The Highlands Current Podcast

Bonny Carmicino, who lives in Cold Spring, has had an interesting career path but primarily is a clothing pattern maker. We spoke near the end of her term as president of the Association of Sewing and Design Professionals about when she learned to sew, her winding route from Capitol Hill to MIT to Wall Street and law school, and what she calls her life work: creating a way to have our clothes fit us better.

Rupert Holmes, who lives in Cold Spring, is known for many things. In 1979, his song, "Escape (The Pina Colada Song") hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. In 1985, his musical whodunit, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, won five Tony Awards. We spoke with Rupert not about any of that but about his New York Times bestselling mystery, Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide. A sequel, Murder Your Mate, is due in 2025.

Todd Haskell, a resident of Beacon and a member of the Current board of directors, discusses his nearly 20 years as balloon handler and then clown during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City.

Peter Stevenson speaks with Dinky Romilly, a Philipstown resident who was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and also has a famous mother, the investigative journalist and writer Jessica Mitford, best known for her book The American Way of Death, and for her eccentric family of sisters, the Mitford sisters, who were Dinky's aunts. 

Beacon resident Guy Felixbrodt recently became the first person ever to complete a full Ironman triathlon with no shoes on. In this interview with Current reporter Brian PJ Cronin, he talks about why he did it, and shares his unique worldview focused on ambitious athletic feats, community service and the practice known as "earthing," which emphasizes maintaining direct contact with the ground. 

More than 300 U.S. newspapers have closed in the past three years, on top of the 2,500 that have shut down since 2004. In this episode, we present a conversation last year between Highlands Current editor Chip Rowe and Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post media columnist and author of Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy, about the effect of this loss on our country.

Susan Allport is the author of Sermons in Stone: The Stone Walls of New England and New York. In this episode she talks with Chip Rowe about the origin and uses of these rocky ruins that criss-cross New England's landscape. 

Carl Bon Tempo, who lives in Cold Spring, is a history professor at SUNY Albany. He is the author, with Hasia Diner, of Immigration: An American History, which Yale University Press published in May. 

In our second episode tied to The Current's series on the Black history of the Highlands, historian Myra Young Armstead discusses the life of James F. Brown, who was the longtime gardener in the 19th century at Mount Gulian and may have been the first Black man to vote in what is now Beacon. Armstead's book "Freedom's Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America" details what we've learned about Brown's life and times from a meticulous journal he kept for 37 years, from 1827 to 1866. 

In a conversation with Current Editor Chip Rowe, Michael Groth, author of Slavery and Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley, discusses the overlooked early history of Black people in our area and the African American struggle for freedom. 

Anthropologist Evan Pritchard is a descendant of the Mi'kmaq people, who are part of the Algonquin nation, and has taught Native American studies at Pace University, Vassar College and Marist College. In this conversation with Michael Turton, he details the history of Native American people in the Hudson Valley. 

April is National Poetry Month and, in a new episode, Current editor Chip Rowe shares a conversation he had last year with James Hoch, a Garrison resident who has been a professor of creative writing at Ramapo College since 2006. Hoch's most recent collection of poetry, Last Pawn Shop in New Jersey, was published in February.

Kreitner, of Philipstown, is the author of Break It Up: Secession, Division and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union. He discusses with Current Editor Chip Rowe the many attempts at secession in the U.S., the state he suspects will be the first to break away, and the logistics of Philipstown seceding from Putnam County.

Arts Editor Alison Rooney speaks with the Beacon writer, whose recent work includes a short story included in an anthology of crime fiction. 

Bonus episode: Anthony Mancinelli, who passed away in 2019, cut hair for 97 years. He held the Guinness Record for oldest working barber, having started his career at the age of 11. This interview was recorded by Highlands Current reporter Michael Turton and videographer Gregory Gunder when Mancinelli was 106.

Finkelstein is on a mission to provide Highlands residents with excellent coffee in an unpretentious setting. He talks with Current reporter Michael Turton about the ins and outs of coffee growing, roasting, grinding and serving that perfect cup of joe.    

At just 20 years old, Beacon native and former Haldane student Maya Fasulo lost both her mother Cecile Fasulo and grandmother Marie Anne Halleux to COVID-19 within a month of each other. She tells her story in this interview with Highlands Current reporter Leonard Sparks. 

By day Gwendolyn Bounds is the chief content officer of Consumer Reports and a writer of such works as a book about the gone but never forgotten Guinan's Pub. But in her off-hours, Gwendolyn is an obstacle course racer who competes in Spartan Races nationally and internationally. In this episode, she talks about the tribulations and rewards of participating in these extremely challenging events. 

To celebrate our 500th issue, The Highlands Current is excited to kick off a new podcast. Subscribe and listen in as our reporting team speaks with newsmakers, artists and other people of interest from Beacon, Cold Spring, Garrison, Nelsonville and Philipstown, New York.