Features:

After 6500 miles and 33 days, we returned home ! We had traveled through more than ten states, visited many museums and other cultural sites. We saw America's natural wonders, spent lovely days with old friends and met many interesting people along the way. Please follow us through our journey via photos and entries in my diary. (There will be a part 2.)

As the summer season of 2010 winds down it is time yet again to swing in the Wood. The a nnual Tanglewood Jazz Festival returns to Lenox for he last hurrah of summer on September 4 and 5. Get a groove on before heading back to school and work.

Picasso Looks at Degas is among the best exhibitions currently on view in American museums. It remains at the Clark Art Institute until September 12. This is its only American venue before it travels to Barcelona.

"My message has to be more complicated... The job of the Sherrif is not a law enforcement job. The Sheriff is responsible for the care, custody and condition of inmates. You can take a broad or a narrow interpretation of that, but either one is public safety, not law enforcement. The Sheriff does not go out busting perps, he doesn’t go on stakeouts. The perception is that he’s Wyatt Earp or James Arness in the Wild West. That’s what people think, but that’s not what the job is."

Now that she has stepped down as founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company Tina Packer is finally able to focus on her own career as an actress. She has brought to fruition a project that has absorbed her for decades. Over three days she presented five acts totaling some 15 hours on stage with her partner Nigel Gore.

Recently Ben Brantley of the New York Times posted a rave review of John Douglas Thompson as Richard III in a production at Shakespeare & Company. There are now only a few performances left of this summer long event. We engaged with Thompson is an extended dialogue about his radical interpretation of Richard III.

Next summer there are plans for Sidewalk Sam and an army of volunteers to create the world's largest sidewalk painting in the parking lot of Mass MoCA. To give the folks in North Adams a hint of the immensity of that project, and to assist with fund raising, during the Down Town celebration Sam and his wife Tina were on hand to help create an enormous Matisse on Holden Street. Everyone involved had a blast.

The remarkable singer, cabaret artist, actress, and painter, Ute Lemper, utterly captivated the audience last night at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. It was a rich and diverse global excursion as she performed in five languages; English, her native German, Spanish, French and even Yiddish. The material spanned Brecht/ Weil and Jacques Brel to lyrics by the beat poet Charles Bukowski. Out there.

Recovering alcoholics, who isn't, are advised not to see Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, at Berkshire Theatre Festival which will surely induce budding. If you do see this play it will take dozens of AA meetings and months of therapy to recover from the grim experience. By no stretch is this an entertaining and enjoyable evening of theatre. Unless you are a masochist with a taste for the enervating.

The glut of artists with MFA degrees has made it difficult to find tenure track positions in colleges and universities. There is now an industry in cranking out artists through degree programs. What is changing the playing field is the progressive standard of a doctorate in the fine arts for tenure track positions. Try to imagine Dr. Michelangelo, Matisse with an MFA, or Picasso teaching Photoshop at a state university in the midwest. What a mess as we start a new semester.

In addition to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, in Great Barrington, the enormously popular Met Live in HD series of broadcasts has now been expanded to the Northern Berkshire Audience. The series, which is sure to sell out, as it has at the Mahaiwe for the past two seasons, will start on October 9 with Wagner's Das Rheingold.

Sixteen Maine museums, historical organizations, and their supporters came together in an unprecedented collaboration to save an important collection of Maine artifacts, seventeen rare, 19th-century hand-painted banners commissioned by the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association. The banners were purchased for $125,350 and will be housed at the Maine Historical Society in Portland.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), under the Artistic Direction of Diane Paulus, is pleased to announce further details of its 2010/11 Season, beginning on August 31 with Cabaret, followed by Alice vs. Wonderland, The Blue Flower, R. Buckminster Fuller – The History (and mystery) of the Universe, Ajax, Prometheus Bound, and Death and the Powers: The Robots’ Opera.

All I can say is WOW!

Nice, but not exactly ground breaking. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago wants you to love them. They’re not one of those experimental, way out there dance companies that doesn’t care what the public thinks about its performances. They’re like the nice girl in high school, who says thank you and always smiles whenever you say something.

