Jul 13-19, 2016
BPD Chief Brandon del Pozo Aims to Reform Policing; Democrats and Progressives Vie for Vermont House Seats; Food Trucks Scramble for Parking Places
Cover Story
Burlington’s Top Cop, Brandon del Pozo, Aims to Rewrite Policing
Driving up North Street in his black SUV the afternoon of July 1, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo spotted one of his rookie cops talking with a Somali American man outside the Community Halal Store. Del Pozo, dressed in his dark blue uniform with expertly burnished tuxedo shoes, pulled over and walked up to…
Obituary: Janine Michelle Mauche DuMond
Janine Michelle Mauche DuMond, 67, passed away unexpectedly on April 15, 2016 at the UVM Medical Center in Burlington, Vermont. She was born in Elmira, New York. Most recently of Underhill, Vermont, Janine previously lived for many years in Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, New York – she called both the Green and Adirondack Mountains…
Obituary: Elaine Landau, 1924-2016
Elaine Landau was born August 11th, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York to Fanny and Max Weitman. Elaine “flew” away peacefully, July 13th, 2016 after a long and full life. Elaine married Arthur (Artie) Landau and they later moved to Valley Stream, New York to raise their family. She was happy to have spent the last…
Taking Stock: Did Wall Street Prepare Lisman to Be Governor?
In her 2009 book documenting the demise of Bear Stearns, financial reporter Kate Kelly described a gathering of the Wall Street firm’s top brass on one of its final days. The group was preparing for the investment bank’s sudden sale to rival J.P.Morgan as the 2008 mortgage meltdown escalated. “The gathering was a who’s who…
Todd R. Lockwood’s ‘Portraiture Reimagined,’ Champlain College Gallery
Since 2007, Burlington photographer Todd R. Lockwood has used his 1967 Hasselblad to carefully capture the faces of some of his visually compelling friends and acquaintances. Not everyone makes the cut, and Lockwood does few commissions. The selective results are large-scale, black-and-white, square-format portraits that are dazzling in detail and depth. His subjects look directly…
It’s My Party: A Democratic House Primary Draws Mixed Candidates
When Judy Rosenstreich first won election to the Vermont House in 1972, she ran as a Republican and saw the party as one for liberals in the mold of Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits. Rosenstreich championed integration and cheered in 1973 when the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling legalized abortion. Then, as she viewed…
Page 32: Short Takes on Four Books
Seven Days’ writers can’t possibly read, much less review, all the books that arrive in a steady stream by post, email and, in one memorable case, on a very exhausted donkey. So this monthly feature, Page 32, is our way of introducing you to new books by Vermont authors. To do that, we’ll contextualize each…
Soundbites: InFestation; GMCF Begins; Madaila Take Main Street
I know, I know. It’s been, like, two solid weeks without any festival news. You’re probably all “Yo, DB. Where’s my festival news, bro?” Relax. And don’t call me bro, chief. I got you. Around Independence Day weekend, the festival slate tends to dry up. But, emboldened by a renewed sense of freedom — and…
Skydiving Instructor Ole Thomsen
Name: Ole Thomsen Town: West Addison Job: co-owner, Vermont Skydiving Adventures When Ole Thomsen steps out on weekends, he’s setting himself up for quite a fall — 12,000 feet, to be precise. The 53-year-old Montréal native is founder and co-owner of Vermont Skydiving Adventures in West Addison. Established in 1992 at the Franklin County State…
Vermont Coffee Company Brews Up a Theater
Over the past few years, Exchange Street in Middlebury has become a hub for those who want to imbibe local. Among its occupants are Stonecutter Spirits, Otter Creek Brewing Company, Woodchuck Cider, Appalachian Gap Distillery, Aqua Vitea Kombucha and Vermont Coffee Company. Now, Middlebury’s hippest street is about to get arty: Vermont Coffee Company has…
Fair Game: Why Bernie Should Run
Originally published October 23, 2013. Among Sen. Bernie Sanders’ most fervent followers, a constant refrain prevails: Why doesn’t he run for president in 2016? Sanders tried to put that question to rest for the thousandth time in this month’s Playboy magazine, for which he gave an interview to the liberal activist and occasional political candidate Jonathan Tasini.…
How Did Dollar General Stores Take Vermont So Quickly?
Bryan Parmelee The rise of Dollar General stores in Vermont They have become a defining feature of Vermont village life, a familiar presence on the modern landscape from Bennington to the Northeast Kingdom. I speak not of covered bridges, white clapboard Congregational churches or tidy town commons, but of Dollar General stores. It’s nearly impossible…
Can My Boyfriend Take Viagra Daily?
