Rick Levey leaned over the side of a motorboat last week and dipped a long metal scoop into the marshy mouth of the Barton River where it enters Lake Memphremagog. Over his shoulder, the hulking Coventry Landfill rose 400 feet above the water in the distance. On the unnatural angular hilltop of debris, heavy machinery…
Hopes for a Burlington lakeside version of Stowe’s Doc Ponds have been dashed, according to the restaurant’s co-owner, Eric Warnstedt. Lake Champlain Transportation submitted preliminary plans for a 6,500-square-foot restaurant on its King Street ferry dock property to the city on November 5, 2020. Seven Days reported on July 7 that the proposal had been…
Navy pilot and businessman had a dry sense of humor, a loving heart and a generous spirit
Barbershop singer, Red Sox fan and music lover brought joy through baking and sewing
Banking professional, mother and wife loved adventure, travel and nature
“It’s going to be a great day!”
Hardworking, generous family man always put others first
William Cats-Baril likes tours of the addiction treatment center he founded, Sana at Stowe, to start outside the front vestibule, which is lined with a few tons of small, polished stones from Lake Champlain. The front doors are heavy, by design. “I call it the Mercedes-Benz effect,” said Cats-Baril, an entrepreneur who teaches business at…
On a bright Sunday in July, between bites of brunch, a few dozen passengers savored the sights from the Northern Star. Cruising on Lake Memphremagog, which straddles the U.S./Québec border, they floated past Black Island, where smugglers hid booze during Prohibition; Prouty Beach, a favorite local fishing spot; and Eagle Point Wildlife Management Area, which…
Brian Dempsey thinks of himself as a “facilitator of kindness.” For the past two and a half years, the Bennington resident has run Just the Good Stuff, a Facebook page where members can share good deeds they’ve done, from hiding money in the aisles of a dollar store to writing holiday cards for senior citizens.…
The Hokum Brothers band was playing oldies when the busload of kids showed up at Hack Club headquarters, known as HQ, in Shelburne. It was July 16, the day before 42 teenagers were to leave on a cross-country trip. As they gathered for lunch and then a night in Chittenden County before starting the trip…
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo poet Renée Ashley articulates a perspective I recommend you adopt. She writes, “I’m drawn to what flutters nebulously at the edges, at the corner of my eye — just outside my certain sight. I want to share in what I am routinely denied, or only suspect exists. I long for…
Brendan Hogan’s small street in Burlington’s South End gets a lot of truck traffic. The city’s recycling hauler sweeps by his house in the Five Sisters area weekly, while three trash companies rumble by on different days. Small compost haulers also make pit stops. Hogan, the chair of Burlington’s Public Works Commission, thinks there’s no…
This week, I watched the debut feature of a promising young writer-director that premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Saint Maud is a psychological horror film from UK filmmaker Rose Glass that had a small pandemic theatrical release in the U.S. and is now streaming on Hulu, Paramount+, Epix, Philo and Sling. The…
Zoë Keating rarely opens her eyes when she plays the cello. She typically begins by pulling the instrument close in an intimate embrace between creator and conduit. She then lowers her head, long silver and blue locks of hair hanging over her furrowed brow. As her bow nears the strings to strike the first note…
When Jaye and Joe MacAskill arrived in Vermont in the summer of 2020, the San Diego transplants had two goals: insinuate their musical comedy band, Pony Death Ride, into Vermont’s music community and open a vintage boutique. On Friday, July 30, one year after the married couple touched down in the Champlain Valley, one of…
(Self-released, digital) I must begin with a confession: I struggle with the vocabulary of genre. I know what I like, but trying to define it — folk? Americana? indie pop? all of the above? — makes me feel like an impostor. How lucky, then, that I had the chance to review Reid Parsons’ dynamic new…
F-35 Harms Children I teared up while reading “Sound Effects” [July 7]. Learning of children’s fears of F-35 noise and parents trying to save them from this trauma was heart-wrenching. Even more devastating was the fact that the two men with all the power — U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders — knew about…
(Self-released, digital) Seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza reproached the credulous for their tendency to conflate religion, science and superstition. He saw this confusion as a consequence of personal beliefs and a threat to understanding the true causes of life’s many situations. Does a Dutch thinker of the Enlightenment have anything in common with a 21st-century “conscious…
Dear Reverend, I love going to the beach. I’m 69 years old, and I would like to wear a thong. I don’t want to scare anyone off, but I feel like what I wear for swimming is my business. Do you think I’m too old? Seymour Butz (male, 69) Dear Seymour, Honeybuns, if you’re comfortable…
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, a clowder of snarling bobcats. So this monthly feature is our way of introducing you to a handful of books by Vermont authors. To do that, we contextualize each…
Every summer, a bunch of us from Seven Days attends the annual convention of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, a gathering of publishers, editors, reporters, designers and salespeople from comparable papers across North America. The three-day event takes place in a different city every year, and member weeklies used to compete for the honor to…
Christine Hallquist is feeling the pressure. As the just-appointed leader of the state’s effort to extend broadband internet access to every corner of Vermont, Hallquist knows tens of thousands of people are counting on her. And flush with $250 million in federal funds to work with over the next three years, she knows a lack…
Clever messaging begins with the very title of Christy Mitchell’s latest solo installation at Burlington’s S.P.A.C.E. Gallery. “Holding Pattern” is a double entendre — at least — and one meaning is immediately evident in Mitchell’s use of old-school patterned wallpaper. Less obvious is what the installation might hold, both for the artist and for viewers.…
Matt Jennings and Hilary Gifford met the way most people seem to these days: online. Jennings, a chef from Boston who moved to Charlotte with his family two years ago, and Gifford, a vegetable farmer in North Ferrisburgh, connected on a Vermont agriculture website. She responded to a post from Jennings, who wanted to team…
With hands swooping like butterflies, Matilda Fuentes and Magnolia González deftly patted, pinched and folded masa dough. In a Middlebury kitchen on an early July afternoon, Fuentes was making empanadas filled with chicken while González shaped small, thick rounds of masa with raised edges for pellizcadas. The two women were preparing dishes from their native…
After 20 years of cooking professionally around the world, Woodbury native Shannon Bates returned home about a year ago. On July 20, she launched Enna, her first venture as chef-owner, at 14 State Street in Montpelier. Bates described the breakfast-and-lunch takeout operation as an international deli influenced by her childhood and her global experiences. The…
Silly in the Streets Friday 30-Sunday 1 The Festival of Fools, Burlington’s beloved busking bazaar, takes over downtown once again after a yearlong hiatus. From the Friday kickoff bonanza to Sunday’s Last Laugh Variety Show, Burlington City Arts gathers acrobats, musicians and all manner of motley, family-friendly performers sure to delight Church Street viewers. New…
