The Home & Garden Issue
Pros and Cons of Leasing Property; A First-Time Gardener Goes Container; Female Chefs Turn Up the Heat in VT; Is Banning Offenders From Church Street Unconstitutional?
Cover Stories
A Writer Builds a Container Garden on a Budget
It was a problem of overcrowding: Too many beanstalks were jostling for the small amount of moisture and nutrients in their shared seedling cup. My wife’s cold but inarguable logic: Lose a couple now or lose ’em all later. My feeble protests offered insufficient dissuasion. Snip, snip. Those poor little shoots didn’t stand a chance.…
Business Aims to Be a Hinge Between Homeowners and Architects
Homeowners almost never hire an architect when renovating a bathroom or building a deck. Why not? Take your pick: Hiring a builder is cheaper. The homeowner already has a vision. Architects are seen as egotistical. Architectural firms generally don’t take on small projects. But homeowners shouldn’t have to exclude design from the process of building…
Assessing the Risks and Rewards of Buying a Home on Leased Land
“What is the value of the left-hand member of a pair of $4 gloves?” That’s how Chittenden Superior Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford characterized a 2011 legal dispute between the town of Colchester and 44 owners of mostly seasonal cottages, or “camps,” on the shores of Lake Champlain. At issue for the court was whether the…
Obituary: Catherine “Cathy” Comstock, 1936-2014, Winooski
Catherine “Cathy” Comstock, 77, passed away May 12, 2014, in St. Albans, Vt. She was born July 3, 1936, in Fairhaven, Vt., to Harold and Evelyn (Scibner) Lafayette. Predeceased by her husband, Richard, she was a beloved mother who proudly raised her 10 children. Left to cherish her memory are her 10 children and their…
Obituary: Donald E. Proper
Donald E. Proper, age 85 years, died Saturday afternoon, May 10, 2014 at the Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans City. Born in East Highgate on April 22, 1929, he was the son of the late Henry and Ethel (Cook) Proper. He attended Highgate school and later served in the US Army during the Korean…
Obituary: Roland Frank Mease, 1932-2014, Denver, Co.
Roland Frank Mease – husband, father, grandfather and friend – passed away on Thursday, May 8 after 81 years of a life filled with family, friends and good times. Born July 9, 1932 in Riegelsville, PA, he was the youngest of six sons of the late Frank and Lottie (Unangst) Mease. Roland served in the…
Obituary: Jamie M. Barney
Jamie M. Barney, 30, a lifelong resident of this area, died unexpectedly, Monday, May 5, 2014 at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington. Born in Burlington, September 28, 1983, she was the daughter of David W. Barney and Barbara Lynch. Jamie attended Swanton schools and was a 2002 graduate of Missisquoi Valley Union High School.…
Short Takes on Film: Global Roots, ‘Maidentrip,’ ‘The Shooting Party’
“In Bosnia, when you buy land and start to dig the foundation for a house, you can never be sure you won’t find a mass grave.” That’s what Bosnian filmmaker Ahmed Imamovic told Balkan Insight in an interview about his 2010 drama Belvedere. The film is named for a real refugee camp in which Imamovic’s…
Burlington’s Left Banks Shows That Home Is Where the Art Is
An unexpected visual arts gallery resides on the south side of Bank Street in downtown Burlington: Left Bank Home & Garden, a storefront owned by artist and interior designer Trice Stratmann. Two-dimensional works by Vermont artists adorn the walls, and the shop is stocked with furniture and artisan décor items whose distinctive shapes, colors and…
Poet Dan Chiasson Revives ’70s Burlington in New Collection
Burlington native Dan Chiasson, a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and a professor at Wellesley College, has just published his fourth collection of poetry, Bicentennial. There’s an apt pun in that title, given that Chiasson grew up “by Centennial” — Burlington’s Centennial Field, home of the Lake Monsters, that is. (He swears the wordplay…
Signs of Spring: The Vermont Legislature Creeps Toward Adjournment
Signs of spring in the Vermont Statehouse are as reassuring as they are predictable. As the legislature’s self-imposed adjournment deadline looms — for the moment, at least, it’s set for May 10 — the Vermontus Legislatorus begins to exhibit certain recognizable behavior patterns. Sen. Dick Sears, the irascible Democrat from Bennington, emerges from hibernation in…
Burlington’s No-Trespass Ordinance Is Working, But Its Days May Be Numbered
