The Winter Reading Issue 2014
Winter Reading Issue: Fiction, Small Publishers Talk Business, An Artist’s Book of Hauntings
Obituary: Marie Mae (Bechard) Lamothe
Mrs. Marie Mae (Bechard) Lamothe of Swanton, Vermont, went to be with her Lord, Sunday, December 21, 2014 at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington. Marie was born May 11, 1922 in St. Armand, Quebec the daughter of Leonard and Bertha (Vayette) Bechard. She was married in St. Albans on July 5, 1941…
Obituary: Mary Lynn Rupe,
Mary Lynn Rupe is with us now only in our hearts, our memories and in each of the works of art she created over the decades. She died at the Vermont Respite House in Williston, Vermont on Saturday, December 20, 2014, just as she had lived — with grace, beauty, fearlessness and no regrets. Just…
Obituary: Lionel Joseph “LJ” Palardy, 1941-2014, Winooski
Lionel Joseph “LJ” Palardy, 73, of Winooski, passed away on Tuesday, December 16, 2014, in the Vermont Respite House in Williston, after a nine-year campaign with cancer. Born August 19, 1941, in Putnam, Conn., to Leo and Rita Palardy, LJ spent his youth in Albany, Ga., before entering the U.S. Air Force in 1959. Honorably…
Obituary: Yvette Theresa Ouimet
Mrs. Yvette Theresa Ouimet, age 89 years, a longtime Swanton educator died Friday morning December 19, 2014, in the Franklin County Rehab Center. Born in Swanton on January 28, 1925, she was the daughter of the late Treffle and Colombe (Daignault) Ouimet. She was married to John Claude Ouimet, Sr. who predeceased her on December…
Obituary: Gary Arnold Ladieu
Gary Arnold Ladieu, age 59 years, a longtime resident of Fourth Street in Swanton Village died Thursday morning, December 18, 2014, in the University of Vermont Medical Center with loving family at his side. Born in Saint Albans on December 16, 1955, he was the son of Roger and Marilyn (White) Ladieu. He graduated from…
Obituary: Richard P. “Dick” Reynolds
Richard P. “Dick” Reynolds, age 68 years, died Monday evening December 15, 2014, at his Hog Island residence with loving family at his side. Born in Swanton on October 30, 1946, he was the son of the late Palmer and Alida (Silk) Reynolds. He attended Swanton schools and was later married to the former Terry…
Wild
I swear I tried to take this movie seriously. Reese Witherspoon — who stars and produced — is attempting a professional makeover. I’m all for her. Jean-Marc Vallée, the guy who gave us Dallas Buyers Club, directed, so how can one not expect great things? The script, based on Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir, was written…
Eyewitness: Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr.
Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr. is known in Vermont as a painter whose vernacular works often feature old houses. It’s natural for artists to paint what they see, and this one was born and raised in Rutland, a town that boasts many a fine Victorian structure. In fact, Brunelle has a keen eye for architecture and…
Wassailing With Vermont Druids
As a reporter approaches Dreamland, the forest thickens. The boughs of tall softwoods are heavy with snow and ice from the week’s winter storms; the trees seem to lean in as the road narrows. After about a mile on a dirt road some seven miles north of Montpelier, tracks indicate a plow truck has stopped,…
LocalStore: Old Gold
What party first brought you to Old Gold? Back in my not-so-distant college days, friends and I would trek to the vintage-and-costume mainstay in downtown Burlington on Friday afternoons to snag last-minute weekend wear: wigs, corsets, sequined leggings, things with feathers. Since it first opened on Burlington’s Main Street in 1973, Old Gold has been…
Arvad’s Reopens; 14th Star Brewing Releases Cans; Bento Offers Music
After a week of closure for renovations, Arvad’s Grill and Pub reopened in Waterbury with a fresh new look — and changes to the menu. The restaurant is in the midst of celebrating its 25th anniversary on Main Street. Though the restaurant has evolved over the years, Jeffrey Larkin, who co-owns it with his wife, Maryanne,…
FairPoint Customers Suffer Through Strike, Outages
“Enough is enough.” That was Gov. Peter Shumlin’s message in a December 12 letter to FairPoint Communications CEO Paul Sunu. The governor urged the telecommunications company — which provides telephone and internet service for roughly 200,000 customers in Vermont — to resolve its dispute with striking workers. State officials and FairPoint customers are exasperated with…
Quick Lit: The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad
In 2000, Viking Penguin put out Eric Rickstad’s debut novel, Reap, which probably ranks as the least Rockwellian coming-of-age tale ever set in Vermont. While the novel’s prose was literary and its landscape descriptions impeccable, its lurid explosions of violence suggested that Rickstad might have a brighter future as a crime writer than as the…
Letters to the Editor (12/17/14)
Another Thing About Winooski I wanted to submit a correction to the Winooski police story [“Small City, Big Divide: Winooski Cops Seek Community Bonds,” December 10]. I used to be a board member of the Winooski Coalition for a Safe and Peaceful Community. The WCSPC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and its executive director is Kate…
