Jul 11-17, 2018
Give and Take: A Special Report on Vermont Nonprofits, Part 4; Seven Vermonters Play Tourist in Their Own State; Shelburne Museum Exhibit ‘Playing Cowboy’ Examines How the West Was Bought
Cover Story
Seven Vermonters Play Tourist in Their Own State
You’ve probably heard the phrase “No man is a hero in his own country,” coined by Australian World War I commander John Monash. Well, here’s a related sentiment, updated and de-gendered: No one is a tourist in their own state. That’s not strictly or always true, of course. But it’s practically a maxim that many…
Obituary: Dorothy Carpenter, 1926-2018
Burlington A celebration of the life of Dorothy Frazer Carpenter will be held Monday, July 23, 2018, 2:30 p.m., at the College Street Congregational Church at 265 College Street in Burlington. A reception will follow at the Burlington Country Club at 568 South Prospect Street in Burlington. Dotsy died on June 15, 2018, at the…
Obituary: Eric Woodman Rozendaal, 1967-2018
Starksboro Eric Woodman Rozendaal left this world, his family and countless friends far too soon. He was vacationing in the Bahamas with his beloved wife, Keenann, and their adored son, Hans, when he collapsed and died after going on a morning run. Eric was 51 years old. Although a true Vermonter, Eric was born in…
The Cannabis Catch-Up: Weed’s Legal — Now What?
We’re about two weeks into Vermont’s grand experiment with legalized recreational cannabis. So far, all hell has not broken loose. Sure, maybe that uncle you always suspected smoked some dank has now actually confirmed that he pulls on the pipe. But life continues. If anything, legalization has given rise to a new breed of entrepreneur.…
Quick Lit Book Review: ‘How It Is: Selected Poems’ by Neil Shepard
Every book is a new adventure — or something like that — but Neil Shepard’s How It Is: Selected Poems gathers an unusually large number of adventures in one place. The collection of mostly free-verse poems spans 22 years, draws inspiration from trips around the world, and explores illness, death, adulthood and racism (separately, for…
Soundbites: Rock the Vote; She Shreds
Ever since Beyoncé surprise-released her late-2013 self-titled album — you know, the one that broke the internet — dropping a new body of work completely unannounced has become a sort of status symbol. Queen Bey proved that once you reach a certain point of fame and prosperity, you don’t really need to prep people for your…
Hackie: Montréal Two-Step
“Where do you live?” Border guards are intimidating by design and training. With all the Montréal trips I take, you’d think by now I’d be used to the routine. But the moment I pull up to the booth, I’m certain my cabbie cover story will fall apart, unmasking my true identity: drug smuggler, gun runner,…
Art Review: ‘Playing Cowboy,’ Shelburne Museum
Decades before the French gifted America with the Statue of Liberty, the human-powered machinations of “manifest destiny” were at work claiming land where certain people could feel free. Newly opened at the Shelburne Museum’s Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education, “Playing Cowboy” examines a fundamental cog in that violent apparatus: the myths of cowboys and…
The Third Stowe Jewish Film Fest Begins With ‘Monkey Business’
Who knew that the “parents” of Curious George were German Jews who escaped the Holocaust? Hans and Margret Rey developed the first tale about the mischievous little chimpanzee as they were fleeing the Nazis in 1940. The couple, who eventually ended up in the U.S., went on to create seven Curious George books. The series…
Theater Review: ‘Fun Home,’ Weston Playhouse
So many forces keep Fun Home aloft that listing them threatens to emphasize the mechanical side instead of celebrating the exuberant emotional effect. The 2015 Tony Award-winning musical flies from joy to sorrow, explores themes of family dynamics and sexual identity, and innovates storytelling itself. It can be silly, and it can take your breath…
Massachusetts Republican John Kingston Runs a Christian Retreat in Vermont
Before Massachusetts Republican John Kingston started spending his millions on a campaign to defeat Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in this fall’s midterm election, he established a “creative sanctuary” on a farm near Woodstock, Vt., and loaned it $4 million of his own money. Kingston’s focus, outside politics, is the multistate Sword & Spoon Group. That’s…
