The Winter Preview Issue 2017
The Uphilling Trend on the Rise; Big Surprise: Airbnb Thrives in Vermont Ski Towns; Robby Kelley Takes Indie Route to World Races
Yule Haul: The 2017 Vermont Holiday Gift Guide
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Seriously: Lifting the Vail; An Uphill Battle
In this episode, Bryan previews some special wintertime activities on the mountains and in the tub. Featuring Michael Frank as “Snowboarder in Traffic #2” CREDITS Written, filmed and edited by: Bryan Parmelee Artwork/photography by: Stowe Mountain Resort, Catamount Trail Association, Ski Vermont/Jeb Wallace-Brodeur, Annelise Capossela, Bryan Parmelee, Dreamstime.com Logo/art direction by: Don Eggert Backdrop mural…
Obituary: David Newton Spring, 1948-2017
It is with sadness that we share the news of our beloved David N. Spring passing on November 15, 2017. David was a kind, generous and caring person. He enjoyed hiking the Adirondack 46 peaks, skiing the mountains of America and traveling the globe. A free spirit, David jumped into fatherhood and grampahood with his…
The Parmelee Post: AG Sessions Rescinds Threat After Reviewing Vermont Hate Crime Data
In a stunning reversal, U.S. Attorney General and self-sufficient ventriloquist dummy Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has rescinded a threat to cut federal grants for both Vermont and Burlington over their “sanctuary” immigration policies. “I owe the Green Mountain State an apology,” the nation’s highest-ranking law officer and Confederate general caricature said in a written statement.…
![Diwali Night [SIV511]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/episode511.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Diwali Night [SIV511]
11/10/17: The 11th Annual Diwali Night was held at the Davis Center on the University of Vermont campus in Burlington last Friday. Diwali is a Hindu festival of light and the event is organized by the Indian Student Association. A large group enjoyed performances, an Indian feast and Bollywood dancing. Music: Kevin MacLeod, “Vadodora” &…
The Winter Preview — 2017
As the flakes begin to fall, pro snow athletes get stoked, and the rest of us anticipate playing in the pretty white stuff. In this issue previewing Vermont’s longest season, we look to two resorts with very different profiles: Stowe and Bolton. Will the former, purchased by giant Vail Resorts, be crowded with Epic Pass…
Art Review: Craig Mooney at Vermont Supreme Court Gallery
Craig Mooney’s large landscape paintings are a bright antidote to Vermont’s November skies and the leafless branches of stick season. Many of the 21 oil paintings in his solo exhibit at the Vermont Supreme Court Gallery recall the long days of summer and the vagaries of light from dawn to dusk that accompany them. Most…
In the Increasingly Corporate Ski Business, Bolton Goes Local
Vail Resorts’ purchase of Stowe Mountain Resort was not the only Vermont ski mountain deal that went down this year, though it garnered most of the headlines. In April, Ralph DesLauriers and his children, Evan and Lindsay, purchased Bolton Valley Resort from Burlington developers Doug Nedde and Larry Williams for an undisclosed price. It brought…
Album Review: Nechromancer, ‘Intersect’
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Nechromancer’s debut album, Intersect, arrived on my desk in a numbered, handmade envelope fastened with a satanic, crimson wax seal. I almost didn’t want to open it, partially because it was so nicely packaged, but also because I thought doing so might unleash a demonic entity. As far as I can…
Ethnomusicologist Jud Wellington Returns to Alma Mater SMC
The marimba looks like something anyone could play: a row of wooden bars resembling a xylophone that’s struck with two wooden mallets. Yet this ancient instrument has spread across the globe, with widely different cultures using it in different ways. At a lecture at Saint Michael’s College on Thursday night, the public can hear a…
Movie Review: ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ Also Kills Sacred Cows
Like Quentin Tarantino, Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos seems fascinated by power games, the crueler the better. In Dogtooth (2009), parents abuse their power to give their children an absurdly false vision of the world. In The Lobster (2015), a dystopian government exercises sadistic control over its citizens. These are movies in which winning the day…
A Quick Review of ‘Echo After Echo’ by Amy Rose Capetta
