Claim OwnershipThe Jiffy: A Podcast About Upstate New York
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A documentary audio zine about upstate New York, exploring cozy histories, odd mysteries, and personal dispatches from the land of bucolic barns and Kinderhook blobs.
Each episode is an upstate odyssey. From high-stakes bake-offs and haunted antiques to roadside cows and quaking trees, host James Cave brings you stories from New York’s non-Manhattan regions – told with curiosity, humor, and the occasional text message from a stranger.
28 Episodes
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Send us a text Dylan Tupper Rupert joins the show today in my first-ever feed drop to take us on a ride-along with her podcast "Music Person!" It's the first part in a three-part series for her show, dedicated to mapping out how the Hudson Valley’s history, density, and seasons shape a vibrant indie music scene today. In part 1, which we feature here, Dylan visits Hannah Cohen, Sam Evian, Flying Cloud Studios, and Big Pink (and Jenn Pelly and Olivia Bee make some cameos). Go check out Dylan's...
Send us a text While on a holiday break in December, I'm sharing this special episode featuring local news and gossip from the Rhinebeck Gazette of the 1800s, available through the Hudson River Valley Heritage Historical Newspapers Archive. I'll be back to normal programming soon. In the meantime, be sure to stock up on your boots, shoes, and rubbers! These news items are from the following issues: Rhinebeck Gazette: Dec. 1, 1857Rhinebeck Gazette, Dec. 8, 1857Rhinebeck Gazette, Dec. 22, 1857...
Send us a text What is the job of a County Clerk? In Ulster County, it can mean managing DMV processes, preserving 300-year-old land records, and keeping the legal paper trail of everyday life in order. But earlier this year, that job landed one local official, Taylor Bruck, inside a national constitutional standoff. Only a few months into his role as Acting County Clerk, Taylor received something unusual: a legal judgment from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking him to accept and proc...
Send us a text Sometimes things get too stressful here at The Jiffy, a podcast about upstate New York that really takes you places. And when this happens, I lace up my hiking boots and guide you on a restful Sleep Hike, where I do the hiking, while you do the sleeping. I've been told that my methods could use some training, so in this episode we visit Anna Yang and Alex Artymiak, the co-founders of Empty Space. Empty Space is a sound studio in Old Chatham, New York, with ancient singing bowls...
Send us a text It’s a brisk October afternoon in Kingston, New York, for the final game of the Vintage Base Ball 2025 season between the Kingston Guards and the Ulster Nine. We're at Herzog Field, beside the Catskill Mountain Railroad Station and the Hannaford parking lot, to watch two teams play baseball by 1864 rules. From “ballists” and “muffins” to hand-caught fly balls and gentlemanly arbitration, this episode dives into the language, spirit, and spectacle of vintage base ball cult...
Send us a text It’s peak leaf peeping season, and I'm bringing this episode to you from The Leaf Watch Desk deep in the Woods of the James Cave Instagram Feed. This year’s official Leaf Watch Leaf, as voted by listeners, is the Northern Red Oak, and it’s putting on quite a show. In this episode, I hike the Windham Path in the Great Northern Catskills with Francis X. Driscoll, a 12-year veteran “leaf spotter” for I LOVE NY’s Fall Foliage Report. Together, we talk about how New York’s iconic fa...
Send us a text What does it mean to belong to a place? Standing in the famous gazebo at the intersection of multiple boundaries – the village of Chatham, the town of Chatham, and perhaps even the town of Ghent – this question feels especially important. This rural upstate New York community actually comprises numerous Chathams: Old Chatham, North Chatham, East Chatham, Chatham Center, and the village itself. And, of course, Malden Bridge. Through conversations with lifelong residents and rel...
Send us a text While on a holiday break at the Columbia County Fair, I'm sharing this special episode featuring local news stories from the Chatham Courier newspapers of the 1800s, available through the Hudson River Valley Heritage Historical Newspapers Archive. I'll be back to normal programming in the next episode. Watch out for the horse thieves! Support the show "The Jiffy Audio Newsletter Podcast" is an audio documentary zine – the official podcast of The Jiffy – exploring the odd histo...
Send us a text I finally received my first Listener Question!!! (You can use the link in the show notes above to send in yours.) So when listener Murphy asked how to create "the ultimate Hudson Valley picnic before it's too late," I embarked on a journey through picnicking's rich history and romantic execution. I learn some French, I learn some Basque, it's a worldly experience through time, seasons, and picnic traditions on the podcast today. Matthew White, proprietor of the Hillsdale Genera...
