Aug 8-14, 2018
Is This Vermont’s Least Interesting Election Ever?; NEK Residents Debate Landfill Expansion; Graphic Medicine Conference Comes to Vermont
Cover Story
Vermont’s Most Powerful Offices Are Up For Grabs This Election. So Why Is It So Slow?
Across America, 2018 is shaping up to be a remarkable election year. Energized by their opposition to President Donald Trump, Democrats are hoping a “blue wave” will sweep the nation and help them capture the U.S. House. An unusual number of governorships are up for grabs, and control of the closely divided U.S. Senate is…
Seriously: Go Vote!
In this episode, Bryan checks in on all the excitement surrounding Vermont’s August 14 primary election. CREDITS Written, filmed and edited by: Bryan Parmelee Artwork/photography courtesy of: Marc Nadel, Matthew Thorsen, Ethan Sonneborn, James Buck, Taylor Dobbs, Bryan Parmelee, Dreamstime Logo/art direction by: Don Eggert Audio by: Bryan Parmelee Related Stories
Obituary: Stella Sławin Penzer, 1921-2018
Stella Sławin Penzer, 96, died Tuesday, August 7, 2018, at home in the Old North End of Burlington, VT, embraced by family and friends. Stella and her twin brother Lazar (Lolek) were born September 9, 1921 to Ala Wajnstejn Sławin and Szaja Sławin. Stella graduated from the Warsaw School of Nursing, spring 1942, after it…
Music Therapists Help Clients Learn, Heal, Connect Through Song
Hannah Waterman doesn’t speak. The 16-year-old Burlington girl has Rett syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects her motor skills, coordination, balance and intellectual development. She also grinds her teeth, wrings her hands repetitively, has difficulty focusing her gaze and suffers from sleep disruptions. But one thing helps lift her neurological fog: Katy Perry songs.…
Album Review: Pattern Addict, ‘Pattern Addict’
(Self-released, digital download) Music scenes in college towns like Burlington benefit from a constant influx of new blood. Whether young musicians arrive and meet like-minded souls and form bands, or local kids listen to all those bands until they form one themselves, the end result is that the Queen City is usually awash in new…
Couple Plans to Build a House on Burlington’s Steep Depot Street
One of Burlington’s quirkiest undeveloped pieces of land is officially off the market. Joel and Wendy Hakken of Ann Arbor, Mich., paid $103,000 for the steep, wooded 0.1-acre plot that was for sale along Depot Street. The transaction went through July 2. The couple plans to build their dream retirement home overlooking Lake Champlain, and…
Movie Review: Middle School Angst Finds New Life in Bo Burnham’s ‘Eighth Grade’
Indie filmmakers have been telling poignant coming-of-age stories for so long that sometimes one may wonder if any compelling ones are left to tell. YouTube star turned filmmaker Bo Burnham proves the affirmative with his debut feature, Eighth Grade. A hit at January’s Sundance Film Festival, this portrait of one shy girl weathering middle school…
Claire Gear Joins Shelburne Craft School as Executive Director
Claire Gear, whose father was a woodworker, grew up surrounded by craft. “I studied design, space, people and materials ever since I was very young,” she said. A love for making and building isn’t the only thing she has in common with her father: He was also an executive director in the nonprofit world. Next…
Theater Review: ‘See How They Run,’ Saint Michael’s Playhouse
Theatrical farce rule of thumb: If the first scene establishes that the vicar owns three suits with clerical collars, before the play is over three vicars will pop up onstage, most of whom are not ordained. In Philip King’s 1943 British comedy See How They Run, now at Saint Michael’s Playhouse, a cast of nine…
Climate Redaction: Report’s Slow Roll Sparks Skepticism
Roughly one year ago, with much fanfare, Gov. Phil Scott created the Vermont Climate Action Commission, whose charge was to produce recommendations for fighting climate change in Vermont. The commission was greeted with a fair bit of skepticism, partly because Scott’s environmental track record is heavy on delay and incrementalism, and partly because he strongly…
Movie Review: Two Friends Get Sucked Into Spycraft in the Breezily Bonkers ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’
Like an agent lying low until it’s time to rappel through a window, pull a gun and spray mayhem in every direction, The Spy Who Dumped Me stayed in the shadows right up to its release. Last week I caught an ad for the action-comedy on TV. Surprised, I momentarily suspected that what I was…
Artist Scott André Campbell Talks Space, Line and Imagination
If you’ve seen the bright green King Street Center bus rolling through Burlington, you’re already familiar with Scott André Campbell’s work. He used digital technology to design the commissioned, map-like work that was then printed onto vinyl and applied to the vehicle’s exterior. Now, a different window into Campell’s creative life is on display at…
Free Will Astrology (8/8/18)
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): You probably gaze at the sky enough to realize when there’s a full moon. But you may not monitor the heavenly cycles closely enough to tune in to the new moon, that phase each month when the lunar orb is invisible. We astrologers regard it as a ripe time to formulate…
Campaign Cash Issue Roils Probate Judge Race in Chittenden County
Democratic voters in Chittenden County will vote in a rare contested primary for probate judge on August 14: Incumbent Gregory Glennon faces a challenge by lawyer and former Winooski mayor Bill Norful. Glennon is not taking the opposition lightly. By the July 15 campaign finance reporting deadline, he had raised $7,500 from 76 donors. That’s…
I’m Married, But Does That Mean I Have No Privacy?
