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Michael Gold

About Michael Gold

Pleasantville-based writer Michael Gold has had articles published in the New York Daily News, the Albany Times-Union, The Virginian-Pilot, The Palm Beach Post and The Hardy Society Journal, a British literary journal.

Straight Out of Pleasantville, Ben Cheever’s TV Show About Books

February 25, 2023 by Michael Gold

Photo by Carolyn Simpson

How Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang charmed newspaper readers, what Irving Berlin, the writer of “God Bless America,” had to do to overcome extreme poverty and become a successful composer, the story of the carnival showman who invented the incubator, saving thousands of premature babies, and a fictional, emotionally scarred psychiatrist who struggles to heal herself comprise a small selection of the book discussions Ben Cheever has featured on his talk show, “About Writing” on Pleasantville Community Television.

The problem with the show is that when you watch the episodes, available on the PCTV76.org web site, you will want to read the books Cheever talks about.

Among the authors Cheever has had on the show are Molly Jong-Fast, Debra Borden, Frank McCourt, and James Kaplan, as well as actors Debra Winger and Rob Lowe, who have also written books. He’s hosted his sister Susan too, who has published memoirs about their family, and biographies of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott, and the poet E.E. Cummings, among other books.

“Authors would do PCTV when their books came out,” Cheever explained. “My pitch to them is that the show will go on the web, so people all over the world can see it.”

When Cheever interviewed Andrew Blauner, editor of The Peanuts Papers – Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & The Gang and the Meaning of Life, Blauner revealed that he managed to meet Schultz and described the cartoonist as “gentle and generous.” With a boyish sparkle in his eyes, Cheever called comic strips “a clandestine joy.”

Cheever, a Pleasantville resident, author of seven books, and editor of a book of his father’s letters, conceived of the show with Herbert Hadad, a well-known essayist and contributing writer for The New York Times, who lived in Pocantico Hills, because he wanted to help people “whose writing I really admired. I was excited to be able to talk to writers about their books,” he said. Hadad and Cheever co-hosted “About Writing” for about a year. When Hadad got a job with the U.S. Department of Justice, Cheever kept on doing the show.

“The world does not take notice when you write a book,” Cheever explained. “I wanted to help people in a way that I didn’t get. It was a long road to be a writer.”

After college, Cheever worked for the Rockland Journal News in Nyack for six years, covering church news, the Orangeburg town government, and the county legislature, then writing feature articles. He moved on to Reader’s Digest, where he worked for more than a decade in multiple roles, including copy editing and editing the condensed book section and the “Life in These United States” and “Laughter is the Best Medicine” sections.

When his father, John, died, Cheever edited his letters for a book.  Then he started writing his own books.

“It took me three years to write The Plagiarist,” his first novel, Cheever said. The book was well received, but his third book was rejected by publishers. “It really hurts to get a novel turned down,” he said.

“There are easier ways to make money (than writing). After I couldn’t sell my third novel, I sold cars, and worked at CompUSA, and Borders (the defunct bookstore chain). I was making sandwiches at Cosi. I worked at Nobody Beats the Wiz (an electronics store, now out of business), a Franklin Quest store,” a business management and motivational products company, and even as a security guard for a perfume factory for one nerve-wracking night.

Cheever worked in the service industry for five years and wrote about his experiences in the book, Selling Ben Cheever – Back to Square One in a Service Economy.

He regained his footing as a writer and went on to author two more novels, as well as Strides – Running Through History with An Unlikely Athlete, about his passion for running. Cheever  estimated that he has run 70 to 80 marathons. His two sons had a quilt made for him with tee-shirts from several of the marathons he’s run, from Athens and Bordeaux to Philadelphia, New York City and Yonkers.

He also ran a 10K race with almost 800 American soldiers in Iraq during the second Gulf War, on the grounds of Saddam Hussein’s 60-acre vacation estate, converted into a camp for the U.S. Army, enduring temperatures above 100 degrees.

“I love running. I run almost every day,” Cheever said. He runs in Rockefeller State Park, near where he bought his first house.

“The trails are 17 feet across. The park has views of the Palisades.”

As a lover of dogs, Cheever wrote a children’s book, The First Dog, about Adam and Eve and their dog, the first canine to ever live, of course. He devoted one show to service dogs, interviewing a Pace University professor on a pilot program in Pleasantville teaching health professionals about the benefits of these animals.

Cheever’s advice for young writers and readers is this – “The idea that a book is not a success if it doesn’t sell a lot of copies” is wrong, he said. He suggests that writers “make an intimate connection between people who don’t know each other. The magic moments are when you read something that is transportive. Read a really good book and you know you’re not alone.”

His ultimate advice is something he learned from DeWitt Wallace, founder, and editor of Readers’ Digest and a generous philanthropist – the things you will be known for are “the things you have given away.”


