Jun 11-17, 2014
A Photo Essay of Quebec’s Soon-to-be-Bypassed Route 133; Burlington School Budget Debate, Uncensored; Gran Fondo Race Rides into VT; Eating the Other Local Cheese; David Stromeyer’s Sculpture Park
Cover Story
Photo-Essay: Québec’s Soon-to-Be-Bypassed Route 133
Perhaps you’ve heard about the multimillion-dollar highway-bypass project that’s been in the works for decades? As far back as the mid-1960s, regional transportation officials were promising locals a new, four-lane divided highway that would speed motorists through their communities in record time, getting large trucks and buses off the smaller streets. Since then, budget delays,…
Obituary: Albert A. Laferriere, 1937-2013, DeLand, Fla.
Albert A. Laferriere of DeLand, Fla., and formerly of Winooski, Vt., passed away at his home on Monday, Dec. 23, 2013. He was born June 23, 1937, in Abercorn, Quebec. He is survived by one daughter, Rita Gordon of Jericho, and her husband, Norman, and their two daughters, Gina and Shawna. He also leaves his…
A Tour of Québec Cheese
Working the counter at his gourmet store La Rumeur Affamée (“famished gossip”) in Dunham, Québec, Yves Nadon has noticed a troubling trend among customers. “All the people want cheese without lactose and without fat,” he said. “You don’t want cheese. You want plastic!” Nadon doesn’t bend to such dietary whims: He’s too proud of the…
News Quirks (6/11/14)
Curses, Foiled Again After two people reported being maced and robbed by two men, police in Anchorage, Alaska, quickly nabbed one suspect. While searching for the other one, officers spotted a man who appeared in distress, “with tears and mucus running down his face.” When they questioned him, they determined that he wasn’t a victim…
![Missile Silo Reunion [SIV356]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/episode356.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Missile Silo Reunion [SIV356]
6/6/14: Last Friday members of the 556th Strategic Missile Squadron held a reunion at missile silo site 5 in Lewis, NY. Owner Alexander Michael is an Australian architect who goes by the moniker of “Silo Boy” and he welcomed the veterans with a BBQ and self-guided tours of the renovated underground complex. The 556ers gathered…
Edge of Tomorrow
Apropos of time travel, which this movie concerns, wouldn’t you love to go back to the days when Tom Cruise made science- fiction films that didn’t blow? The difference between the ones that do and the ones that don’t is all about the director, of course. The ones he made with Spielberg (Minority Report and…
My Friend Is Dating a Felon
Dear Athena, One of my dearest friends has recently gotten back together with her ex-boyfriend, and I’m having a hard time accepting it. This dude isn’t just lazy or a cheat — he’s a felon. Like, the kind of felon who gets arrested at the airport when he’s going on vacation (true story). Normally I…
Letters to the Editor (6/11/14)
Angry Elephant Your review of our new album was disappointing and, for your sake, embarrassing [Music Review: Elephants of Scotland, Execute and Breathe, May 21]. Reviewer Benjamin Welton starts off the piece by dismissing an entire genre of rock music and then horribly stereotyping its fans. Our fans. The job of a music reviewer is…
Email Trail Shows Burlington School Budget Strife
In math, it’s customary to “show your work.” That’s because the calculations en route to a solution may reveal more about the student than his or her final answer. The same could be said of the Burlington School District, but officials skipped over some key steps when explaining its recent budget crisis. In mid-April, as…
The Fault in Our Stars
Adults who come to The Fault in Our Stars knowing little about its source material may be expecting an unholy mashup of Love Story and Twilight. After all, John Green’s best-selling novel is most easily described as a weepie romance for the teen market. Both book and film are narrated by Hazel (Shailene Woodley), a…
Free Will Astrology (6/11/14)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In its quest for nectar, a hummingbird sips from a thousand flowers every day. As it flaps its wings 70 times a second, zipping from meal to meal, it can fly sideways, backward or forward. If it so desires, it can also hover or glide upside-down. It remembers every flower it…
Party Time: Vermont Republicans Struggle to Stay Relevant
Better known for going rogue, Sanders strikes a deal with Sen. John McCain to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Graniteville
“Hey, Jernigan. I have a young man here who needs a ride to the car rental at the airport.” The caller was my artist friend Katharine, phoning from her studio/store across from Burlington’s City Hall Park. She’s mostly known for her sublime watercolor renderings of the Vermont landscape, and I’m a huge fan of her…
Winooski Plans to Improve Arteries
No Vermont city’s downtown has been transformed as dramatically as Winooski’s. Over the past decade, multistory office buildings, a growing tech company and more than 400 units of high-density housing have replaced a moribund mall and its adjacent sprawling surface parking lot. The city has a new riverfront walkway, rearranged traffic patterns and 50,000 square…
Action! Behind the Scenes of Vermont’s Pipeline Protests
A crowd of banner-toting, song-singing activists camped out Monday morning in front of 112 State Street in Montpelier, the home of the Public Service Board and Vermont’s Public Service Department. Wearing white jumpsuits meant to highlight the concerns about soil and water contamination, the protesters had trekked to Vermont’s capital to object to the imminent…
Jimmy Ruin, All for You to Kill
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Jimmy Ruin sounds like he could use a hug. On his new album, the dourly titled All for You to Kill, the local songwriter dives deep into the dark, turbulent waters of his own despair. Ruin’s self-described “sad bastard music” is indeed depressing. But there’s always a place for sad songs.…
