The Winter Preview Issue 2014
The Winter Preview Issue: High-Tech Snowmaking in Vermont; Why Firewood Is So Hard to Find; On the Road With Scott Milne
Obituary: Beverly A. Allen
Beverly A. Allen, 61, passed away peacefully on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2014 with her family by her side at Starr Farm Nursing Center. She was born at Copley Hospital in Morrisville on Feb. 17, 1953 the daughter of Fay William and Beulah A. (Bapp) Smith. On Aug. 23, 1980, Bevie married Richard “Dickie” Allen and…
Obituary: Timothy John Kelly
Timothy John Kelly, 62, of Isle La Motte, VT, died peacefully at home on October 12, 2014, after a short but courageous battle with cancer. Tim was born to the late Bernard and Ada Kelly, on July 21, 1952, in Philadelphia, Pa. He was a proud member of the United States Marine Corps from 1970…
The Green Mountain Playboys Make a Home for Cajun
It’s early on a Wednesday night at Charlie O’s in Montpelier, but you wouldn’t know it to look at the dance floor. It’s already filled with couples two-stepping to driving rhythm guitar and drums, haunting fiddle melodies and French lyrics straight outta the bayou. The Green Mountain Playboys are in town, making a home for…
A Flute Choir Takes Off in Vermont
Imagine a flute’s unique timbre — warm and piercing at the same time — and multiply it. That’s a rough approximation of the sound of a flute choir, of which Vermont now has one. The Vermont Virtuosi flute ensemble will perform its first concerts this weekend as part of the Vermont Virtuosi chamber music concert…
Soundbites: Michael Chorney Debuts New Music Series
The emails from a few local musicians and promoters rarely fail to brighten the inbox of the Seven Days music department. One of them is Colin Clary (the Smittens, Let’s Whisper, roughly 13,467 other local bands over the years), because he pretty much only reaches out when he’s got something really interesting to pass along.…
Sundog Poetry Center Opens in Jeffersonville
Vermont doesn’t lack for mission-based organizations with “center” in their names, devoted to pursuits such as peace and justice (Burlington), agricultural economy (Hardwick) and ecostudies (White River Junction). Now poet-educators Tamra Higgins and Mary Jane Dickerson have given poetry a center of its own: the Sundog Poetry Center in Jeffersonville. Higgins is president of the…
Vermont Resorts Invest in Energy-Efficient Snowmaking
Vermont’s ski-and-ride industry enjoyed one of its three best seasons ever in 2013-14, despite snowfall that was only a bit greater than average and a “polar vortex” that kept temperatures far below average for parts of the winter. Why so successful? Greatly enhanced snowmaking capacity was a key factor, says Parker Riehle, head of the…
Curtain Call: More Local Theater News
We know, we know. After you’ve pored over Seven Days’ performing arts preview cover story on September 24 and reading our local theater previews last week, your weekends are pretty much booked from now until next June. But don’t put those calendars away just yet. More is coming down the pike from Vermont theater companies,…
WTF: What’s the Orange Ooze in Leddy Park?
Just south of the ice rink in Burlington’s Leddy Park, a dirt path curves through the woods toward a small beach. It’s a short, pleasant walk, especially when the sun glints off Lake Champlain, visible through the trees. The only thing that mars the placid scene is a curious, icky puddle of oily-looking, rust-colored ooze…
I Peed During Sex and Am So Embarrassed
Dear Athena, I am so embarrassed and confused and horrified. The other night I was having sex with a guy I just started dating, and it was great. I was feeling like I was about to orgasm and I totally peed. It just came shooting out and I had no control. He was completely grossed…
Free Will Astrology (10/08/14)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Situation No. 1: If you meet resistance or doubt, say this: “Ha! This diversion can’t slow me down, because I am in possession of an invisible magical sword!” And then brandish a few charismatic swipes of your sword to prove that you mean business. Situation No. 2: If angst and worry…
Single Issue: Will Health Care or Property Taxes Motivate Vermont Voters?
