Oct 25-31, 2017
Lost Nation Theater, a Class Act for 40 Years; A Murder Leaves Bhutanese Community Grieving; Loved and Loathed, Pumpkin Spice Is Back With a Vengeance
Cover Story
Lost Nation Theater Celebrates 40 Years of Class Acts
In his quest to reunite with his wife, who’s trapped in the underworld, Orpheus enters the stage from a high platform and slides down two long aerial silks suspended from the ceiling. Before Eurydice’s untimely death, the newlyweds had celebrated their love by dancing on the silks in acrobatic fashion, a feat of daring rarely…
Seriously: Queen For a Day
In this episode, drag queen Emoji Nightmare gives Bryan a step-by-step drag transformation and explains what it means to be a queen. Featuring Emoji Nightmare, Jordan Adams, Sasha Goldstein, Cathy Resmer, Carolyn Fox, Ivy Resmer, Conor Lastowka and Lauren Duffy Lastowka CREDITS Written by: Bryan Parmelee Filmed by: Bryan Parmelee, Conor Lastowka, Lauren Duffy Lastowka…
Seven Days Hires Award-Winning Reporter Taylor Dobbs
Award-winning journalist Taylor Dobbs is joining the news team at Vermont’s independent newsweekly, Seven Days. Since September 2013, he’s been a digital reporter at Vermont Public Radio, where he has distinguished himself online and on-air. Dobbs, 27, has won regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for his coverage of the opiate crisis, a quadruple homicide and…
![Lakeview Cemetery Tour [SIV509]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/episode509-4-scaled.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Lakeview Cemetery Tour [SIV509]
10/21/17: Preservation Burlington’s annual Lakeview Cemetery Tour brings history to life at the gravestones of notable Burlington residents. This year they partnered with Friends of Lakeview Cemetery and opened up the Louisa Howard Chapel to visitors. Music: James Scott, “Frog Legs Rag” (1906, piano roll) Johann Sebastian Bach, The Toccata and Fugue in D minor,…
MyFarmersMkt Moves to Groton With Food Hub Plans
In April 2016, Jennifer Bone cofounded MyFarmersMkt in South Ryegate, a business that aggregates local products so that shoppers can buy from their neighbors in one place. One of her original goals for the biz, Bone said, was to offer a commercial kitchen that could operate like a food hub. Now, after moving to a…
Soundfrights: Hell of a Week; It’s Not You, It’s Me
Hell of a Week I’ve heard some people complaining about Halloween falling on a Tuesday this year. Folks mostly whined that it’s a school night or that they have to work early the following morning, which is totally understandable. But I actually prefer a midweek All Hallows’ Eve. When the horrific holiday lands on a…
Letters to the Editor (10/25/17)
Tech Troubles Forgive me for being skeptical of Seven Days’ cheerleading of the tech industry [Tech Issue, October 18]. I just moved here from the San Francisco Bay Area, and I saw firsthand the economic devastation it has wrought there. The Bay Area has become unaffordable for countless people — and the tech industry, with…
Album Review: Boomslang, ‘Attack the Vampire’
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Anyone who knows them will tell you this: Montpelier hip-hop duo Boomslang are great guys. It’s no secret they’ve got a reputation across the state for being supportive, professional and a blast to work with. Vermont Public Radio even ran a feature on them recently, highlighting the fact that they do…
Quick Lit: ‘The Shower Scene from Hamlet’ by Daniel Lusk
Daniel Lusk’s newest volume of poems, The Shower Scene From Hamlet, spans a thousand years, a handful of visual art genres and a veritable encyclopedia of historical characters. While the journey can be exhausting — as most are — it is well worth it. The title provides a few clues to how the reader might approach…
Local Scenesters Confess Their Irrational Fears
I am deathly afraid of spiders. I feel sick at the very presence of an eight-legged creep in my general vicinity, indoors or out. The fear stems from watching the film Arachnophobia when I was in second grade. My parents were overprotective and had only just started letting me watch PG-rated movies; PG-13 flicks would normally…
Free Will Astrology (10/25/17)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “You never sing the same song twice,” said chanteuse Billie Holiday. “If you sing it with all the same phrasing and melody, you’re failing your art.” That’s an extreme statement, but I understand what she was driving at. Repeating yourself too much can be debilitating. That includes trying to draw inspiration…
