Renee Jeanne Grenier Allen passed away at her home in South Burlington on August 1, 2019, after a lengthy illness. Renee was born in Toms River, N.J., on May 9, 1964. The youngest of five children, she was adored by her older siblings. Her loving parents, Norman and Theresa Grenier, predeceased her. The family moved…
On August 7, 2019, at Porter Medical Center, Laura (Mack) Rates and Bruno Rates welcomed a boy, Levi Mack Rates.
When Jay Barton moved into the corner office at WCAX-TV’s South Burlington headquarters, he got rid of the “Howard Johnson orange” carpets that, in his view, “did not feel forward-looking.” But he didn’t dare repaint the fleet of teal-and-gray vans that for decades have ferried the station’s reporters around Vermont. “The teal makes a certain…
I fell in love with this guy unexpectedly — like, I never imagined liking him. He likes me, too, and I can feel that he’s sincere. But here’s the problem: He has a child. I am stuck between letting him go because he has a child and I want him to be with the child’s…
A bounty of farm food and agricultural activities are the centerpiece of Vermont Open Farm Week. Farms across the state open their fields and barns to visitors starting August 9. Activities include feeding animals, picking crops and making cheese. Or participants can skip the chores and just eat, with choices such as pancakes, fried chicken…
Here at Seven Days, we get a lot of press releases. You name it, we’ve gotten a press release about it, whether “it” is housing, art, music, law enforcement, politics or “exciting new partnerships.” Some of these press releases are good tips that help us discover and write about the cool stuff going on in…
When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in the summer of 2017, photos of the damage circulated immediately on social media. One showed a shark swimming in water that appeared to be covering a highway. Jason Michael McCann posted it on Twitter. “Believe it or not,” he wrote, “this is a shark on the freeway in Houston,…
First things first: Bluum Zine is a “zine,” but it’s not actually a zine. Which is to say it’s not a homemade, self-published magazine but rather an online-only publication dedicated to showcasing the art and written works of queer creatives. Still, said its 24-year-old founder, Bailey Johnson, the label “zine” feels fitting. “There were a…
Nick Broomfield’s documentaries are seldom confused with those of Michael Moore or Errol Morris. Rather than unpack social issues, he likes to throw together projects with a tabloid appeal (Kurt & Courtney, Whitney: Can I Be Me, Sarah Palin: You Betcha!) and then insinuate himself into them. In his latest, he hits a new low.…
You Are the Champions We here at Seven Days all breathed a collective sigh of relief last week. All the Best, our annual publication that reveals the results of the Seven Daysies awards, finally hit newsstands as an insert in last week’s issue. From counting votes to writing spotlights to laying out the magazine, the…
On a Tuesday in late July, the top stories on Ever Widening Circles, a St. Albans-based online publication, included one about an organization that is saving orphaned baby elephants in Kenya. Another story reported on an environmentalist who repurposes old cellphones to stop illegal logging in the rain forests. Yet another profiled an afterschool program…
In the summer of 1785, a free black woman named Lucy Prince walked from Guilford to Norwich — a distance of 63 miles as the crow flies, but considerably longer for a 60-year-old woman and her son, traveling on foot along winding Vermont roads. The purpose of their pilgrimage was to petition then-governor Thomas Chittenden…
In 2003, Christina Asquith hitchhiked her way into Baghdad with an idea. She wanted to write about the Iraq War from a perspective she hadn’t seen covered by news organizations: How was it affecting the education of women and girls? “It was an amazing and interesting angle into the fall of Saddam, the rebuilding led…
Twelve years ago, Ray Padgett was just another college kid obsessed with music. He had been writing a blog about Bob Dylan since high school, and during his time at Dartmouth College, the Chicago native’s appetite for the subject only intensified — he even started a second blog and a radio show. Along the way,…
Actor-rapper-comedian Awkwafina has the body of a shy, slouchy millennial and the voice of a grumpy old coot. She can spout off the most ridiculous, obscene brags — as in her viral parody video “My Vag” — without breaking a sweat or cracking a smile. She can play it big, stealing the show as the…
One Upper Valley teen is doing his best to keep print media alive. After the Barnard General Store stopped selling the New York Times last year, 14-year-old Oliver Szott started selling the paper himself. He’d heard from neighbors who were upset and saw an opportunity to capitalize. “I knew it would be a nice service,…
Stop us if you’ve heard this one, but print media is dead. Or it’s dying. Or it’s got a bad cold or a hangnail or something. Given that Seven Days still publishes an actual newspaper and has some skin in the print game, we’ll leave official proclamations of the demise of print to other cultural…
