Feb 13-19, 2019
A Scholarship Program Brings Syrian Students to St. Johnsbury Academy; Blackface History at UVM; Comic Beth Stelling on Her Podcast ‘We Called Your Mom”
Cover Story
Scholarship Program Brings Syrian Students to St. Johnsbury Academy
Majd Alabas, 17, got down on all fours on the wrestling mat at the former Black Bear Tavern & Grille in St. Johnsbury and braced himself. Beside him Ayman Alsalloumi, 18, stood with his hands behind his back. He bent his knees, angled to lean his chest against Majd’s side and scuttled across the room…
Habitat: Backyard Hockey Rink
For Patty Kelly and Jason Gaudette, the coldest months of the year are all about one thing: hockey. When Thanksgiving rolls around, they and their sons — 11-year-old Colton and 8-year-old Lucas — begin prepping their Weathersfield backyard for an ice rink. They put up boards, bolt them together in a rectangular shape, then put…
Skiing Through Life: A Winter Tradition Passes to the Next Generation
Five months before my daughter was born, I strolled through my college town of Crested Butte, Colo. The ski shops offered summer sales, so I looked for skis for my wife, Sarah, and sunglasses for me. While shopping, I stumbled upon a pair of toddler skis. Immediately, I bought those skis. I didn’t care that…
Born to Run: Vermont Sled Dogs Delight, Compete and Educate
One sure way to get kids excited about learning? Make the lesson about dogs. It works for Adrienne Magida. In mid-February, her first and second graders at Waterbury’s Thatcher Brook Primary School will begin a three-week unit that revolves around the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Alaska’s famous 1,000-mile dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome,…
The Cannabis Catch-Up: A Tiger, Mike Tyson and Weed
There were plenty of weird weed stories this week, but there’s one out of Texas that takes the cake. Someone entered an abandoned home in Houston to smoke pot — and found a caged tiger inside. Seriously. The dispatcher who answered the call was, well, pretty incredulous. “We questioned them as to whether they were…
Dinner Via Mr. Delivery in Burlington
The weather delivered the usual — snow, cold and wind — on the Saturday night I decided to eat dinner via Mr. Delivery, a restaurant delivery service. My editor had proposed riding along with a Mr. Delivery driver, but I opted to go user-friendly and give the service itself a shot. Mr. Delivery’s website announces,…
Persian Delights: Eating Iranian in Montréal
Hemela Pourafzal says that if you go to Iran and ask, “Where is a good restaurant?” people will likely tell you, “Don’t go to a restaurant, come to my home.” Pourafzal is the owner of Byblos Le Petit Café in Montréal. Proud of her native country’s culture of hospitality, the energetic 78-year-old added that she…
Vermont A Cappella Group Sends Love With Singing Valentines
Every February 14, the internationally ranked Barre-Tones turn Cupid and visit workplaces, homes and senior living facilities to spread messages of love. The central Vermont-based group splits into quartets that deliver singing valentines to lucky recipients in Washington and Chittenden counties. Along with a song, the women deliver a rose or chocolates and a personalized…
Scarlett Letters: We’re Ready to Have Sex but Worried About Pain
Dear Scarlett, My boyfriend and I have been together for more than a year, and we love each other a lot. We haven’t had sex yet and promised each other we’d wait for Valentine’s Day. We fool around a lot, but when he puts his finger inside of me, it hurts. I assume this is…
Quick Lit: Laurie Essig Busts Romance in ‘Love, Inc.’
Humans have devised a number of clever bulwarks against the meanness of the outside world: memes, weighted blankets, pillow forts, tea infusers shaped like hedgehogs. But, as Laurie Essig argues in her latest book, Love, Inc.: Dating Apps, the Big White Wedding, and Chasing the Happily Neverafter, perhaps our greatest connivance is also the thing…
WTF: Why Are Some People Called for Jury Duty While Others Never Are?