Dear Athena, I’m a gay man in a long-term relationship with another gay man. I like being anal passive, and he likes being a top. However, neither of us is satisfied with the frequency — it’s about once a week. We’d like to do it once a day. The problem is his slowness in getting to…
Snooze Alarm: Vermont Democrats’ Sleepy Gubernatorial Race
Let’s be honest: With less than a month to go before Vermont’s August 9 primary, the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination remains a total snoozer. The three major Ds vying to replace retiring Gov. Peter Shumlin have done little to distinguish themselves from one another, on substance or style. And unlike the last competitive…
Free Will Astrology (7/13/16)
CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you are smoothly attuned with the cosmic rhythms and finely aligned with your unconscious wisdom, you could wake up one morning and find that a mental block has miraculously crumbled, instantly raising your intelligence. If you can find it in your proud heart to surrender to “God,” your weirdest dilemma…
Letters to the Editor (7/13/16)
Bridging the Gap The conflict addressed in [“Rowing Pains,” June 29] is not a difficult issue to resolve. It’s all about managing the only competing resource at stake here, which is time on the lake. When this issue began to formally circulate among property owners by email two years ago, several people, myself included, suggested…
Tour de Stores: The Dorset Union Store Experience
Last month, I asked, “What does the Vermont general store look like in 2016?” That question led to a statewide road trip, chronicled in monthly installments to span the summer season. I may have assumed I would find nostalgia and tourist-based kitsch, but I discovered that the Vermont general store, an emblem of local culture…
Celebrating Shakespeare With Historic Gardens
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but the phrase probably wouldn’t have sounded nearly as good if attempted by another writer. William Shakespeare was a master gardener of the English language, plucking the most colorful words from his fertile imagination to plant seeds of doubt about human nature. Four centuries after…
Two-Wheeler History at the Sheldon Museum
The bicycle history exhibit at Middlebury’s Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History — titled “Pedaling Through History: 150 Years of the Bicycle, the Collection of Glenn Eames” — will likely appeal as much to art lovers as to Lycra wearers. As curator and prime lender Eames suggests, many of the vintage bikes on display qualify…
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NAACP Protest & Prayer Vigil [SIV451]
7/9/16: More than 100 people gathered at the top of Church Street in downtown Burlington on a rainy Saturday night to protest the recent police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. The event was organized by the Champlain Area NAACP and was also a call to action with many of the protesters carrying Black…
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
So many things about this picture are nearly impossible to believe: that its preposterous storyline is loosely based on actual events; that its writers are Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien, the team behind the two funny and inventive Neighbors features; and that it got likable and entertaining personalities Adam Devine (“Modern Family,” “Workaholics”), Zac…
Book Review: The Killer in Me, by Margot Harrison
Teenage protagonists are unreliable narrators, almost by definition and through no fault of their own. Teens are walking existential crises: From friend feuds to school plays to weird crushes, they lack the maturity to see the larger picture and put moments of conflict in perspective. Also, adolescence is a time of sussing out one’s life.…
The Secret Life of Pets
It’s no secret that, however madly you love your kids, taking them to kids’ movies can be an act of monumental personal sacrifice. You check your watch and sneak glances at your email. Studios love to play the “something for grown-ups, too” card, but rare is the PG release that doesn’t leave you fighting off…
Can We Talk?
“Sorry, my plane was late,” my customer, Tyler Reynolds, apologized from the shotgun seat. “I hope it didn’t put you out.” We were in my taxi en route to one of Stowe’s more deluxe hotels. Tyler was a handsome, slender, fresh-faced young man, preppy in an effortless, unvarnished way that made me assume he was…
Okkervil River’s Will Sheff Stops Trying (And That’s Good)
Prior to writing Away, the forthcoming record from his band Okkervil River, Will Sheff was at a personal and creative crossroads. Okkervil River had essentially disbanded, with members moving on to other projects or to raise families. Sheff’s grandfather, a jazz musician and Sheff’s personal hero, had become gravely ill. Sheff spent much of his…
Milton Busker, You Are What You Pretend to Be
(Self-released, digital download) Unless you keep a very close ear on the singer-songwriter sets at venues like Radio Bean and the Skinny Pancake, you could be forgiven for not knowing the name Milton Busker. His presence in the folk-pop scene over the past decade and a half has been inconsistent but rewarding. Busker, who calls…
Sink or Swim, Searching for Sincerity
(Self-released, digital download) Burlington-based hardcore outfit Sink or Swim made their debut in 2013 with a short, brutal EP, Vermont Road Trips. They’ve since returned with a new drummer — and a full-length album, Searching for Sincerity. Well, “full-length” by genre standards, anyway. In time-honored hardcore punk tradition, the album clocks in at 12 tracks…
After Lake Fatality, Coast Guard Says Boaters Often Don’t Follow the Rules
On the warm, still evening of June 15, Malletts Bay was full of boaters enjoying Lake Champlain. Then around 6:30 p.m., tragedy struck: Two motorboats collided, and one of the pilots hit the water and disappeared. Witnesses frantically called 911. Some dove off their boats in efforts to save the man. But authorities later said…
Theater Review: Dear Elizabeth, Dorset Theatre Festival
Dorset Theatre Festival is presenting the regional premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s 2012 Dear Elizabeth, a play drawing on the 30-year correspondence between poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Ruhl confines her text to selected letters and a few of their poems, inventing no dialogue of her own. Bishop and Lowell’s 450-some collected letters were published…
Tremolo Coffee Shop Pops Up in Montpelier
Tremolo is an Italian term for a musical effect in which a note is repeated at a rapid pace and wavers, or trembles. For Chris Gleason and Caroline Williamson, the word also recalls trembling of the over-caffeinated variety. Located in the Front gallery at 6 Barre Street, and open 8 a.m. through noon Monday through…
Vermont Bagel Comes to Colchester
For the past few weeks, passersby have noted signs advertising Vermont Bagel in the storefront next to Bevo Catering at 70 Roosevelt Highway in Colchester. Now, pending state inspections scheduled for this week, the new deli-café could open as early as Thursday, July 14. General manager Tom Roden says the new shop will offer 21…
Parking Problems Hamper Burlington Food Trucks
For the past two summers, Stefano Cicirello parked his Dolce VT food truck on Pine Street, just north of Howard Street, in Burlington’s South End. On weekday afternoons, Cicirello — and other food truckers rotating through the same spot — fed artists and workers from nearby studios and businesses. Many patrons ate at ArtsRiot’s picnic…
