Dec 1-7, 2021
The History and Uncertain Future of Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium; Vermont-Trained Skier Mikaela Shiffrin Wins Again in Killington; Attorney Emily Kenyon Returns to Vermont to Represent Low-Wage Workers
Cover Story
The History and Uncertain Future of Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium
Burlington’s mayor spent three years campaigning for his vision of Memorial Auditorium, battling political rivals, cajoling impatient residents and confronting the building’s rising cost. For a time, it seemed his plans were doomed. No, that mayor was not incumbent Miro Weinberger, who has grappled with Memorial Auditorium issues for much of his decade in office.…
Clean: ‘Comfortable With Discomfort’ (12/6/21)
The robust smell of garlic mashed potatoes lingered in the air as a strong gust of wind rattled the eaves of my apartment in East Arlington. I was three years sober, and I was enjoying a quiet evening at home. It had been three weeks since I had completed my first live performance as a…
Obituary: Thomas Parker Morse, 1980-2021
Eighth-generation sugar maker was a true Renaissance man
Obituary: William Craig Metcalfe, 1935-2021
Pioneer in the field of Canadian studies was also an accomplished musician honored for his outstanding achievements
Obituary: Laurel Allen, 1954-2021
Winooski woman was always willing to help others who were less fortunate than her
Obituary: Ellen Sabo Morris, 1951-2021
Lifelong educator embraced adventure and her greatest passion: skydiving
Missing Mail, Crowded Post Offices: A Federal Agency’s Woes Touch Down in Vermont
As the holiday season approaches, Vermont post offices are struggling with staff shortages that customers blame for gaps in mail delivery, unscheduled post office closures and long waits at crowded counters. For months, Vermonters have taken to Front Porch Forum to find the owners of misdelivered packages that they’ve received or their own missing mail.…
Free Will Astrology (12/1/21)
SAGITTARIUS(Nov. 22-Dec. 21) “All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path,” wrote Norwegian Danish novelist Sigrid Undset. I think she succeeded in doing both. She won a Nobel Prize for Literature. Her trilogy about a 14th-century Norwegian woman was translated into 80 languages. I…
Art Review: Cathy Cone Layers Past and Present in ‘There Was Once’ at Minema Gallery
Like visual analogues of a foreign language, Cathy Cone’s black-and-white photographs elude easy interpretation. Viewers might find themselves wondering what happened just before an image was created, or whether clues to the mystery lurk beyond the frame. What are we to make of, for example, the tableau in “Setting Place”? Shot from directly overhead, a…
Now Playing in Theaters: December 1-7
new in theaters C’MON C’MON: Joaquin Phoenix plays a traveling radio journalist who finds himself becoming his young nephew’s guardian in this indie drama from writer-director Mike Mills (20th Century Women). (108 min, R. Roxy, Savoy) now playing BELFAST ★★★★ Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed this semi-autobiographical film about coming of age in the turbulent…
Letters to the Editor (12/1/21)
Buck Stops Here James Buck is a badass with a huge heart [802Much: “Friendly Skies,” November 24; From the Publisher: “View Finder,” October 27]. The world could use more people like him! Ginger Vieira Essex Junction Puritanical Plates [Re WTF: “How Does the DMV Decide If a Vanity Plate Is Too Rude for the Road?”…
Middlebury Acting Company’s Melissa Lourie Brings Cutting-Edge Theater to Vermont
Melissa Lourie seems to know everyone in Weybridge. While volunteering at the town’s recycling center, which she oversees some Saturday mornings, she calls many locals by name. She jumps into casual conversations easily, as if picking up an earlier narrative thread. The lifelong thespian’s social fluency isn’t surprising. Not only has Lourie spent plenty of…
Ben Wheatley’s Eco-Horror Film ‘In the Earth’ Doesn’t Dig Deep Enough
Horror tales often involve powerful forces working underground. Mycorrhizae, or symbiotic relationships between plant roots and fungi, fit the bill. Given that mycorrhizae are non-sentient and benign, however — ecologists tout their soil-enhancing properties — they make an unlikely star for a horror movie. That didn’t stop Ben Wheatley, who wrote and directed this trippy…
A Walking Tour of Bennington College Reveals a Rich Architectural Legacy
Bennington College was once known as “the college in a barn,” but there’s nothing hidebound about this rural school. Progressive from its inception, the college began offering human reproduction classes to its then all-female student body in 1940. That progressive orientation hasn’t changed; today, students create their own majors and can choose to earn evaluations…
Middlebury’s Treeline Terrains Marries Art and Tech to Craft 3D Landscapes
Thin blue lines wind across the slab of hardwood, clearly suggesting the curving shores of a lake. Rising from the shoreline, detailed carvings capture the peaks and valleys of the Adirondack Mountains. This intricate model of Lake Champlain and its surroundings is the work of Treeline Terrains, a budding company founded by recent Middlebury College…
A Comic Lark Turns Into the (Tiny) Burlington Museum of Natural History
