Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2018
The Week That Changed Vermont’s Gun Politics; Remembering a Flu Season That Was Way Worse; A New Book Shows How to Keep on Rockin’
Cover Story
In Range: The Week That Changed Vermont’s Gun Politics
Gov. Phil Scott was sitting alone in his ceremonial Statehouse office when his top aide walked in and handed him a small stack of papers. “You might want to take a few minutes to read this through,” chief of staff Jason Gibbs told his boss. It was late morning on Friday, February 16. Three days…
Seriously: All Aboard
In this episode, Bryan climbs aboard the USNS Burlington to talk about this year’s Town Meeting Day and presents a prestigious award to one very brave journalist. Register to vote here! CREDITS Written, filmed and edited by: Bryan Parmelee Artwork/photography by: Matthew Thorsen, Katie Jickling, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur, Bryan Parmelee, Dreamstime Logo/art direction by: Don Eggert…
![All Eyes on Eva [SIV522]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/episode522.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
All Eyes on Eva [SIV522]
2/20/18: If you know Eva, you know she loves her glasses and has multiple pairs for every mood. She’s been wearing her specs since she was eleven years old when she had difficulty seeing the chalkboard. Recently, her vision became blurry and she started seeing double – even when wearing glasses. A trip to the…
‘Qyrq Qyz (Forty Girls)’ Honors Warrior Women of Central Asia
When Qyrq Qyz (Forty Girls) premieres at the Hopkins Center for the Arts on Thursday, March 1, Saodat Ismailova, director of the multidisciplinary performance, hopes the audience will be inspired and touched by the piece from distant lands. “It’s a project that [brings] together Central Asian countries,” said Ismailova by phone, “[and] it tries to…
Courageous Stage Uses Theater Arts to Engage Students
If terms like “core literacy” and “integrative arts program” make you yawn, you might want to attend a party this Thursday, March 1, and have your mind changed. It might even make you wish you could do school all over again. The party at Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater, simply called Carnival, promises live music, fire…
Letters to the Editor (2/28/18)
Driscoll — This Time [Re “Infinite Possibility? Mayoral Candidate Culcleasure Aims to Lead From Behind,” February 14]: I find myself strangely heartened to hear Infinite Culcleasure’s campaign is not simply about this election. Though I think his campaign is inspiring and represents some of the best of Burlington, he isn’t getting my vote. I’m glad…
Recalling the Flu Pandemic of 1918
Vermont is in the midst of its worst influenza season since the H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 2009. The Vermont Department of Health reports that the flu is now widespread throughout the state, as it is across most of the nation. As of February 16, at least 84 pediatric deaths nationwide were attributed to the…
Soundbites: Funny Business; Letting it Linger
Communities around the state are gearing up for Town Meeting Day on Tuesday, March 6. You’ve likely been inundated with news and opinions about upcoming local elections and ballot measures, and are (hopefully) well informed on the key issues in your area. In the general spirit of civic-minded discourse, Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington hosted…
At UVM, Musicians and Dancers Put New Spin on Classic Works
Classical music and improvisational dance are unlikely companions. At classical concerts, patrons listen to meticulously composed pieces played by musicians seated in orderly rows on a stage. Improvisational dance fans witness kinesthetic art created in the moment, bound loosely by a preconceived score and often spilling out into the audience. This weekend, these strange bedfellows,…
Movie Review: Absurdist Comedy ‘Game Night’ Plays Ingenious Games With the Audience