Send us a text It’s a Jiffy Audio Postcard today from Rothermel Park in Kinderhook, where the Pinkster Festival – a powerful Black cultural celebration with Dutch colonial roots – was revived for the first time in more than 200 years. Pinkster began as a Dutch Christian holiday but evolved into a vital gathering for enslaved and free Black New Yorkers in the 18th and 19th centuries. This episode follows the festival’s modern-day return, in partnership with the African American Archive of Colu...
Send us a text I locked James out of the studio for this one. Because Ruth Reichl – my hero, my origin story, my reason for existing – came to Chatham, New York, to judge the Great Chatham Bake-Off. And I, The Hungry Eye, the anonymous food critic for the podcast, had to be there. In the gazebo. In the humidity. Bearing witness. In this episode, I take you to the center of it all in the village square as 30+ bakers compete for the coveted first place ribbon: There’s a pineapple-pistachio-baco...
Send us a text In this episode, I’m continuing our tour through The Jiffy-Mart – my online bodega and members’ lounge – and this time, we’re stepping through the forest refrigerator straight into the Catskill Mountains. I’m bringing back my series "Tree Minute" to finally learn what I’m looking at out there in the woods. To help, I’ve teamed up with Giovanna D’Angelo, an education forester with the Catskill Forest Association, who graciously agreed to teach me how to tell a yellow birch from ...
Send us a text In this episode, we tour the Jiffy-Mart, the official digital bodega of the James Cave Instagram Feed. Then we dive into a thoughtful exploration of land acknowledgments with Indigenous expert Heather Bruegl, who shares insights on creating meaningful statements that honor ancestral lands and their original stewards: Native-land.ca serves as a starting point for researching whose land you're onTribal territories often overlapped, unlike modern state bordersResearch should inclu...
Send us a text It's Mud Season here, not just at The James Cave Instagram Feed, but across all of the northeast. And for this relaxing Sleep Hike, I thought it would be peaceful to take a restful walk through Mud Creek, in Hudson, New York. Mud Creek is a part of the Mud Creek Environmental Learning Center, located on the property of Columbia County Soil & Water Conservation District office. They host a variety of hands-on, inquiry based, environmental education programs, and here, we...
Send us a text It’s spring in upstate New York, also known as Mud Season. In this episode, I go searching for the answers to its riddles: why Mud Season exists, what’s really happening down there in the ground, and why the ground breathes more heavily when it's stressed out – just like me. To guide me through it all, I visit Dr. Jane Lucas, a soil ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. We talk about microbial dormancy, stressed-out soil experiments, why New York has such inte...
Send us a text This week brought the first official day of spring – but as a confusing and misplaced winter storm batters my windows, I’m bringing you one last cozy episode before we fold up the Cozy Map for good. In this episode, I visit one of my favorite places on earth: Rodgers Book Barn in Hillsdale, NY. I chat with legendary owner Maureen Rodgers, who’s been stocking her shelves with used books since the 1960s, about how she finds books, what makes a book cozy, and how the book barn ind...
Send us a text On today's episode, I’m making a house call to one of the oldest – and most mysterious – homes in the Hudson Valley. The Van Housen-Marriott House on Route 66 has stood for centuries, witnessing the full weight of American history. It was a site of Dutch colonial settlement, a place of enslavement, and, possibly, a stop on the Underground Railroad. But now, this house is falling apart, and efforts to save it are racing against time. As part of a project with the African Ameri...
Send us a text In this episode of "The Jiffy Audio Newsletter Podcast," I’m beginning a new journey: an odyssey to find the coziest spots in upstate New York. But before I can begin, I receive guidance from Maria M. Silva, a reporter for the Times Union and someone who knows all about cozy restaurants. Her cozy map of Hudson Valley restaurants for the Times Union proved to be a crucial resource in my initial research. We chat about what it takes for a restaurant to be truly cozy, how to...
Send us a text In the first episode of 2025, we start with an end: The end of "This Old Vibe." Join me as we hear from some of the enlightening experts along the way and reveal the results of my Vibe Enhancement Project: the Desolate Corner. Be sure to pick up a copy of "Sean Scherer's Vignettes" here: https://bookshop.org/a/95638/9780865654419 Subscribe to The Jiffy newsletter: https://thejiffy.beehiiv.com/subscribe Visit The Jiffy: https://thejiffy.xyz/ Support the show "The Jiffy Audio New...
Send us a text In this special episode of The Jiffy Audio Newsletter Podcast, we check in with our entertainment reporter, Jimmy Jam, who brings you intimate access to the stars of the Hudson Valley as they walk the Denim Carpet on their way out of the back door of the service kitchen of the Holiday Inn in Coxsackie to their cars. Jimmy talks with Taco the Best Farm Dog of the Year, with Maria of MX Morningstar Farm; Bella, the winner of Best Dressed Alpaca of the Year; we check back in wit...
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