Jun 8-14, 2016
Rutland Mayor Faces Backlash to Refugee Plan; Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Settles in St. Johnsbury; Seeking Author Shirley Jackson in North Bennington
Cover Story
Right in Rutland: Will Mayor Chris Louras Fall on His Sword for 100 Syrians?
It was standing room only at the Godnick Adult Center, where more than 120 local Rutlanders were hammering officials from the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program about a plan to bring 100 Syrians to their city. Some questioned whether the immigrants would carry communicable diseases. One individual asked how Rutland would handle the imposition of Sharia…
A Guide to Free Jazz at BDJF (Vol. 2)
So, we’re smack in the middle of the 2016 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival — are you having fun yet? The annual 10-day bash got off to a hot start, with stages all over the Queen City bustling with great music, from icons such as Randy Newman to up-and-coming local hepcats and just about everything in…
Playwright Lesley Becker Pits Big Oil and a Small Town
The new play The Gods of the Hills gets its name from an Ethan Allen quote: “The gods of the valley are not the gods of the hills.” But to whom do we answer when the gods of meaningful progress are at war with the gods of independence and democracy? Burlington playwright Lesley Becker explores…
Neoclassical Trio Yellow Sky Makes Its Debut
When guitarist Danielle O’Hallisey, 57, was growing up outside Pittsburgh, the sky was yellow with steel-mill air pollution. On her move to Vermont in 1984, she discovered similarly colored skies caused simply by sunsets. O’Hallisey alludes to that strange concurrence of dystopia and utopia in the name she has given her Worcester-based trio, Yellow Sky.…
Vermont Stage’s Bake Off Returns With a Cloning Act
Caryl Churchill’s A Number is a classic father-son tale. In this play set over a series of intimate conversations, conflict arises when it’s revealed that the genetic material the father used to clone his new son — and replace his estranged son — had also been used to clone dozens of other look-alikes. Well, maybe…
Will Northeast Kingdom International Ever Take Off?
The main runway at the Northeast Kingdom International Airport is 1,000 feet longer than it used to be. Crews are laying pavement for a bigger taxiway and wide apron. Next up on the to-do list is a long-promised septic system. Later this month, hundreds of Porsches will converge on the airport in rural Coventry for…
Soundbites: Big Heavy World Turns 20
Oh, they grow up so fast. This week, the noble local do-gooders at Big Heavy World celebrate the nonprofit organization’s 20th anniversary. That just doesn’t seem possible. I’m old enough to remember when BHW started, and it sure doesn’t feel like that was two decades ago. In a related story, I’m old. Though BHW doesn’t…
Go Time? Cabinet Members Prepare for Life After Shumlin
When Hal Cohen agreed to serve as Gov. Peter Shumlin’s secretary of human services in late 2014, he figured his new boss was halfway through an eight-year tenure. So he was surprised to learn, six months later, that Shumlin wouldn’t seek reelection in 2016 — and that Cohen himself might soon lose the gig he’d…
Crystal Lapierre Takes the Reins at Peacham Café
Just over the hill from Red Barn Brewing, Peacham residents came together to open the community-supported Peacham Café in August 2014. For the first year and a half, Ariel Zevon ran the kitchen, along with her mother, Crystal Zevon, and Michelle Morton. Late last winter, Ariel Zevon decided to transition to catering full time, and…
Violet Ultraviolet, Pop City
(Section Sign Records, digital download, vinyl) Violet Ultraviolet is the recording project of Burlington-based singer-songwriter Jake Brennan, who pulled stints in local indie-jangle bands Paper Castles and Shelly Shredder. VU typically features a rotating lineup of other local folkies and indie rockers such as Wren Kitz and Rob Voland. But for his latest release, Brennan…
Theater Review: Red, Lost Nation Theater
The viewer of a Mark Rothko painting has a chance to feel the sublime spirituality the painter intended to produce with his shimmering washes of paint and pulsating fields of color. The viewer of Lost Nation Theater’s production of Red, based on Rothko’s life, can see how hard the artist fought to protect his paintings…
Being Toussaint
Originally published June 2, 2010. For all his accomplishments, for all his greatness — and, make no mistake, he is great — Allen Toussaint is astoundingly, almost maddeningly modest. He will tell you he is far more comfortable being the man behind the scenes than the star of the show. In fact, were it up…
Looking for ‘The Lottery’ Author Shirley Jackson
On June 26, 1948, the New Yorker published a now-famous story about a fictional rural town. This unnamed village has a square between the post office and the bank; men “speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes”; and wives “wearing faded house dresses and sweaters” who share gossip. It has boisterous schoolchildren, a one-size-fits-all…
Sam Moss, Fable
(Lost Honey Records, CD, digital download, vinyl) When last we left Sam Moss, he was part of the delightfully strange and prolific Brattleboro indie scene. Following the release of his deconstructionist folk gem No Kingdom in 2013 — named one of the year’s 10 best local recordings by this paper — Moss moved to Boston.…
WTF: Why Do Birds Sit on Telephone Wires?
