May 28 – Jun 3, 2014
Jazz Violinist Regina Carter Explores Traditional American Music on Her New Record; Neighbors Try to Save a Pond; Two Vermont Operas Play for Laughs; Go Fish at Burlington’s Bleu
Cover Story
Jazz Violinist Regina Carter Explores Traditional American Music on Her New Album
There is an inherent familiarity about Southern Comfort, the latest record from renowned jazz violinist Regina Carter. Sometimes it appears in obvious ways. For example, there’s her funky take on the Hank Williams classic “Honky Tonkin’.” Airing the song’s famous melody over a strutting drum beat and gently punchy bass line, Carter’s violin — calling…
Free Music in the Alley
Join us every Friday for a free summer concert at Red Square. Head over after work, grab a drink, and listen to live music with your friends from Seven Days. Oh, and you might even win some cool prizes from Long Trail Brewing Company. The Schedule Friday, June 12: Andriana Chobot Friday, June 19: Bob…
Obituary: Mary C. Parmenter, 1942-2014, South Royalton
Mary C. Parmenter, 71, died peacefully on Sunday, May 18, 2014, at the Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, Vt., surrounded by her family. She was born June 20, 1942, in Mountain Lakes, N.J., the daughter of Ralph M. and Marion L. (Wells) Crane. She attended Catholic School in California and in 1960 graduated from San…
Obituary: Victoria Duba, 1942-2014, Burlington
Victoria Duba, 72, passed away May 29, 2014, at Birchwood Terrace with her loving family by her side. She was born in West Rutland on April 16, 1942. Vicky was a beloved mother and grandmother. Left to cherish her memory are her children: son Bruce Duba; four daughters Toni Duba, Shanan Duba, Tina Lamphere and…
Obituary: Sarah Marie Liamos, 1992-2014, Pleasenton, CA
Sarah Marie Liamos was easy to spot in a crowd with a beaming smile that depicted her tenacious nature and joie de vivre. Sarah was a Pied Piper for small children and the babysitter of choice for many during her early teens. She volunteered many summers as a junior counselor and counselor at Camp Taylor,…
Winooski Mother Pleads Not Guilty to Murdering Her Baby
Peighton Geraw’s mother beat and shook him just before a Department for Children and Families worker visited on the day the 15-month-old Winooski child died, her boyfriend told authorities. His mother, Nytosha Laforce, 28, pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in Chittenden Superior Court this morning and was ordered held without bail, according to court documents.…
Soundbites: Jazz Fest 2014 Begins
Longtime readers may recall that for several years, the Soundbites column was designated as a “jazz-free zone” during the annual Burlington Discover Jazz Festival. I didn’t do that to be a contrarian jerk — well, maybe just a little. But more because the festival was so overwhelming and inescapable that I felt it necessary to…
Chef
With his latest, Jon Favreau accomplishes something all but unprecedented in movie history. He convinces us that the shlub he plays could’ve snagged Sofía Vergara. I kid (She plays his character’s ex.) What he’s done that’s amazing is escape the Hollywood trap. Like many before him, Favreau made his name by writing and directing independent…
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Many superhero film franchises frustrate the newcomer with their tangled continuity, but the X-Men series particularly so. X-Men (2000) begat X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand, a moneymaking trilogy that was followed by a prequel (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and a standalone adventure (The Wolverine). 2011’s X-Men: First Class, set in 1962, was a prequel to…
![Beertopia on the IPA Highway [SIV354]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/episode354.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Beertopia on the IPA Highway [SIV354]
5/24/14: Saturday was a Beertopia for ale lovers traveling the IPA Highway between Waitsfield and Waterbury, Vermont. Many out-of-towners took beercations in the state to celebrate some of its most popular craft brews: Hill Farmstead’s fourth anniversary with massive tap takeovers in Waterbury pubs, the Alchemist’s pop up can sale of Beezlebub and Focal Banger…
In Vermont, Patterson Grants Benefit Young Readers
As one of the best-selling authors in history, James Patterson has little left to prove. Say what you will about his chops as a writer, the fact is that his books — and he’s written or cowritten more than 130 of them — are enjoyed by millions of people. Most artists can’t make such a…
