Let's hear it for Mike Gross, this week's Blaze YouTube
Video contest winner. Mike has won his very own iPod touch courtesy of WHUD radio. Congrats Mike!

To all you Pumpkin-heads attending this weekend: don't forget to bring along your video cameras for a chance to win your very own iPod touch too! (You won't win an iPod if you bring a tripod or mono-pod, so please please please leave them at home.)

Check out Mike's winning entry below.

David Williams visited Blaze, created this lovely work, posted it on YouTube, and is now the proud winner of an iPod touch, courtesy of WHUD radio. We are giving away FIVE iPods in total -- four for Blaze videos and one for Legend. You too can enter. Click here for details and check out David's video below for inspiration.

 

 

As promised, here is part two of our interview with Brian Jay Jones, author of An American Original, an Irving biography. Brian is coming to Sunnyside on Saturday as part of Historic Hudson Valley's Legend Daytime program. He'll be speaking at 11:30 and 2.

HVBlogger: how did your interest in Washington Irving begin?

Brian Jay Jones: I got into Washington Irving because I'm a Christmas junkie. About ten years ago, I was reading Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas, a terrific book all about the origins of American Christmas traditions.

HVBlogger: I love that book!

Brian Jay Jones: Yes yes yes! Well, as you know, in that book, Nissenbaum says that many of the things we assume are old Christmas traditions-Yule logs, sleigh rides, wassail bowls-were actually never old traditions; we just think they are because Washington Irving made them up and told us they were. Well...I had never heard that before, so I found Irving's Christmas stories-which are buried in plain sight right in the middle of The Sketch Book-and read them. I loved them-and what really surprised me was how modern Irving's voice was, and how funny he could be. I read the rest of The Sketch Book-which I will blushingly admit to having never read-and loved it as well. I wanted to find out more about Irving . . . and immediately hit a dead end. Not only were no biographies in print, but the last one had been written in 1935-and that particular bio was written by a Yale professor who clearly didn't like Irving very much.

HVBlogger: We call that the Biography of Which We Do Not Speak

Brian Jay Jones: So, at that point, I began reading everything I could about, and by, Irving, with the intent of writing a modern biography-more of a character study, of sorts, and one that truly appreciated all that he accomplished. He really was an extraordinary guy.

HVBlogger: So why does Irving matter to 21st-century Americans?

Brian Jay Jones: He matters because he made our literature matter. Before Irving, no one took Americans very seriously as writers. Similar to the debate Jefferson was having with Europeans who claimed that our wildlife was smaller, and therefore inferior, to their European counterparts, so too did Europeans regard our literature as smaller and inferior. Irving proved to them not only that Americans could write, but that we could make our own literature, thank you very much. Irving also led the way in determining how American writers could secure and protect their copyrights, as well as how to promote and market a book. So, he's not only the Father of American Letters, he's pretty much the Father of the Modern Book Industry.

HVBlogger: Not to mention that whole inventing Christmas traditions thing...

Brian Jay Jones: Absolutely. If you love holidays like Halloween or Christmas, you can thank Irving for that, too. Irving all but invented the trappings of good autumn ghost stories, and he almost single-handedly rescued Christmas from oblivion.

HVBlogger: What will you be talking about at Sunnyside on the 17th?

Brian Jay Jones: I want to have a bit of fun and talk about Irving and Sunnyside as a kind of 19^th century Elvis and Graceland. One of the things that makes Irving really cool is that he was really famous-with lots of famous friends-and Sunnyside was considered one of the great places in the United States. I mean, it was on postcards and sheet music, one of the most recognized buildings around. So, I want to talk about Irving's life as a celebrity. You'll hear all sorts of famous names. It'll be fun. Trust me.

HVBlogger: Color me convinced! Are you a Halloween fan in general

We are big fans of Brian Jay Jones, Washington Irving, and gripping biographies. Thus, we are what you would call a superfan of An American Original, a gripping biography of Irving written by Brian Jay Jones.