One year after Burlington implemented a no-trespass ordinance that allows police officers to banish repeat troublemakers from the Church Street Marketplace, two things are clear: The ordinance appears to have succeeded in its stated goal, and its existence has never been in greater jeopardy. Two recent legal challenges are testing the ban’s constitutionality. Last Friday,…
Invisible Homes, Song for My Double
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Something spectacular is happening in Burlington on Thursday, May 8. Namely, Sean Witters and his band Invisible Homes will celebrate the release of their new full-length album, Song for My Double, with a free concert at Club Metronome. In a city whose music scene is rife with DJs and jam bands,…
Posthumous Lessons From College of Medicine’s ‘Greatest Teachers’
Outside the University of Vermont’s Medical Education Pavilion, next to a weeping cherry tree, a plaque reads, “In gratitude to our greatest teachers.” The tribute refers not to the medical faculty who instruct future physicians, neuroscientists and physical therapists, but to the silent but no-less-vital participants in the learning process: the individuals who donate their…
Gang of Thieves, Thunderfunk
(Self-released, CD, digital download) I first saw Gang of Thieves play at a local high school battle of the bands about five years ago, which the band won rather handily. Two things struck me about the group that night. For starters, they were tighter and more polished than any of other acts, so much so…
Failing Math: Getting to the Bottom Line of Burlington’s School Budget Crisis
Superintendent Jeanne Collins has a tidy explanation for the messy situation facing the Burlington School District. It’s been “kind of like fixing an airplane while you’re flying it,” she said in an interview last week. By now, Burlington voters have a clearer view of the maintenance problems. The proposed budget they’ll consider in a special…
Q&A With Woods’ Jarvis Taveniere
Since forming in 2005, Brooklyn’s Woods have evolved from a recording duo noted for lo-fi, experimental folk into a commanding live act whose multifaceted suites have grown increasingly psychedelic. On their latest album, With Light and With Love, Woods marry their affinity for spacey drug music with their humble bedroom-pop roots. The result is a…
Work: George Africa, Gardener at Vermont Flower Farm in Marshfield
The land surrounding Vermont Flower Farm in Marshfield is still brown and muddy as it begins to emerge from a seemingly endless winter. But in a few weeks it will be lush and full of shiny hostas and sunny daylilies, thanks to the hard work of owners George and Gail Africa. George Africa, 66, worked…
Soundbites: Imperfect Trainwreck, Full Moon Masquerade Returns
Last week, I wrote a review of Bow Thayer and Perfect Trainwreck’s latest album, a live record called Eden: Live at the Chandler. In that review, I questioned why the record had been released as a stand-alone album, given that it was a recording of a show at the Chandler Music Hall in Randolph, in…
WTF: What’s Going on in Burlington’s Urban Reserve?
Up until a few days ago, a weather-stained lighthouse sat offshore from Burlington’s Oakledge Park. It never had any luminary ability; it was, in other words, a fake. And now it’s gone. If you’ve traveled a few miles farther north up the Burlington Bike Path, you’ve likely noticed that the Urban Reserve — the 40-acre…
News Quirks (5/7/14)
Curses, Foiled Again British police arrested a 30-year-old man they said broke into a hotel in Gloucester but fell off the roof while making his getaway. He tumbled 40 feet and had to call emergency services to rescue him. He had a broken pelvis, leg and nose, a police official said, adding, “Suspected stolen lead…
Eyewitness: Bookmaker Claire Van Vliet
Artist Claire Van Vliet’s Northeast Kingdom skies started small. When she moved to a high plateau in Newark, Vt., on an unpaved mountain road, her initial efforts to capture the boundless skies and rolling hills were rendered in 5-by-7-inch watercolors on Japanese paper. “I didn’t want the edges,” explains the painter, printmaker and bookmaker, now…
Free Will Astrology (5/7/14)
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Free jazz is a type of music that emerged in the 1950s as a rebellion against jazz conventions. Its meter is fluid and its harmonies unfamiliar, sometimes atonal. Song structures may be experimental and unpredictable. A key element in free jazz is collective improvisation — riffing done not just by a…
Letters to the Editor (5/7/14)
Fed Up With Foodies Egad! Just when I had sworn that if I saw another photo of a burger I would stop reading Seven Days forevermore, the food issue rolls out [April 23]. Listen, I am all for both local and organic food — and all the socioeconomic and environmental benefits connected — as well as…