To access “About Writing” shows on the web, go to PCTV76.org, click on the “Watch Now” drop down menu, then the “Media Library” tab. Scroll down to “View Content By” on the right-hand side of the screen. Click on “Most Watched – All Time,” which will bring you to Cheever’s show with Rafael Yglesias, discussing his book, A Happy Marriage. Click on “Watch Now” and you will see on the right-hand section of the screen, “More in this Series.”

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: Ben Cheever, books, comic strips, PCTV76, reading, writing

ARC Stages Celebrates its Tenth Year Presenting the Gift of Theater

November 9, 2022 by Michael Gold

In Arc Stages She Loves Me: Jennifer Silverman and Stacey Bone-Gleason

Name a ten-year-old who doesn’t ask for presents for their birthday but wants to give you a gift instead.

We found one.

ARC Stages, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is eager to offer us the gift of theater.

Tony Award winner Ali Stroker, a Briarcliff resident, who acted in the play Downstairs, on the ARC stage in September to kick off the anniversary year for the company, said, “ARC stages is so essential. They’re not just providing theater for the community. They give to these kids. It’s special to have a place where they can grow and develop.”

Stroker’s husband, David Perlow, who directed Downstairs, explained that ARC Stages “is responsible for a whole generation of theater.”

Noah Zachary, also in Downstairs, said, “I’m from Long Island. We didn’t have community theater. I would have lived here (the theater).”

ARC Stages has three programs: The Educational Stage, including a summer program, called Summer Stage; Community Stage, which puts on productions using non-professional actors living in the region; and Next Stage, which presents professional shows, providing “quality theater in your backyard,” said Adam Cohen, executive artistic director for ARC, and a Pleasantville resident.

In The Mountaintop: Gabriel Lawrence and Shavonna Banks

The Educational Stage offers acting classes for children from kindergarten to 12th grade, as well as adults. It recently expanded the program to provide pre-school children, from as young as ten months old, with music, theater, and storytelling sessions. About 130 children in total are enrolled.

“Last summer was our largest camp yet,” Cohen said. “We care about the art we’re creating with the kids. We stress kindness, fun, and creative expression.”

The Community Stage puts on three shows each year. In November, ARC will be presenting She Loves Me, a romantic comedy musical, and in April 2023, Peter and the Starcatcher which explores Peter Pan’s origins.

“The idea is that anyone who wants to come in can audition. The talent around here is amazing,” Cohen said.

Next Stage, the professional actors’ arm, puts on two shows a year, in October and February, which generally run for three or four weeks. Auditions are conducted in New York City.

“We’re doing shows that aren’t done all the time, stories that are worth telling, to spark conversations about social change and cultural change,” Cohen said.

“A lot of people we’ve had here have Broadway credits,” he explained. “We have actors who’ve done major tours and off-Broadway too.”

Several Broadway actors have taught classes at ARC, including Tony award winner Joanna Gleason, who played the baker’s wife in the original production of Into the Woods. Gleason sits on ARC Stages’ industry advisory board, as does Broadway, film, and TV veteran Vanessa Williams, who once starred in Desperate Housewives and graduated from Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua.

Downstairs by Theresa Rebeck, a one-night event ARC put on to commemorate its tenth year, focuses on a man living in his sister’s basement, who is unwanted by the sister’s husband. Zachary played the brother, Stroker the sister and Perlow the difficult husband.

The play starts on a comic note, with Zachary’s character, named Teddy, knocking around in his sloppy basement lair, cluttered with tools, old paint cans, and tubs full of clothes, and pouring water and coffee creamer in his cereal. Conflict flares immediately when Stroker’s character, named Irene, asks him when he’s leaving. There’s a lot of tortured family history too.

In the small ARC space (74 seats), theatergoers can observe at close range the way the actors physically transform themselves. Perlow, so friendly in conversation before the show, became on stage a lumbering giant with barely contained anger and massive potential for violence in his shoulders.

“This is such a great way to do theater,” Cohen said. “It doesn’t matter where you sit.”

The first official show of Next Stage’s season was The Great Leap, which ran from September 30th to mid-October. Before one October show, County Legislator Margaret Cunzio proclaimed on stage that October 10th would be “ARC Stages Day in Westchester.”

The Great Leap concerns a fictional Chinese American basketball player named Manford, who is a loudmouth, but with the skills to back it up. He wins a spot on an American team that goes to China to play an exhibition game with the Chinese team in 1989, during the Tiananmen Square protests for democracy.

Manford’s American coach, born in the Bronx, immediately insults the Chinese coach to get under his skin and emphasizes aggressive play, while his Chinese counterpart finds himself fearfully paralyzed in going against the wishes of a powerful, vengeful bureaucracy directed by the country’s leader.

The play is funny and touching, with multiple dramatic entanglements. Political and cultural conflict abound (and rebound too).