It’s difficult to read Amy Rose Capetta’s third young-adult novel, published last month, without being reminded of the scandals currently rocking Hollywood. Echo After Echo is many things — a touching lesbian romance, a murder mystery, a coming-of-age tale and a feat of fleet prose. Not least, though, it’s a cutting study of the corrosive…
Album Review: Tom Pearo, ‘Headspace’
(Self-released, digital download, vinyl) Tom Pearo is a Burlington-based guitarist and composer who has been most visible in recent years as sideman to folk-rocker and former Burlingtonian Abbie Morin. He’s also been hard at work on his own compositions — specifically his first solo outing, Headspace. It’s a short, exceptionally sweet instrumental project built around…
Airbnb Snowballs in Vermont Ski Towns, Bringing Cash and Concerns
Josi Kytle said she rents out an apartment on Airbnb so she can afford to live in Stowe. The 41-year-old entrepreneur charges as much as $210 a night for the two-bedroom unit attached to her house, which she bills as “modern” and “only 3 mins to the Mtn!” Hers is one of 450 accommodations in…
Build Your Own Skis With Lars Whitman
On an unseasonably warm day in late October, I drove to the end of a dirt road in Richmond and met Lars Whitman, the sole proprietor of Silo Skis. In the driveway of the off-the-grid home he shares with his wife and two children, Whitman parks a white 8-by-16-foot trailer that serves as his custom…
Hard-core Skiers Take to Uphilling the Slopes
One morning last winter, lured by two feet of fresh overnight powder, I hit the parking lot at Sugarbush Resort’s Mount Ellen an hour before the lifts spun. Early, but not early enough in a powder-poor season. As I joined the crowd milling up from the lot, four rime-encrusted figures came striding down against the…
Philamena’s Closes to Focus on Pasta and Sauce Production
While Down Home expands into the dinner hours, another Montpelier restaurant is closing its doors. Philamena’s, at 41 Elm Street, will serve its last meals on Sunday, November 26. Owner Todd Whitehead explained that he’s shuttering the restaurant to focus on his booming business making fresh pastas and sauces, also called Philamena’s. Recently, Healthy Living…
Movie Review: ‘Jane’ Opens a Stunning Window on Goodall’s Early Expeditions
On learning of this documentary about Jane Goodall’s life and work, I had two reactions. First, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would make a movie about the pioneering primatologist today. How many times have we already watched her watching monkeys on TV? Second, I couldn’t imagine a less likely filmmaker for the task than Brett…
Locals Consider the Amazon ‘Stranglehold’
On Monday evening, dozens of people filed into Burlington’s First Universalist Unitarian Society at the top of Church Street to discuss an old topic with new talking points. The subject: Amazon. More specifically, how has the corporate giant infiltrated markets far beyond the online retail front for which it’s known, and how can communities activate…
Pondering Pelham: Questions Raised About Health Care Board Appointment
Gov. Phil Scott’s appointment of Tom Pelham to the Green Mountain Care Board has attracted a fair share of critics who are concerned about the lack of medical expertise on the board and about Pelham’s track record as a critic of health care reform. The board has broad authority over health care reform and the…
Burlington Choral Society Tackles an Obscure Handel Oratorio
George Frideric Handel wrote some 40 operas in Italian before he began to find his niche as a composer of choral works in English. The turning point came with his dramatic oratorio Alexander’s Feast, an instant hit with the English public when it premiered in 1736. It helped that Handel’s adopted country — Great Britain…
Free Will Astrology (11/15/17)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Everything that can be invented has been invented” — Charles H. Duell, Director of the U.S. Patent Office, 1899. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895. “All the music that can be written has already been written. We’re just repeating the past.” — 19th-century composer Pyotr…
Letters to the Editor (11/15/17)
Flag Tag Interesting how the request for us to vote on a Burlington flag does not include the option of the existing one [Live Culture: “The City of Burlington Is Seeking a New Flag,” September 7]. The current one represents peace, education, the environment, the arts and a global world-class city. What’s wrong with that?…
Ask Athena: Is It a Sign of Weakness That I Don’t Want to Be Alone?
