfulness Practices Celebration” this past January. The course is modeled on the one originated by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who, in the 1990s, helped pioneer a movement to bring mindfulness to the masses as a scientifically researched healing practice. Nemer, a clinical psychologist, and Smith, who has a private psychotherapy practice in town, teamed up in ’05 to bring the practice to Saratoga. One Big Roof, a retreat and workshop center on Maple Avenue, is part of One Roof, a holistic health center on Henry Street that was founded by Nemer.
At first, Smith thought that mindfulness would only be another tool to offer her patients, but the “be here now” techniques that she learned were life changing for her as well. The mindfulness meditation practice is a different approach to supporting mental health, she says, or “just dealing with the struggle of being human.” Smith cites the example of a woman who came into the program with chronic pain. When classes ended eight weeks later, the woman reported that her level on the pain scale had dropped from a “10” to a “4.” “It gave her a sense that the pain wasn’t happening to her; it gave her a sense of agency,” Smith says.
In my Saturday morning class, someone asked Zimmerman if meditation was the same as focusing. “Focusing can be what we do in our daily lives, while we are working or driving; concentrating on the tasks we do in the world,” he says. “With meditation, we are ‘dropping in’ instead, focusing on our breath.” After class, I asked Zimmerman about the statue. “That’s Kuan Yin, the embodiment of compassion. She was my woman for five years, before I met Selma,” he says, jokingly, of his companion in life. Smith introduced the two of them 11 years ago at a silent retreat at Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico.
Nemer is the former chef-owner of Eartha’s Kitchen, a Saratoga restaurant that she ran while raising two children. In 2005, she founded One Roof. The restored, classic wooden house on Henry Street, a former gospel church seminary and shelter, provides spaces where mind-body practitioners share the same goal: to treat the whole person. Psychotherapists, reiki practitioners, massage therapists, acupuncturists and other healers treat anxiety, chronic pain, weight and body issues and hypertension. Zimmerman is a Buddhist chaplain who serves people with catastrophic illnesses. After working 25 years in corporate healthcare, he found a higher calling in ministering to people with cancer or who are close to the end of life. He offers workshops at Saratoga Hospital, as well as at a site in Massachusetts.
For several years, One Big Roof and its Stress Reduction Course moved to different sites around Saratoga. Now, for the last two-plus years, the group’s space has occupied 1,000 square feet at Saratoga Health and Wellness on Maple Ave., right across the street from Maple Avenue Middle School. “We wanted this to be an adjunct to One Roof, where we could teach mindfulness meditation,” Nemer says. The center also provides space for other One Roof classes, such as yoga, tai chi and qi gong, all offered by qualified practitioners and managed by Zimmerman. Saratoga Health and Wellness is “a different kind of gym,” he says, and a natural partner with One Big Roof, as both receive many clients as referrals from healthcare providers. “Mindfulness meditation works,” says Nemer. “In this go-go-go-crash world we live in, when everyone is feeling so taxed, meditation returns us to a state within where we can breathe. In that pause is where healing takes place.”
During the fourth Saturday class, Zimmerman invited the group—one by one—to report on their homework from the previous week, which was, in addition to meditation practice, taking special note of a pleasant experience. Someone reported savoring a moment of joy he experienced while running. One woman recounted the peace she felt in taking the time to appreciate a glowing sunset over a lake. A man shared that the meditation practice allowed him to simply weep, and that release itself was a sort of joy. As finding balance in our daily lives is one of the themes of this course, Nemer gave us new homework for the upcoming week: noticing an unpleasant experience. “But that is in addition to noticing any pleasant experiences,” she said with a smile.