There's nothing like listening to Beethoven's Ninth at Tanglewood. Kurt Masur ended BSO season at Tanglewood. Indeed an Ode to Joy.

Concerts begin with Boston favorite Catie Curtis, Christine Lavin, Larry Carlton, and The Matt Haimovitz Trio

Black and white has never looked so self-sufficient, so complete, so influential or so lovely, in print after luscious large-scale print in a show sponsored by the nascent Richard Avedon Foundation, just beginning to carry out its mandate to present the artist's work, maintain an archive and support and inspire young photographers since his passing in 2005.

The inaugural season of world-class international theatre programming by ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage kicks off with the Boston debut of The New York-based Tectonic Theater Project, performing two works: The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, by Moisés Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris and Stephen Belber.

The Williams College Museum of Art is collaborating with North Adams and DownStreet. There is a community derived project with the artist, Pepon Osorio. He has created an installation of found objects rotating on a carousel. It will be displayed this summer in an abandoned car dealership. In the fall it will be packed up and reinstalled at WCMA. We discussed the project with WCMA director, Lisa Corrin.

Elizabeth Aspenlieder who won an Elliot Norton Award for Best Solo Performance—returns this summer for a special , limited run in a freshly re-imagined production directed by Eric Tucker (Women of Will this season , Pinter’s Mirror 2009). Haley Walker. The show that set the Berkshires astir in 2009—and nettarismatic heroine of Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates , possesses a sharp wit and an unsinkable determination to pursue the promise of new love , even while providing for her daughter.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) opens its 2010/11 Season with Kander and Ebb’s CABARET, directed by Steven Bogart, with musical direction by Lance Horne and movement by Steven Mitchell Wright, starring Amanda Palmer as the Emcee. Set and costume design is by David Israel Reynoso,lighting design by Nick Vargelis, and sound design by Clive Goodwin.

The main event is Wrapped: Search for the Essential Mummy. In an adjoining gallery is a thumbnail Nancy Graves: Journey to North Africa. The elegant and spacious Crane Gallery features a collaboration Joe Wheaton & Susan Rodgers: Spatial Relationships. The newly launched Wider Window Gallery features artist in residence Ven Vosiey’s Artifact .

There was a mob scene at Mass MoCA as fans awaited the arrival of Leonard Nimoy. The former Mr. Spock from Star Trek was having his first museum level exhibition. Many who volunteered to be photographed as their Secret Selves were on hand for the celebrity event. It was also the weekend of the annual Bang on the Can so MoCA was going gang busters.

Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield exits laughing with its final Main Stage production a British Comedy Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn. This past season his Norman Conquests was revived on Broadway leading to more regional productions of his plays. If you need a few laughs check out this zesty madcap farce.

The grim theme of Alzheimer's disease and its devastating impact on an estranged Jewish mother and her daughter moved back home is an unlikely inspiration for a musical. No less. This new work by the young team of Sara Cooper and Zach Redler tries really hard to please and entertain. It is their first fully staged affort.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets. Starting 15 years ago, Tina Paker has been creating a cycle of five compilations which she calls Women of Will. There will be a preview on February 28. From the end of May through the fall she and Nigel Gore will perform the five parts at Shakespeare & Company. It is an undertaking of epic depth and historic importance.

The Huntington Theatre Company’s 29th Season will include two world premieres directed by Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois, an American classic, two Shakespeare plays in repertory, a three-play festival from a breakout writer, and the 2009 winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

This show of recent acquisitions from the last 6 years of collecting by the Museum of Fine Arts is full of small gems, and one big one. Does it hint of more substantial works to come in the East Wing this fall?

Two and half years of planning went into the three day Solid Sound Festival that brought the rock band Wilco to Mass MoCA. If all goes well the museum director Joe Thompson hopes for their return. The experimental Festival will be a template for future events on a large scale. It got off to a great start on a glorious summer night in the Berkshires.

Up to 5,000 attended the Wilco Solid Sound Festival at Mass MoCA on Saturday. The day ended with a two hour plus Wilco performance on Joe's Field. The three day event winds down this afternoon with an acoustic set by Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy.

