Feb 20-26, 2013
From Muddy Waters to Iris DeMent, Vermont-Based Musician and Producer Jim Rooney Recounts a Star-Studded Career; New Art Studios in the South End; Sleep Research at the Sheraton; Locavore Mixology in Hardwick
Cover Story
From Muddy Waters to Iris DeMent, Vermont-based Musician and Producer Jim Rooney Recounts a Star-studded Career
Jim Rooney is seated at a round wooden table in an alcove off the main room of his home in Sharon, Vt. His hands are folded, his long, spindly fingers resting gently on the table’s well-worn surface. Occasionally, his sharp blue eyes drift beyond the row of large picture windows, where a snowy pasture rolls…
News Quirks
Curses, Foiled Again Convicted bank robber Kenneth Conley managed to escape from Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center but was caught 17 days later living at an apartment building in Palos Hills, Ill., that’s located, according to reports, “just steps from Palos Hills police headquarters.” (NBC News) After police arrested Aleasha Haines in Peoria, Ariz., she complained…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the course of her world travels, writer Jane Brunette has seen many wonderful things — as well as a lot of trash. The most beautiful litter, she says, is in Bali. She loves the “woven palm leaf offerings, colorful cloth left from a ceremony, and flowers that dry into exquisite…
Dead Creek Singers, Curmudgeon
(Self-released, digital download) Let’s imagine Beck, Tom Waits and the ghost of Charles Bukowski meet at a bar. After wading through rivers of whiskey, they contemplate the kind of band they would start — y’know, if Chuck were still alive. There’s no shortage of bluntly poetic, lowlife lyrical content about women and the devil. Tom…
Taste Test: Hinesburgh Public House
I made a reservation in a name not my own, but I wasn’t seated long at Hinesburgh Public House before owner Will Patten came to my table to thank me for coming. On my second visit, several days later with another set of friends, chef Shawn Beede came out to chat, too. Wearing a wig…
Theater Review: The Heidi Chronicles at UVM Department of Theatre
Consider the difference between a woman struggling to make a difficult decision and one who appears never to decide at all. The results are similar: little happens. But for an audience, it’s the difference between engagement and distance. In the University of Vermont’s production of Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles, faculty director Peter…
Sleep-Disordered Patients Find Relief at a Burlington Hotel-Cum-Clinic
“I’m Alex. I’m the one who watches people sleep.” And with that introduction, Alex Svayg, a springy, boyish 38-year-old, bounded across the carpeted floor of the hotel room and shook my hand. It was 9 p.m. on a midweek night, and just moments earlier I had crossed the deserted, Muzak-filled lobby of the Sheraton Burlington…
Visiting the Sonic Universe of Producer Colin McCaffrey
Think of a recording studio, and chances are you’ll envision banks of technology, an engineer in headphones and one or more musicians doing their thing behind a sheet of glass. What you probably won’t imagine is the Green Room, the cozy, post-and-beam nook in the woods of East Montpelier. There, on a morning in early…
Middlebury College Senior Corinne Prevot Gets Ahead With Her Hat Biz, Skida
College students these days wear a lot of hats — but not nearly as many as Middlebury senior Corinne Prevot. Last winter season, she sold some 10,000 hats and accessories for alpine and Nordic skiing, and she expects 50 percent growth this year. Forbes magazine has called her an all-star entrepreneur. Prevot’s company, Skida, has…
Grilling the Bartender: Don Horrigan, Positive Pie and Sumptuous Syrups
The pale-yellow drink that Don Horrigan sets down on the bar resembles a mashup of a coconut daiquiri and a miniature terrarium. A green leaf pokes from the rim of the curvy Collins glass, and a charred jalapeño pepper bobs at the foamy top. Turns out this Spicy Basil Paloma is devoid of coconut or…
Letters to the Editor
Smell the Clover House Hello, I am writing in response to your article about the opening of the Lighthouse Restaurant & Lounge [Side Dishes, January 30]. The article states that Doug Simms closed the Clover House restaurant on December 31, 2012; it reads as though the Clover House is no more, but in fact it…
![The Valentine Phantom [301]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/episode301.webp?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
The Valentine Phantom [301]
2/14/13: The Valentine Phantom has been secretly papering downtown Montpelier with hearts every Valentine’s Day since 2002. Eva goes out early Thursday morning hoping to catch the bandit in action but things do not go as she planned. After the town has been transformed with hearts, a transformed-Eva talks to residents about what this unique…
