Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Reads will launch its seventh year of public programming with a book fair featuring activities for the whole family on Sunday, Dec. 5, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Barnes & Noble, Route 50, Wilton.

The event will celebrate this year’s Saratoga Reads book of choice, The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, and will raise funds in support of the community-wide reading program. Giveaways include the grand prize of a Nook e-reader as well as copies of the selected book.

Barnes & Noble will donate to Saratoga Reads a percentage of purchases made that day by shoppers who use the special book fair voucher. Vouchers and the book fair schedule are available at www.saratogareads.org. Shoppers must use the voucher [...]

Saratoga Springs, NY—On Wednesday, December 1, 2010, the annual Saratoga Springs Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony takes place on Broadway in front of Putnam Market (across from Caroline Street) in downtown Saratoga Springs beginning at 6:30 pm., brought to you by the Downtown Business Association.

The ceremony begins with singing Girl Scout troops. The Honorable Mayor Scott Johnson lights the tree at 7:00 p.m. Jeff Clark, Downtown Business Association President, is the evening’s emcee. Santa & Mrs. Claus arrive by horse drawn carriage at approximately 7:00 p.m. to ring in the official start of the holiday season. Santa and Clara Claus visit with the children and pass out candy canes and Star 101.3 plays music from 6:00 to 8:00 for the crowds.

Hot chocolate and cookies will be free and served to the crowds at the cottage. [...]

Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Reads has announced its choice of a junior discussion book and a list of some 45 other titles for young readers, selected to complement the program’s book of choice for this year—The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. The list of “companion books” has been designed to appeal to a wide of range of age groups and to encourage families to read together.

The Housekeeper and the Professor, a novel selected by popular vote as the Saratoga Reads top book for this year, tells the story of a once-brilliant mathematics professor and baseball fanatic, who has been robbed of all but 80 minutes of short-term memory by a traumatic car accident. He passes his time in a ramshackle cottage with notes to aid his memory pinned all over his clothing. He is [...]

Saratoga Springs, NY – Planning is well under way for SaratogaArtsFest 2011, and to give the preparations a boost the festival’s board of directors has awarded seven programming grants to arts partner organizations. The grants, totaling more than $10,000, will assist local organizations in enhancing their performances and events for the fifth annual citywide celebration of the arts, scheduled for June 9-12.

The grants program, now in its second year, will provide programming support to the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Children’s Museum at Saratoga, Home Made Theater, Hubbard Hall, Opera Saratoga (formerly Lake George Opera), the Saratoga Chamber Players, and the Saratoga City Ballet.

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Saratoga Springs, NY–The Downtown Business Association announces their new DBA Gift Cards program starting Monday, November 22, 2010. This gift card replaces the paper gift certificates they have sold for the last 20 years. The paper gift certificates are still good, have no expiration date, and will continue to be accepted at over 200 Downtown Business Association member businesses.

The new gift cards are available in increments of $5 with a minimum value of $10 and a maximum value of $750. They can be purchased at the Adirondack Trust Co. and all of its branches and can be redeemed at over 120 participating Downtown Business Association member businesses. A list of participating merchants is issued with the card when purchased and is also online at www.saratogadowntown.com under the gift card link. The old, paper gift certificates will no longer be available for purchase.

“The [...]

Saratoga Springs, NY- Starting this December, HoCS Contemporary Art Gallery will be undergoing a transformation and will become a Holiday Art Boutique. We will be selling functional, fashionable, wearable one-of-a-kind artistic jewelry, scarves, and yoga accessories. We will also be featuring bold, contemporary artworks of multi-media including pottery, wall art, sculpture, photography and more! Artists include Zack Lobdell, Mark Andrew, Zoe Lobdell, Kristy Urgo, Ralph Turturro, Allen Teger, Yolanda Sharpe, Paul Bouchard, Jane Bouchard, Peter Harrison, Nancy McGrath, Regina Wickham, Sharon Blakemore Kinsbury, Bruce Hoffmann, Allison Petroski, Michelle Vara, and Dolores Thompson.

Join us for some light fare and holiday cheer during the Victorian Street Walk on December 2nd and receive 15% off any purchase in the gallery. “Give the Gift of Art” this Holiday Season!

The Dartmouth College English Department recently honored Lily Ringler with the Erskine Caldwell Prize for her outstanding written work in the short story. Ringler, a 2007 graduate of Shenendehowa High School, is a senior at Dartmouth College majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Her writing has been published in The Schenectady Daily Gazette, Multicultural Review, The Dartmouth Newspaper and she has had essays featured on Northeast Public Radio’s The Round Table and the nationally syndicated Martha Stewart Living Radio channel. Ringler is writing a novel as a part of her culminating experience at Dartmouth. She has been teaching creative writing classes since she was 16 and will be teaching at East Line Books in Clifton Park in December. For more information, call 371-4151 or go to www.eastlinebooks.vpweb.com.

Saratoga Springs, NY—Thursday night, December 2, 2010, marks the twenty-fourth Annual Victorian Streetwalk in downtown Saratoga Springs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Broadway will close once again from 5:00 to 10:00 from the Route 50 arterial to just north of Washington Street.

The Victorian Streetwalk is the Downtown Business Association’s way of saying “thank you” to all our customers for supporting our beautiful downtown throughout the year. Everyone is invited to join the fun with caroling and Victorian costumes and enjoy an old fashioned “Christmas as it used to be” street party and celebration of the holiday season.

Most businesses will be open until 10 p.m. and will hold open houses and serve delicious, free refreshments to their guests, friends and customers.

CDTA, a festival Gold Sponsor, is running free shuttle buses every 20 minutes from the [...]

Since its inception this local company has been geared for growth. The primary goal is to market as many diverse outlets as possible to be a viable competitor in the capital region. The past 4 years have been spent on creating an internal software management system where the entire company is driven on a fully accessible database custom programmed software platform. The main focus for Computer Answers is to move forward with its service offerings, and expand its geographic reach. The final goal is to span from the East coast to the West coast with convenient Computer Repair central hubs.

The fundamental service from the day Computer Answers opened its doors for operation are Desktop and Laptop Repair. The company successfully implemented a marketing strategy with Free Diagnostics where any computer can get a full evaluation without having to pay up front to find the costs of [...]

Saratoga Springs, NY –The Housekeeper and the Professor, a novel by contemporary Japanese author Yoko Ogawa, has been selected as this year’s book of choice for Saratoga Reads, the community-wide reading program now in its seventh year.

Each year, Saratoga Reads invites area residents to nominate books for a shared reading experience and then to vote for their favorite title from a select group. This year, 431 votes were cast for the slate of top five titles, with The Housekeeper and the Professor garnering 120, or 28 percent of the vote. In second place was the novel Little Bee with 22 percent. The other contenders [...]