Dec 14-20, 2016
At 89, Jazz Guitarist Mike Martello Keeps on Swingin’; This Buddhist Monk Is Driving Your Bus; A Norwich University Expert Talks Cyber Security
Cover Story
Jazz Guitarist Mike Martello Is Still Swingin’ at 89
Mike Martello has a favorite story he likes to tell. It’s about the most unusual gig the Vermont jazz guitarist ever played — in December 1945 at a navy hospital in Bainbridge, Md. It wasn’t unique just because he was a patient at the hospital at the time, but because the person for whom he…
Obituary: Don A. Daane, 1946-2016
Don A. Daane of Essex Junction passed away December 9, 2016, in South Burlington, Vt. Don was born in Detroit, Mich., on February 11, 1946, to Dr. Robert and Geraldine Daane. Don married his beloved wife, Carol Ruth Welin, on April 19, 1971, and resided in Rockford, Ill., before moving to Burnsville, Minn. Don and…
Obituary: Karen Schoonmaker Freudenberger, 1956-2016
Karen Freudenberger died unexpectedly but peacefully of heart failure on December 1, 2016. A graduate of Oberlin High School, Ohio in 1973, Karen was from early on a community and environmental activist. As a high school student, she organized the first Earth Day in Oberlin, and after graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1978 she…
The Parmelee Post: Cybersecurity Firm Says Russia May Have Hacked Santa’s List
Good old Saint Nick may want to check his list for a third time this holiday season in light of recent evidence that his infamous naughty/nice database may have been compromised. According to Williston cybersecurity firm Hack My Bits Up, a prolonged, Russia-based cyberattack may have messed with the privacy of Santa Claus’ annual behavioral…
Obituary: Martha Falcone, Berlin
Martha Isabelle Wakefield Falcone died at the Berlin Health and Rehabilitation Center in Barre, Vermont at age 101 after a bout with pneumonia. The daughter of Dr. Arthur Paul Wakefield and Olive Lindsay Wakefield, Martha was born in Luchowfoo China (modern Hefei) where her father ran a medical clinic. Martha attended grade school in Wuchang…
Talking Cyber Security With a Norwich Expert
George Silowash didn’t arrive at Norwich University from a military background, as many of his colleagues and students did. But Silowash, who started work last week as the chief information security officer at Vermont’s only military college, has a unique connection to Vermont and the armed forces. His father, a recently retired physicist, designed the…
Doyle’s Departing the Statehouse, but His Disciples Are Stepping Up
At the end of the first day of class in the fall of 2011, Bill Doyle asked his Johnson State College political science students if one of them could give him a ride home to Montpelier. No one immediately answered, recalled Dylan Giambatista, who was in Doyle’s class. So even though Giambatista lived in Essex…
Design Charrette: A Chance to Practice Architecture
Architects-in-training are usually consigned to detail work while they put in required licensing hours at firms and prepare to take the intricate exams prescribed by the profession. Rarely do they have the opportunity or time to conceive grand ideas — that is, to be architects. Well aware of this pattern, the young members of the…
A Sheldon Museum Exhibit Addresses World Crises
Craft works are patiently and lovingly made by hand, often with the aid of techniques passed down over generations. For many viewers and collectors, they come with associations of leisure, quiet focus and peacefulness. Yet a new exhibition at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury turns to three distinct categories of handmade…
Talking Art With Printmaker Katie Loesel
Artist Katie Loesel moved to Vermont from Boston just three and a half years ago. The Cleveland Institute of Art graduate arrived with her husband fresh from a stint as gallery educator at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In her short time in Vermont, she’s already acquired several jobs — even if some…
Free Will Astrology (12/14/16)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Physicist Stephen Hawking is skeptical of the hypothesis that humans may someday be able to travel through time. To jokingly dramatize his belief, he threw a party for time travelers from the future. Sadly, not a single chrononaut showed up to enjoy the Champagne and hors d’oeuvres Hawking had prepared. Despite…
Help Wanted: Scott Races the Clock to Fill His Cabinet
Asked Monday to identify his greatest challenge before taking office January 5, governor-elect Phil Scott answered without hesitation. “Lack of time,” the construction executive and Republican lieutenant governor told reporters during his first press conference in more than a month. “But, you know, my entire life has been trying to adhere to deadlines and tight…
La Garagista Opens Pop-Up Tavern at Vineyard
Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber are the noted partners behind Woodstock restaurant Osteria Pane e Salute and La Garagista, a biodynamic farm and winery based in Barnard. Come summer 2017, Heekin’s hard-to-find natural wines will gain a new stage in the form of Hart, a pop-up event space in the couple’s home vineyard. Heekin describes…
Team Vermont Snow Sculptors to Defend Championship
Last year, Team Vermont took the gold at the International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colo., a five-day affair that gathers teams from across the globe for an icy showdown. The team’s winning sculpture, titled “Rhonda and Her Recycling Robo-Octopus,” referenced the educational maker movement with its depiction of a young girl and her animated,…
UVM Needs Foreign Students. Will They Come to Trump’s America?
