Livable Real Estate Cooperative, a group formed last year to create more housing in the upper Connecticut River Valley, is raising money for its first property, a group of three structures in Thetford. Livable has signed a contract to buy a mobile home, a single-family home and a three-unit home in the village center, said…
Burlington man, born in Czechoslovakia, witnessed the Prague Spring firsthand
Burlington woman was a real life Wonder Woman
Musician was a “bright light” who sought truth and meaning in the world
Updated at 5:15 p.m. The man shot and wounded by Burlington police on Saturday was a 20-year-old resident who was armed with a knife and had talked about ending his own life, according to Vermont State Police. In a statement on Sunday morning, state police — the agency investigating the shooting — also said bullets…
Former minister and accomplished musician loved making music with friends
Pop quiz: What do you call a group of stingrays? Answer: a fever. How about a pack of zebras? That’d be a zeal of zebras. A herd of rhinoceroses? That’s a crash of rhinos. We’re not sure who made up all of the collective nouns for animals, but they sure are fun. Besides being descriptive,…
Mystery is the seductress in a Bill Brauer painting. The Warren artist, who died in 2019, was known for his lush depictions of willowy women in enigmatic settings. As with French impressionist Edgar Degas a century earlier, Brauer’s muse was the graceful female form, including that of dancers — though Brauer’s women are more likely…
Kenny Dale did not anticipate that his art career would include pet portraiture, even if he did think of his family’s dogs and cats as de facto siblings. But when he was about 13, his mom asked him to paint a memorial image of their dog Lucifer. “That’s how it started,” he said over coffee…
Best Drawings Funny, I didn’t see a category for “best imaginative, quasi-political, excellently executed drawings for a special edition of the Seven Daysies.” Had I seen such a category, and were I prescient, I would have voted for illustrator Jeff Drew. I might compare his drawings for All the Best last week to the works…
Imagine spending your youth training to be a musician, writing songs, building a fan base and making a name for yourself — then moving to another country where not only does no one know you but they also don’t even recognize the genre of music you play. Sounds a little daunting, right? That’s exactly what…
When the weather warms, Mary McGinniss likes to sleep in the airy back room of her Burlington home. It’s fairly quiet on Crowley Street, and out back, McGinniss can feel the summer breeze and smell the flowers as she drifts off each night. One evening in June, McGinniss was awakened by an unmistakable sound. An…
Jessica Demeritt was dutifully taking notes when the condition of local roads came up in a June 14 meeting of the Monkton Selectboard. But her ears perked up when a town official reported that the highway crew planned to address flooding of a road near Demeritt’s home with a tried-and-true method. “He said in an…
(Self-released, digital) Welcome to Café Gilmour. Hazy, subterranean and off the grid, the after-hours hot spot is where you come to cool down after an evening of sensory overload. The house band, an indie-jazz combo led by recent University of Vermont grad Cam Gilmour, is here to ease your addled spirit and lull you into…
After its standard parental advisory, the Hulu original film Not Okay offers a further caution: “This film contains flashing lights, themes of trauma, and an unlikable female protagonist. Viewer discretion advised.” “Wait, what?” viewers may ask. Since when does the public need to be warned that a fictional character isn’t a role model? Are we…
(Self-released, digital) Singer-songwriter Ryan Sweezey, from South Burlington via Lynnfield, Mass., sat on his latest album for two years. Recorded at Burlington’s Studio 150 with local producer Chris Hawthorn, Out Searching represents the clearest, most concise offering of Sweezey’s wares. So why the delay? Like many other artists who completed records during the pandemic, Sweezey…
new in theaters BODIES BODIES BODIES: A group of young friends’ hurricane party goes very wrong when they play the titular game in this horror-comedy from director Halina Reijn. With Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova. (95 min, R. Savoy) FALL: Two young women set out to climb a 2,000-foot radio tower in this vertigo-inducing thriller…
One evening earlier this summer, Carin Roberts and her husband, Jack, were sipping beers on the porch of their North Ferrisburgh home. As they sat unwinding to the sound of chirping crickets in rural Addison County, something startled their dog, Pretzel. The “all-American mutt,” as Carin described her, bounded off the porch and around the…
LEO (Jul. 23-Aug. 22): One of the inspiring experiments I hope you will attempt in the coming months is to work on loving another person as wildly and deeply and smartly as you love yourself. In urging you to try this exercise, I don’t mean to imply that I have a problem with you loving…
Mike Korkuc never thought of himself as a bird person. Yet it is only a slight exaggeration to say he now spends more time with birds than with people — and may prefer it that way. If you’ve visited the lively waters of Addison County’s Lake Dunmore in, say, the past 15 years, odds are…
