Interviews

Interview with Jon Meacham

Andrew Jackson, popularly imagined as an old soldier who was elected to the White House by a mob, could be considered “a kind of forgotten father of his country,” according to Jon Meacham, who re-evaluates the legacy of the seventh president of the United States in his latest book.

Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, will be speaking about his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Jackson, titled “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” Thursday at Lindenwald.

Lindenwald was the residence of Jackson’s secretary of state and vice-president—and the nation’s eighth president—Martin Van Buren.

Jackson fought his way, both literally and figuratively, from relative poverty to fame and glory with his victory over the British in New Orleans in 1815. His reputation as a soldier helped propel him to the White House where he served two terms, beginning in 1829.

Author Hugh Howard to speak in Spencertown Saturday

EAST CHATHAM — George Washington’s image is ubiquitous, as is the mythos that surrounds America’s first president. In Hugh Howard’s newest book, “The Painter’s Chair, George Washington and the Making of American Art,” the author weaves together the life of Washington with those of the small group of men who created a new American art and were responsible for how the nation viewed its first leader.

In the process, Howard provides a new picture of both the artists and their subject.

Howard, who resides in East Chatham, is the author of a number of books on architecture, history and architectural history. He said that making the leap to writing about painting wasn’t as hard as it might seem.

“The line between art and architecture isn’t as clear as people believe,” he said, pointing out that architecture deals with the same issues as art, including space and color.

Little Stories: Sedat Pakay on Walker Evans

It was the late 1960s. Walker Evans, a photographer who helped document the Great Depression three decades earlier through his haunting images of the rural poor, was teaching at Yale University in Connecticut.

A young Turkish photographer, who aspired towards filmmaking, convinced Evans to become the subject of a short film.

“Walker was very modest, very shy,” said Sedat Pakay, the photographer and filmmaker who now lives in Claverack. “I talked him into it.”

Menus and Memories: An Interview with Ruth Reichl

By Andrew Amelinckx
Appeared in The Register-Star

The sense of taste and our memory are, say scientists, inexorably linked, so perhaps it’s natural that one of the country’s preeminent food writers has made a career out of penning memoirs. Ruth Reichl, author and the former editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine and New York Times restaurant critic, will be in Hudson Oct. 9 for a day that incorporates both food and memory.

Since her background is in art history it seems Reichl became a food writer almost by chance.

“I fell into it,” she said, “like most people fall into things.”

James Ivory: The inspiration behind the films

By Andrew Amelinckx

Appeared in The Register-Star, November 5, 2007

“The projects come from many sources,” said James Ivory, a veteran filmmaker whose work spans 46 years and has received six Academy Awards, describing the genesis of the more than 30 films he’s directed.

“Sometimes they are without a story, merely an idea — “Jefferson in Paris” (1995), for instance, started with an idea and then a script was created,” he said as he sat in a chair in the front room of his early 19th century manor house in Claverack, his two dogs asleep at his feet, the afternoon sun slanting in through the windows. He wore a tan jacket, the lining of which had a riotous pattern and color scheme that had a late 19th Century look about it and gave him the air of a British country gentleman from that era.