Drag Queens Turn Pages — and Heads — in Tiny Cambridge
It’s not every day that two drag queens sashay up to the door of the Varnum Memorial Library in Jeffersonville, a village within the small Lamoille County town of Cambridge, for story hour. On a Saturday afternoon last month, the flamboyantly dressed Justin Marsh, aka “Emoji Nightmare,” and “Nikki Champagne” — real name Taylor Small…
Sharing Meals and Cultures at Rockville Market Farm
Hans Rozendaal’s birthday fell on a Thursday this year, which made September 7 — the day he turned 9 — extra fun. Thursday is the day the Rozendaal family and their farm crew have dinner together at their farm, Rockville Market Farm in Starksboro. For Hans’ birthday, his mother made taco salad and baked a…
Phet Keomanyvanh’s Journey from Refugee Camp to City Hall
When Phet Keomanyvanh (pa-et geld-ma-ni-vun) was about 6 years old, she had a frightening experience at school in St. Johnsbury that would shape her later life. Newly arrived from a refugee camp, Keomanyvanh was afraid to use the bathroom at school. During recess, she went to relieve herself “around the corner,” recounted Keomanyvanh. A teacher…
Movie Review: This Tribute Demonstrates Why We Were ‘Lucky’ to Have Harry Dean Stanton
A boney old guy in sagging drawers, cowboy boots and a hat watering a cactus plant. Not a classically dramatic image for a movie poster. But then, the old guy happens to be Harry Dean Stanton. And the movie was conceived by friends as a vehicle for celebrating the iconic actor. All things considered, the…
Art Review: ‘Of Land and Local,’ BCA Center and Shelburne Farms
In Vermont, a show dedicated to art inspired by the local landscape — or by a particular natural element or feature — is no rarity. But “Of Land & Local” is the state’s highest-profile showcase of work that relates to ecology in a decidedly contemporary fashion. The exhibition, a collaborative initiative of Burlington City Arts…
Whistleblowers Share Insights About Vermont Yankee Doc
When Louisiana-based Entergy announced, on August 28, 2013, that it would close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station at the end of 2014, the decision marked the end of a 40-year fight over nuclear energy in Vermont. During VY’s final years, independent filmmaker Robbie Leppzer was there to document the nuke plant’s death throes and…
Movie Review: ‘Geostorm’ Won’t Blow You Away
It’s difficult to enjoy a disaster movie about extreme weather in the wake of a summer of extreme weather. Difficult, too, to enjoy a film premised on the reality of climate change without getting distracted by bitter thoughts about the current political climate. None of that is Geostorm’s fault. What is its fault is that…
Ask Athena: A Man From My Past Reached Out to Me…
Dear Athena, I am married (constantly working on the “happily” part). Recently, out of the blue, a man from my past reached out to me. We have what feels like unfinished business. He expressed regret for ending our (online-only) relationship. Now it has me filled with questions, and I can’t stop thinking about it. It…
Album Review: Henry Jamison, ‘The Wilds’
(Akira Records, CD, digital download) The gents behind Color Study seem to be carving out a niche for the recording studio, record label and artist management company as a go-to creative space for folktronica artists. For instance, Boston duo Tall Heights tracked multiple sessions at the boutique shop in Goshen. More recently, Burlington’s Henry Jamison…
Comedian Mary Mack Talks Music, Writing and Touring With Her Husband
Mary Mack admits that she got into standup comedy “probably for all the wrong reasons.” The comedian was born in Minnesota and grew up in Wisconsin, the youngest of six children — “so no one ever listened to me,” she tells Seven Days. People are listening to her now. Mack and her distinctive midwestern twang…
Theater Review: ‘Gorey Stories,’ Saints & Poets
Like Halloween’s safe little glimmer of menace, Edward Gorey’s stories provide an ironic perch from which to peer at the creepy, decadent and dark. Stephen Currens adapted Gorey’s work for the stage, and Burlington’s Saints and Poets Production Company has added puppets to the cabaret-style musical. The result is a quirky entertainment that captures Gorey’s sinister whimsy. Gorey Stories is now…