The two stress-reduction classes gathered together last November for a mostly silent retreat at One Big Roof. Students were guided through silent and moving meditations, including some gentle yoga, before feasting on a vegetarian potluck…silently, of course. After lunch, meditators engaged in interactive moving exercises, with the phenomenon of sound slowly—and playfully—reintroduced. Finally, the 38 graduates gathered in a circle to share what the experience meant—not without a few tears. The teachers shared as well: Smith rejoiced at this 50th completed OBR Stress Reduction Course. At that moment, the closing lyrics to Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” came to mind: “Friends, they may think this is a movement—and that’s what it is!” A no-fear movement.
“Pretty much everyone that does this for awhile has flipped a car,” says Pat Stringer. Weather permitting, Stringer’s been racing cars across Lake George’s frozen surface every winter since 2005. “Everyone runs out and tips you back over and you drive away,” he continues, nonchalantly.
Stringer is a member of the Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club (AMEC), a group of amateur race car drivers that annually show up on the ice-packed shores of Lake George with anything from clunky street cars to personally-modified racing vehicles, ready to show off their driving and mechanical prowess in makeshift race courses set up on the ice. “It’s about one of the safest forms of racing you can imagine,” Stringer says. “As far as racing, probably the biggest danger is slipping and falling on the ice when you’re not in the car. The folks out there in the race cars are certainly the safest people on that lake.”
Hard to believe, but Stringer’s got stats to back himself up. Since AMEC formed in 1954, injuries have been rare among the 50-120 competitors that show up on any given weekend. Stringer vaguely recollected stubbing his toe sometime in the past decade of racing, but that was about it. This is in part because AMEC has strict safety precautions; it abides by regulations put forward by its insurers, meticulously and continuously checking Lake George’s ice levels and requiring all participating vehicles and drivers to be outfitted with racing safety gear (fire bottles, racing harnesses, racing seats, top-of-the-line helmets, roll bars, rear- and forward-facing lights for tough weather conditions and all the other accoutrement a professional driver might need). Another factor that makes the affair super safe? Unlike conventional racetracks, Lake George’s spans across a wide-open space. That means racers who lose control can shoot off the track, spinning and tumbling, without slamming into cement walls.
Of AMEC’s early years, President and Club Historian Dave Burnham says, “It was a bunch of guys that got together that had sports cars—I think most of them worked at GE—and they wanted to form a club. They did all kinds of things like road rallies and dirt time trials…but then in 1965, the Lake George Winter Carnival asked us if we would hold races at the event, and that’s where the ice racing started.”
There are nine different classes of cars that can participate in wheel-to-wheel racing. Some are street legal; others are full-blown ice race cars designed specifically for frozen tracks. “The street legal cars are actually our biggest class,” Burnham says. “Those people can drive their car to the lake, put on a helmet and race…we’ve had $100,000 Porches out there.” That said, drivers aren’t regularly signing up to sacrifice their Porches: Street car races are strictly noncontact. “There’s penalties if they hit each other,” Burnham says. “But then again, they’re racing and it’s on ice, so stuff happens.”
And what do AMEC’s boldest drivers receive after emerging victorious from a treacherous race across the ice? “Nothing!” Burnham says. “Winners get glory. Points. A plaque if they did real well. It’s true grassroots racing for the fun of it.”
Dave Cerrone, lead trumpet player and band manager of one of the Capital Region’s longest-running bands, the Refrigerators, was still recovering from a life-threatening case of encephalitis when he returned to band practice last year. “To be honest, I was still doing a lot of mental mending, so I don’t remember the exact date,” he tells me. What he does remember is that he was feeling less than confident when he showed up, despite cheers and hugs from his bandmates. He had already spent nearly a year recovering from the malady, and he still couldn’t remember a lot of things. “I wasn’t sure if music parts would come back,” says Cerrone.
Soon enough, he and his bandmates geared up to run through Chicago’s “Does Anybody Know What Time It Is,” and Dave took a deep breath: The tune opens with a trumpet solo. “It came right out!” he told me excitedly. Despite losing a lot of memories, Dave somehow remembered every lyric and trumpet part from the Refrigerators’ repertoire, a list that includes over 100 pop, funk and rock and roll hits.