Compared to museums in other parts of the country, Vermont’s tend to be relatively small. But the Burlington Museum of Natural History, a sidewalk shadow-box installation measuring about two cubic feet, makes small institutions such as the Rokeby Museum or the Montshire Museum of Science look massive by comparison. Its origin story is fairly short.…
From the Publisher: Leftovers
Southbound Interstate 89 looked pretty good on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It had been a long time since my partner and I had rolled down that ribbon of highway to the land of the pilgrims, his home state, past so many familiar landmarks: White River Junction’s imposing veterans hospital on the hill, the roadside Whaleback…
Hometown Hero: Vermont-Trained Skier Mikaela Shiffrin Wins Again in Killington
“This is not ‘hero snow,'” Tina Weirather said as she gazed out the window on Saturday at a grayish curtain of freezing fog hiding a ski slope. “This is the opposite of hero snow.” Weirather was surveying the Superstar race course at the Killington Resort ski complex where, in an hour, the FIS Alpine Ski…
A New Generation Explodes Onto Burlington’s Hip-Hop Scene
On Saturday, November 6, Burlington’s ArtsRiot was packed to capacity. The occasion was a hip-hop showcase organized by New York City-based music video director Kelly Butts-Spirito, who has built a platform on YouTube and Instagram under his Love, Kelly brand. He assembled a stacked lineup, putting viral Atlanta stars Zaia and KBFR alongside young Burlington…
Attorney Emily Kenyon Returns to Vermont to Represent Low-Wage Workers
When Fletcher Joestar of Stowe left her job in March 2020, she expected to start a new one three days later as a production coordinator for musician James Taylor. Then the entire tour was postponed due to the pandemic, leaving Joestar out of a job for the foreseeable future. Because her employment in the music…
Repelican, ‘Tough Light’
(Self-released, digital) The mood on Repelican’s new EP, Tough Light, recalls sitting around a bonfire or taking a dip in an outdoor hot tub in January. The five-track collection of psychedelic folk-rock churns and simmers, yet it keeps something dark and still at bay. Its heat cocoons the listener from cold and darkness, which circle…
Oh, Goddard: The Beleaguered College Reckons With Its Latest President
This story was corrected and updated on December 9, 2021. Kailina Mills, a 2018 graduate of Goddard College, spent countless hours over the past year planning her alma mater’s Alumni Weekend, which was scheduled to take place in early October on the college’s tiny, rustic Plainfield campus. This year’s celebration would have marked the first…
Flypaper Scissors, ‘Life After Tomorrow’
(Self-released, digital) “Evolution has come to weed us out!” screams Flypaper Scissors singer/multi-instrumentalist E.D. Friedman on “Modern People.” The first track on Life After Tomorrow, Friedman’s latest LP under the Flypaper Scissors moniker, the song is something of a fake-out, a nod toward pop and R&B on a record that sits a lot closer to…
My Elderly Mother Wants Our Family to Gather for Christmas, but We Don’t Get Along
Dear Reverend, I’m the youngest of five children. My siblings have complicated relationships, and we haven’t had a real family gathering in a very long time. My father passed away many years ago, and my mother is 87 years old now. She would love to have us all together for Christmas like in the old…
City Of Burlington: Section 4 Location Of Yield-Right-Of-Way Signs
City Of Burlington In The Year Two Thousand Twenty-One. A Regulation In Relation To Rules And Regulations Of The Traffic Commission— Section 4 Location Of Yield-Right-Of-Way Signs. Sponsor(s): Department of Public Works Action: __Approved___ Date: __11/17/2021__ Attestation of Adoption: ___ Phillip Peterson EI Public Works Engineer, Technical Services Published: 12/01/21 Effective: 12/22/21 It is hereby…
The Tillerman Fires Up With Pizza and More in Bristol
Most mornings, the wood-fired oven at the Tillerman hovers around 500 degrees Fahrenheit. The residual heat is a reminder of the fluffy, whole-grain pizzas that blistered on its deck during the previous night’s service, when the oven was cranked up to 800. “The oven is the first thing you see when you walk in,” chef…
St. Albans Culinary Instructor and Food Network Contestant Shares Holiday Baking Tips
Chef Adam Monette Position: Culinary arts chef-instructor, Northwest Career & Technical Center; and Food Network’s “Holiday Baking Championship” contestant Location: St. Albans Age: 35 Education: New England Culinary Institute, associate’s degree in baking and pastry arts and bachelor’s degree in culinary arts Experience Highlights: Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe; Bistro de Margot, Burlington; Home Hill Inn,…
Pearl Street Pizza to Open in Barre’s AR Market
When Stefano Coppola and Wilson Ballantyne purchased a light blue, handmade Stefano Ferrara Forni brick oven in April, they put it in storage. Although the two New England Culinary Institute grads had toyed with the idea of opening a pizza business for years, they didn’t have a location in mind. “We both wanted to do…
The Magnificent 7: Must See, Must Do, December 1 to 7
See the Light Saturday 4 Schoolchildren across Waterbury may already be working on their lanterns for A River of Light, but it isn’t too late for everyone else to get in on the action. The annual tradition provides ample opportunity for participation, from the lit-up parade that kicks off from the State Office Complex to…
