Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2017
How Vermont Tried, and Failed, to Cut Child Poverty in Half; With Fewer Refugees Arriving, ELL Classes Shrink; Comedian Hari Kondabolu Talks Racial Stereotypes and ‘The Simpsons’
Cover Story
State of Need: How Vermont Tried and Failed to Cut Child Poverty in Half
Cathy Duncan was doing what she could to provide for her kids. The 45-year-old divorced mother of three had returned to school, landed a steady job and bought a modest house in downtown Johnson. But, as she told a panel of Vermont state legislators, cabinet members and low-income advocates in November 2007, Duncan still hadn’t…
Obituary: Michele Vickers Forman, 1946-2017
After several years of dealing with complications of dementia and type 1 diabetes, Michele Forman died on August 28, 2017, at her home in Salisbury. She is survived by her husband, Dick, and three beloved children: Elissa (and her husband, Ron Bush); Laura (and her partner, Rae Miller); and Tim (and his wife, Imelda Stamp.)…
Obituary: Diane Dexter, 1952-2017
Diane Dexter, 65, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts on January 15, 1952. She passed away peacefully on August 3 surrounded by loving family and friends. While her contributions have been many to her family and friends, she also changed the face of state adoptions in Vermont and was a moving force in advancing Vermont…
Seriously: Students of Racism; Cyber Borefare
This week Bryan speaks with a race specialist and reveals the true purpose behind a fake website. Featuring Urian Hackney as Dr. Horace Wallace. CREDITS Written by: Bryan Parmelee and Urian Hackney Filmed and edited by: Bryan Parmelee Artwork/photography courtesy of: James Buck, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur, Bryan Parmelee, Dreamstime.com Logo/art direction by: Don Eggert Backdrop mural…
Obituary: Roger Berard, 1962-2017
Roger Ernest Berard, 55, also known as Beige, Raji, Jammie Man, Smoothie, and Poppi, passed away on August 22, 2017 in his childhood home in Barton, Vt., surrounded by his loving family after a short yet fierce battle with pancreatic cancer. He is now reunited in the mysterious beyond with his wife, Loli, and first-born…
![A_Dog Day [SIV502]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/episode502-4-e1755133885932.webp?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1)
A_Dog Day [SIV502]
8/26/17: A_Dog Day is a celebration of skateboarding, art and music inspired by the life of a man who was a fixture in Burlington, Andy “A_Dog” Williams. When Andy was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012, his friends organized to help support him, and Friends for A_Dog was born. Andy passed a year later and the…
Movie Review: Taylor Sheridan Shines as Director of the Superb ‘Wind River’
Got any extra stars in the storeroom, Seven Days? Maybe I can borrow some from next month’s supply? Five simply doesn’t do it for writer-director Taylor Sheridan’s revelatory new film. Whoever decided to release this Cannes Film Festival award winner in the dog days of August is either the most nitwitted or most visionary member…
Soundbites: Main Squeeze; Rocket Ride
One of Madaila’s defining attributes is that they never do the same thing twice — unless it totally works. The soulful electro-pop band has rocked singular performances in more than a few high-profile spaces, such as the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington City Hall Auditorium, the Champlain Valley Exposition and Burlington’s Main Street. The…
Movie Review: Israeli Hit ‘The Women’s Balcony’ Feels Surprisingly Relevant Here
These days, if you want to see a sweet little movie, upbeat but not saccharine, about humans just being human, you’re more likely to find it outside the U.S. That description applies very well to The Women’s Balcony, a major hit in its native Israel, which is scheduled to leave Vermont on Friday after a…
Art Review: Johnny Swing’s Currency Sculpture at the Bundy Modern
Two summers ago, June and Wendell Anderson opened the Bundy Modern, a contemporary art gallery housed in a rehabilitated midcentury gem in Waitsfield. They have since hosted a range of seasonal exhibitions in the breathtaking, light-filled gallery space, from Vermont landscapes by Mad River Valley painter Julia Purinton to loud abstract canvases by Essex Junction…
Milton Students Return to Racial Turmoil
Emily Scott grew up in Milton, but attending school there was nothing like what her daughter is experiencing now. Scott, who is white, and her African American husband moved north with their daughter, Julissa Scott-Hamblin, last year from Burlington. The 14-year-old was happy attending school in the Queen City, but housing was prohibitively expensive. Milton…