The Selfish Giant
I want to tell you about an extraordinary filmmaker and her latest extraordinary film, because it didn’t get within 100 miles of Vermont, and, now that it’s just become available to stream or watch on DVD, it would be a crime to miss it. First let me tell you about the woman who made it.…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
I could use this space to tell you what happens in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (lots), and how little of it makes sense. I could use this space to decry Hollywood for bringing us this retread only a decade after Sam Raimi’s generally well-regarded Spider-Man 2. (Sony had to produce the 2012 Spider-Man reboot to…
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Seth Rogen Does Burlington [SIV351]
5/1/14: University of Vermont’s Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity got a treat Thursday at Merrill’s Roxy Cinemas in Burlington. They attended a special screening of Universal’s upcoming comedy Neighbors followed by a Q&A with star Seth Rogen and his wife, Lauren Miller. Pi Kappa Alpha won its meet-and-greet with the movie star by raising more than…
Young Love: Lost Nation Stages The Last 5 Years
When Lost Nation Theater got the rights to stage The Last 5 Years, cofounder Kathleen Keenan was delighted but surprised. “The movie [version of the musical] is coming out this summer; sometimes they withhold rights when things like this happen,” she says. But never mind the film starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan. Keenan will…
Readers Respond to “In Defense of Six Beers We’re Not Supposed to Drink”
Vermonters sure do love to talk about beer. And those who brew it, we’ve observed, can be a wee bit thin-skinned. But, hey, who isn’t when they’re passionate about what they do? The online comments on Dan Bolles’ story “Craft Versus Crap Beers: In Defense of Six Beers We’re Not Supposed to Drink,” which ran…
How Do Two Busy People Find Time to Form a Relationship?
Dear Athena, A while ago, I met a wonderful woman who is everything I could possibly want. We haven’t been able to see each other lately, and I get the feeling she feels pressured to find time amid our busy schedules. I care for her deeply, don’t want her to feel stressed and want to…
Mounted Cat ‘Biker Bar’ to Open at the Hilton Burlington
Cat lovers and cyclists don’t always overlap. But for those mad about both, the Hilton Burlington will soon be quite an attraction. On June 1, the hotel will officially open the Mounted Cat, billed as a “new kind of biker bar.” Recent hotel visitors will have noticed the restaurant area’s drastic remodeling, completed earlier this…
Key Performers: Sizing Up Local Venues’ Grand Pianos
Middlebury College’s Mahaney Center for the Arts acquired a new Steinway concert grand piano last December, and just last month Saint Michael’s College had its older one in the McCarthy Arts Center rebuilt. Given how rare sizable halls with good concert pianos are in Vermont, this is good news for classical audiences — and even…
So-Called ‘Loser’ Tackles His Life in a New Film
In making a film that draws heavily on his own struggles in the media industry, Colin Thompson figured that the finished product might, if he was lucky, appeal to thirtysomethings like himself. He never figured on it finding an audience with those thirtysomethings’ parents. Loser’s Crown — which Thompson, 31, wrote, directed, coedited, coproduced and…
Can Vermont’s Women Chefs Break the Glass Ceiling?
We’ve all been waiting for this year’s long-overdue spring, but chef Cortney Quinn has waited more eagerly than most. She’s been anticipating the arrival of seasonal produce such as ramps and asparagus so she can pair them with the homemade beet gnocchi she serves at Topnotch Resort & Spa in Stowe. Diners are sure to…
Esteemed Denver Restaurant Opens Brattleboro Branch
Even in Vermont, foodies may have heard of a Colorado restaurant called Duo. Executive pastry chef Yasmin Lozada-Hissom is a perennial James Beard Foundation award nominee, and the Huffington Post named Duo one of the five best locavore restaurants in Denver. Now Brattleboro will share the wealth. A second Duo is slated to open in…
Pacific Rim Closes; Another Thai Restaurant Takes Its Place
It opened in 1999, closed in 2011 and reopened last year. Now, Burlington’s Pacific Rim Asian Café is closed again. Owner Rich Brandt could not be reached for comment by press time. However, Seven Days was able to speak to the new owners of the restaurant at 161 Church Street, Art and Claire Jilandharn. Local…