(Self-released, digital) Dread is one of the most visceral emotions, a Molotov cocktail of anxiety and fear often garnished with depression and self-loathing. And the hangover can last a lifetime. But those who manage to claw their way out from under the suffocating mass of dark feelings are often stronger for it. Burlington post-punk duo…
The past 15 years have been grim for American newspapers. Roughly 2,100 have either merged with a competitor or gone out of business, the New York Times reported Sunday in a special section titled “A Future Without the Front Page.” The lost print media outlets have been huge and tiny, mainstream and alternative. In their…
Would it surprise you to learn that newsrooms in Vermont are, by most metrics, stunningly low in diversity? The state’s news organizations do well in terms of gender diversity, from reportorial ranks to top management. But when it comes to ethnicity and race, our newsrooms are even less diverse than predominantly white Vermont. Two of…
Suddenly I noticed my customer’s right hand as he sat beside me in the shotgun seat. We had already been chatting for a good half hour, so I knew it would be OK to ask. “How’d you lose your fingers, Ennis? Farming accident?” Ennis Dutton held up his right hand and looked at it. The…
(Equal Eyes Records, CD, digital download) The teaming-up of rapper Learic and producer Es-K was inevitable. They are both among the most tirelessly prolific and talented artists in Vermont’s emerging hip-hop scene. Their debut collaboration, Thought Instruments, is the result of years of work. That work was done together, in the same room, and you…
The small community of Windsor got a new restaurant last week when Nate Rose and Josh Martin opened Au Jus at 131 Main Street. Rose and Martin, who are both in their thirties, had been working together in the kitchen of Neal’s Restaurant & Bar in Proctorsville. One busy shift, Martin recalled, they looked at…
Kurt Wright starts his day when the songbirds are still sleeping. He’s up at 4 a.m., and by 5, he’s seated quietly in an overly air-conditioned, soundproof studio at Fort Ethan Allen in Colchester, the home of WVMT 620 AM radio. It’s still dark outside when Wright catches up on the news on the bright…
‘Woke Opera of Vermont’ [Re “Barn Opera to Get Its Own Actual Barn,” July 31]: In your recent article about Barn Opera and its new home, we learn that patrons may be drawn by, among other things, artistic director Joshua Collier’s “commitment to contemporizing operatic story lines.” Collier, we’re told, “will alter scripts to avoid…
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I am overjoyed that you’re not competing for easy rewards or comparing yourself to the mediocre crowd. Some people in your sphere may not be overjoyed, though. To those whose sense of self isn’t strong, you may be like an itchy allergen; they may accuse you of showing off or acting…
Twenty-one-year-old Cullen Paradis has heard the dire pronouncements about the future of journalism. Even so, he’s determined to become an investigative reporter. Paradis is one of the first University of Vermont students to participate in the just-launched Reporting and Documentary Storytelling program. The rising senior is spending his summer as an intern writing news stories…
Visitors to the BCA Center who make their way up to the windowless back room on the second floor might be surprised to find something resembling the construction sites now active all over Burlington. “Job Site,” a collaborative installation by Alisa Dworsky and Bill Ferehawk, presents to the viewer an unfinished double wall, framed out…
The photos are voyeuristic, capturing the scene frame by frame like a private investigator in the movies: Hartford police confront a transient man in White River Junction; the man and his female friend plead with the cop; she kisses her companion on the lips once he’s cuffed; a black-gloved officer ushers the man away. Most…
Oven-blistered pizza, fantastical creemee creations and bejeweled fruit tarts — these are the stars of some of the mouthwatering Instagrams that make us drool. Chefs and other food crafters gravitate to the visual medium of Instagram to share and promote their work. Happily, it’s an equal-opportunity channel: We are as enamored with compelling photos of…
Something about the term “influencer” feels very … Kardashian. Evocative of half-naked photo shoots and overpriced skin-care products, the buzzword might not seem to have a place in the Vermont lexicon. But, broadly defined, influencers are just social media users who typically have many followers — think tens of thousands to millions — and serve…
Burlington favorite SoYo Frozen Yogurt has been acquired by the owners of New World Tortilla and is once again open for business. The fro-yo shop has been slowly and quietly reopening for the past few weeks. SoYo closed last November after more than six years of operation when founder Hans Manske couldn’t find an immediate…
