Help us pay for in-depth stories like this one by becoming a Seven Days Super Reader. The asphalt on pit road sizzled as a hard rain fell on Thunder Road International Speedbowl in Barre. Just 10 minutes before the scheduled start of last month’s 46th running of the Vermont Governor’s Cup 150, driver Taylor Hoar and her…
Tim Hayes, an internationally acclaimed equestrian, author and longtime instructor at Vermont State University in Johnson, died on August 17 of complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 80. Hayes harnessed the ability of horses to transform the lives of those who were wrestling with lifelong physical and emotional traumas — including himself. When Hayes’ wife,…
Timothy Barnaby Hayes passed peacefully at his home in Johnson, Vt., on August 17, 2025, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was born February 12, 1945, in Greenwich Village, N.Y., the son of the late Shirley and James Hayes. Tim is survived by his wife, Stephanie; son, Richard Hayes; stepdaughters, Tori Lockhart and Eliza…
Judith “Judy” Simpson Olsen, 78, died on Wednesday, August 13, 2025, surrounded by family, after a years long journey with Alzheimer’s disease. Memorial services will be held on Saturday, September 27, 10 a.m., at the Federated Church of Rochester, 15 North Main St., Rochester, VT, with burial at Woodlawn Cemetery immediately following the service. Reception…
Deborah Butterfield Galbraith, of Shelburne, Vt., died in her residence at Wake Robin on August 16, 2025. Born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pa., in 1939 to Right Reverend Harvey Dean Butterfield and Carolyn Whitney Butterfield, she moved with her parents and older brother, Whit, back to her parents’ home state of Vermont when…
Francis Walter Kazak was born in Springfield, Vt., on February 7, 1942. As the son of Veronica Janowski and Walter Kazak, he grew up in Springfield and Cavendish in the heyday of the machine tool industry, where the extended family of Polish Russian heritage were hardworking individuals as farmers, manufacturing plant workers and grocery store…
We’ve entered Hollywood’s end-of-summer doldrums, a good time to check out indie fare (don’t miss this weekend’s Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival) and catch up on TV. For me, that meant watching three recent female-created comedy series about women who are, for lack of a better term, “messy.” Not only are the heroines of these shows…
new in theaters HONEY DON’T! A small-town private investigator (Margaret Qualley) looks into deaths related to an enigmatic church in this dark comedy from director Ethan Coen. Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans also star. (88 min, R. Capitol, Essex, Majestic) NE ZHA II: One resurrected friend must carry the other’s spirit into battle in this…
How do you turn $100 into $25,000? That vexing question, on the lips of every nonprofit board chair and development director in Vermont these days, has an answer: giving circles. Four times a year, a group called 100+ Women Who Care-Chittenden County collects a C-note from each of its members and doles out the total…
We tend to use the word “sublime” to mean something that’s exceptionally good, as in “That maple creemee was sublime.” But like its “awesome” cousin, the word’s full definition is bigger and more complicated, encompassing both beauty and terror. To experience the sublime is to sense one’s own powerlessness in the face of an infinite…
When you think of an art unveiling, you might not envision it taking place in the blazing-hot sunshine of a busy grocery store parking lot at rush hour on a Monday afternoon. But that’s exactly what happened last week, when a crowd of warm but thoroughly joyful artists and community members gathered to celebrate “Why…
By the ruins of an old rake factory, chanterelle mushrooms glow gold among the creek-bed shrubbery. Nearby, a wattle fence, the kind made by weaving slender branches around staves, keeps wandering chickens in line. And in a shady nook not far from a classic Vermont farmhouse and vegetable garden stands the newly built Middle Son…
August is hot, but also everything is starting to turn brown and die, and the only thing to do under these conditions is stare into the middle distance and sigh at intervals. We’d wager about $7 that if you drew up a little chart showing how many words the average person speaks during each month…