Brian is coming to Sunnyside on Saturday as part of Historic Hudson Valley's Legend Daytime program and we're pretty thrilled. He'll be speaking at 11:30 and 2. We caught up with him this week in advance of his talk. The conversation went so well that this will be a two-part post. To be continued tomorrow...

HVBlogger: Greetings Mr. Jones. Long time no chat. Tell our readers a little bit about An American Original.

Brian Jay Jones: My pleasure! Washington Irving: An American Original is both a biography and a celebration of America's first genuine literary celebrity. We all know Irving as a great writer, but I also really wanted people to appreciate his incredible life and his enormous personal charm. While we like to think of our old writers as these stoic looking, very proper busts on the mantelpiece, Irving was actually more like Elvis or Sinatra-he was not just a famous writer, he was a superstar. Politicians wanted to be seen with him. Fellow writers wanted his endorsement. Fans wanted pieces of his blotting paper. Anyone who was anyone paid a trip to Irving at Sunnyside.

HVBlogger: It's funny you mention the stoic bust on the mantelpiece, because there's a rather stoic bust of Irving at Sunnyside, outside though, not on the mantle. We even use it as a Twitter icon!

Brian Jay Jones: He would have loved the Twitter icon, I'm sure. He dodged the paparazzi, created viral marketing campaigns, and cultivated an attractive public persona. And, of course, anything he wrote sold enormously well. In the same way today's readers eagerly anticipate the latest Stephen King or Dan Brown or John Grisham novel, 19^th-century readers couldn't wait to get their hands on the latest book from Irving. He was a groundbreaker in so many ways, and I wanted today's readers to appreciate him as more than just the guy who wrote "Rip Van Winkle."

HVBlogger: He wrote Rip Van Winkle? Haha. Just KIDDING. Of course we knew that. Now, tell us a little bit about Brian Jay Jones.

Brian Jay Jones: I'm a writer, political hack, Beatlemaniac, and pop culture junkie. I spent ten years working in the U.S. Senate, where I served as a policy advisor, speech writer, and ghost writer, and have since worked at the state and local levels as well, giving me the political hat trick of working for elected officials at all three levels of government.

HVBlogger: Oh you poor baby.

Brian Jay Jones: Ha! But I love it! I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, earned a degree in English from the University of New Mexico, and have since spent most of my adult years in the Washington, D.C., area. I currently live in Damascus, Maryland, with my wife, daughter, and a very large dog.

HVBlogger: Very nice, very nice. Do you spend all of your free time in libraries and bookstores and playing Beatles Rock Band?

Brian Jay Jones: Not entirely. While I take words, books, and the Beatles seriously, I also unapologetically love movies, television, and comics. I think Amadeus and Plan 9 From Outer Space are both great movies, that The Brady Bunch is one of the best TV shows ever, that old timey music rocks, and that Batman could beat Spider-Man in a fight.

HVBlogger: Uh, there is NO question on that last point. OK, we will continue with Brian's interview tomorrow!

See Brian Jay Jones on Saturday at Sunnyside as part of the Legend Daytime program. Tickets available at the door or in advance online.

Besides being a rather "enlightening" way to spend an October evening, the Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze also provides bargain hunters and shopaholics alike with plenty of opportunity.

In celebration of Blaze's five year anniversary, the gift shop, your last stop on tour de Blaze, is jam packed with recession busters and cool stuff.  What's special about the gift shop is the large number of items that are unique to Blaze and available nowhere else, not even online! (How rare is that these days?) 

Visitors will find everything from an "I Visited Blaze" game to postcards, notecards, t-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, mugs, photos, and magnets - all Blaze original designs. You can even take home actual Jack o' Lanterns carved by the Blaze artists themselves. This year's designs include a bat, witch, cat, and spider.   

Need to pamper palates at your Halloween party? Dying for a pumpkin fix? The gift shop carries pumpkin fudge, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin butter, pumpkin scone mix, pumpkin pancake mix, and more than a dozen flavors of Halloween coffees. And of course, there will be a bouquet of Halloween candies.