Help us pay for cultural coverage like this by becoming a Seven Days Super Reader. When comedian Tina Friml made her late-night television debut on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in November, she opened with a few gentle barbs at her home state. “I grew up in the ’90s in Vermont,” Friml told the audience at…
Barre Opera House executive director Kurt Thoma has issued his resignation after less than a year on the job, the opera house announced on Tuesday. Thoma, 48, told Seven Days he is leaving the opera house on March 21 to support his 21-year-old stepdaughter, a senior at Georgia State University in Atlanta, as she deals…
Celebration of Life and Remembrances Saturday, March 16, 2024, 11 a.m. Joy Combs, loving wife of 48 years to Sandy Combs of Shelburne, Vt., passed unexpectedly on February 13, 2024. Joy’s Celebration of Life and Remembrances will be held on Saturday, March 16, 2024, 11 a.m., at Stephen C. Gregory and Son Cremation Service, 472…
Gentle soul had a green thumb and loved animals, especially dogs
Master builder shared his knowledge and expertise with those who worked for him
U.S. Navy veteran and passionate fiddler served as fire marshal of the Burlington Fire Department for 30 years
Author, champion of the arts and former United Nations director received the Future of Life Award in 2022 for reducing the risk of nuclear war
In South Burlington on Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley pleaded with Vermonters to help her defeat Donald Trump in Tuesday’s Republican primary, arguing that the nation needs to turn its back on a former president she called “unhinged.” At a well-attended rally in advance of Super Tuesday primary voting, the former governor of South…
Jenise Perez and her four sons prepared this week to move out of their two rooms at the Days Inn in Colchester after a nine-month stay. They rented a compact SUV to hold their belongings. Like others without permanent housing who have been living in rooms paid for by the State of Vermont, the family…
UVM classics professor was deeply devoted to public and professional service
Welder enjoyed a second career as a school bus driver during his retirement
While you may not be here to celebrate your birthday, March 8, you are still in our thoughts. We love you and miss you. Roger, Roxy, Lulu & Zoe
The head monk at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, assured Patrick Leahy that, despite the signs everywhere prohibiting photography, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said it was fine for the Democratic senator from Vermont to take all the photos he liked. After all, they were friends. During that visit in 1988, Leahy recalled in…
Perhaps not since Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” has New Yorker fiction gone as viral as “Cat Person.” (And what did “viral” even mean in 1948?) Kristen Roupenian’s 2017 short story about a college student’s courtship with an older man spoke to legions of women who shared it on social media, touching off fierce debates about…
Hundreds of new rental housing units have been brought online in Vermont with a boost from pandemic-era relief funding, and state officials plan to launch an expanded version of the program next month using state dollars. At a time when high construction costs have made it nearly impossible for small developers to build or renovate…
Major Jackson is a writer who “started talking and reading like crazy” at 3 years old, as he told Chard deNiord, former Vermont poet laureate, in an interview in World Literature Today. The future poet was a quiet kid, “more likely to gravitate to books than go outside.” Getting his first library card, Jackson said,…
new in theaters DUNE: PART TWO: The saga of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and the spice planet Arrakis continues in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s pioneering sci-fi series. With Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem. (166 min, PG-13. Bijou, Capitol, Essex, Majestic, Marquis, Paramount, Roxy, Star) PERFECT DAYS ★★★★1/2 Wim Wenders directed this meditative,…
The emergence of the automobile brought a new sense of freedom, exploration and leisure to American culture. For Black Americans, though, this newfound mobility was frequently accompanied by racism, oppression and violence. In “Sanctuary,” currently on view at the Middlebury College Museum of Art, Brooklyn-based artist Derrick Adams, known for work that explores his Black…
I’m a sucker for a good musical trope. Someone cut a deal with the devil to become a better musician? I’m so there. Oh, damn, two singer-songwriters broke up and are trading breakup albums? Happy Valentine’s Day to me. A dis record between two rappers who were once best friends? I lap that shit up.…
PISCES (Feb. 19-Mar. 20): In old Hawaii, the people loved their deities but also demanded productive results. If a god stopped providing worshipers with what they wanted, they might dismiss him and adopt a replacement. I love that! And I invite you to experiment with a similar approach in the coming weeks. Are your divine…
If you know about drag queens, you probably know about Sasha Velour. She won Season 9 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in 2017, and her final lip-sync to Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional,” wherein she took off her wig to let loose a shower of rose petals, is remembered as one of the most legendary performances in…
Middlebury College students are ready to vote. Like, the most ready. The college ranked first in the Northeast for voter registration in the 2020 presidential election, with 98 percent of students signing up, according to the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University. Participation increased by 23 percent from the 2018 presidential election,…
