The Winter Reading Issue 2016
What Happens When AI Writes Stories; The Outsize Success of Tiny Green Writers Press; Chelsea Green Publishing’s Slow-Food Culture
The Parmelee Post: Gov. Shumlin Bakes Extra-Special Brownies for Vermont House
In a highly unusual move, Gov. Peter Shumlin has announced that his final act in office will be to prepare a batch of what he calls “ultra-super-extra-special” brownies. The chocolate-y delights will be served to the state’s Representatives when the House reconvenes on January 4. “I ask that each and every member of the House…
The Parmelee Post: 2016 Census Data Reveal Most Vermonters are Subarus
According to the latest data available from the United States Census Bureau, Subarus have surpassed non-Hispanic whites as the most prominent demographic in the state of Vermont. A staggering 19 out of 20 Vermonters are now Subarus, representing a remarkable shift in the population of what had long been one of the whitest states in…
![An Epic Holiday Light Show [SIV472]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/episode472-scaled.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
An Epic Holiday Light Show [SIV472]
12/17/16: John Wilking has been hanging Christmas lights outside his home since his kids were little. In the last three years, he has taken it to the extreme, doubling his electric bill and decorating his home with 25,000 lights which utilize 3,700 feet of extension cords. The lights are perfectly timed to music, which plays…
Free Will Astrology (12/21/16)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In 2017, you will be at the peak of your ability to forge new alliances and deepen existing alliances. You’ll have a sixth sense for cultivating professional connections that can serve your noble ambitions for years to come. I encourage you to be alert for new possibilities that might be both…
Lion
Only the most shrivel-hearted grinch could watch this Christmas release and not be moved. Based on actual events, Lion chronicles the odyssey of Australian businessman Saroo Brierley, who was born in India. It’s an affecting meditation on identity, home, family and fate. Be forewarned: There will be tears. The feature debut from director Garth Davis,…
My Girlfriend Won’t Spend Holidays With My Family
Dear Athena, I have been with my girlfriend for more than three years. We live together, and we love each other a lot. I’m positive she is going to be my wife one day. But we never spend holidays together. Every Hanukkah and Thanksgiving, she goes to see her family and I go see mine.…
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
First things first: No, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is not the sequel to last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Expect that next December. And, yes, this stand-alone adventure, set between episodes III and IV of the saga, is a way to milk more profits from the cash-cow franchise. But director Gareth Edwards…
Managing the Flow at Green Mountains Review
Jessica Hendry Nelson of Waterbury wears a lot of hats. She’s the author of the memoir If Only You People Could Follow Directions, which was a finalist for the 2015 Vermont Book Award. She teaches at Champlain College, in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in writing and publishing, and in the low-residency…
Letters to the Editor (12/21/16)
No Woman, No Cry Sue Minter’s loss in the Vermont governor’s race was the result of many factors [“Sue Minter on Her Loss, Gender and What’s Next,” December 7]. To blame it on her gender is disingenuous at best. She is not better qualified to be governor because she is a woman, yet she and…
The Winter Reading Issue
We turn out lots of reading material every week, but in this annual issue we consider and celebrate the written word itself. It’s also the only issue in which we print fiction: this year, short stories by Mary Hays and Leath Tonino, both Vermont-based writers. We also include a suitably wintry poem by Vermont’s poet…
Soundbites: 2016 Year in Review
There’s no sugarcoating it: 2016 sucked. From a rash of musical icons passing away to the election of an orange-skinned misogynistic racist to the White House, there was not a lot to feel good about lo, these past 12 months. It wasn’t exactly all good in the Vermont music scene, either. Though there were some…
Samantha Handler Talks Art and Living With Cancer
On the second day of 2015, Shelburne artist Samantha Handler began a sort of personal artistic renaissance. She didn’t recognize it as such at the time, Handler says. January 2 was the day her husband left her and her “whole life dumped out on the ground.” She was forced to close the Open Arms Café,…
Under Sharp White Stars: Fiction
They were standing in the driveway beneath the dry black sky and the sharp white stars. The snow was deep and clean and everywhere. It had been cold for a week. Ten below, 15 below, 20 below during the days. Zach was talking to himself. Looking at the stars. Looking and talking. Talking about whatever.…
A Publishing Empire in Brattleboro, or No?
