Jul 20-26, 2016
A Postmortem on the Bernie Sanders Campaign; Go Ahead, Laugh — at the Vermont Comedy Festival; Are Farmers Markets Working?
Cover Story
After Bern: How Bernie Sanders Stunned the Establishment
On a rainy Friday night in September 2014, a small crowd of hipsters and aging intellectuals gathered in the lakeside home of a retired law professor in Madison, Wis. They were there to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was scheduled to travel to Wisconsin and Iowa that weekend to explore a run for president.…
Obituary: Susan Mitchum Ball, 1943-2016
Susan Mitchum Ball, 72, died July 8th at The Pines Rehabilitation & Health Center, Lyndonville, VT. Born October 11, 1943 in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Dudley Mitchum and Catherine (Orr) Ball. A graduate of Germantown High School, Germantown, TN, she received a BA from Southwestern at Memphis, and an MA from Memphis State University.…
WDY, Days of Youth
(Self-released, digital download) We’ll say this for Matt Woodward: The kid’s got ambition. Recording as WDY, the 22-year-old electronic producer and St. Albans native released five albums and EPs from April 2013 through December 2014. He showed budding promise from the first and exhibited increased refinement and musical acumen to match his endless curiosity on…
Was That an Orgasm, or Did I Just Really Pee?
Dear Athena, When I’m having a moment to myself (wink, wink), I often feel like I just peed myself. Was that an orgasm, or did I actually pee? And why did it happen so fast? It was like a big flow of liquid coming out. Signed, Wet the Bed Dear Wet, Don’t sweat it! I’ve…
Running Stone Bread Goes for Toast
In a gristmill, the “bed” stone is fixed, while the “running” stone moves. Grain is crushed into flour between them. When Bread & Butter Farm cofounder Adam Wilson left the Shelburne farm to focus on baking, he renamed his operation Running Stone Bread. The bakery, like its namesake, is mobile. Although it’s currently situated on…
Letters to the Editor (7/20/16)
For the Record Seven Days stated that “all 12 city councilors” voted for Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo [“Scholar in Chief,” July 13]. This is incorrect. There were only 11 votes for del Pozo. The Seven Days article written at the time seems to have gotten it right [Off Message: “Burlington City Councilors Stand…
CBRASNKE, …But first they must catch you
(Self-released, digital download) CBRASNKE — pronounced “cobra snake” — are a Burlington hardcore band whose debut album, …But first they must catch you, is inseparable from the tragic loss of their friend, drummer Collin Reynolds, who died in 2015. Reynolds, along with most members of CBRASNKE, belonged to As We Were, a fiery and precocious…
Stowe Public House Opens With Bites and Brews
Last weekend, Stowe Public House opened at 109 Main Street. The provisions shop is stocked with cured meats, Vermont cheeses and condiments and preserves from local artisans. Shoppers can try before they buy at the tasting table. Small plates will be served, along with cider, beer and wine, when a bar room opens toward the…
Woodstock’s Analogue Advocate, Sonny Saul
A few years ago, a Boston TV station did a show about the slow disappearance and repurposing of old New England barns. One of the barns featured, in Woodstock, was a two-story clapboard specimen from the mid-1800s. Today, musician and composer Harry “Sonny” Saul owns it. The structure probably housed animals and hay at one…
Breaking Down the 2016 Green Mountain Comedy Festival
These are dark times, friends. It seems like every time you turn on a television or log into social media, you’re treated to one horribly depressing story after another. Violence, civil unrest, Donald Trump. Even for the sunniest among us, it’s enough to make you want to curl into the fetal position and ride out…
Cause-Driven Candidates Aim to Secure Statehouse Seats
Gordon Bock said he complained at the Statehouse during the last legislative session about the way state law so frequently refers to people with criminal records as “offenders.” The word labels people “who have spent a lifetime doing possibly good things and pigeonholes them by what might be the worst 15 minutes in their life,”…
Feel the Bern Adult Coloring Contest Winners
In the July 6 all-cartoon issue of Seven Days, we presented our first-ever adult coloring contest, modeled after the coloring contest that appears each month in Kids VT, our parenting magazine. For the drawing we called upon the fabulously talented local artist Marc Nadel, our go-to guy for caricatures. And you can see why: His…
Three Vermont Exhibits Showcase Self-Taught Art
One of southern California’s most iconic art destinations is Salvation Mountain, a singular work permanently installed outside the small desert town of Niland. Some 50 feet high, the “mountain” is made of adobe and candy-colored paint and emblazoned with, among other things, the simple declaration “GOD IS LOVE.” This is the life’s work of the…
Sharp Decline in Vermont Moose Herd Raises Questions About Hunting
The yearling moose was riddled with ticks and stuck in a mud bog, exhausted and barely able to move. Vermont game warden Randy Hazard considered euthanizing the suffering animal but held off, thinking it might beat the odds that have cut Vermont’s moose population by more than half since 2005. He freed the moose from…
Actors Needed for Vermont’s Largest-Ever Disaster-Preparedness Drill
Want to take part in the largest dramatic production Vermont has ever put on? We’re talking a cast of 5,000 participants performing over nine days at 50 sites around the state, at a cost of $570,000. The live-action thriller promises plenty of “death” and “destruction,” and may include one or more of the following simulations:…
Cashing In: Who’s Financing Vermont’s 2016 Candidates?
