The Money Issue April 2016 (Theme Issue)
Watch Out for Fraud, Vermont Taxpayers; New Americans Learn to Navigate Financial Systems; Who Lost, Who Gained From Vermont’s Warm Winter?
Obituary: Edward Lane “Budge” Bouton, 1925-2016
Edward Lane “Budge” Bouton retired from this life April 3, 2016 trusting care of his worldwide family to his surviving wife and children. Ed was born September 11th 1925 to Edward Lane and Katharine Church Bouton in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Following grade school at age 14, he moved to Vermont and made it his home.…
Making Art Work for a Living
Vermont has one of the highest percentages of artists per capita in the U.S., according to numbers touted by the Vermont Arts Council. Evidence of that is rampant; just about every public space — from coffee shops to banks to the Supreme Court lobby — has visual art on display. It’s outdoors, too: Burlington is tattooed…
Opinion: The GOP, White Workers and Race … Again
Why have blue-collar white Americans fled the Republican mainstream for its wing-nut wing? In a New York Times article last week, political writer Nicholas Confessore acknowledges the view that “xenophobia and racism,” an angry reaction to the perceived withering of U.S. power, propelled workers into Donald Trump’s arms. But Confessore has another explanation: They felt…
New Americans Learn Financial Literacy
Ten minutes before ending her financial education class, instructor Heather Davis played a recorded message on her cellphone. “This is an automated message from the Internal Revenue Service. There’s a legal notice filed against you for tax evasion and tax fraud. So, before your case is registered into the Federal Claims courthouse and before you…
Tommy Alexander, Old News
(Su Casa Records, digital download, vinyl) Before he fled Burlington for Portland, Ore., Tommy Alexander was at the heart of an underground artistic movement in the Queen City: He was the founder of the local label and collective Jenke Records — sometimes also called Jenke Arts. Alexander became a champion for a rather motley crew…
Tax Fraud: Did Someone Else Get Your Refund?
With the April 15 tax-filing deadline around the corner, it’s a nice fantasy to imagine that — poof! — someone else has magically filled out those forms you’re due to send to the Internal Revenue Service. In reality, if those forms find their way to the IRS without the taxpayer’s knowledge, it’s not magic; it’s…
Cricket Blue, Io
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Io is Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon and also a character from Greek mythology. She was a beautiful mortal priestess who caught the eye of Zeus, king of all Greek gods. Zeus fell in love with Io, but in order to keep his wife, Hera, from finding out, he turned poor Io into…
Some Counterfeiters Still Do It Old-School
On January 4 of this year, a Vermont State Police trooper stopped a vehicle on Interstate 89 in Royalton for a minor traffic offense. During the stop, police records indicate, the trooper discovered approximately $1,000 worth of counterfeit $20 bills in the vehicle. The driver, a 24-year-old tattoo artist from Brockton, Mass., was taken into…
Soundbites: Madaila on the Midway; Summer Music Update; RIP, DJ BP
Another week, another milestone show for one of the state’s most swiftly rising bands. Last Friday, Kat Wright and the Indomitable Soul Band sold out the Higher Ground Ballroom. I opted for the Lynguistic Civilians at Nectar’s that same night — which was excellent, by the way. So I can’t report on how Wright and…
I Saw the Light
At the screening I attended of the latest Hank Williams biopic, sounds I’d never heard in a movie theater continuously arose around the room. I’ve heard audiences laugh at films that weren’t supposed to be funny. I’ve heard them shout at characters in horror films about to do the stupid thing that will get them…
Art Review: Galen Cheney, River Arts
Galen Cheney’s sojourn in China last fall, as an artist-in-residence at Da Wang Culture Highland in Shenzhen, was in some ways the trip of a lifetime. The Middlesex artist and her husband traveled around the country for a couple of weeks following her two-month residency. Aside from its exotic locale, though, the experience wasn’t unprecedented…
