Tivoli, NY is a small, interesting village within the larger town of Red Hook, NY, in the mid-Hudson valley.

Its population is an odd mixture of rural farm-workers, families who seek a quiet, small-town place to live, intellectuals and artists from nearby Bard College, students, and lunatic old alcoholics.

It makes for interesting visual juxtapositions: a trailer home with rusted cars on cinderblocks and John Deere tractors a few houses away from the home of a lesbian hippie couple, who are often harassed by a Bard professor wearing black leather in 70-degree weather, whose best friend is an incoherent drunk who drives a decrepit ambulance and tells stories of his friendship with Donald Fagen of Steely Dan.

The community is vibrant and ecclectic, although never more lively than when, on weekends, hundreds of Bard students crowd the three local bars (Cafe Pongo, Stoney Creek, and Santa Fe) and begin demolishing themselves and others, all under the watchful eye of New York State's nicest sheriff.

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