The Ndakinna cultural center presents the first Alamikos Native Storytelling Evening. Alamikos, means the Greetings Maker Moon. It is a time for giving thanks to one another, asking for forgiveness and sharing stories to brighten the cold winter nights. This evening of Native tales will be hosted by the well-known storytelling trio of Joseph, James, and Jesse Bruchac. Due to Covid-19, this year we will be broadcasting the performance via Zoom.
Local bookstore owners establish Adirondack book wholesale and distribution business
The announcement in late October that North Country Books would close at the end of January 2021 sent dismay through the ranks of authors, publishers, and retail accounts who’d come to depend on the Utica-based company to distribute books and related products with an Adirondack focus.
The company, founded in 1965, had been a bridge between small specialty publishers and authors and their markets for Adirondack-themed books, maps, and sideline products and there was no other entity to fill the gap.
Enter Sarah and Marc Galvin, owners of The Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid.
The NorthWind Fine Arts Gallery, located in the heart of Saranac Lake, will be hosting an upcoming juried art show, and is currently seeking artists to submit content under the theme of “The Healing Wilderness,” inspired by the healing power of the Adirondacks.
The village of Saranac Lake is the birthplace of the fresh air cure for tuberculosis, and since the turn of the 20th century the village has been revered for its healing powers.
Selected works will be placed on display in digital form at the NorthWind Fine Arts Gallery during Saranac Lake’s “Winter Carnival”, attended by thousands of people every year. Selected works will also be featured on their website as well, and shared within NorthWind’s extensive social media audience.
Sunlit Winter Meadow
The beauty of this
Sparkling, sunlit snowscape
Mantling the meadow
Warms and opens wide my heart,
I praise and consider uncountable
Individual snowflakes
Imagine masses of people
Harmoniously packed together as
A human quilt covering the meadow
In vibrant splendor.
In the workings of the human heart,
It lives and breathes,
Concept learned from the newborn child,
Born ‘neath rough wooden eaves.
Hands reaching out in heaven-sent grace,
Life born again,
Lighting sky and earth below,
Need Caritas, Amen.
Today and every day we’re given,
Need Caritas, Amen.
COLD
The snow squeaks underfoot
and dusts your parka white
Nostrils velcro together
While every thing sparkles
Smoke rises flagpole straight
And the chickadees eat seed from your hand.
Bent Birches
Icy death’s crystal cocoon
Encases and weighs down every twig and trunk
Relentlessly bending the birches who danced
Through all seasons for all their years
How I hate this brilliant ice palace
No matter to me how it prisms sparkle
The handsome assassin is no less guilty than the hideous
A
TREE
FOR US TO
GATHER ROUND, A
TREE TO KEEP US SAFE
AND SOUND, A TREE TO BRIGHTLY
LIGHT OUR WAY, A TREE TO SHELTER
US EACH DAY, SAVING US FROM WINTER’S
COLD, ITS STORY GLAD AND FOREVER TOLD,
GREEN BRANCHES COMFORTING THOUGH WILD
BEND LOW TO TOUCH THE NEWBORN CHILD, AS NEAR
AND FAR THEY COME TO SEE, THE TINY BABE OF PROPHECY,
AS THEY KNEEL FOR A BLESSED TIME IS NEAR, TO FREE US ALL
FROM HATE AND FEAR, THE LITTLE CHILD SLEEPS DEEP AND SWEET,
WHILE BEASTS AND BIRDS SURROUND HIS FEET, AND BANDS OF ANGELS
FLY ABOVE,
SINGING OF
ETERNAL LOVE.
Cold snow won’t whisper the joy it knows
But rather shows the sparkle of its heart
Look
The frigid wind comes
Naked and raging with jealousy
He screams at the evergreens
Rips off their ermine finery
Then leaves to sulk
Ashamed to be the slave of winter,
Then joyous heaven’s sunlight
Twice reflected by moon and snow
Softens nighttime cold
Biding us to walk abroad
Each bearing our inner light
Of Christ
AdkAction is currently accepting submissions to their “Spread the Word, Not the Virus” COVID-19 Public Service Announcement (PSA) contest, open to all New York State middle and high school students. The winner will receive a prize of $1,000 and have their PSA broadcast on television, as well as at the Beyond the Peaks Student Film Festival on Friday, June 4, 2021.
Each PSA Submitted should be between 30 and 45 seconds in length, and should include the slogan “Spread the word, not the Virus.” The PSA must also contain logos, as specified within the directions, and address a broad range of audiences. Deadline for submission is midnight on Friday, January 15, 2021. Participation in the contest is free.
Students must upload video submissions online through the digital film contest platform “Launchpad”, which was donated by Skills21 at EdAdvance, and Educational Nonprofit based out of Connecticut. The submissions will then be evaluated by teachers, nonprofit leaders and health department staff. The judges will be searching for originality, inventiveness, and the invocation of emotion within the PSA. The scoring rubric, as well as more information and a detailed video tutorial on how to submit your PSA are located here on AdkAction website.
The 2021 Decentralization (DEC) Grant application process is now open for eligible arts organizations and individual artists residing in Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton Counties. Artists may submit up to three direct requests of up to $5000 in any combination of two categories: Community Arts and Arts Education projects.
The requirements for submission include reading the guidelines for whichever category you are applying in and attending a free informational seminar with a Grant Coordinator. Seminars will be held online via Zoom between now and January 15. The deadline for the online application process is January 31.
A new series of workshops is launching from the Adirondack Center for Writing, designed for teens by professional performance poets and educators. The workshops are online and are open to all teen writers and a great extracurricular for college apps.
There is no cost to attend. Students can join for one or all of the workshops for the best experience. Registration is required at bit.ly/acwunmute and Zoom link sent via email after registration. Follow @adkctr4writing for updates.
Over the past year, The Pendragon Theatre has done its best to adapt to circumstance in providing a large array of virtual and physical content like The Pendragon Play, acting and playwriting classes for adults and children, the Young Playwrights Festival, a veterans improvisation PTSD therapy program with St. Joseph’s Rehabilitation Center, puppet workshops, a partnership with Adirondack Experience (ADKX) the Winter Carnival show – Life, Love & Legends, and work on their new building project on Woodruff street. However, with the quarantine in place and with the lack of a live audience, there is only so much a theatre can do.
Harvest
Brown soil is cool and moist in my hands,
Reminding me of who I am,
And of what came before me.
Planting, replenishing, giving back,
Restores me to myself.
This land belongs to everyone,
And no-one,
Though men plant flags to claim dominion.
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