“Playing games” has gotten a bad rap in recent decades. Owing to some mystifying semantic mutation, the phrase has become synonymous with disingenuousness and deceit. As originally construed, of course, game playing was anything but trivial, as many a great mind has recognized. “We don’t stop playing because we grow old,” observed George Bernard Shaw.…
Theater Review: ‘Peter and the Starcatcher,’ UVM Department of Theatre
Perhaps the more important question about Peter Pan isn’t how he can fly but why he doesn’t want to grow up. Peter and the Starcatcher proposes an answer. The irreverent prequel to J.M. Barrie’s beloved story sends a 13-year-old orphan on an adventure that requires a child’s courage to survive. The play gives a large…
Movie Review: Cerebral Sci-Fi Flick ‘Annihilation’ Spins a Dazzling Web
Would you choose to live forever if it meant becoming … not you? That’s one of the questions posed by writer-director Alex Garland’s strange sci-fi meditation on creation, destruction and mutation, which comes disguised as a monster movie. Of course, no one familiar with Garland’s previous directorial effort, Ex Machina, or his source material, Jeff…
Burlington’s Growler Garage Switches Gears
Updated Tuesday, March 6: Last week, the final growlers trucked out of Burlington’s Growler Garage. Originally cast as a pub and “filling station,” the downtown spot has dispensed with its retail program. So, no more growlers, and no more cans for sale. The bar will now focus its efforts on draft beer, food and cocktails,…
Departing Barre Mayor Lauzon Looms Large in Race for Successor
During the only debate in their mayoral race, Barre City Councilors Sue Higby and Lucas Herring sounded a lot of similar themes: growing the city’s tax base, attracting new volunteers to local government and improving neighborhoods. But it was what they didn’t say that was perhaps most telling. During the half-hour forum, both candidates seemed…
Eat This Week, February 28 to March 6, 2018: Winter Cooking
Bakery visitors don their aprons for a virtual tour of the old-world countryside with instructor Anna Mays. A four-hour course blends a walk through French culinary history with stops along the way to prepare — and eat — savory puff pastry, cups of creamy celeriac soup, endive salads and an epic cheese plate. Sweet-potato-blueberry crème brûlée…
Town Meeting Sampler: Dispatchers, Mayoral Rights and Climate Change
Every March for 30 years, longtime University of Vermont political science professor Frank Bryan and his students showed up at town meetings around the state to gather data. Over the decades, the prof and his acolytes tallied votes and comments from 60,000 residents at 1,500 meetings. “There’s no place in the world you could study…
Recommended: Monday Night Specials at Sweet Simone’s
My dinner plate held spaghetti with tomato sauce and two kinds of meatballs, green salad, and sautéed Swiss chard — three piles of food arranged Sally-style. Across the table, my friend had a serving of salad. We were eating the same meal at the same restaurant — Monday Night Eats at Sweet Simone’s in Richmond…
With New Book, Taraleigh Weathers Aims to Help You Rock On
Taraleigh Weathers has led many lives. She’s been a professional dancer and tumbler for the New York Knicks. She founded a free Burlington publication called the Healthy Hippie Magazine that ran for about three years. She’s a certified lifestyle and health coach. These days, she’s a yoga teacher, writes for the Huffington Post and has…
Skinny Pancake to Introduce New Menu Items
The Skinny Pancake will debut a new menu at its Burlington waterfront and University of Vermont locations starting March 1, according to a press release. Other Skinny branches will launch the new menu in coming weeks. The changes include the addition of four new savory crêpes and three dessert crêpes, along with a handful of…
Album Review: Full Walrus, ‘hello.’