For more than 20 years, Cerrone has cherished his role as the Refrigerators’ over-committed and fun-loving leader. He founded the band in his mother’s basement in Albany in 1992, after he put an ad in the paper looking for horn players and ended up with a septet.
That number has since ballooned to 10 musicians: two lead vocalists; a drummer; bassist; guitarist; keyboardist; and the “Funk Underground Horns,” a four-piece horn section equipped with two trumpeters, a saxophonist and trombonist. The Refrigerators’ high-energy dance music also requires DJs, a sound crew and light technicians, who together with the band make up what Cerrone affectionately calls “The Fridge Fam.”
The Refrigerators family has seen a lot of change over the course of 25 years. They went from playing in dive bars for beer to sharing bills with the Village People, the Average White Band, 98 Degrees and Sugar Ray. They’ve also been a mainstay on Saratoga’s nightlife and party scene: They play at everything from weddings to charity events to the Vapor Nightclub.
When Cerrone got sick in May 2016, the Refrigerators’ incredible run looked like it might be coming to an end. The band had never had to function without him, and their new vocalist, Amelia Karcher, had been hired only one week before the diagnosis. “I came into the band probably at the absolute worst time,” says Karcher. “But the fact that they just kept going and said, ‘This is what Dave would want to do,’ I found that inspiring. Any other band would have crumbled.”
According to Cerrone, Karcher was “a godsend” for the Refrigerators: “She just came through with a lot of energy, and without her, I think it would have been a much tougher transition.” Now that the Refrigerators are back in action, Cerrone and the Fridge Fam have the luxury of looking towards the future. “We often joke about it but my son’s a drummer, he’s 12, and my daughter’s a pianist, she’s only nine, and some other members have children and nieces and nephews,” said Cerrone. “We’d love to see it go another 25, keep the tradition going with another generation. “
It doesn’t surprise us in the least that Oprah Winfrey’s rousing speech at the Golden Globes became 2018’s first zeitgeist-y “moment.” Her powerful words about fighting racial inequality and ending sexual assault have prompted a social revolution, media whirlwind and tidal wave of social media buzz.
At the eye of the storm is a much-talked-about debate: Will Oprah run for president in 2020? She’s certainly hinted at the fact. But recently toldInStyle magazine that she doesn’t “have the DNA for it.” And calls for her presidential bid are being rebutted with an equally passionate “NOprah” from politicians on both sides of the aisle. In a meeting about immigration reform on January 9, even the President himself weighed in on the matter: He said he didn’t expect Oprah to run, but if she did, he expected to beat her.
She isn’t giving any sort of answer yet anyway, but it’s worth noting that, in her commencement speech to Skidmore College’s class of 2017, Oprah did say she makes every decision deliberately: “There is an intention that precedes every thought and action, and the outcome of your experience is determined by that intention,” she told Skidmore’s graduate class, just six months before the Golden Globes. “This principle of intention is what literally saved and changed the trajectory of my living, because I started to make my decisions based on what I intended, not just what someone else wanted me to do.” Could Oprah have been hinting at a presidential run in our own backyard, months before the Globes?
Whether or not she actually goes through with a presidential bid, we can expect Oprah to take a more political role in society in general. During her commencement address, she made it clear that she believed everyone bears some responsibility to steer the country out of politically trying times: “In this political moment, when everyone is just hysterical…the call is for whatever side you choose to be on, to use more of you to bring forth the light.”
Pretty much every Saratogian knows that Bob Dylan performed at Caffè Lena back in the early ’60s, just as he was beginning to kick off his legendary folk career. But Bob wasn’t the only one.
According to Sarah Craig, Executive Director of Caffè Lena, most of the now famous musicians who have performed at the club weren’t famous when they first started performing there. “This was an important building block in their career and in building their skills, and that’s what Caffè Lena is really for,” she explains. “The shows are always great regardless of whether that person becomes a household name later down the line. That’s just a matter of lightning striking or not.”