Dear Athena, Is it OK or a sign of weakness that I don’t want to be alone? I have gone from partner to partner my whole life, and maybe that’s wrong. What do you think? Should I try being single? I ended a relationship not too long ago, and a new one is kind of…
Indoorsy Type? Here’s How to Craft Through Winter
Winter is coming, and the cold is deep; the dark is more. Whether or not you suffer from ye olde seasonal affective disorder, it can be helpful to have some tricks for occupying yourself indoors when the out-of-doors is looking grim. We’ve assembled some of our favorite projects for wholesome winter fun to last from…
Eat This Week, November 15 to 21, 2017: Farm Raised
What’s it like growing up on a family farm? Find out at one of several screenings of “Vermont Farm Kids,” a documentary produced by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont’s Maria Reade and filmed by James Chandler. The short tells the stories of individuals between the ages of 10 and 28, who share what…
Bear Roots Farm in South Barre Goes Solar
At Bear Roots Farm on Snowbridge Road in South Barre, owners Karin Bellemare and Jon Wagner operate a CSA in all seasons and sell at the summer and winter Burlington and Montpelier farmers markets. Now the biz is going solar. Bear Roots started out with a mix of wholesale and direct sales, Bellemare said. But,…
Vermont Ski Racer Robby Kelley Charts His Own Path
On Sunday, Robby Kelley competed in the first World Cup men’s slalom of this year’s series in Levi, Finland. While the Starksboro native didn’t qualify for a second run, he was close — a mere 10th of a second away. But that’s all it takes in slalom, the Alpine skiing event in which racers barrel…
The Juries Are Out: Fewer Defendants Risk Going to Trial
Speaking from the Winhall home that federal prosecutors were trying to take from her, Alison Gu declared again and again how eager she was for her trial to start. “I feel anxious, but I’m looking forward to having my day in court, because I know I’m innocent,” Gu said in late October. “We really have…
Hackie: Happy Hoosier
“So, Burlington is a fun little town,” my customer said to me as she settled into the shotgun seat of my taxi. She had just hailed me from the wild and woolly streets of downtown Burlington. Though it was close to midnight, the woman asked me to take her to the Walmart out at Taft…
Sinkane’s Ahmed Gallab on His New Album and Exit from Of Montreal
Just before Ahmed Gallab released his third studio album as Sinkane, he lost one of his biggest influences: Nigerian funk musician William Onyeabor. Known for a prolific string of albums in the late ’70s and ’80s, Onyeabor passed away in January — about a month before Life & Livin’ It dropped. A few years back, Gallab…
Soundbites: Night Moves; Doctor’s Orders
All right. It’s time to get real, my friends. I’ve remained silent about something for a few months, but I can’t keep my feelings bottled up anymore. We need to talk about Night Protocol. In case you’re late to the neon-streaked party, Night Protocol are a relatively new, Burlington-based synthwave and ’80s cover band. They…
An Outdoors Enthusiast Shares the Love, and Guidance, on YouTube
Like Hermione Granger’s enchanted purse in the final Harry Potter book, Austin Borg’s backpack contains an astonishing array of items: a small guitar, a chunk of cheese, a serving of wine, a tripod, a sleeping bag for his dog, and a homemade fire-starter consisting of sawdust and melted candles. These items — along with an…
Burton Creates Out of This World Outerwear for U.S. Snowboarding Team
Expect to see some space-age duds at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Burlington-based Burton Snowboards will outfit the U.S. Snowboarding Team athletes competing in the half-pipe, slopestyle and a new event this year: big-air snowboarding. The games kick off in February. This will be the fourth Winter Olympics in which U.S. athletes…
High Peaks at Lower Prices: Stowe Braces for Bigger Crowds
The snow guns were blasting on a recent November evening at nearby Stowe Mountain Resort when Charlie Shaffer sipped a glass of red wine by the long wooden bar of his popular après-ski joint, the Matterhorn, and announced that he’s thinking of hiring extra staff this winter. “I’m preparing to get a lot busier,” Shaffer…
Onion River Co-op Past and Present, and a Preview of the New City Market
Back in January 2002, the repeatedly delayed opening of the downtown Burlington City Market/Onion River Co-op was a political football. Or rather, a “food fight,” as the late Peter Freyne phrased it in his Inside Track column in Seven Days, that “sharply divided Burlap citizens along political lines.” Freyne warned that another delay in the…
Pork & Pickles BBQ Shifts to Catering and Pop-Ups
Pork & Pickles BBQ at 34 Park Street in Essex Junction will close on Saturday, according to owner Chris Simard. The restaurant, which opened in June 2016, grew out of Simard’s catering company and food truck, Lazy Farmer. Simard plans to refocus on the catering aspect of his business and to host pop-up meals at…
Montpelier’s Down Home Kitchen Adds Supper Service
Down Home Kitchen at 100 Main Street in Montpelier will add supper to its breakfast and lunch service starting the Friday after Thanksgiving, owner Mary Alice Proffitt said. The Southern-style restaurant that opened in September 2015 will extend its hours to 10 p.m. four days a week, Wednesday through Saturday. Fans of Down Home’s daytime…