When legislators return to Montpelier in January, they’re expected to debate the most significant expansion of Vermont state government in decades: If Gov. Peter Shumlin gets his way, they’ll raise roughly $2 billion in new taxes to fund a universal health care system that would replace private insurance. Kind of a big deal, right? But…
Letters to the Editor (10/08/14)
‘New New North End’ How ironic that Scot Shumski persists in dismissing me as part of “a small minority of extreme radicals” in the New North End [“Young Republicans Challenge Incumbent Dems in Burlington’s New North End,” October 1]. Shortly after Scot first hurled this off-the-wall charge at me, I attended a meeting of an…
News Quirks (10/8/14)
Curses, Foiled Again Security guards at a Seattle department store had no trouble spotting a shoplifter. She was carrying 23 purses and handbags. When confronted, the woman dropped the items and ran. Police said the suspect reentered the store by another entrance and grabbed eight more handbags and purses. A security guard stopped and handcuffed…
Renoun Ski Co. Debuts Impact-Resistant Skis
Like many young boys, Burlington’s Cyrus Schenck was obsessed with Legos and catapults. Unlike many teenagers, he could fly an airplane before he could operate a car — and so decided to major in aeronautics engineering at Clarkson University. But when the longtime Sugarbush skier heard of an impact-protection material called D3O, it was a…
Opinion: As Africans Die of Ebola, the West’s Rich Get Richer
At 4:39 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30, CNBC tweeted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed the United States’ first diagnosed case of Ebola, in Dallas. CDC director Thomas Frieden assured everyone that the American public health and medical systems were on the case, “stopping [the virus] in its tracks.” Whatever might…
Why It’s Hard to Find Firewood This Year
Last June, my family and I moved from Colchester to Charlotte, which took us off the natural-gas pipeline and into the land of propane tanks and woodpiles. As I admired my neighbors’ impressive stockpiles of split and seasoned cordwood, all stacked with architectural precision, most told me they heat their homes with a combination of…
On the Campaign Trail with Reluctant Candidate Scott Milne
Around 8 a.m. last Tuesday morning, the Wayside Restaurant & Bakery in Berlin was jammed with regulars and tourists. Seniors in jeans and T-shirts sipped coffee at the counter, while businessmen tucked into plates of pancakes. Some people stole glances at a tall, lean man dressed in a sharp navy suit as he folded himself…
A Visit to N.H.’s Cold Regions Research Lab
Donald Perovich seems too motivated to spend an entire year drifting aimlessly. But that’s exactly what the research geophysicist did starting in October 1997, when he and a team of international scientists boarded the Des Groseilliers and deliberately trapped the vessel in Arctic sea ice. Their mission: to observe firsthand how global warming affects the…
Low Pay, No Benefits: Adjunct Professors Might Unionize
Food stamps. Medicaid. Moonlighting. Despite their advanced degrees, some adjunct professors at local colleges report that these are some of the ways they make ends meet. In response, a labor organizing effort is under way among part-time faculty at three private colleges. Last Friday, the Service Employees International Union requested union elections at Burlington and…
Food-Insecure Vermonters at All-Time High
During harvest time, it’s easy for most of us to feel almost overwhelmed with food — squash is ripe on the vine, apple trees are heavy with fruit, and we have more end-of-season tomatoes than we know what to do with. That’s not the case for the one-quarter of Vermont’s citizens who don’t know where…
El Gato Opens in Essex; UVM Launches Food-Hub Management Certificate
Bad news: When the new El Gato Cantina opens in Essex Junction on Friday, October 10, it will not stock 100 different tequilas like the restaurant’s Burlington location. Good news: 60 should be enough for even the most shameless borracho. Owner Tree Bertram has completely remade the bar at 4 Park Street — most recently…
Feasting on European Fare in Bennington