DCF Hearings Draw Crowds
At nine recent meetings, state legislators faced people gathered to criticize the Vermont Department for Children and Families. Reading from a script, they asked the audience to recommend policies to improve an agency under fire for the recent deaths of two children who had been in its care. But more often than not, what Sen.…
The Vermont Gran Fondo Is a Party on Wheels
For hard-core, hill-climbing cyclists around Vermont, and plenty more from out of state, summertime means the call of the LAMB — the 100-plus-mile route that traverses the Lincoln, Appalachian, Middlebury and Brandon gaps. Forcing cyclists to wheel and wheeze up and down more than 10,000 feet, it’s a bragging-rights ride of passage. It’s also a…
Meet Cartoonist Fran Krause
Seven Days is delighted that Fran Krause is such a neurotic fellow. Wait, that came out wrong. It’s not Krause’s neuroses per se that are delightful. It’s that he’s so adept at transforming them into delightfully weird works of art. Krause’s comic strip “Deep Dark Fears” is the weekly, illustrated account of his anxieties: sometimes…
An Aphasia Choir in Burlington
Six years ago, Julie Stillman was waylaid by a stroke so severe that, for a time, even a partial recovery seemed unlikely. The stroke not only partially immobilized her right arm and leg but also left Stillman — who, as a former writer and editor, made her living with words — with a painfully ironic…
Vermont Wineries Roll With the Rosé Trend
Sara Granstrom pours rose-colored liquid into a glass in the tasting room at Lincoln Peak Vineyard. “Color is a really important part of rosé,” she says. “A lot of people are scared of pink wine.” Sun filters through a wide door behind her. Beyond, green fields roll into the distance, newly trimmed and fragrant from…
Vermont Theater News
In August, the Vermont Shakespeare Company will return for its seventh summer season with a half-dozen shows of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a perennial favorite of outdoor theater fests. Two of those shows will be staged at Knight Point State Park in North Hero, where the company has performed each season. This summer, the company…
A Sous-Vide Expert in Vermont
Last week, 14 chefs jockeyed for space around a single table in the kitchen of the New England Culinary Institute’s Dewey cafeteria building. They had come from as far as Argentina to tiny Montpelier to meet one man, Bruno Goussault, one of the creators of sous-vide cooking. NECI instructors Andre Burnier and David Miles were…
Burlington’s Jenke Arts Expands
Lounging on a futon in a low-lit recording room, Tommy Alexander ponders the meaning of “jenke,” a purposeful misspelling of “janky.” “It’s more of a metaphor for [how] you define the world that you live in,” he says. “Something could be ‘jenke’ because it’s falling apart, or you could come into this beautiful space and…
Alchemist Permit Hearing Postponed
The Alchemist will have to wait another couple of weeks to get final approval for its brewery expansion and new retail space. Last Tuesday, June 3, the Heady Topper brewers were scheduled to meet with the Stowe Development Review Board. That meeting was expected to pave the way for the Alchemist obtaining a new space…
Theater review: The Fool’s Riddle: Hysteria Has No House
As The Fool’s Riddle: Hysteria Has No House opens, the stage is black, and just a stack of books and a few scarves lie strewn on the floor. A young female dancer in a short top hat, tight jacket and leotard enters to unfurl and spin the scarves while the play’s title and some wordplay…
Indie Coffee Passport Offers Burlington ‘Ground Tour’
Even for bean fiends, it’s easy to get stuck in a caffeine rut, ordering the same drink at the same café week in and week out. The Vermont version of a business called the Indie Coffee Passport, which debuts on June 15, could give them an incentive to change it up. The concept is simple:…
Eyewitness: Cold Hollow Sculpture Park, Enosburg Falls
David Stromeyer has been building it for more than four decades, but will they come? The combination of a remote location and a lack of signage could challenge anyone searching for Stromeyer’s soon-to-open Cold Hollow Sculpture Park. And don’t count on finding cell service in the vicinity of this northern Vermont outpost. But persistence will…
Bent Hill Brewery Opens in Braintree
On Saturday, Bent Hill Brewery opened its doors to the public for the first time. The brewery is nestled high in the hills outside Randolph (1972 Bent Hill Road, Braintree), but 25-year-old brewer Mike Czok, who has been home-brewing since his senior year at the University of Maine at Orono, says about 75 thirsty visitors…
A Burlington Parenting Group Helps Men Become Better Dads
The clamor of children at play echoes through the halls of the former St. Joseph’s School in Burlington’s Old North End. In full swing is a weekly parenting group that provides opportunities for bonding — and, on a recent Tuesday night, fresh pizza. But you won’t find any mommies nursing infants or chasing toddlers here;…
Joseph Rittling, Operation Teardrop
(Self-released, digital download) Songwriter Joseph Rittling first caught our attention in 2012 with a mysterious EP released with virtually no fanfare under the name Red Man Summer. That eponymous recording, a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Aram Bingham, suggested a distinctive talent was emerging in Rittling. And then, nothing. Rittling seemed to evaporate into the ether almost…
Soundbites: Jazz Fest Recap, People Under the Stairs
They came. They saw. They scatted. And with that, yet another Burlington Discover Jazz Festival is in the books. And to borrow a line from a Facebook status posted by our pal Reuben Jackson, host of Vermont Public Radio’s “Friday Night Jazz” show, I miss it already. In part, that’s because I didn’t get to…