Vermont’s most celebrated poet, Robert Frost, once wrote, “A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.” It’s unclear how much time, if any, Frost himself spent adjudicating attorneys’ acumen. But the Ripton rhymester was known for his fondness for democracy. Frost famously penned a poem for president John F.…
The Mommyheads’ Adam Elk on Success, Failure and Finding an Unexpected Audience
“If you wanna do music, you have to have a really thick skin,” says Adam Elk, front person of the long-running, progressive indie-rock band the Mommyheads. “You have to really wanna take the abuse of not making money for years and years.” Elk speaks from experience, having gotten tantalizingly close to the big time. After…
Movie Review: A Battle of the Sexes Doesn’t Go as Expected in ‘The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’
When The Lego Movie hit theaters in the winter doldrums of 2014, it stunned critics by being self-aware, sophisticated and just plain funny. Now, two lucrative spin-offs later (The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie), everyone from the haughtiest critic to the smallest Lego-loving child is familiar with the comedy style of screenwriting team…
Letters to the Editor (2/13/19)
UVM History Lesson [Re “Historic Blunder? State Halts Repairs to UVM’s Ira Allen Chapel,” January 30]: The comparison between the fraternity Lambda Iota and the Ira Allen Chapel is unfair on many levels. The first and most obvious is that Lambda Iota is not on the National Register for Historic Places while the Ira Allen…
Splitting Chittenden: The County’s Senate District Is on the Chopping Block
Last week, the Vermont Senate approved a bill on a voice vote that would bring an end to the six-member Chittenden County Senate district. No other legislative district in the country is served by so many lawmakers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. All six Chittenden senators supported the bill, and two of…
Crumbling Local Roads Fuel Talk of a Vermont Gas Tax Hike
Chris Viens has watched with dismay as the roads in Waterbury have steadily deteriorated under his feet. His town’s underfunded highway crews, facing greater maintenance needs and stagnant state aid, have for years been spinning their wheels on short-term fixes such as patching potholes instead of building lasting upgrades, he said. Now Viens, an excavation…
Northern Front: Progs See an Opening in Burlington’s Most Conservative District
Kienan Christianson listened politely at 21 Woodbury Road while owner Anna Niemiec dished on several hot Burlington topics: the renovation of City Hall Park, the 14-story CityPlace project, high property taxes. When she had finished, Christianson, a first-time city council candidate, chose his words carefully. He assured Niemiec that the problems she mentioned are “very…
Perky Planet Coffee Now Serving in Burlington
Burlington got a new café last week when Perky Planet Coffee made its debut at 170 St. Paul Street, on the corner of King Street. The café serves coffee, tea and espresso drinks, as well as baked goods such as cookies, cinnamon rolls and quiche. But its larger purpose is to help build relationships between…
Scott André Campbell: Depth and Playfulness in ‘Submission’ for Champlain College
Champlain College’s current artist-in-residence, Scott André Campbell, has been working on “Submission” every day this month. The abstract work is a large triptych of 16-by-5-foot panels; each panel consists of four 4-by-5-foot sections bolted together, with precisely measured gaps in between. It hangs on the side and back walls of the college’s art gallery; the…
Eat This Week, February 13 to 19, 2019: Be Mine
In the hills of Greensboro, near the frozen shores of Caspian Lake, friends and sweethearts trek to the Highland Lodge for an inspired winter feast. In the kitchen, cooks assemble bowls of ginger-beet soup; salads of shaved fennel, pear and Bayley Hazen Blue; pan-seared scallops and couscous; and peppered New York strip with sherried mushrooms.…
Album Review: Eric George, ‘Song of Love’
(Self-released, digital) Burlington singer-songwriter Eric George is known for his acoustic folk, country and Delta blues-style tunes. On Song of Love, his sixth musical release since 2015 and second in the last six months, the Queen City troubadour pulls a Bob Dylan by going full-on electric. George, who leads Radio Bean’s Honky Tonk Tuesday house…