(Self-released, cassette, digital download, streaming) In a blurb on Bandcamp, Burlington musician Noah Schneidman, who goes by Full Walrus, describes his new album, hello., in simple terms. “This album has songs on it,” he writes. “Those songs took a long time for me to get out. I’m really happy now that they are all here,…
Snowcap Brewing Company Brings on the Cold Coffees
By April 1, Snowcap Brewing Company, headquartered in Colchester, will have two new cold-brew coffees on Vermont shelves. The business already sells a high-test cold-brew with beans from Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia; it has a zippy 280 milligrams of caffeine per bottle. Now Snowcap will offer a gentler “nitro” version made with the same beans,…
Free Will Astrology (2/28/18)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): As you make appointments in the coming months, you could reuse calendars from 2007 and 2001. During those years, all the dates fell on the same days of the week as they do in 2018. On the other hand, Pisces, please don’t try to learn the same lessons you learned in…
Ask Athena: My Boyfriend Doesn’t Like That I Watch Porn
Dear Athena, My boyfriend said he would stop having sex with me if I kept watching porn. I don’t watch a lot of porn, but I do like it — especially when he is away, and I’m alone and horny. He goes away a lot for work (like, for two weeks every month), and I…
Album Review: Bella Voce Women’s Chorus of Vermont, ‘Heart Songs: Music of the World’
(Self-released, CD) Chittenden County and its environs have a preponderance of women who teach singing at area schools, sing professionally or simply love to sing. They tend to end up in Bella Voce Women’s Chorus of Vermont. (Among the latest is opera singer Helen Lyons, a soprano who now lives in Ferrisburgh after three years…
WTF: Why Are More Postal Carriers Working on Sundays?
There was a time when “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” stayed postal couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds — except on Sundays. For much of the modern history of the U.S. Postal Service, Sunday was the day of rest, allowing mail carriers time to attend religious services,…
Inclusionary Visions: Burlington Mayoral Hopefuls Pitch Common Goals, Competing Ideas
The Northgate Apartments cooperative should have been friendly turf for Burlington’s two independent candidates for mayor, especially Carina Driscoll. The co-op is a bastion of affordability in a high-rent city, and Driscoll’s famous stepfather, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), helped keep it that way. When Sanders was Burlington’s mayor in the 1980s, Northgate’s existence was threatened…
Diving Into the EDM Shit Show Hyperglow
I’ve always had a hard time getting into EDM — electronic dance music, that is. Dubstep, one of its most popular subgenres, is known for surging bass lines, breakneck, syncopated rhythms and, of course, “drops” — ecstatic peaks that occur after mounting tension. I generally find the style abrasive, aggressive and devoid of the glamour and…
Work: Yutaka Kono, Musician, Conductor and Tuba Teacher
Name: Yutaka Kono Town: Shelburne Job: Conductor, professor, tuba instructor Yutaka Kono wears many hats in Vermont’s music community. He’s artistic director of the Burlington Chamber Orchestra (read more about that) and conductor of the Vermont Youth Philharmonia, as well as director of orchestra and associate professor of music at the University of Vermont. Kono’s…
Navy Finally Names a Ship After Burlington — Burlington, Vermont, That Is
The U.S. Navy has commissioned a ship named for Burlington, Vt. — decades after the Navy named one for Burlington, Iowa. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and his wife, Marcelle, were on hand Saturday in Mobile, Ala., to officially christen the expeditionary fast transport ship. The senator introduced his wife, who then smashed a bottle of…
Art Review: ‘Puppets: World on a String,’ Shelburne Museum
The puppet can be an old sock pulled over a hand, an intricate kinetic sculpture or a piece of paper throwing its shadow on a wall. Utilitarian to their core, puppets are meant to be used, often in service of telling populist stories, be they fairy tale or political allegory. Puppets sit squarely between material…
The Friendly Toast to Open on Burlington’s St. Paul Street
The fifth location of a regional restaurant chain called the Friendly Toast will open in late spring at 86 St. Paul Street in Burlington, according to co-owner Eric Goodwin. The restaurant will occupy the space that previously housed Bluebird Tavern and the Green Room. The local Friendly Toast will join a group of restaurants that…
Old Growth Alchemy Turns Local Herbs Into Cordials
Kingsfoil Salve is one of the products you’ll find on the Etsy store for Old Growth Alchemy, a Burlington business specializing in herbal bitters, teas, botanical syrups, incense, body oils and cordials. The ointment, with a base of olive oil and beeswax, sounds self-explanatory: It’s made from a plant called kingsfoil, right? Nope. Kingsfoil doesn’t…
