The Death Issue
Dissecting Donated Bodies Provides Lessons Beyond Anatomy; Vermonters Share Their Near-Death Experiences; A Standup Comic Riffs on Grief and Comedy; The Hallowell Hospice Choir Comforts the Terminally Ill With Music
Obituary: Elinor Morency, 1939-2022
Retired artist and art educator was a member of the painting group, the Monet Mamas
Obituary: Claire L’Ecuyer, 1927-2022
95-year-old Winooski woman was a favorite relative to many
Obituary: Laurel Hammond, 1950-2022
Vermont teacher and guidance counselor had a taste for fine art, gluten-free food, down jackets and the warm company of others
Obituary: Florence Miles, 1922-2022
100-year-old Huntington woman lived humbly on her farm, where she loved her bees, maple trees and cows
As Fewer People Choose Burial, Vermont’s Cemeteries Struggle to Maintain Their Grounds
Debbie Baker never expected to run a cemetery. For most of her life, she didn’t think much about cemeteries at all. But after she was elected to the Rupert Selectboard in southern Vermont, she was invited to a meeting of local cemetery leaders. The next thing Baker knew, she was, as she put it, “tricked”…
Free Will Astrology (10/26/22)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I guess it would be difficult to create a practical snake costume for Halloween. How would you move around? You’d have to slither across the floor and the ground everywhere you go. So maybe instead you could be a snake priest or snake priestess — a magic conjurer wearing snake-themed jewelry…
Meat Loaf and His Doppelgänger Return in Allan Nicholls’ Lost Movie ‘Dead Ringer’
Allan Nicholls can still clearly recall when one of his friends and collaborators, the rock star Meat Loaf, asked him to direct “some music videos.” Nicholls had scant experience behind the camera, but he did have plenty of credits as an actor, having appeared in the hit musical Hair and the 1977 sports comedy Slap…
Essay: A Standup Comic Riffs on Grief and Comedy
People talk to me about death a lot. After they see my standup act, they feel very free to walk up to me and say things like, “My dad died, too!” or “I loved that joke about your dead mom.” It might seem inappropriate to joke about what’s arguably the most serious thing we encounter…
The Hallowell Hospice Choir Comforts the Terminally Ill With Music
On a brisk October morning, nine members of the Hallowell hospice choir convened outside Valley Cares, a small rural nursing home in Townshend. The singers, on the upper end of middle age, wore sweaters, fleece vests and sturdy shoes and chatted with the casual ease of people who have known each other a long time.…
Vermonters Share Their Near-Death Experiences
Some years ago, a 25-year-old technical writer named Jack was hospitalized with severe pneumonia that caused him episodes of respiratory arrest. Despite treatment with constant oxygen, he still suffered seizures when there was an insufficient supply to his brain. Anita, his primary care nurse, was a steady presence in his life. One day she told…
Life Stories: Willem Jewett ‘Was a Real Doer’
In the days before Willem Jewett (August 23, 1963-January 12, 2022 ) died last winter, he was too sick to eat more than a few nibbles or drink more than a sip. His wife was concerned that Willem, who was terminally ill, might be unable to swallow the physician-prescribed medication he intended to drink to…
In Orange County, a Conservative Culture Warrior Vies for Sen. MacDonald’s Democratic Seat
A month before Election Day, the two candidates for a Vermont Senate seat representing Orange County squared off in a candidate forum in Vershire. Democratic incumbent Mark MacDonald, a retired middle school teacher with nearly 40 years of legislative experience, spoke about the rise in heating and transportation costs. He touted the legislature’s Global Warming…
Soundbites: Halloween Happenings and Playlist Musts
You know, the older I get, the less I enjoy Glenn Danzig. He routinely mouths off about things that make me cringe — like the time he said he would have played the part of mutant superhero Wolverine as “less gay” than Hugh Jackman did. Or when he claimed that so-called “cancel culture” would have…
Burlington’s Battery Street Jeans a Lifeline for Those Who Need Free Clothes
Every week at Burlington thrift shop Battery Street Jeans, owner Stu Sporko gives away more than 1,000 articles of clothing. The items are placed outside the College Street store in a big wooden bin, new on the sidewalk this week. The container replaces a set of plastic receptacles. “Everything I own pretty much came from…
Cosmic the Cowboy, ‘Modern Country’
(Self-released, cassette, digital) It’s estimated that the first radio signals transmitted from Earth have traveled roughly 100 light-years deep into the Milky Way by now. It’s a big, wide galaxy we call home, so who’s to say there aren’t hot spots along the way where travelers can stop to take in some Gene Autry, or…
Teens Face Death With Stories in Mike Flanagan’s Fun but Ungainly New Series ‘The Midnight Club’
Decades ago, a best-selling writer named Christopher Pike heard from a young fan who was in a cancer ward. She and her fellow patients met regularly at midnight to discuss his teen horror novels, and she asked the author to write a book about their group. Pike was more than game, he recalled in a…
NNAMDÏ, ‘Please Have a Seat’
(Secretly Canadian, CD, vinyl, digital) Listening to Please Have a Seat, the latest LP from Chicago’s NNAMDÏ, is akin to watching a mad scientist work. It’s easy to picture the artist born as Nnamdi Ogbannaya, a savant of more genres than most people can actually name, clad in a lab coat and enshrouded in vapor…
‘Artists in the Archives’ at the Henry Sheldon Museum Collages History
The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury touts its unique status as “the oldest community-based museum in the country.” Owing to its location in New England — and its donors — the objects and documents it houses largely reflect the legacy of white settlers to the area. And that very word “oldest” can…