Bartenders Scramble at Lakeside Spot on the Dock
From his workstation behind the outdoor bar at the Spot on the Dock, Craig Stevens looks west to Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. But he’s so busy that he’s missed the star of the show — the sunset — on all but two nights this summer. He’s been looking at a sea of faces and…
Former Greensboro Garage to Become Food-Ag Center
The big yellow building on Route 15 in Hardwick, the former Greensboro Garage, will become a food and agriculture center, thanks to a $250,000 Northern Border Regional Commission grant. The grant went to the town of Hardwick, which will purchase the building and work with the Center for an Agricultural Economy over the next two…
A New Class Teaches English to Hispanic Lake Monsters
Wandisson Charles burst into a small Mann Hall classroom on the University of Vermont campus with the exuberance of a second grader. “One-oh-two, teacher!” the 20-year-old exclaimed in greeting his English instructor, Chaska Richardson. “One-oh-two?!” Richardson replied without missing a beat. In carefully constructed English, Charles was telling her how fast he’d thrown a baseball…
Moooving Scene on Church Street: PETA Activists Say No to Cow’s Milk
A trio of animal-loving activists parked themselves by Burlington’s Church and Bank streets last Thursday with an eye-catching cow replica. The reason? The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals operatives were protesting human consumption of cow’s milk. “We’re trying to bring attention to how disturbing it is that we drink the breast milk of…
Theater Review: ‘American Buffalo,’ Dorset Theatre Festival
Live theater is a new experiment each night. The actors are the primary variable, but the collective mood of an audience asserts a little gravitational pull that the cast doesn’t experience until the seats are filled. At Dorset Theatre Festival’s production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo, some of those seats are onstage. In Thursday’s preview,…
Wine and Mystery, Rural Romance, Tales From the Farm: New Books
Seven Days writers can’t possibly read, much less review, all the books that arrive in a steady stream by post, email and, in one memorable case, an orchestra of crickets. So this monthly feature is our way of introducing you to five books by Vermont authors. To do that, we contextualize each book just a…
Theater Review: ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’ Weston Playhouse
A mother who nurtures and neglects. A father stingy with love and money. Two brothers who resent and care for each other in equal measure. The current Weston Playhouse production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night demonstrates that, nearly 80 years after it was written, Eugene O’Neill’s 1941 masterwork remains a powerful portrait of a…
Wall That: More New Murals Pop Up in Vermont
Earlier this month we told you about five new murals around the state. It didn’t take long for even more to pop out of the woodwork — or, often, brickwork. For this iteration of the mural roundup, we’ve got a high school mascot painted by students, a massive botanical creation in Milton and a fresh…
Free Will Astrology (8/30/17)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the miraculous communication system that we know as the World Wide Web. When asked if he had any regrets about his pioneering work, he named just one. There was no need for him to have inserted the double slash — “//” — after the “http:”…
Ask Athena: I Just Got Caught Cheating on My Husband
Dear Athena, My husband lost his job last year and was out of work for 10 months. During that time, he was really depressed, and everything in our house fell to me. I was responsible for our kids, our finances, cleaning … He was useless. Then he got a job working out of town a…
Comedian Hari Kondabolu’s New Documentary Examines Racial Stereotypes on ‘The Simpsons’
Comedian Hari Kondabolu has a problem: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the iconic Indian Kwik-E-Mart proprietor on the long-running Fox animated sitcom “The Simpsons.” The 34-year-old Indian American writer and standup star first aired his beef with the show’s depiction of Indian people in a 2012 segment on FX’s “Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell.” In the clip,…
Album Review: Pete’s Posse, ‘The Conversation’
(Epact Music, CD, digital download) Listening to the latest release from traditionalist trio Pete’s Posse feels like eavesdropping on an intense dialogue. The hourlong collection of folk, bluegrass and country music seems to be a negotiation between old and new. To wit: They incorporate myriad old-time, traditional melodies with a contemporary production aesthetic and modern…
