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 WEEKEND’S BEST BETS Cooperstown Youth Baseball’s opening day on Saturday coincides with the rededication of the Jackie Robinson plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame. A new plaque for the Brooklyn Dodgers star will be dedicated recognizing his role as a Hall of Fame player and, for the first time, as a civil rights pioneer. In 2005, Robinson was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal of Honor posthumously more than half a century after breaking baseball’s color barrier. Robinson’s wife, Rachel, and daughter, Sharon will visit Cooperstown to participate in the events: : • 1:30 p.m. plaque rededication in Hall of Fame Gallery. • 3 p.m. Voices of the Game program with Rachel and Sharon Robinson in Grandstand Theater. • 4:15 p.m. Book signing in Library Atrium. Robinson will be available to her books: Safe at Home, Promises to Keep and Jackie’s Nine. You Can Start Helping Relay For Life – Buy! Take a stroll Saturday morning to 66 Chestnut St. between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. to the huge Relay for Life Yard Sale. The multi-family sale includes a bake sale and from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., a hot dog lunch. Luminary forms will be available to honor loved ones. Mulligatawny Soup Is Just The Beginning Wrap up the day at 6 p.m. with another Relay for Life event, an authentic Indian Feast prepared by the Rev. Sundar Samuel and family. Samuel is pastor of the Cooperstown United Methodist Church and a native of India. The dinner is presented by Team Wyckoff and Friends, a Relay for Life team, in the church fellowship hall, decorated with an Indian theme, and music will be provided by Judith Niles of the Binghamton Symphony Orchestra. The menu will include hors d’oeuvres of aloo samosa, a savory pastry with spicy potato filling, and mulligatawny soup, made of chicken broth, vegetables, various spices and cream. The entree course will include masala gosht, or beef.   During May, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Will Be Everywhere In Otsego County By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN As Diane Elliot tells it, Zoe Green was a natural to play Scout, the memorable Tomboy in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Zoe, daughter of Nick and Kerstin Green of Milford, agrees. Her assessment: “She’s funny – and she’s just like me.” Just like me. No doubt it’s just that universality that makes literature – all literature, but “To Kill a Mockingbird” in particular – enduring: It captures a common humanity. If so, there will be plenty of common humanity during the month of May in Chenango, Delaware and Otsego counties as the region’s first “Big Read,” initiated locally this year by the Foothills Performing Arts Center, gets under way. Since the National Endowment for the Arts launched the program in 2006, it has funded 300 “Big Reads” nationwide with the goal of elevating reading’s much-battered profile – battered by movies, TV and, most lately, the Internet and video games. The idea is that a region picks a book, encourages everyone to read it, and organizes events to promote that activity. One of the most unusual such activities locally is the Marathon Reading Session that begins at 8 a.m., Saturday, May 17, at the Bright Hill Center in Treadwell, northern Delaware County. Anyone can participate. And “Mockingbird” will be read, one read after another, until it’s done. A pot luck dinner is planned. That’s how long this is expected to go. Between January and June of this year, “Big Reads” are going on in 127 communities nationwide. As it happened, Diane Elliott said, Foothills – it’s Oneonta-based, but is positioning itself as a three-county resource – was planning to do a play on Harper Lee’s “Mockingbird.” When she saw “Mockingbird” was on the NEA’s list of recommended works, it just seemed like a natural. This weekend, Zoe is going on the road. She will be doing her depiction of Scout three times this weekend. First, at 8 p.m. Friday, May 2, in the Chenango County Courthouse, Norwich. Next, at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 3, at the Delaware County Courthouse, Delhi. Finally, at 4 p.m. that afternoon, Saturday, May 3, at the Otsego County Courthouse in Cooperstown. Who can forget the memorable courthouse scenes from the Oscar-winning movie? Who can forget Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning performance as Atticus Finch, Scout’s dad and the tilting-at-windmills lawyer defending a black suspected of raping a white woman in the Jim Crow South? Among other Cooperstown-centered activities in “Big Read” month is Village Historian Hugh C. MacDougall’s lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 7, at The Fenimore Art Museum. The