Astoria Characters: The Bold-Strokes Artist

When Alice Lipping arrives at her studio, she immediately rolls up her sleeves, revealing a tattoo on her lower left arm. Alice became a full-time artist during the pandemic. “Keep Working,” it reminds her in subtle script. She’s more than ready to do just that. Alice, you see, has always loved art and has been painting and selling her work for two decades, but it’s only since the pandemic that she’s allowed herself to indulge her passion full time. It wasn’t so much a…

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Astoria Characters: The Plastic Bag on the Roof

It’s not the first time that someone has thrown something on my roof. A while ago, a shiny silver ladder fell from the sky like a hammer and landed, splat, on the shingles. Jimmy doesn’t have perfect pitch. This time, it’s a black plastic shopping bag. My friend Jimmy Ruchalski hurled it there. This throwing of things, it seems to be a tradition in Astoria, one that I was initiated into on Day One of my residency. Seventeen years ago, when I moved into my house, a stranger…

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Astoria Characters: The Shopkeeper With Pedigree

Cheeto and Onyx, the current rescue residents at Whiskers Holistic Petcare, are ravenous. Randy’s the owner of Whiskers Holistic Petcare. The meowing year-old felines – as their names indicate, one’s orange, one’s black and white – drop their elusive demeanor and run up to Randy Klein when she opens the cans of food. They gobble their breakfast like street dogs then settle in for a well-deserved morning’s nap in the shop’s screened-in Rescue Ranch at the front window.…

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