Woodstock, NY Journal

photo: Francis Levy

Woodstock wears the 60s on its tattered sleeve. The town is a little worse for the wear like one of those traveling carnivals that's overstayed its welcome. Woodstock is literally and metaphorically over the hill. There aren’t too many towns anywhere where you can find a refugee from the dropout generation walking around town with a ukulele strung over his shoulder, opining loudly about the military-industrial complex. Woodstock is a town where you can only get bootleg Diet Coke and where Yoga is so ubiquitous it's practically a utility. What better name for the local bookstore than The Golden Notebook, one of the first Baekeker's of women's lib. Bob Dylan t-shirts are unapologetically hawked each with the Nobel laureate's face. A homeless man wearing tie-dyed rags wheels a baby carriage filled with his belongings presided over by a dog, down the main drag,Tinker Road. If you find yourself tiring of the counterculture, stop off at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, where the current exhibit is refreshingly entitled, "Artists Draw Their Studios."

Read "Tivoli Journal: Defining Quaintness," by Francis Levy, The Screaming Pope

and listen to "Juicy"by Notorious B.I.G