lecture, on the topic, “ “Behind the Adventure Curtain: The Last of the Mohicans as a Novel of Ideas,” is the first of four book discussions planned over the course of the month. Participate. Read. ELIZABETH BUCHINGER THIS WONDERFUL LIFE Four women, a Saturday night, a buffet full of appetizers, a few glasses of wine and the entire Jane Austen library of film adaptations. Oh yes – it was just as exciting as it sounds. In her novel, “Emma,” Miss Austen wrote, “It is such a happiness when good people get together – and they always do.” There was a time in my life when I would have thought the last part of that statement was the kind of foolish optimism that comes from living “simply” in ivy-covered manors where a day’s work entailed a little strolling ’round the garden, a little gossip at the table and a little stitchwork in the parlor. Exhausting, truly. And yet, it does seem to be true that good people get together – very much like the people who were good enough to include me in our first Jane Austen Night. We hatched the plan a couple weeks ago while sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Albany eating spicy food and drinking sangria. We turned to the subject of books, and shared our latest reads. All of my companions are much more voracious readers than I am, I am embarrassed to say. These days, my nightstand is stacked with a combination of textbooks for classes I’m taking and books I’m reading for professional development. Not exactly the kind of stuff you discuss with friends over wine. Elinor told us she was almost finished with “The Jane Austen Book Club.” Her review: eh. Lizzie, who owns nearly every film adaptation of the Austen canon, shared that she is reading all of Miss Austen’s books because she doesn’t want to be one of those Austen fans who is more familiar with the films than the books. I averted my eyes guiltily into the bottom of my sangria glass. We decided that a night of female companionship (girls’ night!) and Austen-inspired flicks would be delightful. Each of us brought an appetizer to share, and Lizzie had the brilliant idea of encouraging us to bring a craft – er, traditional art to busy our hands. I brought a bit of embroidery. She knitted, and we felt not unlike the Dashwood women, who all scramble to pick up their stitching and books when Edward makes an unexpected call. (“What? We were just knitting?”) Our first selection was the version of “Sense and Sensibility” directed by Ang Lee and starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and – in a role that answers, “What would Dr. Gregory House have been like in 1811?” – Hugh Laurie, whose Mr. Palmer quietly and sardonically steals every scene. After “Sense and Sensibility,” we watched the Masterpiece Classics recent adaptation of “Northanger Abbey,” which I had never read (or, even heard of, to be honest). In the story, heroine Catherine Morland learns that it is possible to read too many gothic novels and that marrying for love can mean being poor. The beauty of Jane Austen’s stories is that they possess such simple surfaces. They are predictable, even. When, early in “Northanger Abbey,” Isabella Thorpe curls her arm into Catherine’s and trills, “I’m sure we’ll be the best of friends,” our friend Emma – who also was unfamiliar with the story, but not with Austen – shot back, “Um, yeah, I’m pretty sure you won’t be – mostly because you just said that.” But Austen’s stories weren’t about the stories. They weren’t about the romances and intrigues. They were about the characters and the social architecture of their lives that forced strange and comic and painful conventions. Austen was a sharp and wry observer of the world in which she lived, and her glasses were anything but rose-colored. So when she asserts that good people do come together – that they always come together – I have to think that she may have been correct. Perhaps it is true that good people always come together. Look at me. I’ve been here just two years, and already I have met more good people than I ever could have expected. And not one of them has ever made that threat about being the best of friends. Elizabeth Trever Buchinger has delighted you long enough. She can be reached at VillageWordsmith@gmail.com. SAM GOODYEAR ART BEAT If one were to list, movie-credits style, all the people (along with their positions) who will be ensuring a Glimmerglass Opera season this year, it would take up the space of about three weeks’ worth of this column. The grand total, which includes language coaches, parkers, guild members, ushers and supernumeraries among the more unsung heroes, not to mention of course the more obvious participants, such as singers, conductors, orchestra, chorus, et al, comes to somewhere around 746 stalwart souls. Struth! That equals the population of some