Donald Trump’s election was a “nightmare” for Ahmad El-Achwah. “I woke up the next day, and it felt like doomsday, literally,” the University of Vermont graduate student said last week. “I’m still not over it,” he added with a sigh. As a Muslim who grew up in the Middle East, El-Achwah was offended by Trump’s…
Critical Pricks, Sloblands
(Noreaster Failed Industries, digital download) With a name like Critical Pricks (sometimes listed as CxPx), it wouldn’t be out of the question to think that the Plattsburgh, N.Y.-based quartet is populated by a bunch of confrontational assholes. While confrontational certainly applies, there’s nothing nasty or mean-spirited about Critical Pricks’ songwriting. Quite the opposite, in fact.…
Cabot’s Hooker Mountain Farm Adds Distillery
First came pigs, then grain farming. And last weekend, Cabot’s Hooker Mountain Farm added liquor production and sales to its growing list of enterprises, which also include producing beef, poultry, vegetables and artisan sodas. Many Vermont distillers use local grains in their mash bills; the forthcoming Old Route Two Spirits in Barre, for instance, will…
Grup Anwar, A Syrian Journey: From Damascus to Burlington
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Grup Anwar are a Burlington-based sextet revolving around the leadership of composer and multi-instrumentalist Anwar Diab Agha. Agha moved to Vermont in 2008 from Syria, where he had been studying, playing and composing maqam, an Arabic classical tradition, for a lifetime already. He was part of the Syria National Radio and…
New Rules: Dispute Spotlights How Vermont’s Education Policy Is Set
A week before last month’s election, gubernatorial candidate Phil Scott decried the State Board of Education’s plan to step up regulation of Vermont’s independent schools. It was an uncharacteristically sharp — and specific — statement coming from the controversy-averse politician. Now governor-elect Scott is taking office at a key moment in the debate over the…
Clothier Marilyn Gaul to Close Shop
Over more than three decades of running her eponymously named clothing store, Marilyn Gaul has heard her customers make a lot of pronouncements. She recites a few that are characteristic : “I don’t want sleeveless.” “I’m going to lose 10 pounds.” “It has to be a dress, but I really like pants.” Now, in a…
Manchester by the Sea
In the opening scene of Kenneth Lonergan’s third feature, a trawler burbles unhurriedly into harbor beneath an azure sky. At the wheel is Joe Chandler (Kyle Chandler). Lee (Casey Affleck), his younger brother, horses around with Joe’s young son, Patrick. Because composer Lesley Barber’s ghostly a cappella theme immediately grabs you, it’s possible to miss…
Letters to the Editor (12/14/16)
A Proposal for Middlebury Thank you for the very interesting article about Peter Katz and his work to transform an industrial metal box into a mobile bar unit [“Bars and Beyond: Shipping Containers Inspire a DIY Venture,” November 23]. I made a post-earthquake trip to Christchurch, New Zealand, where the devastation was widespread. To “get…
Miss Sloane
The historical context in which we see a movie shouldn’t matter, yet it does. Early press and PR for Miss Sloane touted it as a film about politics so cold and cynical it would shock us all. Maybe what happened on November 9 raised our shock threshold, or maybe the hype was never justified. Either…
Once Homeless, Stephen Marshall Is Now an Advocate
