Dec 2-8, 2020
WhistlePig Founder Raj Bhakta Buys Green Mountain College — and Takes Poultney’s Fate in His Hands; Burlington High School Students Feel the Impact of Remote Learning; Stowe’s Helen Day Art Center to Rebrand in 2021
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WhistlePig Founder Raj Bhakta’s Purchase of Green Mountain College Places Poultney’s Fate in His Hands
There’s no mistaking who owns Raj Bhakta’s farm. The roof of the tallest barn on his Shoreham property broadcasts his surname in enormous red letters. Last year, the WhistlePig Whiskey founder purchased these remnants of a merino sheep farm, which sit behind a 220-year-old, honey-hued farmhouse along North Orwell Road that a previous owner rebuilt.…
Handy’s Lunch Quietly Celebrates Its 75th Anniversary
Earl Handy closed up his small Burlington diner for the day at about 2:30 p.m. on December 3. On the way out, he paused to offer commentary on some of the pieces of memorabilia that hung in the entryway of the third-generation restaurant. A framed flyer describes the “new charcoal steak room” at Handy’s Lunch,…
The Magnificent 7: Must See, Must Do, December 3 to 9
1. Face Value Who does facial recognition technology help and who does it hurt? By focusing on the work of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini, the 2020 documentary Coded Bias delves into this question — and reveals widespread discrimination in artificial intelligence. Vermont International Film Foundation presents the hard-hitting doc online through December 17.…
Dave Keller, ‘You Get What You Give’
(Self-released, CD, digital) Vermont bluesman Dave Keller has made a career of playing a historically and culturally Black genre. Keller, who is white, acknowledges this up front in his new album, You Get What You Give. The album’s liner notes thank a slew of Black mentors, such as Mighty Sam McClain and Fontella Bass, who…
In Enforcing Pandemic Precautions, Vermont Treads Lightly in Houses of Worship
On Sunday, November 15, two days after Gov. Phil Scott banned social gatherings involving people from different households, Todd Callahan, the pastor of Ignite Church in Williston, reassured his congregation that the new order would not preclude them from gathering for worship. “Someone reached out to see if we were still having church, based on…
Elder Orange, ‘Bricks in the Bathwater’
(Self-released, digital) 2020 has been a cruel year for the music business, but if anyone was prepared to weather this apocalypse, it was the home-studio auteurs of the world. Vermont is full of such hermit wizards, including Bennington-area resident Elder Orange, aka Matthew Scott of the Nektones. His latest offering, Bricks in the Bathwater, is…
What Should I Do With My Deceased Parents’ Photo Albums?
Dear Reverend, Spending so much time at home during lockdown has caused me to go on a decluttering kick. I came across a big box full of photo albums that belonged to my deceased parents — mostly scenic photographs from trips they took. I don’t really want to keep them, but I can’t bring myself…
Helen Day Art Center to Rebrand in 2021
The Helen Day Art Center in Stowe will turn 40 next year. Just in time for middle age, the center will acquire a new name and a new identity. Or at least a “rebrand.” The new name and accompanying rebrand are intended to better convey the work and mission of the center, said Rachel Moore,…
A Local Tech Company Connects Vermonters With Free Meals
Plenty of people and businesses helped feed those less fortunate during Thanksgiving last week. But the need remains. Now there’s an app for that. The team behind Localvore Passport, a subscriber-only platform for restaurant deals, has teamed up with Vermont Everyone Eats, a hunger relief program, to put free meals into people’s hands easily. Funded…
From the Publisher: Pressed for Time
Before the “China virus,” as the current president calls it, we had the “Spanish flu” — named for the only place in the world where journalists openly recorded its toll. So explained John M. Barry, author of The Great Influenza, on a recent episode of NPR’s “On the Media.” Countries still involved in World War…
From Bananas to Boobs, Beenanza Design Creates Eye-Catching Patterns
Bethany Andrews-Nichols has dedicated her life to patterns. Through her Burlington-based business Beenanza Design, she specializes in colorful, graphic motifs and even offers monthly downloads of funky laptop wallpaper. But her very first design job, in Minneapolis, wasn’t quite so artistically oriented. “I did Betty Crocker press kits when they were releasing a new type…