of the picturesque villages that provide scenic support to the musical riches people come from far and wide (as well as near) to savor every summer. An enterprise of such of global importance requires massive resources and manpower, for it is a fact that Glimmerglass commands serious attention in the higher reaches of the world-wide contemporary opera community. It is on an equal footing with Santa Fe and Glyndebourne, summer companies whose reputations and importance once held positions of unchallenged supremacy. The national and international media regularly accord Glimmerglass well-deserved and reverently respectful attention. There is another way in which Glimmerglass is “global” this summer. As announced last year, the 2008 season will center, in one way or another, on William Shakespeare. Shrews, feuding Veronese families, Roman statesmen, amorous Viennese dukes, and dreamy donkeys provide the stories of the operas that will ring out from the stage. The stage itself will be a recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and each production will be framed by the one setting. Scene construction on the cheap? Not for a minute. In fact, this turns out to be the most ambitious set yet in the history of Glimmerglass (and that’s saying something). I was privileged to have a sneak preview of the construction-in-progress. The thrill and wonder were doubled when I learned that when completed, it will include more than a mile of steel with 7, 5000 “welds,” and more than 5,000 linear feet of 2-by-6 pine. The directors of the operas have expressed enthusiasm and delight at the challenge of working in this unusual, unique setting. And it will be fascinating for us, the members of the audience. In the first production (Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate” – conceived in the style of operetta) we will have the first taste of the set. In the second production (Handel’s “Giulio Cesare in Egitto”), we will have a chance to compare and contrast, an inherently interesting exercise. The third production (Wagner’s “Das Liebesverbot” in an American fully staged premiere) will pique increased interest in examining yet another angle. The suspense for the fourth production (Bellini’s “I Capuletti e i Montecchi” – bel canto at its most glorious) will be well-nigh murderous. The season opens on July 5 and closes on Aug. 24. The excitement and anticipation mount with every passing day. Ticket sales have not only gotten off to a brisk start, they are already ahead of last year, a ringing endorsement of Michael MacLeod’s helmsmanship. If last year’s Orpheus theme is anything to go by, his second season won’t be dull or bland, that’s for sure. Let me amend that figure mentioned in the first paragraph. Add to the estimated 746, several thousand more: donors, sponsors, and audience members like you. Congratulations and thanks! For all your operatic needs this summer, visit www.glimmerglass.com Sam Goodyear’s column on the arts in Otsego County appears weekly | Jan. 04, 2008 | Local Honor Roll | Pages From The Paper | july 6th 2007 | Hall of Fame Friday | Hall of Fame Saturday | Hall of Fame Sunday | Hall of Fame Monday | July282006 Archive | Aug042006 Archive | Aug112006 Archive | Aug182006 Archive | Sept012006 Archive | Sept082006 Archive | Sept152006 Archive | Sept222006 Archive | Sept292006 Archive | Oct062006 Archive | Oct132006 Archive | Oct202006 Archive | Oct272006 Archive | Nov032006 Archive | Nov172006 Archive | Nov242006 Archive | Dec012006 Archive | Dec082006 Archive | Dec152006 Archive | Dec222006 Archive | Dec292006 Archive | Jan052007 Archive | Jan192007 Archive | Jan262007 Archive | February092007 Archive | February162007 Archive | February232007 Archive | March162007 Archive | March232007 Archive | March302007 Archive | March302007 Archive | April132007 News Archive | Chris Gentile | Obituary | April272007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May252007 Archive | June 22, 2007 | July 13 2007 | Sept05 2007 | Sept 7th 2007 | Aug 31st 2007 | Local Law Parking | October 26, 2007 | Nov. 2 2007 | Nov. 16, 2007 | Glimmerglass Oct 5,2007 | Nov 16., 2007 | November 30 2007 | Nov. 30, 2007 | Dec. 07, 2007 | Dec. 14, 2007 | Dec. 21, 2007 | Dec. 28, 2007 | Jan. 11, 2008 | Jan. 18, 2008 | Jan. 25, 2008 | Feb 1, 2008 | Feb. 8, 2008 | Feb. 22, 2008 | GlimmerGlass Feb. 15, 2008 | Sports Feb. 15, 2008 | Feb.28, 2008 | March 7, 2008 | March 14, 2008 | GlimmerGlass March 14, 2008 | March 21, 2008 | March 28, 2008 | April 4, 2008 | April 11, 2008 | April 18, 2008 | April 25, 2008 | May 9, 2008 | May 2, 2008 | May 23, 2008 | | Our Services | Contact Us | Great Links | Return Home | Classified Ads | News Archive | Cooperstown Homes | Calendar -Best Bets | Letters to the Editor | |
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