A ‘Wildlife Social’ Comes to Norwich
The gray wolf has not roamed the Green Mountains for centuries. But its cinematic avatar will pay a visit to Vermont this week for an unusual event that combines arts and conservation. On Sunday, April 10, the Stowe-based advocacy group Protect Our Wildlife will host a Wildlife Social at Norwich’s Montshire Museum of Science. Designed…
Free Will Astrology (4/6/16)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is regarded as one of the greats, in the same league as Picasso and Kandinsky. Even in his eighties, he was still creating marvels that one critic said seemed “to come from the springtime of the world.” As unique as his work was, he was happy…
Solaris Greets Spring With Choral Concert
There are writers’ writers and artists’ artists. In Solaris Vocal Ensemble, Burlington has what might be called a choristers’ chorus. Founded three years ago by Dawn Willis — the impresario of the popular women’s chorus Bella Voce — Solaris is a mixed chorus of 24 singers, several of whom are choral directors themselves. Two are…
Burlington School Super’s South Burlington Digs Trigger Residency Debate
He has a short commute, but some people aren’t happy that Yaw Obeng, Burlington’s new school superintendent, is living outside the city that pays him $153,000 a year. Instead, he bought a home in South Burlington. It sends “a very poor message about the livability of Burlington,” city resident Helen Hossley wrote in a…
God’s Not Dead 2
Move over, The Hunger Games and Divergent. There’s a new dystopian movie series in town. Granted, if you’re only just now hearing about God’s Not Dead, which grossed 30 times its budget in 2014, you’re probably not part of the series’ target audience. And if you are part of that target audience, you almost certainly…
I’m Engaged But Miss My Ex-Fiancé
Dear Athena, I have been in a relationship for a year and a half, and we are going to be getting married in a year or two. I love him dearly. But there are times when I miss my ex-fiancé. We broke up on very bad terms. The love I had for him was something…
Thao Nguyen on Her New Album, Women in Rock and the Biebs
Thao Nguyen recently had some fun at the expense of Justin Bieber. She and tUnE-yArDs’ Merrill Garbus were featured in a parody video on Funny or Die spoofing a recent New York Times video featuring Bieber, Skrillex and Diplo. In the NYT video, called “Bieber, Diplo and Skrillex Make a Hit,” the pop-star trio discusses…
Letters to the Editor (4/6/16)
Kitchen’s Open In a 2015 issue of Seven Days, you reported that the Kitchen Table Bistro was closing in December. Imagine my surprise when I saw the restaurant listed in participating restaurants for this year’s Vermont Restaurant Week. I called Kitchen Table and was informed that the restaurant was for sale — not closed! Seven…
Road Wars: Will New Rules Help Cyclists and Motorists Coexist?
Vermont’s idyllic byways have long lured bicyclists who enjoy the scenery and fresh air, usually without incident. But last year, tragedy struck — again and again. Between April 14 and September 7, cars hit and killed four cyclists on country roads in Weybridge, Hinesburg, Ferrisburgh and Pawlet. No cyclists had died in Vermont in the…
Warm Winter Brings Economic Ups and Downs
The cross-country skiing was so dismal this winter at Burr Morse’s Montpelier farm that he never hit the trails, and paying customers were scarce. “We were open about three weeks, with minimal snow,” he said. “The snow went away and never came back.” But when the dismal winter yielded to an early spring, sweet sap…
Farmer Taylor Katz Is a Poet for Hire
The phrase “paid poet” sounds like a scoff-worthy contradiction in terms — even in April, which is National Poetry Month. Then again, there is Vermont farmer-poet Taylor Katz. She writes verse for cash. Katz is co-owner of Free Verse Farm, an herb farm and apothecary in Chelsea that she founded with her husband, Misha Johnson.…
eWIC Cards Bring an End to Home Deliveries
Madeline Buckley strode through the aisles of the Colchester Price Chopper, stopping at the baby food section. The public-health nutritionist spotted a blue “WIC” sticker above the retail tag for Beech-Nut Naturals banana. She picked up a jar and, using the WIC Shopper app on her phone, scanned the bar code to verify that the…