When Europeans showed up in Bennington in 1777, the townsfolk didn’t exactly receive them with open arms. In fact, the town is perhaps best known for the revolutionary battle that bears its name, which ended with 207 Brits and Hessian mercenaries dead, and 700 captured. Vermont’s tallest manmade structure, the 306-foot Bennington Battle Monument, looms…
Theater Review: The Spitfire Grill, Essex Community Players
This season of chicken-pie suppers brings to mind another local pleasure: amateur theater. Produced in barns or town halls, community theater features the audience’s own friends and neighbors. For actors, there’s a special satisfaction in having the courage to get onstage; for the audience, gratification comes from seeing talent right at home. The underlying theme…
Gallery Profile: Hall Art Foundation
From 2011 to 2012, the Hall Art Foundation (HAF) transformed four circa-1800 farm buildings in Reading, Vt., into 6,000 square feet of exhibition space for contemporary art. Many barns around New England have been repurposed, a few of them for similar functions. But to say this space is like other restored barns would be incorrect;…
Vermont Freeskier Appears in Female-Focused Film Pretty Faces
When a cartoon unicorn trots across the screen and farts a rainbow and a sprinkle of stars in the first few seconds of Pretty Faces: The Story of a Skier Girl, you know this isn’t going to be your typical ski porn. Then there’s the softly falling snow, and the sweet voiceover spoken by a…
Some Campaign-Finance Complaints Linger Long After Elections
It’s been more than a year ago since former South Burlington city councilor Paul Engels filed complaints with the state alleging violations of Vermont’s campaign-finance-disclosure law. His first complaint, submitted to the Vermont attorney general’s office in August 2013, charged that South Burlington City Councilor Pam Mackenzie had failed to file a postelection donations and…
Annabelle
John R. Leonetti (The Butterfly Effect 2) throws everything but the kitchen sink into this prequel to The Conjuring. Doors close by themselves. Music swells suddenly for no reason. A sewing machine turns itself on in the middle of the night, requiring a character to get out of bed and turn it off. Which smacks…
Patrick McCormack, A-C-K
(Carterco Recordings, digital download) Patrick McCormack has been an unsung voice in the Burlington music scene. He recently served as the namesake for Bandleader — the act was originally advertised as “Patrick McCormack” — and handled lead vocals on that band’s October 2013 debut album, Coal, Pressure, Time. He has also released two solo EPs…
Gone Girl
We’ve seen this story with a thousand minor variations on cable news: A beautiful, blond woman disappears. Her picture-perfect home shows signs of a struggle, and her handsome husband gives the cameras a grin that’s just a bit too charmingly insouciant. Something’s wrong here — but can we be sure of what? In Gone Girl,…
Louie Brown, Rise Up
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Nearly every young artist, regardless of his or her chosen medium, fails. Stephen King’s debut novel, Carrie, was rejected more than 30 times, finally causing him to throw it away in frustration. Only after his wife found it in the trash and encouraged him to rework it did Carrie become a…
Star Wars Reads Day Comes to Phoenix Books
When’s the last time you bumped into Jabba the Hutt or an Imperial Stormtrooper while browsing the best-seller rack? It could happen this Saturday, October 11, at Phoenix Books Burlington. That’s when the third annual Star Wars Reads Day — a national event promoting literacy — will bring costumed members of the 501st Legion to…
Community Pub Butch & Babe’s Opens in Old North End
Correction 10/08/14: The photo that ran with an earlier version of this story, as well as in print, was incorrect. We regret the error. As a cook at the Burlington School Food Project and a culinary instructor for the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, Kortnee Bush knows something about the diversity of Burlington’s Old…
New Chef, New Menu at Burlington’s Daily Planet
In September, a new chef quietly took over the kitchen at Burlington’s the Daily Planet. Two weeks ago, chef Justin Bigelow debuted his new menu. It’s different, very different. Gone are the old entrées and apps. Daily Planet owner Copey Houghton says he wanted to get away from the app-entrée-dessert format and restructure the menu…