Vermont Youth Dancers Have a Passion for Performing
Attending a Vermont Youth Dancers show is an adventure in the unexpected. The name might suggest something akin to a dance recital — a series of unconnected dance numbers by youth of various ages and artistic interests. But the company’s most recent show, Castle on the Hill: A Tale of King Arthur, was a carefully…
Weybridge Hosts a Community Haiku Competition
Last Saturday, author Julia Alvarez stood at the head of a column of folding tables shaded by a small collapsible tent outside Weybridge Elementary School. Some 15 people joined her from the 165 present at the annual town picnic. “It’s always a small crowd, poetry lovers,” she said with a chuckle into the microphone. The group…
Burlington Man Tries Every Trick in Search for Missing Kitty
When Orson Bradford’s brown tabby, Lumen, ran off last November, the Burlington resident was heartbroken. So it was only natural that he has spared no expense trying to find his missing pet. He twice hired a woman with a bloodhound to track the kitty, installed infrared game cameras outside his Woodlawn Road home and throughout…
Blue Cross Blue Shield Collects Millions From Vermonters Each Month. It’s Also a Nonprofit
“We’re not a typical nonprofit,” company spokesperson Sara Teachout said of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont. But that’s how the state classifies the locally incorporated insurance company that collects millions of dollars from Vermonters each month — mostly through payroll deductions — to protect them against health care calamity. Its CEO earns more than half a…
Provocateur, Candidate: James Ehlers’ History of Rhetorical Excess
Gubernatorial candidate James Ehlers has claimed to be the progressive choice in the four-way Democratic primary, positioning himself as a fighter for the environment and the interests of working Vermonters. But he has a long record of writings and statements that cast doubt on his progressive bona fides. On a series of issues — from…
Movie Review: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Offers Only Microscopic Fun
The suits at Disney mean to have their cake and eat it, too. At any rate, their Ant-Man and Deadpool, too. The Marvelverse, being a construct in which comic-book characters enact dramas and tragedies of faux-Shakespearean graveness, can get heavy. As a counterweight to all the spandex Sturm und Drang, the company’s business plan requires…
Meet the ‘Frequent Fliers’ of Vermont’s Nonprofit Boards
The executive directors who run Vermont’s nonprofits are paid for their efforts. The people who hire and fire them, however, are mostly volunteers. No database can calculate the value of the board members who function as organizational overseers of Vermont’s nonprofit sector. Generally, they are expected to give generously, help with fundraising or offer in-kind…
Movie Review: B-Movie Thrills Get Political in ‘The First Purge’
When I reviewed the cheesy dystopian thriller The Purge in 2013, I never dreamed it would still be spawning sequels five years later. Or that the fourth installment would preach resistance using none-too-subtle references to current events. True, the premise of the Purge movies was always as politically charged as it was outlandish. In near-future…
Album Review: Miku Daza, ‘It’s a Fairy Tale’
(Self-released, digital download) Thanks to Disney, we associate fairy tales with helpful, talking animals; true love; and happy endings full of Technicolor wonderment. But fairy tales were originally much darker before the House of Mouse saw dollar signs in the works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Clearly fans of the classics, Burlington-based carnival-punks…
Album Review: David Rosane & the Zookeepers, ‘Book of ZOO’
(Self-released, CD, digital download) David Rosane is a singer and songwriter from Bradford whose colorful career has extended from the Amazon jungle to the Occupy movement in New York City. His backup band and arrangement team, the Zookeepers, centers on the duo of Don Sinclair and Jennifer Grossi, both talented multi-instrumentalists. Over their past three…
Some Vermont Nonprofits Loan Money to Employees and Board Members