Composer Matthew Evan Taylor Honors His Grandmother’s Memory in a VSO Premiere
Middlebury composer Matthew Evan Taylor’s grandmother, Earnestine Colvin Taylor, had many talents. For instance, she sang while accompanying herself on a spinet piano, both in her home in Birmingham, Ala., and at her local church, the Saint Paul Smithfield AME Church, where she often took her grandson. When his grandmother died in 2017, at the…
We’re All Gonna Die Someday: Laying the Death Issue to Rest
One of my favorite Twitter accounts is Daily Death Reminder (@death_reminder). Every day, it pops up in my feed with the same dispassionate message: “You will die someday.” To me, the tweets serve not as gloomy admonitions to prepare for death but as gentle reminders to savor being alive — and to stop doomscrolling. An appreciation…
I Wound Up With My Uncle’s Ashes Because No One Else Wanted Them
Dear Reverend, My uncle passed away four years ago. He had no spouse or children, and he wasn’t much liked by any of his other family. I wound up with his ashes because nobody else wanted them. But I didn’t really know him well, and it feels weird to have his remains on a shelf.…
Vermont Poets Share Verses About Death
One of the enduring assumptions about poets is that we are morose, morbid beings, preoccupied with death and bongos. I’ll concede that we occasionally betray a certain haunted look. But I’d wager that everyone is just as obsessed as poets are with what lies beyond the veil; they simply never record those ruminations on paper.…
From the Publisher: Deadline Foliage
Autumn in Vermont is short-lived. Rain, wind and nighttime temps all affect its intensity and duration. No matter how breathtaking it is, the seasonal blaze of color comes to the same inevitable end. Getting out in the woods to witness it feels akin to visiting a dying friend. Similarly, the goodbye never feels sufficient. That’s…
Med School Students Say Dissecting Donated Bodies Provides Lessons Beyond Anatomy
Tom Lever was a thoroughgoingly practical man, according to his wife of 40 years, Theresa. In the car on the way to an appointment with his oncologist, two and a half days before he died of lung cancer on March 1, 2018, Tom started talking to Theresa about tires. “‘Make sure you always have good…
A Bleak Prognosis: Mark Eliot Schwabe’s Climate Crisis Sculptures
The Halloween-inspired exhibit “Dark Matter” is a popular one for Burlington’s S.P.A.C.E. Gallery, evident in the attendance and the huge number of artworks submitted. The creepiness quotient is often clear in their titles, such as “Metaphysical Studies in Human Decomposition” (Thomas Stetson), “Coat Hanger Abortion” (M.M. Moyer) and “Trump” (Jason Gorcoff). The whole exhibit is…
Letters to the Editor (10/26/22)
Antiquated Image I was reading “Building a Workforce” [October 12] when I noted the images on the cover of your magazine. What stood out for me was that the one and only clearly female image has on a hard hat and tool belt, but she appears to be poised more for a fashion runway than…
The Next Generation of Morticians Is Mostly Young, Female and ‘Called’ to the Profession
Assistant funeral director Rachel Currier usually meets her clients for the first time right after a family member or friend has died, so she gets a variety of reactions when she arrives to pick up the deceased. Some people are in shock. Others are in tears. Still others ask what they can do to help.…
Youths Get Hands-On Experience With Death at Shelburne’s New Village Farm
Chicken slaughter features vividly among Michaela Ryan’s earliest memories. The founder-owner of New Village Farm in Shelburne grew up on a farm in southern Québec. She was 3 years old when her father killed a meat bird, and it escaped his grasp to become the proverbial chicken running around with its head cut off. “A…
U.S. Coffee Championships Preliminary Competition Comes to Vermont
Coffee pros from around the country converge on Chittenden County this weekend to test their tasting, barista and latte art skills in the first stage of qualification for a prestigious national coffee competition. From Friday, October 28, through Sunday, October 30, Brio Coffeeworks in Burlington and Uncommon Coffee in Essex will host some of the…
Vermont History Museum in Montpelier Hosts Common Cracker Exhibit
Even the most fervent fans of the historic Vermont common cracker tend not to zealously defend its deliciousness. The round, puffy, white crackers are about the diameter of a silver dollar, plain tasting and very dry. Their utilitarian origin as a simple, long-lasting carbohydrate dates back to 19th-century New England, when they were typically sold…
Jr’s Original in Winooski Brings Back Its Italian Menu
After three months of offering Cantonese-style dishes as Jr’s Original Peking Duck House, Bogdan Andreescu’s Winooski restaurant has returned to its Italian roots and old name, Jr’s Original. The eatery, which first opened at 348 Main Street in November 2018, closed last week for a reset. It reopened on Monday with its original menu of…
Snow Sports-Themed Lounge and Bar Coming to Burlington
J Levinthal, 50, has been a trailblazer in ski design since he started LINE Skis in 1995. He founded the online ski company J Skis in 2013. “Our customers constantly ask us if they can visit when they come into town,” Levinthal said. Now they can visit — and have a drink before or after…
The Magnificent 7: Must See, Must Do, October 26-November 1
Spirited Away Friday 28 History buffs enjoy a Halloween party tailor-made to their interests with Spooky Night at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury. Attendees take in the museum’s collection of spirit photographs — trendy Victorian images allegedly depicting 19th-century ghosts — amid scary stories, tarot readings and ghoulishly groovy live music.…
