Sep 19-25, 2018
In Her New Show, Comedian Josie Leavitt Confronts Cancer; Winooski Rejects Noncitizen Voting — for Now; Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner in Middlebury
Cover Story
In Her New Comedy Show, Josie Leavitt Confronts Cancer
In the standup comedy classes she used to teach, Josie Leavitt imparted one key piece of advice to her students. Aside from tips on joke construction and timing, it’s her most fundamental nugget of comic wisdom. “I would tell them that you can have a bad day, and you can have a funny day,” she…
The Parmelee Post: Mississippi Prison Promises Better Conditions for Out-of-State Lobbyists
CoreCivic, the private prison corporation that operates the Mississippi facility slated to house Vermont’s out-of-state inmates for the next two years, has addressed concerns about that prison’s conditions. “I would like to assure the fine people of Vermont that the lobbyists we have working in your great state will receive nothing but the absolute best…
The Cannabis Catch-Up: Getting Lobsters High Is a Thing Now, Apparently
Google “getting animals high” and you’ll find all sorts of stuff. Some people write about feeding animals cannabidiol-laced treats. More often than not, the results feature horror stories about pets that stumbled upon their owner’s stash and consumed some. Others feature people who intentionally get an animal high and then take video of the poor…
Walking on Water: Michigan Man Paddleboards Across Lake Champlain
A Michigan man has conquered Lake Champlain by crossing it via paddleboard from Burlington’s North Beach to Port Kent, N.Y. Eric Strickler hopped aboard his inflatable standup paddleboard around 6 a.m. Monday and headed west. A strong southerly wind forced the fit 32-year-old to spend most of the time paddling on his right side. It…
Art Review: ‘Backstory,’ Kent Museum
The word “backstory,” a contraction of “background story,” is a relatively recent addition to English. Hollywood screenwriters began using the term in the 1980s for the potted biographies of characters that actors receive. Now everyone and everything has a backstory, including the 19th-century historic building in Calais known as the Kent Museum. The structure began…
Movie Review: ‘The Wife’
Say Donald Trump was a film critic. Hmm, delicious, isn’t it, to imagine him doing anything other than what he actually does? Let’s pause to relish the fantasy of him at the movies with a notepad on his thigh. The final, anticlimactic scenes of The Wife have just concluded, and the lights are bright. For…
Bernie Boost: Sanders Giving Plenty of Help to Vermont Democrats
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has had a sometimes rocky relationship with the Democratic Party. But he’s making considerable efforts this year to support the Vermont Democrats’ coordinated campaign, including direct financial support and a host of personal appearances between now and November 6. The coordinated campaign is just that: a joint effort to support the…
Movie Review: ‘A Simple Favor’
Watching the trailer for A Simple Favor, I thought director Paul Feig, who’s known for comedies (The Heat, Spy, Bridesmaids) had decided to try his hand at a Gone Girl-esque thriller. I love creators who don’t stay in their little Hollywood branding boxes, so I went in excited to see something new. As it turns…
Counselor Julia Rogers Helps Students Navigate Their Gap Year
Julia Rogers credits her upbringing in Toms River, N.J., for stoking her wanderlust. As she joked in a recent interview, “There’s nothing like growing up in suburban New Jersey to make you want to visit exotic, far-flung locations.” Rogers, who’s now a professional gap-year counselor, helps college-bound high school seniors discover their own wanderlust and…
Brian’s North End Store and Deli Ups the Fast-Food Ante
Come October, discerning palates in Burlington’s Old North End may want to revisit the menu at Brian’s North End Store & Deli. That’s the former Waggy’s Store & Deli at the corner of North Street and North Avenue, where grill man Steve Wilson will soon debut a series of regular hot dinner specials that intend…
Hackie: Mercy, Mercy Me
I had just dropped off a customer at the hospital when a woman signaled to me and approached my cab. Her traditional African garb — she was wearing one of those gorgeous multicolored print dresses — suggested she was a relatively recent arrival to America. Before Uber arrived in Burlington some three years ago —…
Eat This Week, September 19 to 25, 2018: Chez September
Chef Suzanne Podhaizer (a former Seven Days food writer) teams up with Half Pint Farm, 1000 Stone Farm and Badger Brook Meats to cook up a multicourse supper exploring the flavors of summer into fall. Find farm-fresh egg yolks tucked inside handmade pasta plated with roasted yellow tomatoes, Maple Wind Farm chickens braised in warm…
Free Will Astrology (9/19/18)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo businessman Warren Buffet is among the top five wealthiest people on the planet. In an average year, his company Berkshire Hathaway adds $36 billion to its already swollen coffers. But in 2017, thanks to the revision of the U.S. tax code by President Donald Trump and his buddies, Buffet earned…
Album Review: Preece, ‘Bad Choices Make Good Stories’
(Self-released, digital download) It’s 1997, and I’m desperate to impress a girl. I should be smart enough to know it won’t work, but I’m not — I have another decade or so of love lessons to learn. Foolishly, I accept an invitation to accompany said girl to the Vans Warped Tour. It goes … badly.…
Scarlett Letters: What Are the Long-Term Effects of Frequent Masturbation?
