Mar 15-21, 2017
The Sister Legislators Who Hold Vermont’s Purse Strings; Comedian Kevin Allison Takes a Risk; UVM Fecal Transplant Study Seeks Cure for Colon Infection
Cover Story
Sisters Act: Siblings Kitty Toll and Jane Kitchel Hold Vermont’s Purse Strings
At the Danville Town Meeting lunch last week, Sen. Jane Beattie Kitchel and Rep. Kitty Beattie Toll squeezed into pint-size seats next to one another in an elementary school cafeteria and dug into the ham and baked beans. As tradition dictates, each had been tasked with bringing a dish to share. Kitchel made pickled beets;…
Eat This Week, March 22 to 28, 2017: Drink From the Tree
To celebrate its move from a farmhouse basement in Barnard village to expansive new digs on the Royalton Turnpike, Fable Farm Fermentory invites friends and cider fans for an afternoon tasting. Sample apple wines — some blended, others steeped in herbs or cellared since 2014 — along with brick-oven flatbreads, crostini, prosciutto and cheeses. All are…
The Parmelee Post: Whiny Resident Wins Chance to Operate City Plow Himself
One lucky Burlington resident was awarded a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share a hidden talent with the world thanks to a generous online contest organized by the city’s Department of Public Works. The challenge was to see who could leave the most condescending, passive-aggressive and ultimately pointless comment on the department’s Facebook page regarding its efforts…
Kids VT, Seven Days’ Free Parenting Magazine, Wins Six Awards From National Parenting Media Group
For the sixth year in a row, Kids VT, Vermont’s free monthly parenting magazine, took home the top writing prize at the Parenting Media Association’s Design and Editorial Awards Competition. The national competition recognizes excellence in journalism, photography and design in PMA member publications. The association announced the honors at its annual March convention in…
![Chief, National Guard Bureau Biathlon Championship [SIV482]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/episode482-scaled.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Chief, National Guard Bureau Biathlon Championship [SIV482]
3/9/17: The Vermont National Guard hosted 120 athletes from 23 different states last week for the 2017 Chief, National Guard Bureau Biathlon Championship at Camp Ethan Allen Training Site in Jericho. Soldiers and airmen competed in this biathlon which entails cross country skiing and precision target shooting. The four-person team of athletes from Vermont included…
Free Will Astrology (3/15/17)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Would you like some free healing that’s in alignment with cosmic rhythms? Try this experiment. Imagine that you’re planning to write your autobiography. Create an outline that has six chapters. Each of the first three chapters will be about a past experience that helped make you who you are. In each of the last three…
New American Women’s Soccer Team Dreams Big
Among the soccer players gathered at the Shelburne Field House on a Saturday evening in late February, Binti Abdullahi cut a stark figure in her loose-fitting black dress and hijab. Standing on the sidelines, Abdullahi, the manager of the Golden Blazers Girls Soccer Team, looked exasperated. Few of her charges were on the pitch. Most…
Mask, World Gone Crazy
(Self-released, cassette, digital download) Wallingford’s Mask have released what has got to be one of the shortest local EPs in recent memory, World Gone Crazy. The five blisteringly paced songs, the longest of which is little more than two minutes, altogether take up seven minutes and 27 seconds. There’s something to be said for brevity,…
UVM Study Explores a Fecal Transplant Cure
One week after celebrating her 80th birthday in December 2015, “Iris” contracted Clostridium difficile, a serious colon infection that causes fever, nausea, severe abdominal pain and debilitating diarrhea. “It’s most unpleasant. You feel lousy and you lose weight,” says the Chittenden County resident, who requested anonymity for this story. “It’s all bad. I wouldn’t wish…
Movie Review: ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Is a Warm-Up, Not a Remake
Moviegoers over a certain age will look at the poster art for Kong: Skull Island and immediately see the iconic one-sheet for Apocalypse Now. The story of the great ape has served as a metaphor for human hubris, colonialism, racism and more; now director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and his writing team offer it as an antiwar…