Burlington High School Students Feel the Impact of Remote Learning
Burlington High School senior Parker Ballard misses high-fiving his friends in the hallway and doing hands-on chemistry experiments. First-year student Myriam Huener longs for the time when it was a given that she’d leave her house every day. And sophomore David Mutar wishes he were able to casually ask his math teacher questions when he…
Free Will Astrology (12/2/20)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked,” observed Sagittarian author Jane Austen. She wrote this confession in a letter to her niece, Fanny, whose boyfriend thought that the women characters in Jane’s novels were too naughty. In the coming weeks, I encourage you Sagittarians to regard pictures…
Commercial Drones Are Coming. Noise Experts Say Vermont Should Get Ready
Sometime in the not-too-distant future — think years, not decades — the skies above Vermont will likely hum with swarms of commercial drones completing their appointed rounds. Small, unmanned copters could deliver holiday gifts from Amazon, groceries from Walmart, and medications from CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens. They would be left at people’s doorsteps, much the…
In ‘At Home in the Northern Forest,’ Photographer John Huddleston Documents His Ever-Changing Woods
Almost every day for the better part of a decade, photographer John Huddleston took his camera into the woods around his home in Weybridge and tried to capture the subtle transformation of the forest. He would return to one spot over and over to chronicle the same view through different seasons; sometimes, he trained his…
‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Says More About Hollywood Than It Does About Hillbillies
Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. This week, I watched Ron Howard’s star-studded adaptation of J.D. Vance’s best-selling 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Released last week on Netflix, it’s currently in the streamer’s top 10. The deal J.D. Vance…
Book Review: ‘No More Time,’ Greg Delanty
The latest collection of poems from Saint Michael’s College professor Greg Delanty, No More Time, is many things: a bestiary, an abecedarius, a glittering display of formal craftsmanship. And the book is a fist shaking in the face of humanity’s failure to take meaningful action against mass extinction and eco-collapse. Sound complicated? It’s actually not…
Maxine Linehan’s New Holiday Album Is Intentionally Unconventional
Maxine Linehan knows the holidays can be hard. On her new holiday album, This Time of Year, the Irish-born, Vermont-based performer seeks to acknowledge the emotional struggles that often coincide with the arrival of twinkle lights and Advent calendars. The record simultaneously longs for the past and strives for contentment in the now. That nostalgic…
Letters to the Editor (12/2/20)
Why Shy Vermont conservatives and especially Donald Trump supporters are indeed media shy [From the Publisher: “Talking Cure,” November 11]. At Trump rallies, attendees tell me they won’t talk to any reporters because they perceive bias. For example: • Online comments have been turned off: This decision by many media outlets — including Seven Days…
Small Pleasures: Finding Joy in Delicious Locally Made Bites and Sips
Winter in Vermont can be full of joy: catching snowflakes, bluebird days, the twinkling candles and lights of beloved traditions. It also brings challenges: truncated daylight hours, holiday stress, a whole lot of cold and gray. And this year, we’re approaching a season that likely will present extra trials. In the face of all of…
Café Mamajuana and Poppy Café & Market Bring New Energy to the Old North End
Any business opening is a cause for celebration this year. But when the doors at 88 Oak Street in Burlington opened for not just one but two new hotly anticipated restaurants in early November, it seemed like the universe was throwing a party for all the holiday gatherings we’ve missed. Café Mamajuana and Poppy Café…
Butterworks Farm Cofounder Jack Lazor Dies at 69
Jack Lazor, a pioneer of organic agriculture and cofounder of Butterworks Farm in Westfield with his wife, Anne, died at home around midnight on Saturday, according to their daughter, Christine Lazor. Jack, who was 69, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010 and had been on dialysis for seven years for cancer-related kidney failure. Christine said she and…