Brattleboro resident Adam Salviani is the founder and CEO of an international publishing house and a self-proclaimed best-selling novelist. Yet when Seven Days learned recently that he was running for the Vermont House of Representatives, our first response was, Who? Admittedly, we don’t know every wordsmith pounding a keyboard in the Green Mountain State. But…
File Under X-Mas: Four Local Holiday Albums You (Probably) Haven’t Heard
Few things in the realm of popular music are as divisive as Christmas music. For Clark W. Griswold types, the cheery jingles start ringing out like silver bells by Thanksgiving, if not earlier. For those with more Grinch-ian inclinations, all they want for Christmas is to stay the hell out of earshot of Mariah Carey.…
Now What? As Scott Fashions Agenda, Dems Watch and Wait
Throughout his campaign for governor, Republican Phil Scott was crystal clear about what he hoped to accomplish: Grow Vermont’s economy and make the state more “affordable.” Far less clear was how he’d get that job done. Now, with two weeks remaining before Scott takes office, the governor-elect’s agenda is no less a mystery. “We just…
Butcher Beer to Open in Warren This Spring
A lot of Vermont breweries opened in 2016, and next year should be no different. One of the newest additions to the state’s proliferating beer scene is Butcher Beer, a one-barrel picobrewery in Warren that owner Steve Butcher aims to open this spring. Butcher moved from Michigan to Warren in 1999 because, in his words,…
Saturday Morning Babka: A Short Story
How about you give me some of that whatchamacallit of yours, Ron says to Doris, pouring himself coffee from the scorched aluminum pot. He sets it back on the tile, and the baby mouths hot and hot again, but no one looks. It’s a babka, New York food, she says as she reaches across the…
December 10th: A Poem by Vermont’s Poet Laureate
I saw the first cardinal this morning in the snow outside my window at the feeder and was tempted to call him my heart for his color, shape and hunger, but no, not yet; rather, little red bandit at home in the north where the sky conspires with the cold to form a blue so…
Burlington Housing Authority Mum on Leadership Shuffle
A leadership shake-up at the Burlington Housing Authority may signal trouble at one of the region’s most important providers of affordable housing. The BHA is landlord to thousands of vulnerable Vermonters, including some who are mentally ill. Top-level personnel changes came to light last week. That’s when longtime property maintenance director Christopher Barrett and former…
Green Writers Press Flourishes in Vermont
When ailing poet David Budbill sought a publisher for what he knew could be his last works, he called up Dede Cummings, founder of Green Writers Press in Brattleboro. “He said, ‘I have three books. I want you to publish all of them,'” recalls Cummings in a phone interview. “I said yes on the phone…
An Ambitious Muslim Politician Navigates Uncertain Times
Only a few people turned out last month to hear Winooski city councilors debate whether to pursue “sanctuary city” status for their burg. Faisal Gill was one of them. His take? By pledging not to question people about their immigration status, Winooski could draw the unwelcome attention of federal law enforcement, he said, while offering…
One Radish Eatery Brings Breakfast and Lunch to Richmond
In Richmond, One Radish Eatery began serving breakfast and lunch in the former Parkside Kitchen location at 39 Esplanade earlier this month. The new spot offers classic breakfasts such as buttermilk pancakes or bacon and eggs, along with less standard fare such as bowls of toasted quinoa with chia seeds and raspberries, and wood-fired pizzas…
Shumlin Talks, Reluctantly, About Governing Without a ‘Fear Gene’
Peter Shumlin didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to sit for an exit interview and talk about the highs and lows of his six years as Vermont’s governor. After several pleas — he had to do it for history’s sake, I argued — the departing Democrat acquiesced to an hourlong sit-down in his office. I…
Sam Lai Serves Up Chinese Cuisine in the Old North End
Sam Lai has cultivated a habit over years as a chef that supersedes even his survival instinct. Five years ago, Lai was at the back of his takeout store, China Express 2 in Burlington’s Old North End, when he heard his wife scream. He dropped his cleaver on the chopping board and rushed to the…
UVM Researchers Measure Emotion in Stories
At the University of Vermont, researchers in the Computational Story Lab can, within seconds, graph the emotional arc of any story — and provide its happiness ranking, to boot. How? With a complex and extremely precise computer program developed by PhD candidate Andy Reagan and advisors Chris Danforth and Peter Dodds. The last two are…
Author Jack Mayer on Lessons of the Holocaust
If you’ve never heard of Ernst Werner Techow or Walther Rathenau, don’t worry — and don’t let it keep you from reading Middlebury author Jack Mayer’s Before the Court of Heaven. With its skillful conjuring of complex political, social and emotional forces, this historical novel takes readers inside events that unfolded in Germany in the…
Bow Thayer, The Source and the Servant
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Bow Thayer is a serious asset to Vermont. Since he moved here, he’s been a creative and cultural force and has consistently churned out impressive albums, both solo and with the Perfect Trainwreck. Thayer also founded the Tweed River Music Festival. In his spare time, he invented a new instrument, the…
AI Rocks Music But Literature, Not So Much
Authors who are worried they’ll soon be replaced by computer algorithms can breathe a sigh of relief — for now. But dance club turntablists may have more reason to feel anxious about being supplanted by digital DJs. Those are some of the takeaways from the first-ever Turing Tests in the Creative Arts, sponsored by Dartmouth…
Carraway, The Bad Year
(Self-released, CD, digital download) The latest promotional materials for Burlington band Carraway are awash in nautical imagery. To wit, check out that fancy schooner on the cover of their first full-length album, The Bad Year. I smell a metaphor, and it’s probably something like this: A sailing vessel is at the mercy of the seas…
The Slow-Food Catalog of Chelsea Green
Chelsea Green Publishing cofounders Margo and Ian Baldwin weren’t committed to any particular editorial bailiwick when they printed their first books in 1985. “At first, we did a bit of everything,” Margo Baldwin recalled, sitting at a book-strewn table at her White River Junction office earlier this month. “We did novels, art books, nonfiction.” Within…
Mad Taco Spruces Up, Expands Catering
The Waitsfield location of the Mad Taco invites customers to hang out with a group of friends, drinking beer and scarfing down smoked-pork-belly tacos and guac. By contrast, the Montpelier location, which used to be a Subway, has always retained a bit of a quick-stop vibe — it doesn’t encourage lingering. In early January, owners…