Here’s a list of eight artists you probably didn’t know performed at Caffè Lena before hitting it big.
Ani DiFranco
One of the first true “indie” stars, DiFranco first appeared at Caffè Lena in 1991, a year after founding her independent record label, Righteous Babe. A Buffalo native, DiFranco would go on to release 20 albums (including Little Plastic Castle, which charted in 1998); score minor hits with “32 Flavors” via the cover version recorded by ’90s rocker Alana Davis; land a Grammy award (as well as eight nominations); perform at Madison Square Garden; and even star on an episode of King of the Hill.
G. Love
This may be a case of a reversal of fortunes. G. Love performed solo at Caffè Lena in March of ’96, two years after he and his band, Special Sauce, became college radio darlings with a pair of catchy numbers, “Cold Beverage” and “Baby’s Got Sauce.” G. Love would also wind up on the H.O.R.D.E. Festival tour, founded by Princeton, New Jersey–based jam band Blues Traveler (the tour features everyone from Neil Young and Ben Folds Five to the Barenaked Ladies). After a trio of charting albums in the aughts, the band sort of dropped off the face of the Earth, resurfacing, of all places, in a 2005 Coke Zero commercial. So in a sense, Caffè Lena landed the band at its prime.
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, has been dropping by Caffè Lena for the past 50 years (his last appearance was in 2010). His first performance was in ’66, a year before the 18-minute, 34-second talking blues song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” sent the album it was on up to No. 17 on the Billboard charts. Although the song itself never charted (for obvious reasons; it was way too long for radio), it has become a Thanksgiving Day staple for modern radio stations. Fun fact: The “Alice” in the song is a real person.
Freedom Singers
The Freedom Singers may not ring a bell, but they might just be the single most important artist on this list (Bob Dylan included). The a capella gospel quartet toured with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”), a powerful social organization that fought Jim Crow segregation laws during the Civil Rights era. They performed at Caffè Lena in February 1963, about six months before they sang alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the fabled March on Washington.
Tom Paxton
Starting in 1960, Paxton performed at Caffè Lena 14 times over the course of 35 years. If you’re unfamiliar with his name, you won’t be with the laundry list of artists who’ve covered his tunes, which include Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, John Denver, Willie Nelson and other folk/country royalty. By ’62, Paxton would be performing alongside major folksingers like Dylan and Dave Van Ronk in Greenwich Village; and about 50 years later, in 2009, he would receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Emmylou Harris
Long before she was a 14-time Grammy Award winning vocalist, Emmylou Harris performed at Caffè Lena in 1968. (That was a year before she recorded her first album, and nine before she won her first Grammy.) Harris, who’s since been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, has recorded 26 studio albums; sold 5.5 million records in the US alone; and recorded with a who’s-who of rock royalty, including Dylan, Neil Young, Roy Orbison, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Patty Griffin and Gram Parsons.
Don McLean
If you buy into Saratoga folklore, this will be old hat: One night, following a gig at Caffè Lena, McLean stumbled into the Tin ‘n’ Lint bar on Caroline Street and penned his No. 1 single “American Pie” in one of the booths. (They have a plaque to prove it.) While McLean did play Caffè Lena regularly throughout the 1960s, a 2011 article from The New York Times seemed to confirm that McLean didn’t write the mega-hit at the T&L, but rather over two separate visits to Cold Spring, NY, and Philadelphia. At least that’s what McLean “remembered.” But just because McLean said it’s so, doesn’t mean it is. Either way, the world is a much better place for that song, which first dropped in 1971.
Sawyer Fredericks
Last but not least, local hero Sawyer Fredericks was only 14 years old when he first performed at Caffè Lena in November of 2013. He went on to become the youngest contestant to ever win The Voice in 2015 (alongside Danielle Bradbery, who was also 16 when she won) and set iTunes sales records when 10 of his singles reached the iTunes Top 10, and 14 of his singles charted in the Top 200 before the series ended.