Vermont Gas’ Old Promises and New Clearing Rile Neighbors in Burlington’s North End
Convent Square is a typical Old North End neighborhood: Older homes sit on small lots, and on a sunny afternoon, a young girl on a bicycle turns circles in the road. The only thing that looks out of place on the L-shaped residential street is a low industrial building behind a chain-link fence topped with…
Free Will Astrology (5/28/14)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “When I was young,” wrote French author Albert Camus, “I expected people to give me more than they could — continuous friendship, permanent emotion.” That didn’t work out so well for him. Over and over, he was awash in disappointment. “Now I have learned to expect less of them than they…
Congressman for Life? In Bid for Fifth Term, Welch Faces Little Opposition
For all the ink spilled over who may or may not challenge Gov. Peter Shumlin this fall, barely a drop has gone to this year’s other top-of-the-ballot race: for Vermont’s lone seat in the U.S. House. That’s not terribly surprising. Since 2006, when then-Senate president pro tem Peter Welch claimed the open congressional perch by…
Middlebury College Faculty Decries Partnership with Online Language Learning Company
When Middlebury College teamed up with the for-profit online education company K12, Inc. in 2010, the elite liberal arts college had several goals: boost Middlebury’s reputation as a leader in foreign language education, experiment with new online learning techniques and — perhaps most obviously — make money. A few faculty members, skittish about the world…
Book Review: Next Life Might Be Kinder
To convey the flavor of a Howard Norman novel, it often suffices to quote the first sentence. That’s true of the East Calais writer’s eighth, the quietly searing Next Life Might Be Kinder, which opens with this assertion: “After my wife, Elizabeth Church, was murdered by the bellman Alfonse Padgett in the Essex Hotel, she…
Quick Lit: Howard Frank Mosher Text, Bookstock, The Disenfranchised
“I’ve been hiding out.” That’s what Howard Frank Mosher reportedly told Purdue University English professor James Robert Saunders in 2010, after Saunders asked him “how he ever avoided being discovered.” While Vermonters may want to keep the drily self-effacing writer their little secret, Saunders wasn’t having it. A fan of the Northeast Kingdom author’s works,…
Nectar the Matchmaker
Springtime is for lovers, I mused as I drifted through downtown Burlington in my taxicab on a Thursday evening. Romance might hatch in winter’s depths, consummated under thick blankets by candlelight. But with the weather turning warmer, lovers emerge and take their romance out for a spin: walking hand-in-hand, dining together al fresco in full…
Historic Vermont Organ to Sound Again
Vermont’s most prolific 19th-century organ builder was Randolph Center native William Nutting Jr. According to Marilyn Polson of Chelsea, planning chair of the Organ Historical Society’s 58th annual convention, held last year in Vermont, four of the organs Nutting built for churches and other venues around the state remain playable today. These are found in…
News Quirks (5/28/14)
Curses, Foiled Again Police charged Shanwaz Khan, 30, with being the brains behind a car-theft ring in Birmingham, England, after he attracted their attention by driving a $90,000 Audi with the personalized license plate “S2OLUN” (stolen). “This was a clear jibe at the authorities,” Detective Constable Mo Azir said after investigators who noticed his car…
Two Opera Companies Gear Up for Rossini
Vermont’s hills are alive with slowly building Rossini crescendos. As it happens, the state’s two established summer opera destinations — the Opera Company of Middlebury and the Waitsfield-based Green Mountain Opera Festival — will both produce comic operas this season by that master of musical hilarity, Gioachino Rossini. OCM artistic director Douglas Anderson chose the…
The Precepts, This Is How It Must Be
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Hip-hop, as a genre, can be polarizing. Antagonists readily downplay its musicality and deride its lyrics, writing them off as promotions of chauvinism, crime and violence — and with some reason. Trap music and hip-hop club anthems are often vulgar, full of braggadocio, and can be downright tasteless. But that is…
A Suspicious Death Draws Attention to Burlington’s Homeless Encampments
Used plastic silverware soaked in water in a Styrofoam cup on a picnic table next to a loaf of white bread. Soggy T-shirts hung from a rope strung between two trees. Branches smoldered in a campfire ring. Inside a handful of large tents, sleeping bags and cans of Natural Light were visible. It looked like…