The enormously ambitious, weekend long, Solid Sound Festival, curated by Wilco at Mass MoCA was a complete success. What now follows is a critical analysis vital to the momentum for future arts and events development in North Adams. We put out a call for responses and ideas. These ranged from Mayor Dick Alcobright, Mass MoCA PR person, Katherine Myers, to arts leaders, politicians and artists. We invite your responses as well.

The total attendance for the weekend long Wilco Solid Sound Festival was about 10,000. But with weekend passes it is not clear just how many tickets were sold. Probably about half that figure. On an artistic level it was a great success. There was a nice mellow energy. With more advance planning and involvement from North Adams administration, merchants, vendors, artists and citizens it will surely be back bigger and better next year.

The exhibition by the Pittsfield based, Haitian born artist, Robert Henriquez has evoked many provocative issues. The work is included in a group show at the summer long Gallerie Haiti on Main Street in North Adams. Here the artist discusses the ideas and resources for the work.

The all too brief two week run of the smash hit The Last Goodbye with the music of the cult rocker Jeff Buckley conflated with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has come to an end on August 20. The world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival was more like an extended workshop. Everyone agrees this show is Broadway bound. We met with the creative team of Michael Kimmel and Lauren Fitzgerald who insist on taking "their baby" through just one measured step at a time.

At a members' event and press conference today it took an hour just to read through the list of events from Broadway, Comedy, Cabaret, Rock, Children & Family events planned for the 2009-2010 season of the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. There is something for everyone and more than ever for year round Berkshire entertainment. Cut and paste this complete list of bookings.

The juror for Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood 2010 is Richard Klein, Exhibitions Director of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The sculptors in the exhibition are: Gabriel Edward Adams, John Belardo, Rick Brown, Tim De Christopher, Philip Grausman, Peter De Camp Haines, Sarah Haviland, Phyllis Kulmatiski, Nina Levy, Tim Prentice, Mary Ellen Scherl, and Christopher Smith.

The artist/ entrepreneur is also a writer and novelist. He has combined these disparate interests Chapters: A Literary Exhibition. It is on view in the Flatiron Art Space 2 through October 16.

On paper the Boston Symphony Orchestra has planned a full and ambitious season. October 2, when James Levine leads an all-Wagner program with Bryn Terfel on opening night, we will know whether this is wishful thinking. The health of the 66 year Levine impacts not just the BSO but the Metropolitan Opera and the coming season at Tanglewood. For the past three years there has been a scramble to find conductors for concerts he has dropped out of. This grueling schedule assumes his full recovery from yet another surgery,

The Pittsfield based, Haitian born artist, Robert Henriquez, is exhibiting “Seven Loa of Vilokan” a series of digital prints in the summer long Galerie Haiti which is a part of the North Adams DownStreet project. The invitation to join a group exhibition evolved from the artist's participation in an MCLA Haitian Celebration during the spring semester. For 23 years before a move to the Berkshires he worked in global broadcasting for CBS.

The occasion of a retrospective of 100 photographs at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Cambridge evoked a far ranging dialogue with the poet/ artist and archivist Gerard Malanga. The images range from intimate friends- poets, artists, musicians- to brief encounters. This is the first of three installments of an in depth interview conducted over several days.

"Photographing with film is a visual language for me and I'm constantly seeing new ways of playing with the light, whether it's a building facade or the human face. I want to stick with what I know and advance within that range. I find that just seeing the nature of a digital camera you've become tethered to a computer screen. All your stuff is in this one box. I like to hold a contactsheet in my hand and scrutinize it with a lupe. I like the process of doing that. It's more tactile."

Malanga has known, collaborated with and photographed many poets, writers and editors. In this installment he recalls an assignment to interview Charles Olson in Gloucester for the Paris Review. He also discusses being on the road reading his own work and presenting aspects of the Warhol legacy.

The second annual Boston Book Festival will take place on Oct. 16, 2010, in various locations around Copley Square. Festival Founder and Director Deborah Z Porter today announced a partial list of authors confirmed to appear at this year’s event.

There was a full weekend schedule of events celebrating the opening of a new building on the campus of Mass MoCA which, for the next 25 years, will house "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective."