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Days before he was sworn in as Vermont’s 82nd governor, Phil Scott considered for a moment the pledge that had defined his rise to power. For years, the Berlin Republican had been promising to make Vermont more affordable — but what exactly did he mean when he invoked the state’s “crisis of affordability,” and how…
Coast Guard veteran enjoyed sailing trips, skiing and golfing
Burlington man enjoyed a 40-year career at UVM
Former Bixby librarian was an avid reader and traveler
World War II veteran remembered for his distinguished service and love of music
1. Let Freedom Ring What does democracy sound like? Nine-time Grammy Award-winning trumpeter, composer and bandleader Wynton Marsalis channels notions of freedom and democracy into song. Performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet With Wynton Marsalis, the program “The Sound of Democracy” features new works Marsalis composed and arranged with these big ideas…
Melodie Lewis had been unemployed for more than three years before she started a paid internship this summer at the Community of Vermont Elders in Montpelier. The 59-year-old Barre woman had experience working in an office but needed to brush up on her computer skills. About two months later, she’d landed a part-time gig as…
Correct Stats? Thank you for reporting on the frightening increase in opioid use and related deaths [“Relapse in Recovery,” September 16]. I was horrified by the statistics, especially the chart for opioid deaths by county, which lists Windsor, my county of residence, as increased significantly from six in 2019 to 15 in 2020. Unfortunately, the…
Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. This week, I preview a Vermont-made film from Barnard director Josh Melrod. Major Arcana will be screened at Montpelier’s Savoy Theater on Thursday, October 8, 7 p.m., followed by a Q&A with Melrod and stars Ujon Tokarski (also of Barnard) and…
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 committee of raccoons. So this monthly feature is our way of introducing you to a handful of books by Vermont authors. To do that, we contextualize each book…
It was a measure of how starved for art Vermonters are that, on a recent Tuesday morning, a steady stream of people showed up to tour Art at the Kent in Calais. The beloved annual exhibition, begun 12 years ago by curators Nel Emlen, Allyson Evans and David Schutz (also the state curator), is entirely…
At a certain point, I stopped going to record stores intending to walk away with a certain title. I’d love to enter a shop and be handed whatever disc I wanted, no matter how mainstream or obscure. But that’s not the way it works. To be fair, I used to go to a store called…
(self-released, digital) I can’t help being a little bit jealous of today’s queer youth. Artists like Montpelier’s Zak Kline, 21, have likely benefited from growing up in a world with queer visibility like never before. That’s not to say he owes a piece of his identity to someone else, but it must be a different…
(Self-released, digital) The age of the grand recording studio has largely passed. Gone are the days of bands holing up in some decadent mansion or dank studio to craft sounds. Now, factoring in quarantine life as well, more artists are making music alone from home, with varying degrees of success. Kevin Lewis has been doing…
Peter Edelmann has shown many disaster movies since he first opened the Essex Cinemas in October 2001. He never imagined that one day he’d be trying to survive a perfect storm of his own: COVID-19. When Essex Cinemas premiered as Vermont’s first movie theater with stadium seating, Netflix was still delivering DVDs by the U.S.…
Brattleboro, situated at the nexus of the West and Connecticut rivers in southeastern Vermont, has a unique and dramatic topography. The downtown bears some resemblance to a ladder: a steep angle up Main Street with perpendicular streets forming flat rungs at different levels. And always, to the east, New Hampshire shoulders its way into view.…
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran author Ursula K. Le Guin said that we don’t just naturally know how to create our destinies. It takes research and hard work. “All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them,” she wrote. “We need to be taught these skills; we need…
On a secluded slice of roadway in Burlington last week, Ava Foster stepped to the edge of a seven-foot-tall quarter-pipe and slid down the ramp on her skateboard. The 9-year-old is a regular at this South End spot known as the Barriers, an unsanctioned skate park on a stretch of the still-unbuilt Champlain Parkway. But…
Dear Reverend, The crossing guard who parks in front of my house recently put a Trump/Pence bumper sticker on his car. I find it totally offensive, and I would like him to park elsewhere. Should I complain to the school? Sticker Shocked (male, 53) Dear Sticker Shocked, I get where you’re coming from, and I…
Public health officials have long stressed that contact tracing is key to suppressing the coronavirus pandemic, which has made all the more concerning the White House’s apparent failure to track the spread of an outbreak that has sickened President Donald Trump and people around him. While the Trump administration initially claimed it was conducting “full…
City leaders in South Burlington think the local newspaper has stopped doing its job. Other Paper reporters are skipping government meetings, they say, and the publication’s Stowe-based editors are serving up too many irrelevant stories. So the city leaders have started a news outlet of their own. Last week, Vermont’s second-largest city published the inaugural…
The rooftop garden at the University of Vermont Medical Center is an unexpected oasis on top of a concrete and steel structure. On a late September morning, within view of the hospital’s grand entrance, bees buzzed among bright-blue borage flowers and scarlet bee balm. Sunlight shone through translucent crimson Swiss chard stems. A raised bed…
When I was growing up, my mother often punctuated her statements with the French phrase c’est ça. The literal translation is “it’s that,” meaning “yes, exactly, that’s it” — though it can just as easily be a sarcastic “yeah, right.” She said it as a sort of verbal shrug — it is what it is…