When Rupert Pupkin, the standup comic played by Robert De Niro in the 1982 film The King of Comedy, says, “Better to be king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime,” there’s a seed of hard truth for aspiring comedians in his words. Sure, Pupkin was a character with mental illness who kidnapped…
Should “bunny huggers” have a say in how Vermont’s hunting and fishing regulations are adopted? Some lawmakers seem to think so, and they appear poised to pull the trigger on the biggest shake-up of Vermont wildlife regulation in decades. A bill to diversify the voices on the state’s 14-member Fish and Wildlife Board is moving…
When Lynda Siegel was growing up, her Jewish mother and aunts played a tile-based game called mah-jongg. The game originated in China in the 19th century, made its way to the West in the 1920s and became popular among Jewish women. Siegel learned to play in 2001 and found it a relaxing break from her…
Dear Reverend, I’m a queer, nearly 40-year-old, pansexual, poly, kinky woman. I have multiple partners at the same time, many of whom also have multiple partners. While most are trusted friends, I do sometimes have casual sex with folks who are — more or less — strangers. Many of my partners are men who sleep…
Love From Decker Towers Thank you for the excellent article [“The Fight for Decker Towers,” February 14] by reporter Derek Brouwer about how unsafe and unsanitary it is here, and how much suffering and frustration everyone involved endures where I live, at the Decker Towers apartment building in Burlington. I am immensely grateful to everyone…
Prior to moving to South Burlington from a Chicago suburb last July, my only exposure to Vermont humor was the clever wordplay of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors (see: Bohemian Raspberry and Yes Pecan!). But I’ve since immersed myself in the state’s comedy scene, recently attending six local shows in just two weeks —…
The recent wave of releases from Vermont artists is only swelling, with tons of fresh music coming across my desk. Let’s check out this week’s new jams, starting with singer-songwriter Phil Cohen. Cohen, who left Vermont for a few years in Brooklyn, is back with new music recorded at Future Fields in Burlington. He released…
(Self-released, digital) Juicebox are one of the most unusual acts in Vermont these days. Part of that is simply lack of competition: We’ve never had a ton of hip-hop acts with a live band. If fact, you could probably count them on one hand, starting with the legendary Belizbeha and the short-lived powerhouse Voice. Juicebox…
Since the opening of Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington in 2015, the Green Mountain State’s comedy scene has come into its own. To get a taste of Vermont’s verbal wit, we profiled four comics who just might be the next to make it big — catch them on local stages around the state, and read…
(Flatiron Recordings, CD, digital, vinyl) One of Nashville’s rising blues-rock talents establishes herself as a force both instrumentally and vocally with the release of her powerful and resounding new LP. On The Prize, Hannah Wicklund uses clairvoyance and intensity to illustrate the emotions of coming into her own as a visionary young adult. Across 10…
I’m a night owl, and my go-to reward after a long day of work is late-night television. I’m overjoyed that Jon Stewart is back on “The Daily Show,” if only on Mondays at 11 p.m. And it’s the rare weeknight that I don’t catch “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” right after the last local…
Everyone leaves something behind when he dies. Michael, your hand and heart touched so many in 73 years. You changed all of us when you were here; none of us is the same now. We are noticeably better.
Cheesemaker Carleton Yoder gets up early, but “I’m not milking,” he said with a grin through his signature bushy salt-and-pepper beard. As he drove to Cornwall’s Severy Farm for milk pickup, just before 7 a.m., sunrise blushed the sky pink. Unlike most small cheesemakers in Vermont, Yoder’s Champlain Valley Creamery is not a farmstead operation…
Since the early days of Vermont’s craft beer boom, all roads have led to Waterbury. As the original home of the Alchemist and now Freak Folk Bier, Prohibition Pig, Big Tree Brewing and the Alchemist’s production facility, the town’s streets have long been lined with hype chasers looking to grab the latest hazy IPA or…
Who knew that broccoli was a party animal? Ahem, make that a party vegetable. Fans of the seasonal, mobile Broccoli Bar did. Operated since 2015 by the team behind Burlington’s two-location Pingala Café, the vividly painted truck arrives at summer festivals and events with a built-in DJ booth and fog machines to accompany its vegan…
Boule Bakery has been a hot spot in St. Johnsbury since its opening in 2021; this spring, its owners will add a restaurant across the street. Darrell and Katey McLaughlin will open Birches in mid- to late April at 397 Railroad Street, the former home of Kingdom Table, which closed permanently in early February. (Kingdom…
Seasonal icy treats will give way to heat when Mexi-Cuban Cravings opens on Friday, March 1, in the wooden food shed just off Five Corners in Essex Junction. Co-owners Jessica and Joel Nevarez bought the small, red-roofed building located in a grassy area at 3 Main Street from East Coast Ice, which operated there for…
Longtime UVM professor and gifted orator was beloved by all who knew her
The Perfect Storm Thursday 29-Sunday 3 In a production full of exquisite costumes and magical multimedia, Vermont Repertory Theatre takes on The Tempest at the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center Black Box Theater in Burlington. Shakespeare’s tale of love, sorcery and revenge follows magicians, monsters and monarchs as they fight to survive on a…
Distinguished neurobiologist, teacher and mentor left an indelible mark on all who knew him
Founder of Tick Tock Jewelers in Burlington was a strong, quiet presence and a caring soul
Middlesex man is mourned by his wife and sons