Eat This Week, October 25 to 31, 2017: Food Science
Alton Brown, one of the New England Culinary Institute’s most famed graduates, returns to Vermont for a stop on his “Eat Your Science” tour. The celeb chef, author and TV host’s show includes songs, demos and wacky antics. If you show up, be prepared: Brown likes to invite audience volunteers to join him onstage. Alton…
Sound and Fury: Wind Foe Unleashes Blast of Rhetoric
On October 18, a prominent opponent of large-scale wind energy issued a press release to Vermont media that made some pretty serious charges against a lot of prominent people who don’t agree with him. Mark Whitworth, president of Energize Vermont, depicted the “wind industry” as “one of the most corrupting influences in Vermont,” accused members…
Public Officials, Private Accounts: Court Says Documents Stay Public
A Seven Days inquiry has found that some Vermont public officials routinely conduct government business on private phone and email accounts. Public records requests sent to 18 local and state officials last month showed that some rely exclusively on their personal accounts. Last Friday, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that those accounts are subject to…
Cleaver Attack Stuns Vermont’s Bhutanese Community
About 60 people gathered at the Elmwood Meunier Funeral Home in Burlington’s Old North End on October 18 to mourn the violent death of Yogeswari Khadka, a 32-year-old woman who was killed a week earlier just a few blocks away. Bhutanese business owners, an elementary school teacher, mental health professionals and staffers from organizations that…
Gordon Sculpture Park Opens in Monkton
In recent months, visitors to Monkton and passersby may have noticed a curious juxtaposition: Beside an unassuming, dilapidated barn on the Bristol-Monkton Road, a gleaming, space-age pseudo-geodesic dome has appeared. What looks at first like an oversize nugget of chrome turns out to be “D# Echo,” one of the recent additions to the Willowell Foundation’s…
Vermont’s Top Grocery Bagger Is Headed to Vegas for Nationals
A Danby woman took home the title of Vermont’s best grocery bagger Saturday at the University Mall in South Burlington. Brooke Champine beat out 11 other contestants for the chance to compete for a $10,000 top prize at the national championship in Las Vegas in February. “I’m pretty pumped!” Champine, an 18-year-old employee at the…
JAG Productions Wins Regional Theater Award
It’s been a big inaugural year for Upper Valley theater company JAG Productions. Since its inception in 2016, the company has produced August Wilson’s Fences, a classic American play, and the Vermont premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy, a contemporary play. The company has also mounted a play festival, featuring lectures, discussions and readings…
Do Large Crosses Violate Vermont’s Billboard Law?
Traveling along Route 66, many a Vermonter has noticed three large, freestanding crosses on a hillside in Randolph. They’ve been there a while: Bisbee’s hardware store manager Ken Smith says he helped erect the structures about 20 years ago on the property of the then-newly built Green Mountain Gospel Chapel. But are the crosses benign…
Pumpkin Spice Is the Flavor We Love to Hate
On a Thursday evening in October, the entrance to the South Burlington Trader Joe’s boasts a display of pumpkins — oval, round, big, small. Far from perfunctory nods to the season, these are harbingers of what’s to come. Inside the market, lovers of “pumpkin spice” will find a nutmeg- and ginger-scented heaven. For haters, the…
Hong’s Chinese Dumplings Opens Burlington Shop
After 17 years of running a dumpling cart on Church Street Marketplace, Hong Yu has opened a shop — Hong’s Chinese Dumplings — at 77 Pearl Street in Burlington. She’s now selling her signature dumplings in the corner space with big plate-glass windows that formerly housed Radio Deli. “I really love Church Street,” said Yu,…
Tight Squeeze Coffee Shop Changes Hands
Lisa Osornio and Matt Gress, owners of the 3-year-old Tight Squeeze Coffee Shop on College Street in Burlington, are moving on east. The pair are the new proprietors of Moose Muck Coffee House in Colebrook, N.H., right on the Vermont border, which they will run as a full-service food and coffee operation. “We really want…