Dear Scarlett, I masturbate often, maybe even three to four times a day. Please tell me the long-term effects of this and how I can control it. Signed, Jackin’ the Beanstalk (male, age 17) Dear Jackin’, There are a lot of myths about masturbation. People who masturbate have been called selfish and immoral. The act…
Four Live Albums From Local Artists
Any music fan, casual or otherwise, likely has an opinion about live albums. Some people love them. (I’m looking at you, Phish fans.) Others aren’t interested. But why are they so divisive? It depends on how you look at them. On one hand, live albums are often maligned because of sound quality issues and an…
Harry Bliss and Kate DiCamillo Release Children’s Book on Canine Friendship
Cartoonist Harry Bliss, whose work has graced the cover of the New Yorker, thinks there’s too much shitty art in the world. “You can’t contribute to that,” he said. The Vermont- and New Hampshire-based artist, whose single-panel, adult-oriented cartoon appears weekly in Seven Days, is also known for illustrating children’s books. Regardless of what he…
Longtime Burlington Jewelers Doug and Marty French Call It a Career
Marty and Doug French rolled into Burlington in June 1971 in a Volkswagen bus with a 4-month-old baby, a poodle and all of their possessions, including $600 worth of metalworking tools. They sort of had a plan: Neither of them had any experience running a business, but they knew how to make jewelry. Within a…
Vermont Symphony Orchestra Hosts Pianist Peter Serkin in Concert
The Vermont Symphony Orchestra opens its season with the return of a near native — pianist Peter Serkin, who grew up in Guilford. Yes, one of those Serkins. “This is kind of like classical-music royalty,” says VSO executive director Ben Cadwallader. “That last name is pretty much a household name.” Serkin, now 71, was 4…
Vietnamese Seminary Candidates Find New Home in Vermont
Thang Nguyen believes the best way to express gratitude is to pay it forward. Catholic missionaries arrived in Vietnam in the 17th century to preach the gospel. “Now,” he said, “another country needs God. We should go.” That country is the U.S., where the declining number of local-born clergy has prompted several Catholic dioceses to…
Vermont’s Most Diverse City Rejects Noncitizen Voting for Now
On Monday night, the Winooski City Council temporarily settled a debate that has divided its denizens: whether to allow Onion City residents who are living legally in the U.S. but are not citizens to vote in municipal and school elections. No Vermont community has yet taken that step. The gathering attracted a number of young…
Trying Out a Draft and Craft Night in Winooski
If you’ve known me longer than 10 minutes, I’ve probably roped you into watching comedian Chris Fleming’s “Paint Nite” video on YouTube. With his singular brand of free-associative humor, Fleming decimates the popular social art-making-and-boozing format. Making delightfully hyperbolic connections to Hitlerian utopia, lobotomy (“After enough Paint Nites, you can actually fail the Turing test!”),…
Let Equality Bloom Fest to Combine Art and Activism
When people think of activism, they’re more likely to think of petitions and protest signs than food trucks and festivities. But expect both of the latter at Let Equality Bloom: An Activism Festival, an event dreamed up by the six volunteer organizers behind Women’s March Vermont. This Sunday, September 23, in Burlington’s Old North End,…
Letters to the Editor (9/19/18)
Good Sheriff [“Sheriff, Inc.,” September 5] unfairly portrayed the work and operations of the sheriffs’ offices in Vermont. Here are important facts about our work: The Vermont Constitution established the 14 county-elected positions, and their departments, under a model of joint “public-private” operations. Located in each county, the sheriffs’ departments provide law enforcement services to…
Album Review: A Box of Stars, ‘Days Drunk Off Heat’
(Self-released, digital download) A Box of Stars emerged from the Green Mountain College arts community — or, as the folk band refers to its home turf, “western Vermont.” The Poultney campus looks like a movie set, surrounded by mountains and nestled against the New York State border. I can’t shake the feeling that view had…
Can Republicans Bring Down House Speaker Mitzi Johnson?
House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) didn’t seem worried as she made her way through the South Hero farmers market on a sunny afternoon last week. Wearing Tevas and a T-shirt and periodically popping cherry tomatoes into her mouth, she chatted with farmers, greeting them by first name. Though her nonchalant demeanor didn’t suggest it,…
State Withholds Report on Inmate’s Final, Agonizing Cancer Fight
Vermont inmate Roger Brown was in agony in the weeks before he died at Pennsylvania’s Camp Hill prison. Staffers provided over-the-counter remedies such as ibuprofen and gel shoe inserts to treat the worsening pain in his back and hips, he wrote in his diary. When Brown could no longer write, his cellmate, Clifton Matthews, put…
Soundbites: Ansari Not Sorry?
In case you somehow missed this week’s biggest bit of local entertainment news: Aziz Ansari is coming to Burlington. Specifically, the comedian plays two shows at the Flynn MainStage on Thursday, September 27. Higher Ground Presents, which is presenting Ansari, added the second show after the first sold out almost immediately. It wouldn’t surprise anyone…
Robbie Leeds and Nick Smith Take the Lead at Otter Creek Brewing
When Lawrence Miller founded Otter Creek Brewing in a pint-size space on Middlebury’s Exchange Street in 1991, it was one of very few Vermont microbreweries. But Miller’s easy-drinking Copper Ale quickly gained a following and, by 1995, the brewery grew into a larger space down the street. Soon, Otter Creek was contract brewing for California-based…
Three Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner in Middlebury
It was, at first, all about the buns. Haymaker Bun of Middlebury was reliably making me drool all over my phone every time I checked my Instagram feed. There was the maple-bacon Sugarshack version of the traditional coiled cinnamon bun; the Far East filled with dates, cardamom and coconut and topped with toasted almonds; even…
Two in One: Haymaker Bun Co. and Arcadian to Share Middlebury Space
When Caroline and Matt Corrente open their Middlebury business in November, it will embody a model unusual in the food industry: two restaurants in one. The married couple will share the riverside restaurant space at 7 Bakery Lane, where Caroline will operate Haymaker Bun in the morning and Matt will run his new Italian restaurant, the…