ARC Stages carries the theatrical spirit way beyond Broadway. This 10-year-old offers electric inspiration to anyone who walks in the door.

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: Adam Cohen, Arc Stages, Community Stage, Next Stage, Tenth Anniversary, The Educational Stage, theater

From Ecuador to Pleasantville Came Paul Alvarez, with a Dream Built by Hard Work & American Grit

August 25, 2022 by Michael Gold

Photo by Donna Mueller

Paul Alvarez isn’t living the American Dream. He is the American Dream.

And the Pleasantville Dream too.

Alvarez went from the streets of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, with desperately poor, hungry people, robberies, and the possibility of getting kidnapped, to the streets of Pleasantville.

“In Quito,” Alvarez explains, “someone could grab you off the street and ask your family for ransom.”

In contrast, Pleasantville was quiet and safe.

“It was an awesome experience to walk to school,” Alvarez remembers.

Alvarez’s father, Guillermo, started working at the age of three, picking fruits and vegetables on farms. He worked in a plastic bag factory and bought and sold propane tanks. After Paul was born, Guillermo, also known as Bill, came to the United States in 1987, when Paul was five years old, to try to make a better life for his family.

Bill got a visa to fly to Mexico and was arrested there for overstaying the visa. His brother Walter, who was in the United States at the time, had to pay to get Bill out of jail. Bill traveled to the border, then crossed the Rio Grande to get in the U.S.

From there, Bill made his way to Pleasantville, where Walter was living.

“He was a dishwasher at a deli in the morning. He worked as a landscaper and he was a dishwasher and busboy at the Riviera, on Tompkins Avenue. He took whatever jobs he could get,” Alvarez recalls.

Alvarez’s mother, Maritza, came to the U.S. two years later. Paul was then cared for by his grandparents and uncles.

The first time Maritza tried to get into the U.S., she was arrested in Mexico and put in a Mexican jail, then deported back to Ecuador.

“We couldn’t find my mom for three months,” Alvarez says. His mom came back home, and the family tried again to get her to the U.S. Maritza was then able to get a tourist visa to the U.S.

Alvarez came to the U.S. in 1992, on a tourist visa too. The family lived in a house with three other families on Marble Avenue.

After Alvarez’s six-month tourist visa expired, “I was here unlawfully,” he says.

Alvarez’s father worked so hard at the deli that he earned a promotion to chef. The owner of the deli helped Bill obtain legal status here.

Paul started as a fourth-grade student at the Bedford Road School. He was nine years old.

“I was feeling like I was so behind everyone. I couldn’t speak English. The only thing I knew how to say was ham and cheese. One kid called me stupid.”

Alvarez, who was at the top of his third-grade class in Ecuador, worked hard to learn, with the aid of an ESL (English as a second language) teacher.

“What pushed me more, to learn more, I felt I was at a disadvantage,” Alvarez says. “I want to be the best at everything I do.”

It turned out that Pleasantville was the perfect place for Alvarez.

“I loved what the village offered. I had a really positive experience in Pleasantville,” he says. “I started doing sports and making friends.”

In high school, Alvarez became a varsity wrestler. He achieved All-Section Wrestling honors. Alvarez sang in the high school choir and was a drummer in the school band. Also, he volunteered at the Bedford Road School as a teacher’s aide.

Paul and his parents got permanent legal status to live in the U.S., in 1999. They all became citizens in 2005.

He earned a scholarship to SUNY-Oneonta in 2001, where he met his wife, Katie.

Paul remembers his father pushing him constantly to excel.

“My dad would make me read books at night. My parents have always strived for me to succeed.”

After college, Alvarez worked as an interpreter at the law office of Julie Mullaney, in Mt. Kisco. From there, he advanced to paralegal, then lead paralegal and office manager.

He didn’t do well the first time he took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). His father stepped in again and pushed Alvarez.

“Dad urged me to continue my education. He was like, ‘I didn’t struggle in this kind of job so you could settle.’”

Alvarez took the LSAT again and got a higher score. He was accepted at Pace Law School in White Plains. He finished in two and a half years.

His parents continued to work hard as well. They opened a commercial and residential cleaning service and purchased a building on Washington Avenue to house the business.

“I helped dad run his businesses,” Alvarez says. “We’re employing 20 people now.”

Alvarez moved Mullaney’s law practice to Pleasantville in 2020, then purchased it. He specializes in immigration, traffic, and criminal law.

“Everyone I employ here has an immigration story. We’re trying to give everyone else the American dream,” he says.

Alvarez has become a vice president at the Pleasantville Chamber of Commerce. Also, he ran for office as a Village Trustee for Pleasantville in 2020 and won.

Chamber of Commerce President Bill Flooks says of Alvarez: “He’s willing to give his time to make stuff happen. He’s very involved–he brings a lot of youthful ideas to the chamber. That’s great for Pleasantville. He’s a very, very big asset.”