Andriana Chobot, Cascade
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Vermont songwriter Andriana Chobot has been playing the piano since she was 4 years old — a span of 20 years. She began writing her own music, mostly classical compositions, in high school, where she was also active in theater. Both of those disciplines inform the material found on her recently…
An Interview With Dawn of Midi’s Aakash Israni
Dysnomia is a brain disorder, either of genetic origin or brought on by traumatic injury, that is characterized by the inability to recall the names of people and objects. Those who suffer from it are often frustrated by knowing what they’re looking at but being unable to summon the name for it. Dysnomia is also…
Girl Scouts’ Failing Dam Threatens Quiet Richmond Pond
A pre-storm calm hung over Gillett Pond as Robert Low pointed out winter wrens and spotted sandpipers from the stern of his canoe. Low has lived at the northern tip of the body of water for nearly half a century, but his birding trips may be numbered. The pond’s owner plans to drain it. The…
Eyewitness: Jane Frank, Werkstatt
Jane Frank, a member of Burlington’s Alchemy Jewelry Arts collective, trained for nearly a decade for her title of master goldsmith. In her native Germany, a state-run Chamber of Crafts approves apprenticeships, sets curricula and doles out certifications as students rise through the ranks of their chosen craft. Frank (her name is pronounced yaw-na frahnk)…
New Musical Event Offers Fresh Take on Festival Food
On August 23 and 24, Burlington College will host a new, food-forward music festival that’s taking a fresh look at festy fare. “We weren’t interested in putting on just another music festival,” says WYSIWYG culinary director Lulu Kalman, who consults with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group in New York. “There are so many incredible…
I’m Uncomfortable Performing Oral Sex
Dear Athena, I’m sort of uncomfortable with performing oral sex. I don’t like to go down on guys. I’m dating a guy right now and we have a good time with sex, but I just feel uncomfortable giving him a blowjob. I want to enjoy it all with my new partner, but I don’t know…
Paine Mountain Brewing Company Expands
Last week, Kevin Pecor, owner of the Knotty Shamrock Irish Pub, broke ground on a new brewery adjacent to his 3-year-old pub. The new space will house a four-barrel operation that — once up and running later this summer — will produce more than 100 gallons of suds weekly. With help from brewmaster Radley Herold,…
A Norwich Criminologist Educates About Violence
Penny Shtull knows a thing or two about murder and mayhem: stalkers, sex traffickers, serial rapists, mass murderers and other perpetrators of horrific violence. The motives and personalities can differ starkly from one offender to another. Yet when Shtull, a criminal justice professor at Norwich University, studies their crimes, a common theme emerges: Most attackers…
Letters to the Editor (5/28/14)
The Pipeline’s Other End [Re “Pipe Dreams,” May 14]: Among the objections cited by opponents of the Vermont Gas pipeline extension are the pollution caused by fracking and the investment in fossil-fuel infrastructure. The first should be solved by strong environmental regulation on the fracking industry, not by restricting gas conduits. With regard to the…
Taste Test: Bleu Northeast Seafood
There’s a rule about cheese and seafood, and it doesn’t favor combining the two. Centuries of culinary lore say spoiled milk overwhelms a fish’s delicate flavor and squanders its potential. And since both ingredients are pricey, pious cooks allow each to shine its own light without interference from the other. But Juniper executive chef Douglas…
Seasoned Traveler: Luiza’s Homemade With Love
The seven chickens in Luiza Bloomberg’s well-kept backyard cluck and curdle, looking suspiciously at her as she ducks into their hay-lined house. The petite blonde, casual in jeans but glammed up in liquid eyeliner, quickly emerges with seven eggs in various shades of tan and Tiffany blue. Bloomberg may live just blocks from downtown Shelburne,…
Mobile Food Options Come and Go in Burlington and the MRV
First the bad news: Lovers of Jamie Miller’s smoked-pork, grilled-chicken and black-bean tacos have reason to mourn. The chef-owner is selling the trailer that debuted in 2012 as Burlington’s first taco truck, Muchacho Taco. “In a very super awesome way, we found out in January that my wife is pregnant,” Miller explains. “That’s great, but…