The expression “Birds of a feather flock together,” or some variant thereof, goes back to the 16th century, predating telephone and electrical wires by at least three centuries. Still, the average non-birder is most likely to spot birds gathered in species-specific groups on overhead lines. That led one Seven Days reader to ask us recently:…
How Do I Get Out of My Self-Stimulation Rut?
Dear Athena, I’ve always masturbated in the same position (even as a young girl). I’ve tried getting a vibrator, masturbating in other positions, using running water and soliciting advice from my women friends. Nothing gets me off the way my hands in that one position do. Problem is, I have only come half a dozen…
Jazz Vocalist Diane Schuur Talks Sinatra, Getz and Cats
Jazz vocalist Diane Schuur was born blind. She was also born with perfect pitch, which she used to teach herself piano as a child in Tacoma, Wash. Schuur began performing professionally in 1963, at age 10. Since 1979, when she was discovered by saxophone great Stan Getz at the Monterey Jazz Festival, she has been…
‘Pie’ in the Sky: Airport Restaurateur Blames the State for Failed Biz
At Parker Pie in West Glover, the calendar is peppered with regular events: Trivia Night, Oyster Night and Music Night. Over the past 11 years, owners Cavan Meese and Ben Trevits have built a funky, popular pizza parlor and beer joint that has become both a local hangout and a destination for the farther flung.…
Lunch and Lanes at Stowe Bowl
In my memory, the bowling alleys of my childhood were dim and dingy places, with chairs upholstered in fabric that would forever exude cigarette smoke. Power ballads blared from the speakers, and powerful women in acid-washed denim knocked back drinks and knocked down pins with equal aplomb. To a sheltered girl in suburban Vermont, bowling…
The Former Syrian Ambassador Talks Rutland, His Old Boss and NEK Life
The former U.S. ambassador to Syria strongly endorses a controversial plan to resettle in Rutland 100 refugees from that war-torn Middle Eastern country. Robert Ford, now retired and a resident of St. Johnsbury, says there’s scant chance the resettled Syrians will prove dangerous. A fluent Arabic speaker with deep knowledge of Mideast culture and Islamist…
![Hanksville Mud Bog [SIV446]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/episode446.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Hanksville Mud Bog [SIV446]
6/4/16: A giant pit of mud, big trucks and a cheering crowd – the Hanksville Mud Bog has become a summer tradition for many Vermonters. What started out as fun between friends has become a biannual family affair that draws a large audience and even bigger vehicles, all hoping to make it through the treacherous…
Low Profile: Meet the Folks Out to Block the 14-Story Mall Towers
Genese Grill wears her long brown hair Princess Leia-style. She doesn’t drive a car or own a cellphone. She lives in Burlington with other creative types in a rented house on Strong Street that they call Aesthesia, a Greek word meaning capacity for sensation. She has a PhD, periodically teaches college and high school students,…
Forget the Treehouse — Put This VW Bus Cupola on Your Barn
Say you’re building a barn. From the roof, there’s a great view. Then say you know someone selling a busted 1980 Volkswagen Vanagon. And a guy with a crane. These things may seem disparate, but not if you’re Dave Shinnlinger. He’d owned several Vanagons in high school and dreamed of integrating one into a building.…
Art Review: ‘Mirror/Mirror,’ Museum of Everyday Life
It’s impossible to look away from yourself at the Museum of Everyday Life’s new exhibition, “Mirror/Mirror.” In nearly every part of this Glover barn-cum-gallery, the museumgoer is in the purview of one, or many, mirrors. The exhibit’s introductory text, hung beside a Mylar re-creation of the pond in which Narcissus pondered his reflection, states: “This…