ETHEL Bring Program of Works by Fierce Females
When violinist Mary Rowell of Craftsbury and three fellow contemporary-music enthusiasts were brainstorming a name for their quartet back in 1998, Rowell hit on ETHEL. (She was recalling the movie Shakespeare in Love, in which Romeo’s great love in the Bard’s first draft is named Ethel.) A woman’s name thus came to describe what is…
Wooden Dinosaur, Working Weather
(Lost Honey Records, CD, digital download, vinyl) Over some 10 releases dating back 20 years or so, Wooden Dinosaur’s Michael Roberts has crafted songs by nailing them onto his own emotional framework. One imagines it’s an artisan-like process not unlike that of crafting the house he built in southern Vermont with his wife. During that…
Deadline Days: Time Is Short for Moving Legislation
Now that Town Meeting recess is in the rearview, Vermont lawmakers are returning to work with the sense of urgency inspired by the imminence of crossover. That’s the hard-and-fast yet conveniently malleable deadline for committees to send bills to either the House or Senate floor in order to be eligible for full legislative consideration. The…
A Benefit Fashion Show Models Multiculturalism
On a chilly Sunday in February, several dozen New American and U.S.-born performers gathered at North End Studios in Burlington to rehearse an upcoming production simply called “the Fashion Show.” But no one talked about clothes or makeup. Instead, participants from more than 12 countries proceeded to dance across three stages, guided by tape outlines…
Hard Lesson: A UVM Econ Prof Fights to Keep His Job
Students in hoodies and fleeces shuffled into a lecture hall at the University of Vermont shortly before 8:30 a.m. last Thursday for an intro-level course, the Principles of Microeconomics. Half the class had skipped to go on spring break early, and the rest looked as if they would rather still be in bed. The drowsy…
Talking Art With Glass Sculptor Alissa Faber
Walk into New City Galerie on Burlington’s Church Street some afternoon, and you’ll get the full effect of Alissa Faber’s wall-mounted sculptures. The distorted glass bubbles draped over charred tree branches glow in the light flooding through the venue’s tall windows. The sculptures, from Faber’s Blackened Timber series, are part of the “Momension” group show…
A Little Free Advice: Lawyers Help Vermonters Facing Eviction
An hour before his court hearing last month, Henry Condo pulled out a wallet as if to make a deal. “I can pay something now, and I can pay the rest when I get my tax returns,” the twentysomething man told lawyers in a conference room inside the courthouse on Rutland’s Center Street. Maggie Frye,…
Theater Review: Blackberry Winter, Vermont Stage
In Blackberry Winter, playwright Steve Yockey subverts the artistic dictum “show, don’t tell.” Showing isn’t any more powerful than a character with a strong need to tell, and Yockey taps that drive in creating Vivienne, a fortysomething baker whose mother is descending through dementia. Vivienne speaks to make sense of her mother’s decline, and of…
Movie Review: ‘Neruda’ Blends Fact and Fiction Into Magic
#OscarsSoWTF. This past year, the great Chilean director Pablo Larraín (The Club) presented the world with a pair of films in which famous names figure prominently. Jackie centered on the days following the Kennedy assassination and Natalie Portman’s whispery imitation of the First Widow. Neruda also takes a page from history, but it transforms real…
‘TRASHburgh’ Revels in the Seedy Side of Plattsburgh
Plattsburgh, N.Y. musician Matthew Hall has a question for you: How poopy is your butt? No, seriously. The question is repeatedly asked in interviews throughout the first two seasons of his web series, “TRASHburgh.” The program plays like a loosely structured variety show, schizophrenically darting among sketch comedy, bizarre animation, musical elements and man-on-the-street interviews.…
My Fiancé Has Asked Me for Some Space
Dear Athena, My fiancé recently asked me for some space. I love him so much, but he says I’m smothering him. He says he’s worried our relationship will feel like a duty for him. We had an argument about a strip club. I really don’t like the idea of guys going to a strip club,…
Letters to the Editor (3/15/17)
