Oct 31 – Nov 6, 2018
State’s Attorney Sarah George Campaigns for Reform; Burlington Farmers Market Seeks a New Home; Organic Agriculture Leader Enid Wonnacott Steps Down; How Entertainment Media Influences Political Views
Obituary: Reta Jones Bean, 1938-2018
Burlington Reta Jones Bean of Burlington, Vt., passed away on Sunday, November 4, 2018, with the comfort of her family by her side. Reta was born in Montpelier on January 3, 1938, to Merritt and Carrie (Mobus) Jones. She married David Bean in Waterbury on June 17, 1961. Reta grew up in Warren. She graduated…
Scarlett Letters: My Husband Has Anger Management Issues
Dear Scarlett, I have been married to my husband for more than 10 years. He’s always had issues with controlling his anger, but lately it has become more intense because he hates his job. When I fight back, it becomes a miserable yelling match. When I back off, I feel like I am letting him…
Grace Experience Stars in ‘The Turn of the Screw’
Grace Experience does not have an average name, nor does she spend her weekday nights doing average things. For example: At 8 p.m. on a recent Tuesday, the 24-year-old Experience, wearing a long taffeta skirt, was weeping in the gymnasium of Weybridge Elementary School. Beside her stood a man in an oversize blazer, imitating a…
Album Review: Hank & Dad™, ‘Music for Delis’
(Self-released, digital) Just as all great television series reach their epic finales, conceptual pop outfit Hank & Dad™ just released its final album, Music for Delis. But who are Hank & Dad™? And why is their name trademarked? Should Seven Days unmask the man behind the project? Nah. Let’s just say that he’s a longtime…
Eat This Week, October 31 to November 6, 2018: Kevin’s Famous Foods
Celebrity chef Kevin Des Chenes teams up with Vermont Wine Merchants on a four-course wine dinner. During cocktail hour, guests will snack on lobster-corn fritters. Then they’ll move into the dining room for a meal of grilled peaches with burrata, seared striped bass on a bed of buttered chard, braised short rib with udon, and…
Album Review: Wool See, ‘Ewe Gross’
(Heaven Noise Recordings, digital, vinyl) Wool See is a one-man band consisting of rapper/producer IAME, who recently settled in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. He made his name in the creative and competitive Portland, Ore., scene as a member of two distinguished hip-hop crews, Oldominion and Sandpeople. His latest release, Ewe Gross, marks his seventh LP. The…
Kismet’s Brothy Bread Pudding Is What You’re Craving Now
I like to call these first few weeks of November the “Halloween hangover.” The forested hillsides fade to tree-bark gray, their outlines barely visible in the damp, daylong gloaming. In town, withered leaves stain sidewalks muddy brown. We shed our party costumes in spangled crumples on the bedroom floor and wrap ourselves in the Graying…
New Book Examines How Entertainment Media Shapes Beliefs
When you binge-watch 14 episodes of “Game of Thrones,” the HBO show is doing more than just imparting the epic fantasy saga of Jon Snow, the Mother of Dragons and Tyrion Lannister. It’s also helping to shape your political worldview. That’s according to The Political Effects of Entertainment Media: How Fictional Worlds Affect Real World…
Vermont Is One of Two U.S. States That Let Incarcerated Citizens Vote
Kassie Tibbott spent several weeks this fall visiting five Vermont state prisons with the goal of getting local inmates to vote. The recent Vermont Law School graduate was happy to help 44 prisoners register for the first time. She was even more elated to meet 39 inmates already on the voter rolls, who simply asked…
Erika Senft Miller’s ‘AutoBiography’: A Performance About Car Culture
Burlington artist Erika Senft Miller was born in Marktoberdorf, Germany. The small Bavarian town lies near Neuschwanstein, the famous castle built by King Ludwig II, composer Richard Wagner’s patron, and a few hours from Bayreuth, where Wagner tailor-built an opera house to stage his four-opera Ring Cycle. While Miller has yet to see the Ring…
Running Unopposed, State’s Attorney Sarah George Campaigns for Reform
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George wants Vermont to establish supervised heroin-injection sites. She has signed off on expunging more than 100 criminal records, many of which were marijuana-related. To help combat the opiates scourge, she no longer prosecutes people facing misdemeanors for possessing addiction-treatment drugs without a prescription. Although she has no opponent in…
A New Graphic Novel Considers: What If Houdini Were a Spy?
What if Harry Houdini were not just the world’s greatest magician but a master of actual magic? What if he used his supernatural powers to spy for the U.S. government, fighting those who would wield magic to evil ends? That’s the enticing premise of After Houdini, the latest graphic novel scripted by Jeremy Holt of…
Uprooted: Burlington Farmers Market Seeks a New Home
Starksboro farmer Hank Bissell set up shop on October 20 on the same corner of Burlington’s City Hall Park that he’s occupied every warm-weather Saturday for three decades. Passersby, tugging their dogs on leashes and carrying bags of leafy greens, stopped to view his Lewis Creek Farm’s special — beets for $1.50 a pound — and…
Soundbites: Madaila — Where Do We Go From Here?
