We are in Pittsburgh this week, not to write an article and meet the usual ‘interesting local people,’ but instead to say farewell to a distinguished member of the faculty at Pitt and a community leader named James V. Cunningham Sr who died at 91 on March 28. As I’ve […]
Saturday mornings always feel different than any other morning of the week. I have a recurring memory that flashes back to me often when I wake up on a sunny Saturday, it takes me back more than 35 years to my first apartment in North Amherst. I have a gauzy […]
I”m up early this morning, heading for a rendezvous to meet a friend who will drive us both to Pittsfield. I haven’t been to this city in a long time, and today’s visit is to meet employees of Facebook who will present about how to use their gigantic service for […]
From the desert of Northern Mali, the band Tinariwen combines spiritual music from their native Tuareg people. The Tuareg are famous nomads, living in harsh deserts and using everything in nature to survive. I first heard Tinariwen on Jim Neil’s Jukebox, an eclectic music show on Wednesday nights from 7-10 […]
We are in the thick of a kitchen renovation, and I am beginning to get excited about it, now that the plastic is down and we can see the big change we made by cutting a 4′ x 6′ hole in the wall between the kitchen and the living room. […]
Today I joined my friends for lunch and as usual, it was a great series of conversations that didn’t end until we tore away from each other outside Miss Saigon’s to return to our cars before the meter maid slapped us with tickets. This lunch tradition is growing stronger every […]
It was a competition with a whole lot of people wanting to get in. More than one hundred people vied for the right to tell a five minute story, in a live show at the Hinge in Northampton. But when the Valley Voices Story Slam opened, it was just ten […]
It’s become a cliche to complain about our brutal winter…but let me just say that I am not that happy to be home. Contrasting my time in Ventura and Marina del Rey California, it was painful. From a hot tub overlooking a busy yacht Marina to slipping on ice walking […]
By Jack Dunphy Exciting things are unfolding on the hill above San Buenaventura City Hall at the Ventura Botanical Garden in central California.Through the vision and volunteer efforts of many caring citizens the botanical garden plans to offer much more than a garden. Doug Halter, past President of the Garden, […]
When I first saw Marina del Rey, California, all I could think of was, “I wonder exactly how many boats there are here?” That’s because when you look at the harbor of this city of about 8,000 people, all you see are the bobbing boats and masts that go on […]
By Jack Dunphy Spanish missionaries built a chapel in what is now the center of Ventura California in 1782. Father Tom Elewaut, the current pastor, explained the early missionaries built the church with the hope of bringing Christianity to the 1200 native Chumash Indians. San Buenaventura Mission has endured for three […]
Mark Rey has his priorities straight. As we sat at a picnic table beside St Buenaventura State beach park and slurped down the oysters grown on farms he owns in Baja California, I asked him about celebrity customers who have enjoyed his products. “The most important people are the people […]