The Winter Preview Issue 2016
Killington Hosts Women’s Alpine World Cup; Introducing the Fat Bike Ski; The Bumpy Science of Weather Forecasting. Also: NEK Voters on ‘Why Trump?’
Obituary: Arthur D. Wolk, MD, 1919-2016
Having lived the fullest of lives, characterized by selfless compassion and unbridled caring for his patients, family and friends, Dr. Arthur Wolk passed away on Thursday, November 17, 2016, awash in the love of family members amazed by the grace, courage and dignity of his departure, symbolic of how he lived his life. His enduring…
The Parmelee Post: Droves of Vermont Turkeys Immigrate to Canada
Dreamstime | Bryan Parmelee Grateful families meticulously planning their Thanksgiving dinners were aghast to find that the most crucial component of their feasts might be missing from the table this year. Tens of thousands of turkeys, or Meleagris gallopavo, have disappeared across the state in what is already being called the largest shortage since the…
Seven Days Hires Staff Writers, a Columnist and a Deputy News Editor
Seven Days is expanding its news team in anticipation of the upcoming legislative session. Political editor Paul Heintz is giving up the hard-hitting “Fair Game” column he has penned for four and a half years to focus on investigative reporting in the new year. He’ll oversee his successor, John Walters, who has an extensive background in…
Family-Friendly Fun at Stowe’s Adventure Center
I’ll never forget my first look, circa 1986, at Stowe Mountain Resort’s most famous feature: the fabled Front Four trails of National, Goat, Liftline and Starr. I was quaking in my rear-entry ski boots as a young girl. But my daughter, now 9, will have a different memory. She’ll never forget her first look at…
Tyler Daniel Bean, On Days Soon to Pass
(Skeletal Lightning/Tor Johnson Records, CD, LP, digital download) We are rapidly approaching winter’s dark onset. To sleep in on a Saturday morning in January is to lose half a day. Seasonal affective disorder will take its inevitable, annual hold. Though it’s a dark time, spring promises a way out for the light deprived. But the…
Brooke Scatchard Introduces the Fat Bike Ski
Brooke Scatchard unveils his pièce de résistance unceremoniously, with hardly a nonchalant wave. His fat-bike ski has been 15 years in the making; now it leans inconspicuously in the corner of the University of Vermont’s machine shop, waiting for a few final tweaks — and snowfall. This is the 13th and final iteration of Scatchard’s…
Drunk & In the Woods, Drunk & In the Woods
(Self-released, digital download) There was a time not that long ago when Burlington and the surrounding music scene was firmly encrusted in granola. Following the 1990s indie-rock bloom, Deadheads and Phish fans spread like wildfire, staking their claim to the Queen City’s genre throne. (Said throne exists. It’s made from thousands of guitars and turntables…
Looking for Love in the Digital Age: An Art Show
Christy Mitchell opened Burlington’s S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in 2009, and every November since 2012 she has mounted her own solo show. Sandwiched between the annual “Art of Horror” group show and holiday-centric displays of affordable works, her exhibitions are unabashedly personal. This year, with “IRL” (“in real life”), Mitchell smartly digs into the world of online…
The Winter Preview — 2016
If you’re feeling that our bubble just cracked, know this: Vermonters are good with duct tape. Seriously, life goes on and so do we. Meantime, our annual Winter Preview Issue reminds us that the season brings cheer as well as chill. We find plenty of wall-climbing fun at the Stowe Adventure Center, and tell you…
Seeking Post-Election Solace in Cocktails
Wednesday, November 9, 6:30 a.m.: I woke up bleary-eyed after a long night spent watching election results. Though I’d missed Donald Trump’s victory speech, I’d read that Hillary Clinton had conceded the race, though she’d won the popular vote. Like millions of Americans, I struggled to process this improbable outcome. My husband went to the…
A Collaborative Exhibit at JSC Tackles Racism
Earlier this week, Johnson State College sophomore Brittney Malik recited “Let America Be America Again,” a poem written by Langston Hughes in 1935. Her reading was staged to mark the opening of the new collaborative exhibition “Awaken” at the Julian Scott Memorial Gallery. Ignited by the police-shooting deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, Underhill-based…
Mill River Brewery, Plus BBQ, to Open in St. Albans
St. Albans is slowly becoming a hub for beer and barbecue. This past September, 14th Star Brewing began supplementing its brews with an in-house barbecue joint called Smokin’ Butts Bar-B-Q. Come spring 2017, the town center will get another craft brewery and fully loaded smoker. Meet Mill River Brewing. The new business will move into…
![UVM Flash Mob at the Airport [SIV467]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/episode467-2.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
UVM Flash Mob at the Airport [SIV467]
11/5/16: Travelers passing through Burlington International Airport got a surprise last Saturday when a group of UVM students performed a synchronized dance routine around the check-in area. The flash mob was choreographed by UVM Dance Program students and rehearsed for two months. The airport has been utilizing their space creatively for weddings, the Me2/Orchestra, a…
After 20 Years, the Dillinger Escape Plan Make Their Getaway
It’s rare that we’re given the opportunity to end something — a relationship, a job, an artistic pursuit — in the way it deserves. Sometimes messy ends are the result of an outside force such as a cheating lover or an unexpected trauma. Sometimes it’s the result of hanging on too long and failing to…
Meet the Man on the Sleigh — No, Not Santa
Pat Palmer isn’t an especially chatty fellow, not at first, anyway. Like many native Vermonters of his generation — the 69-year-old grew up on a chicken farm in New Haven — he’s economical with his words and not inclined to chitchat. But join Palmer in his barn — or better yet, on one of his…
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Inspires Vermont Artist’s Book
On First Night in Montpelier some 20 years ago, local artist Delia Bell Robinson made a friend who would become one of her most compelling subjects. Peter, who prefers not to reveal his last name, is the focus of her recently published art book A Shirtwaist Story. In it, Robinson explores Peter’s tragedy-fraught family history…
The Inexact Science of Weather Forecasting
When Mike Wing predicts seasonal snowfall amounts, he pays no attention to the North Atlantic Oscillation, the likelihood of a weak La Niña, or the increasingly sophisticated computer modeling of the National Weather Service and other long-range forecasters. Instead, Wing, who runs the snowmaking operation at Sugarbush Resort, looks at the height of hornets’ nests.…
Art Review: ‘Laetitia Soulier: The Fractal Architectures,’ Hood Downtown
Laetitia Soulier’s richly detailed color photographs inaugurate the Dartmouth College Hood Museum of Art’s new gallery space, the Hood Downtown, on Main Street in Hanover, N.H. The French artist’s exhibition is the first of 10 that will be shown during the museum’s three-year closure for expansion and renovation. Soulier’s photographs are full of intrigue and…
Should I Stop My Daughter From Seeing an Older Man?