Librarians Are Digitizing Vermont’s Past
Something odd took place one February day in 1886 in what would come to be called the Northeast Kingdom. The St. Johnsbury Caledonian, the newspaper in the area’s biggest town, announced the following on its February 18 cover page, under the headline “A Queer Lot of Witnesses”: That was a queer lot of witnesses that…
Shelagh Shapiro Talks About Her New Book and Radio Show
When Phish announced their imminent breakup in 2004, Shelagh Connor Shapiro found a novel-worthy idea. The short-story author and MFA graduate from Vermont College of Fine Arts says she read an article about a Vermont farmer who decided not to plant all of his crops that year because he thought he could make more money…
Fiction: The Hit Deer
Kurt was driving the kids back to Mona’s, Sarah Vaughan crooning on the radio, Stip strapped into his booster seat reading Captain Underpants, Kate in the front tethered to her iPhone and listening to anything but Sarah Vaughan, when the deer exploded from a thicket at the edge of the muddy back road, caught the…
Exodus: Gods and Kings
Exodus: Gods and Kings has four credited screenwriters, too many visual effects technicians for me to count, and actors who speak in at least 20 different flavors of accent, from mid-Atlantic (Christian Bale) to what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here (Aaron Paul). It has a mission to appeal to both the Judeo-Christian faithful and people who only vaguely remember Moses…
Quick Lit: Proof Positive by Archer Mayor
Benjamin Kendall, a Vietnam vet with PTSD and a severe hoarding disorder, is found dead in his home, crushed by a mountain of papers. But was it an accident? Or made to look like one? Medical examiner Beverly Hillstrom finds the autopsy results inconclusive — and unsettling. And not just because Ben Kendall was her…
Soundbites: Of (More) Holiday Shows and Robotic Surf
Mele Kalikimaka, music fans! Judging from ye olde “Kiss Saves Santa” advent calendar here in the Seven Days fortress of rockitude — OK, fine, my living room — I see that we’re just about a week away from Christmas. Much like last week, that means many of the big shindigs on the schedule over the…
Montpelier’s Center for Arts and Learning Buys a Building
They say good things come to those who wait. We’d add that good things are more likely to materialize if you work your tail off. Both tactics have worked, apparently, for the Center for Arts and Learning in Montpelier. That group of nonprofit art and educational organizations has bought itself a building and is now…
Free Will Astrology (12/17/14)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Too much happiness can make you unhappy,” reported journalist Marta Zaraska in the Washington Post. Citing research by psychologists, she concluded that being super-extra cheerful can make you selfish, gullible and more prone to stereotyped thinking. On the other hand, she said, maintaining merely moderate levels of happiness is pretty damn…
Three Small Vermont Publishers Talk Business
So you’ve written a book. You’ve polished it within an inch of its life. Maybe you’ve already submitted it to every possible New York agent or publisher. Maybe your work has a local relevance that out-of-staters don’t “get.” Or maybe you simply prefer the idea of working with a Vermont-based company. Whichever it is, once…
News Quirks (12/17/14)
We Feel Your Pain Law school students at Harvard, Columbia and Georgetown universities demanded that their schools postpone final exams because they were traumatized by grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Mo., and New York not to indict white police officers who killed black men. Students said the decisions and subsequent outrage kept them awake, distracted…
Burlington Progs Put Mall Man Through the Paces
Last month, the new owner of the Burlington Town Center unveiled a $200 million plan to redevelop his property. What’s more, Don Sinex promised to work hand in hand with the city to bring its much-maligned downtown mall up to date. “I’m here to listen,” he told the city council repeatedly during its December 1…
WTF: Questions From the Road
We get lots of questions from readers for this column, which is awesome. You spot a local mystery; we try to figure it out. But with just 26 columns a year, we can’t get to them all. Also, some of the questions are total stumpers, some we’ve already answered in previous issues, and some make…
Police Wear Cameras to Record — and Avoid — Trouble
In early November, a video that quickly went viral showed Burlington police officers using force against a seemingly defenseless man lying in the middle of the street. A witness used a cellphone to record a cop repeatedly striking the man, whose hands appeared to be underneath him. The video received widespread media coverage, and many…
I Think I Might Be Masturbating Too Much
Dear Athena, I think I might be masturbating too much. My girlfriend is starting to stress about it. We were talking recently, and she asked me how often I masturbate. I told her, and she thought it was too much and that it would start to mess up our sex life and could hurt my…
Left Behind: Will Elizabeth Warren Eclipse Bernie Sanders?