“I started seeing how I could give back to the community,” Alvarez explains. “I’m the chair of the organization that does the Christmas tree lighting. I was the chair for the first-ever Pleasantville Oktoberfest in 2021 and I’m the chair for the Pleasantville Block Party in October 2022.”

Alvarez’s sister is a speech pathologist at a New York City private school. His wife, Katie, is a teaching assistant for the White Plains school district and bookkeeper for Paul’s father. The couple have a boy, six years old and a girl, who just turned three.

“My parents pushed us to be professionals,” Alvarez says. “My mom is humble, with family values and religious values. We’re trying to make this world a better place. She says, ‘that’s your purpose.’”

“I want to give everyone hope–you can see it with a little boy who came here without speaking English–anything is possible.”

“I love Pleasantville. I’ve invested my whole life here,” Alvarez says. “I want Pleasantville to be proud of me.”

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: American dream, Immigrants, Paul Alvarez, Pleasantville

David Fisher’s Farm Puts the Horse in Horsepower

June 1, 2022 by Michael Gold

From Pleasantville to western Massachusetts doesn’t seem like a huge journey. But David Fisher has traveled a longer road than most of us would be willing to take by running a farm using methods that are far more environmentally sound than the vast majority of other agricultural businesses today. His unique solution? Horse-driven farming.

Fisher, who grew up on Munson Pond in Pleasantville, the son of John Fisher, business development manager for Inside Press, uses five work horses to plow the fields and bring in the harvest, using no fossil fuels for his farming. Fisher’s Natural Roots farm, in Conway, Massachusetts, grows salad greens, spinach, onions, carrots, beets, watermelon, and other produce, which are purchased by the local population. The farm also has a store selling locally made foods produced in an environmentally responsible way, from bread and cheese to chocolate and ice cream.

Tractors using diesel oil for power and emitting carbon dioxide are not present on the farm. The horses eat grass and hay grown in Natural Roots’ fields and pastures 

“Our energy comes from the Earth,” Fisher explains. “We’re trying to create a healthy soil system.” All Natural Roots fertilizer is organic, as well as the pesticides Fisher uses. Most industrial fertilizers and pesticides are oil-based and are therefore big contributors to heating up the climate, as well as major pollutants of water and soil. “I want to live my life to be close to the land,” he says. Also, using his horses, is “a way for me to address climate change.”

Visitors are welcome on the farm. “Families with kids love to see the horses,” Fisher explains. “We’re open to the public, for people to visit and enjoy the farm. It’s a gift for me to be here and I want to share it.” 

The horses all have different personalities, Fisher says. Their names are George, Pat, Gus, Tim, and Land. Pat is old, mellow, and patient. Gus wants to “just go and hustle and get it done.”

“They’re all willing to work,” he explains. Sometimes, they get anxious when they’re not working. “If a horse stands all day long, we have to get the wiggles out.” Also, in rare circumstances they may get agitated by noise, so they need to be calmed down. 

The farm works on a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model. People buy a share of the harvest for one year. They contribute a share of the cost of running the farm. “The customers give us money for seed, labor, and other costs on the farm. They get fresh produce, often picked on the day they come to the farm. The CSA model gives us the money as we need it. That helps us avoid loans (to operate). Some of our members have been coming here for 20 years. We supply produce for more than 200 families.”

Customers can buy a regular share of produce, a large share, or a part-time share. Families with lesser income can buy a discounted share of each category of share offered. Each week they can come to the farm and fill up their bag according to the share of the produce they’ve purchased. The farm offers gift cards too. 

CSA subscribers also enjoy the natural beauty of the farm. They can swim in the South River, which runs through the property, or pick blueberries, raspberries, beans, or flowers in one of the farm’s fields. 

Leora, David, and Gabriel Fisher

Fisher generally works an eleven and a half-hour day. The farm employs an assistant manager and two apprentices who work full time from March through December. A friend and some other people help in the summer. Including Fisher, the core crew consists of four people. On busy harvest days, the farm may have up to eight or nine people assisting with the work. Fisher’s two children also help. 

The farm has suffered intense storms at times. Hurricane Irene flooded the fields. Floods have at times deposited huge amounts of sand on crop land. Natural Roots’ CSA subscribers have helped Fisher get all his equipment out of the field and harvested “everything we could” before anticipated storms.

Fisher was inspired to live so close to nature when he attended a wilderness camp for eight years in the Adirondack Mountains as a camper, then a staffer. The camp, Tanager Lodge, had no electricity. “It gave me a deeply infused reverence for the natural world,” Fisher said. 

“Growing up I had a very strong environmental ethic, an awareness of the environmental crisis. The land called me.”

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: CSA, David Fisher, Horse Driven Farming, Horse Farm

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