Dear Athena, I was wondering what your stance is on a 16-year-old girl and 23-year-old guy dating. Recently I found out from my daughter’s friend that my daughter is seeing a man this old. I don’t know if I should stop her from seeing him or what. Please help this single mother. Signed, Single Mom…
Free Will Astrology (11/16/16)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Does the word “revolution” have any useful meaning? Or has it been invoked by so many fanatics with such melodramatic agendas that it has lost its value? In accordance with your astrological omens, I suggest we give it another chance. I think it deserves a cozy spot in your life during…
Won Way: Questions and Answers About Vermont’s Gubernatorial Election
Perhaps the only thing worse than modern campaign reporting is postelection analysis. For the past week, the same sages who misread the electorate throughout the 2016 presidential race have been busily explaining what we all missed. Thanks, guys. There’s been plenty of that in Vermont, too. Those who weeks ago thought our hotly contested gubernatorial…
Soundbites: The Soundbites and the Fury
I’ll be honest: It feels a little — OK, a lot — disingenuous to go about business as usual this week. Like I imagine many of you are, I’m having a hard time ginning up enthusiasm for doing … well, much of anything, least of all writing the typical jokey Soundbites column. What I want…
Women’s Alpine World Cup Skis Into Killington
Killington is, hands down, Vermont’s rowdiest ski town. But it’s about to get its wool socks knocked off when the women’s alpine skiing World Cup hits the resort on November 26 and 27. “This is huge for us to have such an event here,” says Chuck Hughes, the chief of course, of the two-day race…
Letters to the Editor (11/16/16)
Better With Bernie [Re Off Message: “Sanders Breaks His Silence on Trump’s Election,” November 9]: I had hoped for “revolutionary” change as much as white, male, unemployed coal miner from West Virginia. Thanks to blind support for Hillary Clinton, we have elected a racist and demagogue. We had another option in Sen. Bernie Sanders —…
Why Many Northeast Kingdom Voters Chose Trump
The regulars in the tiny dining room attached to Bob’s Quick Stop in Irasburg said that Bernard Peters was the best person to explain how Donald Trump won the presidency. Aside from his time fighting in the Vietnam War, Peters, 70, has always lived in Albany or adjacent Irasburg. He is proud that his education…
Growing Pains: Burlington Progressives Clash Over Development
Ted Wimpey left Athens, Ga., for Burlington, Vt., in the late 1980s because the city’s socialist mayor, Bernie Sanders, intrigued him. He quickly fell in with a nascent political party called the Progressives. Nearly three decades later, Wimpey announced that he was severing ties with the group. “I now categorically reject and deny an[y] such…
Old Hands or ‘Fresh Eyes’? Building a Scott Administration, Job by Job
Last Thursday, governor-elect Phil Scott and Gov. Peter Shumlin convened for a half-hour, all-this-will-soon-be-yours meeting. Asked afterward for one piece of advice the departing governor had for him, Scott revealed: “the importance of hiring good people.” Selecting scores of employees became Scott’s main task the day after voters promoted the Republican lieutenant governor to Vermont’s…
Peter and the Farm
This most unusual movie opens with a drive down a road in Springfield, Vt. The frame is filled with majestic mountains and foliage fit for a postcard. It could be footage for a tourism department TV spot — only our destination isn’t some visitor-friendly paradise but one man’s private hell. Welcome to Mile Hill Farm.…
Lone Wolf
“Ma. Yeah, it’s Caleb. You won’t believe it — they put a no-trespass order on me, and the hospital security guards made me leave. I was being stupid, and they said I was acting threatening to the nurses … No, I’m in a cab right now and should be back to Saranac in a couple…
Arrival
Aliens have landed — or, rather, simply appeared — at 12 spots across the globe. They aren’t smashing cities or shooting ray guns, but they haven’t yet clarified their intentions not to do so. As linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) stands in her classroom watching cable news go berserk, director Denis Villeneuve doesn’t show…
Pro Tips on Pulling Off Thanksgiving Dinner
My worst Christmas was the one when I spent hours painstakingly crafting a chestnut, mascarpone and truffle pasta filling from a recipe in The French Laundry Cookbook. I stretched my pasta dough too thin, and the delicious, pricey mixture spurted out into the cooking water. I wept. Scratch that: I sobbed. On another memorable holiday,…
Updates on Ski Season Eats
In Japan, skiers warm their bellies at ramen trucks and stands that set up shop slope-side and in resort parking lots. Here in Vermont, Momo and Jordan Antonucci brought that tradition to Jay Peak two winters ago when they opened their Miso Hungry ramen truck just down the mountain in Jay village. This season, the…