Free Will Astrology (6/8/16)
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In his poem “Interrupted Meditation,” Robert Hass blurts out the following exclamation: “I give you, here, now, a magic key. What does it open? This key I give you, what exactly does it open?” How would you answer this question, Gemini? What door or lock or heart or treasure box do…
How the Putney General Store Survived Fire — Twice
I grew up in Boston, which has its share of delis and lobster shacks, but nothing is as emblematic of local culture as a Vermont general store. The term is used interchangeably with “country store” and reflects the specialties of a state as much as the needs of a town, offering daily conveniences at a…
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Technically, I’m not sure it’s possible to digress before beginning to discuss something, but I’m going to anyway. Remember that amazing 10-year streak director Rob Reiner had from 1984 to 1994? I recall thinking, This guy’s like the Beatles of the big screen; he seems incapable of making a wrong move. Stand by Me, The…
David Budbill Talks About Poetry, Life and the Tao
It’s a surprise to realize that David Budbill has never been poet laureate of Vermont. He might also have been named playwright laureate — for the iconic Judevine alone — if the state had such a thing. The four-decade Wolcott homesteader recently uprooted and moved to a condo in Montpelier with his wife, artist Lois…
Letters to the Editor (6/8/16)
Advantage Vermont Sarah Tuff Dunn’s story [“Safety Net,” June 1] — about Vermont kids playing tennis in Cuba — needs a correction. The Cuban American Friendship Society, a nonprofit Burlington-based organization founded in 1994, applied for and was awarded a specific license from the U.S. Department of Commerce to reconstruct the tennis courts at the National Tennis…
Burlington’s African Market Adds Muhammad Ali Mural
When Jules Muck visited Burlington last weekend, the street artist from Venice, Calif., was invited to paint a mural on the side of Mawuhi African Market in the Old North End. Her subject? Muhammad Ali. She chose to depict the boxing legend because he had died the previous day of Parkinson’s disease at age 74.…
The Lobster
I feel safe in saying that The Lobster is the strangest film you will have the opportunity to see in a multiplex this year. For some, like me, it will also be one of the funniest and most enduring. For other moviegoers, perhaps, more of an endurance test. But no one is likely to forget…
Historical Land Claims Trip Up Burlington Homeowners
For years, Donna and Travis Jocelyn have wanted to sell their New North End home and downsize to a condo with lower property taxes. In February, the couple finally found a buyer for their 1970s ranch house and was about to purchase a brick townhome in Essex Junction, closer to where their 10-year-old daughter goes…
Gaku Ramen Opens in Burlington
Bowls of tonkatsu broth with chashu pork, kikurage mushrooms and red pickled ginger; fish shoyu with shrimp and bamboo shoots; and black garlic miso ramen were all on the menu last Sunday when Gaku Ramen opened at 144 Church Street in Burlington. How did the new soup shop — with recipes crafted by a pair…
Danville’s Red Barn Brewing Opens Its Doors
Near the intersection of routes 2 and 15 at Joe’s Pond in West Danville, Keiser Pond Road traces a narrow dirt line southeast toward Peacham. Bear left at the fork onto Oneida Road, and within minutes you’ll arrive at Red Barn Brewing, which quietly opened its tasting room to the public last Friday, June 3.…