Wrong Mountains? I’m very fond of your paper but wondering why you featured a photo of mountains that do not appear to be in Vermont behind the headline “White Out,” which was celebrating all the great snow we had gotten [Last 7, February 15]. Opportunities abounded in this great state for a suitable photo op.…
Soundbites: Kiss Me, I’m Drunk
A storm is coming. No, not another Nor’easter. I’m talking about the yearly maelstrom of binge drinking and misplaced aggression that is St. Patrick’s Day. It’s probably my least favorite holiday. I feel like it combines Halloween’s ubiquity with Independence Day’s righteous fervor. But it excludes what makes those two holidays actually fun — costumes…
Spacious New Digs for Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea
In 2015, Waterbury’s Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea broke ground on a 15,000-square-foot facility that would house its roastery and two sister companies, Coffee Lab International and the School of Coffee. This week, the company finally made the move from its previous, much smaller location on Route 2. The new building, which looks like a…
At 20, the Green Mountain Film Fest Looks Forward
The Green Mountain Film Festival turns 20 this week with a Friday evening screening of Ken Loach’s blue-collar British drama I, Daniel Blake, launching a nine-day movie marathon in Montpelier. But the GMFF isn’t dwelling on the past in its anniversary year. The progressive program includes a strong focus on female filmmakers and a glimpse…
Strafford’s Stone Soup: Excellent Food, Not Cell, Service
There’s no cell service in upper Strafford village, which is just a handful of antique homes clustered around a green with white clapboard churches on both ends. The town also has a post office and a town clerk’s building — and the Justin Smith Morrill Homestead is just a quarter-mile down the road. While many of…
The State’s Kevin Allison Talks Comedy and Podcasts
When his sketch comedy group the State broke up in 1995 — thus ending the cult-favorite MTV show of the same name — Kevin Allison found himself in comedic limbo. While other members of the State went on to more TV success with shows such as “Reno 911!” and “Stella,” Allison struggled to find his…
What’s the Story With Vermont’s Many Hill Roads?
Road names can speak volumes about a place — its topography, the people who settled there, where they hailed from and how they used the land. This week, a reader sent us an interesting “What the hill?” question about road names in Vermont and why some are more common than others. “I’m dying to know…
Obituary: David Wales, 1960-2017, Montpelier/Sugarbush
David Allan Wales, age 57, of Montpelier passed away suddenly Thursday morning, March 9th. Born March 8, 1960, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is survived by his wife and best friend, Martha. They celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary on January 14th, 2017. He designed and built their energy efficient home in Montpelier in 1997. Dave was…
New ‘Dykes to Watch Out For’ Tackles the Ides of Trump
Alison Bechdel is a Vermont-based cartoonist and author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic — a graphic memoir turned Tony-winning Broadway musical. From 1983 to 2008 she drew the popular strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” which ran in publications across the country, including Seven Days. She now draws single strips when inspiration strikes, as…
Local Chefs Hop on the Cocktail-and-Food Pairing Trend
The veggie hash arrived five courses into a brunch-time cocktail pairing at Misery Loves Co. in Winooski — hunks of mushroom and cauliflower and strips of roasted bell pepper and onion, all mounded on a smear of verdant pesto. A pair of orange-yolked eggs slumped off the vegetables like the melting clocks in Salvador Dali’s…
Namuna Asian Kitchen Opens in Winooski
Less than two years after replacing Dharshan Namaste Asian Deli at 212 Main Street in Winooski, the Spice Traders’ Kitchen closed in February. A sign on the door assured visitors that new owners would be taking over soon, but offered no details. After weeks of concerned local chatter, Namuna Asian Kitchen began serving noodles, dumplings,…
Eat This Week, March 15 to 21, 2017: Breakfast at Limlaw’s
In West Topsham, the Limlaw family opens its sunny post-and-beam sugarhouse for a Sunday buffet breakfast series each spring when the sap is flowing. For the uninitiated, it’s one of the finest morning meals available anywhere in Vermont. Find cheddar quiches studded with bacon, pepper and onion, or try buttery biscuits and thick gravy riddled…
