Deutch Treat
Despite some tepid reviews from mainstream critics, Mostly Martha should be savored by audiences for the same reason they responded to Babette’s Feast in 1987 and Big Night nine years later: gourmet food so painstakingly prepared and stunningly photographed you can almost smell it. Although Germany is not renowned for its cuisine, the new film…
Miles of Files: A “connected” art exhibit puts paperwork in perspective
File cabinets are purely functional and rarely attractive, but last June, Bren Alvarez began to envision these hulking office fixtures as conceptual public art. The 45-year-old Burlington architect, who also co-owns the Flynndog gallery, wanted to create a satirical sculpture that would comment on the bureaucracy of urban planning. “The idea just flashed in my…
Spoiler Sports: Why Vermont’s election rules are less than democratic
Picture this: The November 5 governor’s election results in an unexpectedly close finish between Republican Jim Douglas and Democrat Doug Racine, with Douglas nosing ahead of Racine by less than one percentage point. And because independent candidate Con Hogan got 10 percent of the vote, Douglas has failed to capture a popular majority. Under the…
Bad Mom, Bad Prez
I was all set this week not to mention the Bush administration and whichever country it is around the Tigris and Euphrates that our government intends to flatten, but events got a hold of me. Really, they did. I looked hard for other news on which to spin a bit of punditry. There’s that Bad…
Veggie Vehicles: Biodiesel fuel makes power points in Vermont
Take a whiff of the exhaust from Paul Butler’s car and you know something’s cooking. The fumes won’t make you gag. If anything, they’ll make you hungry. They give off an odor rather like, well, French fries. What you’ve smelled might be the future, and its name is biodiesel — an alternative fuel that is…
True Grid: Artist Bill Davison makes a lasting impression
Pictures are proverbially worth a thousand words, but it’s unusual to hear even half that many on how artworks are actually made — outside the classroom, anyway. To the casual viewer, the often-complicated steps from blank paper to finished product are a mystery. Printmakers in particular are notoriously “protective of the little things they think…
Trickle-Down Theory
The commodification of water is shaping up to be one of tomorrow’s hot-button issues. It seems every day brings another story of water shortages, droughts and skirmishes among the haves and have-nots. In fact, the dichotomy between the world’s dry and wet areas is so bad that Ismail Serageldin, the vice president of the World…
Work: Shara Tarule, dog behavior consultant, Humane Society of Chittenden County
Wielding the kind of rubber hand-on-a-stick often used as a Halloween gag, Shara Tarule gently strokes Sassy’s lush black fur. The little cocker spaniel mix doesn’t seem to mind. She’s busy gnawing on a leathery, dried pig ear at the Humane Society of Chittenden County’s spacious new headquarters behind K-Mart on Shelburne Road in Burlington.…
War On Vermont?
“Regime change” is the name of President George W. Bush’s game, and the events of the past week are proof positive that Baghdad is not Dubya’s only target. The State of Vermont is also on the White House hit list. Oh, boy! In the last week, the Texas sabre-rattler occupying the Oval Office has dispatched…