Dennis Moench, SPAC’s Director of Youth Communication, is leading several professional musicians from the Decoda Ensemble and a large group of very young Saratoga Independent School students through a series of vocal warmups in the school’s main hall. Moench’s professional credits are extensive and include Broadway roles in Les Misérables and Mary Poppins, but he has never worked on anything like this.
Moench sees me enter the space and shouts across a sea of kids: “It is going really well.” Then, motioning to the children he says, “They are terrific. Their music is wonderful!” The children and the musicians collaborated over a one-week period to create their own musical composition to perform for the public at Bethesda Church. The entire event was part of the SPAC Chamber Music and Composition Residence Program. Their stated goal is to “bring distinguished professional artists and arts educators into schools to immerse students in a performing art form.”
With that goal in mind, SPAC brought The Decoda Ensemble musicians to work with the students of the Saratoga Independent School for one week of interactive music composition classes and a study of the fundamentals of music making. Together they created a musical piece based on the school’s annual theme of “Relationships, Environment and Change.”
Change is a good thing. Yeah! Change is like a swing. Sometimes, you go fast. Sometimes you go slowly. Change helps us see how things move differently. Yeah!…Yeah!
Decoda Musicians lead a rehearsal. (Lawrence White)
The musicians of the Decoda Ensemble are not only extremely talented, but they are also budding activists. Each musician has a background of shared training and experience as a fellow in a two-year program by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. Their professional objective is to bring classical chamber music to locations that are not on the general touring list. They perform and collaborate with people in locations such as community centers and schools, as well as maximum-security prisons and facilities in the juvenile justice system. In the process, they became the first-ever Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall and performed at the White House three times. They also established annual chamber music and leadership institutes at Skidmore College
Double bassist Kris Saebo worked with the children over the entire week. “This was a specially fun project, because it entailed working with 70 elementary school children. Creating and performing a composition with so many young students in one week was a daunting task,” Saebo tells me with a laugh and a smile. “However the game plan we came up with worked well. We divided into three different groups and brought those creative elements together through tempo and then eventually through the music.” He continued: “I really enjoyed working with the community at Saratoga Independent School. They are extremely loving, open and warm. The students are curious and smart. I was blown away by the level of their creativity. They made our job easy and fun.”
Dennis Moench, SPAC Director of Youth Education, leads an exercise. (Lawrence White)
Here is another sample of lyrics written by the students:
We should not pollute the air. Don’t cut down our trees. Stop using gases. Pick up litter. Don’t litter at all. And don’t hurt animals.
Elizabeth Sobol, CEO of SPAC, expressed great satisfaction with the results of the project. When I saw her after the performance she was elated. “The Decoda residency at Saratoga Independent School and the culminating event at Bethesda Church were a perfect manifestation of our new SPAC educational vision: immersive, participatory, creative and collaborative,” says Sobol. “What a joy to see the process come alive last Friday as the SIS students performed works that they had created—and the world class Decoda ensemble delighted us with a unique and entertaining performance.” Lisa Brown, Interim head of SIS echoed Ms. Sobol’s thoughts. “It was an amazing week! It was a wonderful experience for the kids. They had nothing but superlatives when they spoke about it in morning meeting today. And we have nothing but praise for all of the talented musicians and spot-on teachers, all with a great sense of humor.
Decoda Ensemble Executive Director Mi Rhyung tells me that every one of the musicians had a great experience. “The performance at Bethesda Church was just adorable and inspiring,” says Rhyung. “The lyrics that the children came up with were deep and moving. They fully embraced the theme and in their own words expressed what it means to them. The concert was a great way to showcase the hours of work they devoted to create the composition and to present the method they developed to fuse all of the elements together through the music.” After a short pause, Rhyung continues: “Our artistic goal is to break down walls and have a positive effect in communities and in people’s lives. This project clearly achieved both.“