As he has throughout his four decades in Congress, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) returned to Vermont in February to deliver the goods. This time, it was a $15.8 million U.S. Defense Department contract to build a helicopter monitoring system at a factory in Vergennes. The plant’s owner, UTC Aerospace Systems, celebrated the news in a…
Ghostbusters
Talk about coming full circle. Or history repeating itself. Or just plain getting old. The original 1984 Ghostbusters was one of the first movies I reviewed as a professional critic. Think of it: 32 years ago. Born five months before its release, Kate McKinnon was literally in diapers. That might seem like a long time,…
Does Lightning Ever Strike the Same Place Twice?
Is there any credence to the adage, “Lightning never strikes the same place twice”? Ask Mary Powell and Mark Brooks, whose South Hero home was destroyed by fire last month after lightning hit their property twice in one hour. WTF? Here’s how it went down: On the evening of June 28, firefighters from South Hero…
The Infiltrator
A biopic about an undercover federal crime fighter can go two ways. It can delve deep and journalistically into the procedural details of the job, à la “The Wire.” Or it can focus on the excitement of impersonating a bad guy, emulating the hedonistic exuberance of Goodfellas. In this adaptation of Robert Mazur’s book, director…
Out of the Norm: Franklin County Senate Race Is Far From Typical
Bill Mayo and George Gates were sitting at the Franklin General Store last Wednesday, lunching on hot dogs and chatting about the news of the day. Mayo, who has owned the store for 13 years, is no fan of the state’s new GMO labeling law or of the potential $15 minimum wage he hears candidates…
Counterpoint Sings Through the Seasons
Nathaniel Lew began a recent rehearsal of Counterpoint, Vermont’s sole professional choir, with some quick group stretches and a directive. “Since it’s so hot, let’s start with the winter songs,” the director said. The 20-member group was practicing in an upstairs room in the Monteverdi Music School in Montpelier, with only one small fan to…
Upper Pass Beer Co. Boosts Its Brewing
Upper Pass Beer launched last fall as a one-barrel brewery in Tunbridge. In April 2016, owners Chris Perry, Andrew Puchalik and Ivan Tomek partnered with von Trapp Brewing in Stowe to brew 100 barrels of a hop-forward American pale ale dubbed First Drop. Until now, Upper Pass brews were available on draft in just a…
Free Will Astrology (7/20/16)
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Capricorns may be the hardest workers of the zodiac, and Tauruses the most dogged. But in the coming weeks, I suspect you Cancerians will be the smartest workers. You will efficiently surmise the precise nature of the tasks at hand and do what’s necessary to accomplish them. There’ll be no false…
Theater News: Off Center, Stowe Theatre Guild, Pride Fest
During the summer, theater in Vermont heats up in a big way. Summer stock is a given, with seasonal series or single shows around the state bringing everything from frothy musicals to Shakespearean tragedy. As it happens, playwrights are also testing the waters for new works with staged readings, comedians are flinging funny stuff left…
Soundbites: On Rap Battles, Girls Rockin’ and Small Festivals
On the surface, it’s kind of a low-key week on the local music scene. We don’t have a marquee festival. The biggest show of the week, Norah Bolles, er, Jones at the Flynn MainStage this Friday, July 22, has long been sold out. There sure is a ton of great comedy this week — see…
On the Campaign Trail
Originally published August 14, 1996. No, you weren’t hearing things. That was the name of Bernie Sanders reverberating over the loudspeakers at the Republican National Convention in San Diego Monday. Quite the honor, eh? Thank you,Susan Sweetser. “This will be an historic election. Why?” asked Susie Creamcheese from the podium. “Because we have the opportunity…
Your Stories From Bernie Sanders’ Presidential Run
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ unusual presidential campaign attracted unusually passionate supporters — people who volunteered countless hours, donated record numbers of small contributions and even got Sanders tattoos. We asked readers to tell us how Sanders’ campaign affected them over the last 15 months. Here are a few from the flood of responses: My husband and…
What Works, and Doesn’t, About Farmers Markets?
On a sunny Saturday in July, the smell of sausage fills the air. At the Burlington Farmers Market, vendors’ stands sprawl across City Hall Park and line St. Paul Street, while bustling crowds fill the spaces in between. Chords of music tinkle from one tent. At another, people shell out for cold-brew coffee. The extravaganza…
Uncle and Nephew Chefs Open Nepali Kitchen
Almost nine years ago, Jeetan Khadka came to Burlington as a Nepali refugee and worked jobs at Spectrum Youth & Family Services and Burlington Parks & Recreation. But when his uncle, Tika Ghimire, arrived years later, Khadka’s longtime desire to cook was reawakened. “My uncle has been a chef for almost 40 years,” says Khadka.…