James Ehlers’ Gubernatorial Bid Sparks Cyber Allegations
Two weeks ago, I reported on a fake website for the Democratic gubernatorial campaign of environmental advocate James Ehlers. Since then, the site has been revised, taken offline and then revived under a new domain name. And the saga around it has gotten stranger and stranger, with Ehlers and prominent Republicans throwing some serious accusations…
Album Review: KiefCatcher/Hellascope, ‘No Magic’
(Self-released split EP, digital download) Can you imagine finding an ancient scroll from the distant past, filled with tales of evil and black magic? I read a J.R.R. Tolkien biography once in which an Oxford professor compared reading The Silmarillion to unearthing a lost legendarium from the darkest corners of history. I can just visualize…
Eat This Week, August 30 to September 5, 2017: Hop, Skip and Jump
Isole Dinner Club chef Richard Witting and In Tandem Arts director Trish Denton team up for a multisensory culinary theater experience that interprets works by English writer, illustrator and naturalist Beatrix Potter. Stroll the fields and gardens of Shelburne Farms with circa-1900 friends Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail as storytellers spin tales of Peter Rabbit and…
Tractors, Tools and Trinkets: Collectors Swarm the CRACK Show
“We are junk magnets,” said Virginia resident Joe Hagerman, one of two blacksmiths manning a coal-fired forge at the annual show put on by the Connecticut River Antique Collectors Klub (CRACK) in Ely. Hagerman explained that he joined the group after meeting club cofounder Doug Driscoll at an antiques gathering years ago. He’s traveled to…
Need to Reach the Vermont Government? Try a Tweet
When floodwaters isolated his Norwich neighborhood July 2, Jacques Fordy knew he would be unlikely to reach a state road crew by phone on a holiday weekend. So he tweeted directly at Gov. Phil Scott. “My neighborhood is cut off from the town, no DOT crews in sight, work on Monday. Send in the boys?”…
Letters to the Editor (8/30/17)
Bad Advice In “Apoc-Eclipse” [Last 7: “802much,” August 23], the ending sentence recommends: “Save those glasses!” This is incorrect and possibly dangerous advice, because these kinds of glasses have a safe lifespan of about five years. Jeffry Wisnia Winchester, MA The VA Way Your article on the salaries paid to directors of Vermont’s nonprofit hospitals…
Burlington-Area Schools See Declining Enrollment in ELL Programs
Elementary school teacher Lynda Siegel collects bathing suits, winter wear and stuffed toys all year round for her students at the Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler in Burlington. “They’re great, but they just take up a lot of room,” said Siegel last Friday, as she packed the items into a small closet outside her…
The Upper Valley Music Center Expands Into New Home
The Upper Valley Music Center is movin’ on up … the street. The community music school in the former mill town of Lebanon, N.H., is set to relocate to a stately new (actually old) building on South Park Street, just around the corner from its longtime location on Hanover Street. UVMC will host a grand…
What’s With the Huge New Drainage Ditches Along Vermont Roads?
It’s highway construction season, that time of year when the hills are alive with the sound of truck back-up alarms. The Vermont Agency of Transportation and local public works departments have nearly as short a work season as farmers, so they make highways when the sun shines. While cruising the roads of Vermont, perhaps you’ve…
In Memoriam: P. Dermot Cosgrove, 1948-2017
March 22, 1948, to July 7, 2017 Friends are invited to the Westmore Community Church Hall on Willoughby Lake (27 Hinton Hill Road, Westmore), from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, September 9, 2017, to remember and celebrate his life.
Queen City Acres Makes a Go of Urban Farming
Scrutinizing the house in front of me, I thought I must have the wrong address. Deep gray with bright orange and white accents and a kiddie pool in the pristine front yard, the place didn’t look like it could be the urban farm I was looking for in Burlington’s New North End. But then farmer…
Bluebird Barbecue Debuts New Food Truck
Folks used to treat a food truck as a stepping-stone to a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Ahli Baba’s Kabob Shop, New World Tortilla, the Skinny Pancake and Misery Loves Co. all had mobile beginnings. These days, it seems like restaurant owners eagerly await the day when they can acquire a food truck. ArtsRiot and A Single Pebble…
