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Month: August 2018

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Verb Noun/ Verb Noun, Middle Grove Valediction

Wayne Perras August 26, 2018December 14, 2018

My significant other being in the hospitality industry means even on a Sunday in August she sets the alarm for 4 a.m. but it was a brilliant full moon last night and I haven’t really slept that much anyway. So I am awake before it goes off even though it is my day off,...

Back To The Blog World– Musical Views Re-Stated

Wayne Perras August 18, 2018August 22, 2018

The SETTING– It’s a Saturday eve in mid-August, 2018 in Saratoga Springs, and itz been 3 years since I’ve posted anything new. Not that I haven’t written anything, I have a thousand scattered fragments and scraps that I am trying to mold into a mosaic novel about my time here in Toga town, and...

For 4 full decades I've lived (mostly) in and around Saratoga Springs, NY after being introduced to the town via SPAC concerts while still in high school, and then getting the real native view of things from my best friend at Colgate, who grew up here & had roots on both the east side and west side of this town. He moved elsewhere (and is now an accomplished photographer in in the D.C. Metro area) but I stuck around...and saw innumerable changes take place since.

Before he left Dave and another friend of ours put a magazine together called The High Rock Review... referring not to music but to the most sacred original site in Saratoga Springs... in the extended park area of The Farmer's Market. When I was 23 and renting a big old Victorian on Woodlawn Ave with a group of friends, I crossed Broadway many times to just sit and think-- or not think--in that park. So in 1980, that's what inspired the magazine name.

Back then Saratoga was lively as ever in the summer months, but otherwise a hip, bar-filled college town that could be desolate in the off-season, like most of upstate NY... But we saw it had something that was attracting creative types as the place had a magical draw-- We were trying to celebrate what we called "latent native talent" back then, which is in ample supply now in this thriving mini-metropolis, an oasis just north of the Capital District.

This place has taken off in such a big way while I've lived and worked here, that I must record my observations on a more regular basis, so here we go...