Retired schoolteacher Casey Murrow is known as the son of legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. The younger Murrow stood out for another reason when Seven Days examined loans that Vermont-based nonprofits gave to employees and board members: He received more than $300,000 in loans from the education-related nonprofit he ran for more than a…
Theater Review: ‘The Mousetrap,’ Saint Michael’s Playhouse
In a murder mystery, characters must assess each other with the right balance of suspicion and trust. So do audience members trying to solve the puzzle of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, a play that sets viewers hunting for both the murderer and the next victim. The Saint Michael’s Playhouse production burnishes the dry British humor…
Letters to the Editor (7/11/18)
How Much Marijuana? On the matter of just how much cannabis Vermonters can possess at any one time as a result of Act 86, your staff may have possibly been overindulging when they researched the issue for your “Puff Piece” [June 27]. Section 3, Part 6, which outlines the new legal possession limits, states that…
Free Will Astrology (7/11/18)
CANCER (June 21-July 22): I pay tribute to your dizzying courage, you wise fool. I stage-whisper “Congratulations!” as you slip away from your hypnotic routine and wander out to the edge of mysterious joy. With a crazy grin of encouragement and my fist pressed against my chest, I salute your efforts to transcend your past.…
Scarlett Letters: Can Long-Distance Relationships Really Work?
Dear Scarlett, I have been single for a long time. I finally met a woman who is also single and my age, though unfortunately she lives a plane ride away. We’ve been together for a few months, and I think the relationship has a lot of potential. She has stayed with me a few times…
Nonprofit News: The Rise of Vermont Public Media
Henry Epp is used to reading his scripts alone, perched over a soundboard in a windowless studio in Vermont Public Radio’s Colchester headquarters. But on a recent Thursday afternoon, the local “All Things Considered” host had an in-person audience to please — and a new medium to master. Standing at the edge of VPR’s cavernous…
Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner on Directing, Proms and Korean Food
Smell and taste are perhaps the most visceral of human senses and can often evoke strong reactions, emotions and memories. Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner details how delving into cooking helped her process the sudden death of her mother in an award-winning essay written for Glamour. Learning to make galbi ssam and various banchan — traditional…
Obituary: J. Brooks Buxton, 1934-2018
Jericho On Monday, July 9, Vermont lost one of its beloved sons — an ardent and loyal defender of the state’s material culture and historical record, as well as a generous and resourceful benefactor who routinely gifted Vermont institutions with the treasures he collected. Born in 1934, J. Brooks Buxton was a seventh-generation Vermonter who…
Eden Specialty Ciders Brings Bar to Winooski
In Vermont, August marks the beginning of the apple harvest. This year, it’ll bring a new apple to the Onion City, when Newport-based Eden Specialty Ciders opens the Eden Boutique Taproom & Cheese Bar at 45 Main Street. The 25-seat space is part of the storefront that once housed oak45 and its short-lived follow-up, Mister…
The Capital City Farmers Market in Pictures
On a recent Saturday morning, the Capital City Farmers Market in Montpelier was bustling, as usual. The market, founded in 1977, takes over a State Street parking lot May through October and features more than 50 vendors. They hawk everything from just-picked produce to staples such as maple syrup and honey as well as wool…
Nomad Coffee Opens a South End Café
Nomad Coffee, a mobile coffee shop that opened two years ago in Essex Junction, has a new outpost at 208 Flynn Avenue in Burlington. Nomad Coffee — South End Station opened last week in the space that previously housed a branch of Williston-based Chef’s Corner. The new Nomad will expand on the coffee, tea and…
Eat This Week, July 11 to 18, 2018: Fun With Fungi
At Burlington’s Juniper restaurant and Bleu Northeast Seafood, chef Doug Paine composes elegant plates using local meats and vegetables — and, usually, fruits of the forest delivered by local foragers. On Saturday, July 14, he’ll lead a group of home cooks into the woods in search of midsummer mushrooms. With found fungi in hand, the wanderers…