Gone John: A New Era in the Vermont Senate After Campbell Calls it Quits
A few weeks after the 2012 election, Sen. John Campbell (D-Windsor) stood at the center of a Montpelier function room and apologized to his peers for his “shortcomings” as president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate. Calling himself “a poster child for ADD,” the Quechee attorney promised to get his act together and put an…
Back Road BBQ Pops Up in Cabot
Last Saturday in Cabot, the picked-over remains of a smoked pig’s carcass rested on a foil-wrapped picnic table. Nearby stood the unobtrusive wooden box in which chef Brock Miller and Snug Valley Farm co-owner Ben Nottermann — with the help of their friends and some PBR — had slowly cooked the 180-pound porker, yielding about…
Old Dog, New Trix
Originally published February 27, 2002. Rael One-Cloud doesn’t want you to know how old she is — “Eek! Can’t I just be twentysomething?” — and she pleads the Fifth when the conversation shifts to money. But she rants and raves about nearly everything else in her long-running Burlington-based zine, Alphabitch Afterbirth. After six years and 18…
Rutland Boy, Mississippi Girl
The baggage belt sounded and began its not-quite-circular rotation, the bags making their appearance — dramatically, I’ve always thought — through a curtain of clear plastic strips. “This is where I always hold my breath,” Daniel said to me. “There were so many legs, which means so many opportunities to have lost our luggage.” My…
The Money Issue
Tax season always inspires us to think about our dollars and cents — and all the ways that money makes the world go ’round. These days, we’re also worried about identity theft and fraud. We tackle that, er, taxing topic and learn about counterfeiters who still do it the old-fashioned way. Monopoly money, anyone? We…
![Pop-Up Pearl [SIV438]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/episode438.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Pop-Up Pearl [SIV438]
4/1/16: Pop-Up Pearl is having a six night festival at ArtsRiot in Burlington with Shoebox Theatre’s production of Hedwig and The Angry Inch, local bands and DJs, dancing and mingling. 135 Pearl was a popular LGBT nightclub in Burlington from 1983-2006. Former owner Robert Toms organized this reunion and is also starring as Hedwig in…
Laban Carrick Hill Wins Lone Star Lit Award
Last month, Texas voters cast their ballots and made a decisive choice: They supported the candidate from Vermont. No, not Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost Texas’ Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton. The Vermonter who won a recent election in the Lone Star State is Winooski author Laban Carrick Hill. He received the Texas Bluebonnet Award…
Wealthy Mormon Buys Up Vermont Land for Massive Settlement
Farmers, filmmakers and at least one forester came to the Tunbridge Public Library last Thursday to make an important phone call. The group of 50 sat in rows facing a laptop that connected them to Utah. There, an engineer did his best to explain how he planned to build a sustainable development for up to…
One Dish: Kevin Cleary’s Buono Bolognese
You can get a fantastic plate of Bolognese in Burlington, but there’s a catch: It’s only available one day a week. At Vin Bar & Shop, Wednesday is Penne Bolognese night, and for pasta lovers, it’s a fine way to mangia midweek. Pasta expertise is nothing new from Vin owners Kevin and Kathi Cleary. For…
Inn at the Round Barn Farm to Open Snack Bar
Though the beginning of this week brought snowflakes to much of Vermont, summer is coming, in all its food-trucking, burger-grilling, creemee-licking splendor. In Waitsfield, Charlie Menard and Kim Donahue (chef and co-owner at the Inn at Round Barn Farm, respectively) are summoning warmer weather with a tasty new venture. This summer, Menard and Donahue will…
Vermont Pizzerias in a Book; Simple Roots Brewing Expands
Nine Vermont pizza places have made it into a book called Where to Eat Pizza: The Last Word on the Slice. Authored by Daniel Young, the tome features 1,700 pizzerias from around the world and was published on April 4 by Phaidon Press. Former Seven Days food writer Alice Levitt, one of five writers who…