‘Lucky to Have Seven Days’ I was in Burlington recently to pick up one of my daughters and grabbed the Connections Issue of Seven Days [July 23]. A day later, I found myself sitting by my pool, reading it for over an hour and loving it! I not only loved the idea of the issue,…
I hate the fucking Eagles, man. Ah, you think I’m quoting The Big Lebowski? Please. I’ve been hating on the Southern California ’70s rock band since the day I was born. A born hater, if you will. I have it on suspect authority that my first words were “Glenn Frey sucks.” (No, no, please don’t…
Do you want to be in the Guinness World Records? Better get out the dancing shoes. This Tuesday, August 26, at the Champlain Valley Fair in Essex Junction, a host of local musicians will attempt to stage the largest square dance in history. Led by guitarist Bob Wagner and featuring Phish bassist Mike Gordon, singer-songwriter…
(Self-released, CD, digital) “Endure” might be the watchword for 2025 — at least for people experiencing the brunt of the nation’s well-documented slide into authoritarianism. As vulnerable groups’ rights are stripped away, their identities erased, how much can people really take? Burlington synth aficionado Nathan Meunier, who makes music as Burial Woods, ponders this question…
LEO (Jul. 23-Aug. 22): In traditional Chinese medicine, the heart is the seat of joy. It’s also the sovereign that listens to the wisdom of the other organs before acting. Dear Leo, as you cross the threshold from attracting novelty to building stability, I encourage you to cultivate extra heart-centered leadership, both for yourself and…
(AfterLyfe Music, CD, digital) Current Events, the debut LP from rapper, producer, recording engineer and industry mogul Nastee, could be the single most long-awaited album in the history of Vermont hip-hop. It’s a follow-up to his mixtape The Album B4 the Album, which dropped in … 2009. That’s back when VT Union, his collective with…
Dear Reverend, My partner and I have been together a long time. Everything is great, and we never argue — except about one thing. Every time he poops, he lights a match. He insists that it gets rid of the odor, but I think it just makes the bathroom smell like a burnt turd. On…
“Tell me about the risotto dish,” La Reprise owner Ari Sadri prompted customer Steve Pace. The Burlington resident had stopped by Sadri’s new South End wine shop, market and wine bar on a recent Friday for wine to serve dinner guests that evening, and Sadri was asking him questions to help guide the choices. Sadri…
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I wound through the former Goddard College campus in search of the newly opened Haybarn Restaurant and Lounge. Now called the Creative Campus at Goddard, the 130-acre property belongs to Execusuite, a New Hampshire-based developer, and is home to various youth programs, the food distribution business Farmers to…
The Hindquarter team has cooked wood-fired feasts for hundreds of catered events around Vermont. Now, chef-owner Luke Stone has taken his grill game a step further: He’s selling them. After a decade of wedding attendees asking where they could purchase one of the five-foot steel grills on which the Hindquarter team cooks, Stone and his…
Filibuster Restaurant & Bar, a breakfast, lunch and dinner spot at 45 State Street in Montpelier, has closed. Its final day was Sunday, August 17. An announcement on social media last week cited “significant economic damages” from flooding, “decreased foot traffic due to remote state workers,” and recent construction as reasons for the closure. Owner…
Bike Hike Thursday 21 Once upon a time, director Tim Burton and composer Danny Elfman were just starting out. Unfathomable, no? This week’s edition of Flicks in the Park brings the dynamic duo’s 1985 debut feature, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, to the big screen at Burlington’s City Hall Park. Cinephiles settle in under the stars to…
Down a dirt road in Albany surrounded by fields of burdock, Vasilios Gletsos brews one-of-a-kind beers using a wood-fired copper kettle, locally foraged ingredients and a beer cave 15 feet underground. Gletsos, 47, moved to Vermont to join Bread and Puppet Theater in 2001, then founded Wunderkammer Biermanufaktur in 2016; it remains his solo project. Wunderkammer…