When my beloved cat Frankie died unexpectedly in March, I described the experience in this column. One minute a handsome gray tiger was luxuriating on the warm tiles of the sunroom. The next he was dragging himself across the floor, as though hit by a car. My significant other, Tim, was away, so I rushed…
They fly by night to our farms, porches and backyards by the thousands. Some no bigger than a grain of rice, others the size of your palm, they twinkle gold and silver and glow hot pink, metallic blue and 50 shades of brown. Our names for them attest to their diversity (and to the whimsy…
Dear Reverend, My friend told me that, in the past, her soon-to-be husband has dictated what she can and cannot wear. He’s also mentioned he doesn’t want her hanging out with her girlfriends because he doesn’t think we are a great influence. How do I tell her to dump this loser? Miss Take, (female, 27)…
Most people plug in a guitar amplifier to strum some chords or noodle a few jazz and rock licks. Gregory Pask turns on his guitar amp to hear neurons firing in the brain of a fruit fly that’s been genetically altered to smell ant pheromones. “I get asked a lot whether insects even have brains,…
Celeste Bergstein, the teenage protagonist of Margot Harrison’s recently published novel We Made It All Up, has the unhappy distinction of being a new girl in school. She feels all the attendant insecurity, loneliness and uncertainty that comes with moving from a cosmopolitan environment to a rural one. Celeste’s parents are divorced, and her scientist…
Andrew Ruiz is on a mission to catch as many different kinds of fish as possible. The New Jersey resident thought he would have to go to Northern California to add Eagle Lake rainbow trout to his list — until he heard that he could fish for the western strain of trout in Vermont. “I…
At the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee, warm weather brings songbirds, but not always under happy circumstances. “We have a steady supply of birds, especially in the summertime,” said Chris Collier, director of on-site programs and exhibits at the nonprofit, which counts avian wildlife rehabilitation among its many conservation missions. Those songbirds often…
Why do we love our pets? Believe it or not, that question has fueled decades of rigorous scientific study around the world. It turns out there are about as many reasons for us to adore our furry, scaly and feathered friends as there are different types of pets. For instance, we might love pets because…
The lead characters in some of the most popular Broadway musicals are young adults. Twenty-year-old Sophie Sheridan of Mamma Mia! plots to find her real father so he can walk her down the aisle. Elphaba’s teen-sparked greed and envy shape her life in Wicked. Arnold Cunningham and Kevin Price preach with earnest youthfulness in The…
Ice cream is going to the dogs — but in a good way. Vermont’s ice cream shops, snack shacks and creemee stands have really upped their pup-cup game in the last few years. Now, dogs with sophisticated palates can cool off with an occasional dish that’s fancy enough to make a Starbucks Puppuccino blush. Here…
Diana Hill and Andrew Baker attended the same Rutland preschool. The married couple, now 33, had their first date early in high school at the now-closed Coffee Exchange in downtown Rutland. That inaugural meetup foreshadowed Ridge Vermont Craft Roasters, which they cofounded last year in their Monkton home. “We’ve always loved coffee,” Baker said. “We…
“Ask us what’s local,” instructed a sign on the brightly painted food truck set up in the Champlain Elementary School parking lot around noon on a recent Thursday. Inside the Fork in the Road truck, a trio of teenagers was capably managing orders for the steady stream of customers pulling in off Pine Street. They…
After selling 120 bagels in two hours during its August 2 soft opening, Wee Bird Bagel Café more than doubled production for the official opening last Friday, owner Chelsie Brown said. The new bakery is located at 22 South Pleasant Street in Randolph, in the space vacated by Huggable Mug Café but best known as…
Paradigm Swift Sunday 14 What could be better than heartrending jazz and a mountain sunset? Celebrated singer Veronica Swift stops by Music in the Meadow at Stowe’s Trapp Family Lodge for a blissful outdoor show featuring jazz standards, classic rock songs and selections from her genre-blending 2021 album, This Bitter Earth. I’ll Drink to That…
Deb Glottmann, president of the Mitzvah Fund, met with a veteran recently to talk about his canine’s dental care. She saw right away that man and dog had a “palpable” connection. “When I said the dog might have to spend the night, he went white,” she said. Glottmann’s nonprofit organization provides free or reduced-cost veterinary…
The Vermont Historical Society announced on Thursday that it will construct a three-year oral history project chronicling Vermonters’ responses and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project, called “Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story,” will culminate in a book and a podcast series. “This will allow us to do crucial, timely work in documenting an historical…
Doug Nedde and Heidi Tappan confirmed that they have reached an agreement with Walt Blasberg, owner of the North Hero House and its two associated restaurants, to purchase the property on November 1 for an undisclosed amount. The North Hero House has been an inn since 1891, when guests arrived by paddle-wheel steamship. The business…
