Vermont has always appealed to certain kinds of escapists — the homesteaders, the reclusive artists, the doomsday preppers, the celebrities who don’t want to be photographed while buying half-and-half. Still, for several decades, Vermont’s demographic trends have told a fairly consistent story: Economic prospects are bleh, young people are leaving, and everybody is getting older.…
Sculptor’s work was exhibited in high-profile galleries around the world
Young Vermonter delighted in biking, climbing trees and exploring trails
At work and home, UVM ed professor worked his magic
Equal Rights Amendment activist devoted her life to feminism, spirituality and charity
Gordon Clifford Gilfilian, 85, beloved husband of Sue Firman, passed away peacefully on August 27, 2020, after a long illness. Private services are planned. Please visit awrfh.com to view further information and share your memories.
1. Birds of Prey Hear ye, hear ye! Visitors at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee are transported to centuries past as they learn about the 3,000-year-old practice of falconry during the annual Sport of Kings Day. Folks of all ages explore owl lore, meet a real falconer from New England Falconry and,…
In early July, southern Vermont was rocked by reports of a dramatic outbreak of COVID-19. One in five residents who walked into a Manchester urgent care clinic between July 10 and 14 tested positive for the virus — 40 times the statewide rate. Such a spike could quickly overwhelm a small town. But this one…
CORRECTION The photo illustrating last week’s WTF column was not of an emerald ash borer. This is what the invasive insect looks like. This Bugs Me Having earned a college degree with an emphasis in entomology, I wanted you to know that the photo of the insect in your most recent WTF column [“Why Does…
A viral meme popular with Vermont teachers is making the rounds. Lifted from the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” the 46-second clip features the character Moira, labeled as the “U.S. Department of Education,” guiding her adult son David, who is labeled “teachers,” through an enchilada recipe. “Next step is to fold in the cheese,” Moira tells David.…
Shortly after the coronavirus hit in March, Vermont began releasing nonviolent inmates from prison in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease in the crowded facilities. That meant that many of Joanne Nelson’s clients were back on the streets, often without adequate supplies, food or even housing. Nelson is director of the justice…
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo poet Mary Oliver was renowned for giving herself permission. Permission to do what? To become a different person from the self she had been. To shed her familiar beliefs and adopt new ones. To treat every experience as an opportunity to experiment. To be at peace with uncertainty. I think…
“There is nothing tidy about this volume,” Scudder Parker warns in the introduction to his poetry debut, Safe as Lightning. This is a humble beginning for a book that collects a rich lifetime’s worth of ruminations, memories and experiences living in rural Vermont: Parker’s family moved to North Danville when he was a child to…
Like all music organizations these days, Opera Company of Middlebury has entirely remade its current season. But this small opera company’s new plan doesn’t just observe the pandemic-era moratorium on singers projecting aerosolized droplets toward older audiences. It also contributes to the country’s conversation about, and increasing awareness of, systemic racism. OCM has postponed its…
This story has been updated to reflect an extension of the submission deadline. Good news can be hard to come by these days, but if you’re an emerging poet — or eager to emerge — here’s a welcome opportunity: The Johnson-based Sundog Poetry Center has just announced a brand-new First or Second Book Award for…
Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. This week, I review the latest from cult writer-director Charlie Kaufman, available only on Netflix. The deal: Two young lovers drive through the snow to observe the time-honored relationship ritual of meeting the parents. His name is Jake (Jesse Plemons); hers…
Dear Reverend, I am recently single after over a decade. The last few years I have seen zero action, and I’m afraid that whenever the time comes, I’m going to completely make a fool of myself and not know what to do — as well as be dry AF. Tell me that sex after years…
Like millions of other New Yorkers, I was moving about our city like a fast-paced germ. Mid-March, days before the shutdown, we were elbow to elbow, cough to cough, sneezing and God-blessing each other in trepidation on stuffed trains that busily buzzed us back and forth. Gooey bulbs of snot shot through the noses of…
Castleton native Arantha Farrow was just 4 years old when her father, a Black man from Zimbabwe, applied for a green card to stay in the U.S. with his family. But when immigration officials saw that he’d once been detained for an eighth of an ounce of marijuana, an incident Farrow describes as racial profiling,…
One way or another, pandemic or not, I’ve been determined to ride a cute ferry to a cool island this summer. You see, every summer for the past several years, my girlfriend and I and a core group of friends have vacationed together on Block Island. Thirteen miles off the southern coast of my native…
(Self-released, CD, digital) Happiness is a strange sort of capital these days. You find it where you can, hold on to it tightly and quantify it beside the general upheaval of the world. It seems simple enough, but why, then, do so many people actually fear happiness? Maybe they think they don’t deserve it, or…
Margot Harrison’s second contemporary YA thriller, The Glare, is informed by creepypasta — an unsettling genre of internet folklore — and accidentally intensified by current events and screen-dependent life in quarantine. The novel’s narrator is Hedda, a teenager whose parents represent opposing extremes of the screen time debate. Her mother is a technophobic purist who…
Those of us in print media have a tricky little problem to deal with on a regular basis: cramming all of our thoughts, observations and feelings into the limited space on the page. It’s often the bane of our existence. We have so much to say and sometimes too little space in which to say…
(Back Pasture Music, CD, digital, vinyl) Maple Run Band are a Vermont country outfit blessed with taste and chops. For this reviewer, that came as a tremendous relief. In a bleak era, when so-called “country radio” has devolved into dog-shit pop rock, this crew stays true to the original formula: honest songwriting, tight arrangements and…
Benjy Adler turned 39 on Friday, March 13. It was an ominous time. Six days earlier, the state of Vermont announced its first case of the coronavirus. Three days after Adler’s birthday, Gov. Phil Scott ordered all restaurants in the state to stop offering in-house dining, effective the next day, to curb the spread of…
Aaron Martin, chef-owner of Plate in Stowe, opened a second restaurant a few doors down last week: Umami, at 151 Main Street, Unit 5. Designed for the pandemic takeout trend, Umami is an Asian restaurant that specializes in Cantonese and Sichuan food. Silas Tanner, Martin’s sous chef at Plate, left that position to run the…
Crystal Maderia, chef-owner of Kismet, has moved her Montpelier restaurant back to its original location at 207 Barre Street, where she opened its casual café offshoot, Kizy, in early 2019. Maderia started Kismet in 2007 and operated her farm-to-table restaurant on Barre Street for four years before moving to the larger location at 52 State…