Dear Scarlett, A few weeks ago, a female coworker of mine sent me a few flirtatious texts. I didn’t respond and thought it was harmless, until my wife read them on my phone when I was asleep and accused me of cheating. I told her that I am not cheating but was upset that she…
Chittenden Sheriff Faces Challenge From His Own Deputy
Kevin McLaughlin was 34 and second-in-command at the Chittenden County Sheriff’s Department in 1986, the year he ran against his boss to become the next sheriff. McLaughlin made a case for professionalizing the county police force, whose three full-time employees sometimes had to use their own cars to transport prisoners: “I said, ‘We need to…
Theater Review: ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2,’ Weston Playhouse
Symmetry: A circle of a floor and a square of a wall. In that otherwise blank wall is an ornate wooden door. Nora knocks, and the door she slammed when leaving her bourgeois marriage 15 years earlier opens. In Weston Playhouse’s production of A Doll’s House, Part 2, the play’s beautiful geometry reveals itself in…
Letters to the Editor (8/8/18)
Where’s ‘Dope’? What happened to “Dear Cecil” — one of my favorite features?! Jud Lawrie Essex Junction Editor’s note: The column was written by the editors of the Chicago Reader and ran weekly in Seven Days for 23 years. Only a few papers were still running “The Straight Dope” when they discontinued it last month.…
In Stowe, Farm Table Fridays Mean Guest-Chef Picnics
In tiny incandescent lights, the sign above the window at Spruce Peak Village’s walk-up bar advertised “VT BEER.” But on the service counter, a display of stiff red roses, glittering with crystallized sugar, and neat rows of cut-crystal coupe glasses told a different story. For willing drinkers, the evening would begin with cocktails. And the…
Rough Francis’ Message Is More Important Than Ever
If you’re a music nerd, or have followed Vermont’s music scene throughout the last decade, you probably already know this story: In the 1970s, Bobby, Dannis and David Hackney — three black brothers living in Detroit — nearly changed the course of music history with their proto-punk band, Death. But Death’s time in the spotlight wouldn’t…
Former Junior’s Employee to Open Jr’s Original in Winooski
On August 2, six weeks after Junior’s Italian closed its Colchester restaurant following 25 years in business, a longtime employee announced on Facebook that he would open a restaurant, Jr’s Original, at 348 Main Street in Winooski. Bogdan Andreescu and his childhood friend Kyle Crete plan to open their pizzeria and Italian restaurant on November…
Center for Cartoon Studies to Host Comics & Medicine Conference
A public health professional and cartoonist from New Jersey creates a graphic memoir to help her heal from sexual assault. At Penn State College of Medicine, fourth-year students learn how comics can communicate complex medical information — and make their own. At Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, an ethnographic cartooning project aims to “mitigate loneliness,…
Eat This Week, August 8 to 14, 2018: Swine and Wine
What rhymes with pork? Cork! On Saturday, August 11, Burlington’s Dedalus Wine Shop, Market & Wine Bar teams up with Black Diamond Barbecue and vom Boden wine imports for a night of smoked meat and German wines. Vom Boden founder Stephen Bitterolf will be on the lawn pouring glasses of golden dry Rieslings, sparkling pét-nats…
Album Review: Zoë Keating, ‘Snowmelt’
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Zoë Keating’s four-song EP Snowmelt begins with a sad, solitary cello line. Having established a lonely, windswept musical terrain, the sound shifts to a pulsing beat overlaid with apparent guitar plucking. Yet it’s all done with the cello: Keating is a solo electronic cellist who uses an instrument mic, a laptop…
Hackie: Me Versus the Visigoths
It was the Saturday of the Vermont Brewers Festival, and the first session, which runs from noon to four, was just finishing up. The Burlington Waterfront Park was teeming with happy people as I sat parked in my taxi near the ECHO museum looking to grab a fare. I knew from experience that dozens of…
Sculptor Jim Sardonis to Create ‘Whale Dance’ for Randolph
Along a stretch of Interstate 89 in South Burlington, two large structures resembling whales’ tails emerge from the ground, a novel view for passersby and a favorite photo op for visitors from the adjacent field. But the local landmark made of African black granite wasn’t always sited there. Officially titled “Reverence,” the sculpture was once…
Should Vermont’s Only Landfill Get Bigger?
From a distance, the mounds of land east of Route 5 in Coventry resemble one more set of rolling hills in Vermont’s mountainous Northeast Kingdom. But locals know that this topography is man-made. “That was flat land at one time,” Chris Jacobs said as he gazed at Vermont’s only operating landfill last week. “Now it’s…
Soundbites: Someone is Pretending to Be Jer Coons on Tinder
PREECE’s Pieces Last week, we bid adieu to Burlington indie rockers Gestalt, whose relocation to Seattle is imminent. It’s always sad to see local acts call it quits or move on to far-off places. But one thing that makes it hurt less is that, without fail, a new act springs up to fill the vacuum.…
Good Food and Casual Community at Peg & Ter’s
We had only traveled to Shelburne from Montpelier and Burlington, but my friends and I felt like we were on vacation. Our destination was Peg & Ter’s, the casual, upbeat restaurant that opened in late June in the building that was home to Café Shelburne for 25 years. The space has been transformed into a…
After 40 Years, Burlington Bagel Bakery Goes Downtown
Nearly 40 years after Burlington Bagel Bakery launched its business on St. Paul Street in Burlington, it will return downtown when a new branch opens at 93 Church Street on the Marketplace, site of the former Bruegger’s Bagels. The restaurant is expected to open in October, according to assistant manager Avery Fersing. This will be…