Four years ago last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) captivated progressives with an eight-and-a-half-hour floor speech opposing the extension of Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthy. But last week, as Sanders and his ilk fought a provision in a massive spending bill that would loosen Wall Street regulations, there was a new star leading the…
Boomslang, Boomslang
(State & Main Records, CD, digital download) Hip-hop is one of the most relentlessly prolific genres in existence today. Success is often defined by an endless stream of mixtapes, EPs, singles, collaborations and even, on occasion, that dinosaur species known as the Album. Montpelier hip-hop act Boomslang are remarkable, then, for taking a path seldom…
Duane Carleton, A Girl Like That
(Higher Road Records, CD, digital download) Rutland County rocker Duane Carleton has been cranking out all manner of original electric and acoustic music since the early 1990s. With A Girl Like That — which, if I’ve counted right, is his 18th recording — he shows no sign of slowing down. Dedicated to the memory of…
Paying Homage to Unsung Heroes of the Local Music Scene
When it comes to local rocking, musicians tend to get the most acclaim, both from fans and the media. And that makes sense. They’re the most visible members of the local scene. But, to mangle a phrase, no band is an island — well, except Islands. And maybe Future Islands. The point is, there is…
Book review: Nothing Saved Us: Poems of the Korean War by Tamra J. Higgins
OK, sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. And in the case of Nothing Saved Us: Poems of the Korean War by Tamra J. Higgins, you should. Its black-and-white cover photo shows U.S. soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders, headed into the hills, and Korean refugees, their possessions balanced on their heads, headed…
Work: Font Designer Alec Julien
Name: Alec Julien Town: Burlington Job: Font Designer Alec Julien reads more closely than most people. It’s not that the Burlington graphic designer necessarily has a better grasp of complicated ideas — though he’s a smart guy with a master’s in philosophy. It’s just that when he reads text, he sees more in it than…
A Worldly Dining Experience at Woodstock’s Lincoln Inn
The following story requires a disclaimer: The dishes described therein will probably never exist again. I ate them and they are gone. Chef Jevgenija Saromova has since moved on to new creations. And that’s one of the reasons to love the remade Lincoln Inn & Restaurant at the Covered Bridge in Woodstock. An artist in…
Butch & Babe’s Opens in Burlington
Burlington’s Old North End will welcome its long-awaited neighborhood pub, Butch + Babe’s, on January 2. Owner Kortnee Bush describes her plan for the 45-seat restaurant at 258 North Winooski Avenue: “Our approach is really just serving simple cuisine representing my roots, [chef] Narin [Phanthakhot]’s roots and various communities in the Old North End.” She’s…
Waterworks Food + Drink Opens in Winooski
In 1912, the American Woolen Company’s fourth Winooski factory opened in the building now known as the Champlain Mill. France, Germany, Poland and Lebanon were just a few of the countries represented by the immigrants who labored at its machines. Now, the faces of those workers are back at the mill in the form of…