Soundbites: Waking Windows, Yoko Ono and a New Home for Burlington Records
When I was sliding sideways and backwards in my car down Burlington’s Cliff Street during last week’s flash ice storm, I found myself longing for spring. Weird, right? Perhaps it was having to awkwardly hunch over and crouch down to lower my center of gravity as I took baby steps on the frozen sidewalks that…
Album Review: Plastique Mammals, ‘Northern Sound’
(Self-released, cassette, digital) Are you an insomniac? Or are you perhaps an early riser whose mind still floats along on beta waves in the bleary-eyed a.m. hours? Do you take long drives through the country with no destination in mind, just to isolate yourself from the omnipresent press of humanity and let your brain have…
Two Vermont Galleries Take Community Engagement Seriously
Given the constant reminders of a bitterly divided nation, the scads of scandals and investigations, it was refreshing to visit a pair of Vermont arts venues last weekend that actively welcome people. Though they’re at different stages of development, both have positive community engagement in mind. The Milton Artists’ Guild has been around for more…
Free Will Astrology (2/13/19)
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) “A freshness lives deep in me which no one can take from me,” wrote poet Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf. “Something unstilled, unstillable is within me; it wants to be voiced,” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In accordance with your astrological omens, I propose we make those two quotes your mottoes for the…
The 2019 Oscar Nominated Live Action Short Films Offer Creativity and Controversy
As is frequently the case in award season’s home stretch, tension is mounting as controversies rage. As is less frequently the case, the hubbub is being generated by the Oscar shorts race and not the jockeying among features. Think Green Book touched a nerve? Try “Detainment.” In advance of the Academy Awards telecast on February…
In ‘Off Season,’ Cartoonist James Sturm Explores Unions Divided
The publisher’s description of Vermont cartoonist James Sturm’s latest graphic novel, Off Season, starts with a question: “How could this happen?” The query could be in reference to events that trouble the book’s central characters: a married couple’s separation and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory over Hillary Clinton. Through a series of vignettes over 216…
Comedian Beth Stelling on New Podcast ‘We Called Your Mom’
For most kids, few words inspire as much terror as “I’m calling your mother.” Whether it comes from a teacher who’s miffed that you skipped a math assignment or your friend’s parents who’ve discovered you raided their liquor cabinet, the threat of being ratted out to your parents summons the fear of God. Or at…
In Williston, Youth Offenders Face Justice Panel of Peers
Jessica and Ted considered themselves to be more cyber-savvy than many parents. They limited their son’s online activities by not giving him his own smartphone, and they supervised his time on the family’s computer by letting him use it only in the kitchen. They even took a class on internet safety. But the Chittenden County…
Serving Beer and Generosity at Lawson’s Finest Liquids Taproom
“Sharing is caring,” noted Nick Zeeben. He was loading cases of beer into the back of a pickup truck in the parking lot of Lawson’s Finest Liquids in Waitsfield. The 12-case haul, which included beer from Lawson’s and the Alchemist in Stowe, was bound for Manchester, N.H., with Zeeben and his two beer-fetching friends. There…
Feldman’s Opens Shelburne Bagel Shop; Burlington Bagel Bakery Opens Downtown
Feldman’s Bagels will open its third bagel shop and café next month at 2989 Shelburne Road in Shelburne, site of the former Bruegger’s Bagels. The restaurant will make its own bagels, as do the locations on Pine Street in Burlington and North Main Street in St. Albans, according to general manager Ryan Canfield. The menu…
It’s Nearly Go Time at Collaborative Brewing in Waitsfield
The tanks are in at Collaborative Brewing at 264 Mad River Park in Waitsfield. “We’re getting really close to actually being able to brew in here,” brewer-owner Brett Seymour said. If all goes well, Seymour and business partners Steve Parker, Jen Fleckenstein and Craig Isvak plan to fire up the kettle next week; they’ll deliver…