Stephen Marshall pulled up on his bike, coattail flying, at Champlain Housing Trust in late November. His gray hair escaped in cloud-like puffs from his ponytail as he locked his bike to a parking meter and slipped into a conference room. There, nearly two dozen Burlington nonprofit leaders had already gathered for a Chittenden County…
Soundbites: Monkey (Still in) Business
The conversation on the local scene for the last few weeks has largely centered on the closing of beloved Burlington punk club 242 Main. And frankly, it’s been some depressing shit — compounded by all of the other depressing shit going on in the world. Man, I’m depressed as shit … sigh. Where was I?…
I’m in Love But He Doesn’t Share My Religion
Dear Athena, I’m 18, and there’s this guy who is 17 that I think I’m falling in love with. We have been friends since we were babies. I always thought of him as family. But there is one thing standing between us. I am a strong Christian, and he’s not. I know the Bible says…
A Buddhist Monk Is Driving the Bus
Damber Gurung learned how to be a better human being in the company of the dead. When the Bhutanese man was 16, he spent a winter in a cemetery deep in a jungle near the Khudunabari refugee camp in eastern Nepal. Along with 17 other boys and young men, Gurung underwent intensive Buddhist meditation training…
Stone Leaf Teahouse and the Art of Roasting
Outside Stone Leaf Teahouse at the Marble Works District in Middlebury, a lit brazier filled with homemade charcoal throws off heat and a bit of smoke. John Wetzel, the tearoom’s owner — clad too lightly for the weather in a dark blue button-up shirt, slacks and a pair of sandals over unmatched wool socks —…
Daddy’s Girl
“Hi, I’m John Vasquez. Holly from the car rental agency recommended you. I’m flying into Burlington, due in about an hour. Can you pick me up?” Holly, the manager of a Majestic Car Rental and an all-around lovely person, throws me work now and then, and I love her for it. Over the years, I’ve…
![Muslim Girls Making Change [SIV471]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/episode471.webp?resize=600%2C450&ssl=1)
Muslim Girls Making Change [SIV471]
12/9/16: Muslim Girls Making Change is a slam poetry team composed of four teenage girls: Hawa Adam, Kiran Waqar, Lena Ginawi, and Balkisa Abdikadir. The young poets use words to break down stereotypes and fight for social justice. Not yet a year old, the group has performed across the state, gaining local and international recognition…
Digging Deep on Seth Yacovone’s New Album
The first thing to know about the new Seth Yacovone Band album, Shovel Down, is that it’s not a blues album. In fact, Yacovone has felt pigeonholed as a blues artist for most of his career. Gaining renown as a teenage blues-guitar prodigy will do that. He dropped “Blues” from his band’s name years ago,…
Taste-Testing Monarch & the Milkweed
In recent years, few Queen City restaurant debuts have had as much buzz as Monarch & the Milkweed, which opened at 111 St. Paul Street in August. Part of that buzz stems from the reputations of its principals and staff: Chef-owner Andrew LeStourgeon led Hen of the Wood’s pastry department from 2012 to 2015, following…
Shepherds Pub Brings Savory Pies to the Table in Waitsfield
When Cris Peck and Jason Neimark decided to open a restaurant in Waitsfield, they knew local lamb would figure heavily on the menu. So it seemed serendipitous when the space they found happened to be right beside the Mad River Woolery, a fiber-processing mill and wool store. “Everything just panned out,” says Peck. The 50-seat…