Several weeks ago, news broke that Burlington psych-pop band Madaila are going on indefinite hiatus. The band enjoyed a meteoric rise throughout the last several years, playing high-profile gigs at home and abroad. From early on, the group seemed primed to make the jump to the “next level,” fueled by an ecstatic local fan base.…
Bach’s ‘Magnificat’ Offers Balm for a Troubled Time
After an all-Johann Sebastian Bach concert given by the Montpelier music series Capital City Concerts last year, director and flutist Karen Kevra and her guest musicians, including soprano Hyunah Yu, convened at Kevra’s house in Cornwall. The talk naturally turned to Bach. And that’s when this weekend’s concert was conceived. “Last year, we were all…
DJ Taka Is Burlington’s King of Disco
When Lee Anderson opened the Light Club Lamp Shop in 2014, he didn’t intend for it to be a music venue. Instead, he envisioned the extension of his Burlington-based coffeehouse/music venue Radio Bean and adjoining street-fare restaurant ¡Duino! (Duende) as “more of a conversational lounge.” “I was trying to break the ‘altar’ aspect of hanging…
Hackie: Call Harry
Tony de Rosa sat beside me in my taxi as we drove south on Interstate 89 en route to his home in Lyndonville. An appointment with an endocrinologist — something to do with diabetes — had brought him to Burlington, but his ride back to Lyndonville had fallen through. With his barrel chest, pristinely shaved…
Exploring Mt. Philo With Historian Judy Chaves
Walking up Mount Philo in Charlotte is a trip into the past. If you go with historian Judy Chaves, you can look back 50 or a hundred years — or 500 million. The mountain is only 968 feet high, which in many parts of the country would qualify as little more than a hill. But…
Interracial Adoptees Find Support in a Group at UVM
Francesca Carasi-Schwartz loved the summer blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians so much that she watched it three times. The experiences of protagonist Rachel Chu resonated with her, said the University of Vermont sophomore. Raised in the United States, Chu is about to travel with her boyfriend to visit his family in Singapore when her Chinese immigrant…
Free Will Astrology (10/31/18)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Penetralia” is a word that means the innermost or most private parts, the most secret and mysterious places. It’s derived from the same Latin term that evolved into the word “penetrate.” You Scorpios are of course the zodiac’s masters of penetralia. More than any other sign, you’re likely to know where…
‘Energizer Bunny’: As He Campaigns for Reelection, Sanders Preps for a Second Presidential Run
On a sunny Sunday in mid-October, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reflected on just how much the national policy debate has shifted in recent years. “I have been through many, many states throughout this country,” he told a couple hundred Vermonters gathered in an event barn at Williston’s Isham Family Farm. “And what I am enormously…
Letters to the Editor (10/31/18)
Wonderful Idea for Library [Re Off Message: “‘Howe’ Now: UVM Drops ‘Bailey’ From Library Name Over Eugenics Ties,” October 26; Off Message: “Committee: Remove ‘Bailey’ From the UVM Library’s Name,” October 18; “Bye-Bye Bailey? UVM May Drop Library Namesake for Supporting Eugenics,” September 5]: As a two-time University of Vermont alum, I support dissociating Guy…
Liberian Women Find Strength Together in ‘Eclipsed’
A play opening at Dartmouth College this Friday features five women. But it’s not exactly in the Steel Magnolias vein. In fact, Eclipsed touts a cast of five black women, a black playwright — Zimbabwean American actor Danai Gurira — and a black director, visiting artist Miranda Haymon. When the play opened on Broadway in…
Movie Review: ‘The Old Man & the Gun’ Gives Robert Redford a Fond But Forgettable Farewell
A more fitting title for this might have been My Work Is Done Here. Robert Redford has announced that this is his final appearance in front of the camera. For anyone who knows and loves cinema, such a milestone offers an occasion for wistfulness or grateful recognition of his daunting contribution. Perhaps some measure of…
A Very Long Shot: Janssen Willhoit’s One-Man Campaign
The campaign for Vermont attorney general has turned out to be a very friendly affair. Incumbent Democrat T.J. Donovan and his challenger, state Rep. Janssen Willhoit (R-St. Johnsbury), clearly like and respect each other. Both have thought deeply about the law and have often come to similar conclusions. One big contrast between the two: their…
Movie Review: Star-Studded Oddball Western ‘The Sisters Brothers’ Grows on You
Sometimes the movies I read about in online cinephile forums never reach Vermont’s multiplexes, or they might surface for a week and disappear. Such is the case of The Sisters Brothers, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal, which won director Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone) a Silver Lion at the 2018 Venice Film Festival. Come…
Phnom Penh Sandwich Station Comes to White River Junction
Life in White River Junction is about to get just a bit spicier. After months of preparation, Lay Yi and Sarin Tin plan to open Phnom Penh Sandwich Station in the former Polka Dot Restaurant space at 7 North Main Street in the next week or so. The new restaurant is an outgrowth of the…
Longtime Organic Ag Leader Enid Wonnacott Steps Down
Enid Wonnacott has tallied many accomplishments over 30-plus years as executive director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. In 1987, her 10-hour-per-week job came with one filing cabinet and a milk crate filled with paperwork. Since then, Wonnacott has built the nonprofit into a 20-person team supported by a $2.8 million budget. NOFA-VT…
Mara and Spencer Welton Sell Half Pint Farm
A small farm that holds a big place in the Burlington food scene will soon change hands when Mara and Spencer Welton, founders and owners of Half Pint Farm at the Intervale Center, sell their business to a member of the crew. The Weltons started the three-acre farm, known for tomatoes, microgreens, peppers and other…
