Seven Days, October 14, 2015 by Seven Days

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READ MORE AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/2020.

CONTENTS 9

NOVEMBER 5, 1997: From Inside Track, by Peter Freyne: “In last week’s Inside Track, Molly Ivins was describing Texas governor George Bush as ‘affable out the ass.’ His brother Jeb Bush is the governor of Florida. So many shrubs. So little time.”

NOVEMBER HINDSIGHT 4, 1998: two decades of “Correction: Last week Seven Days we identified letter writer C. Chaya Boughan [Weekly Mail, October 28] as a math professor at UVM. Turns out we gave her a degree prematurely: Boughan is an undergraduate in mathematics. Our apologies for any confusion or undue ribbing.”

SEVEN DAYS

SEPTEMBER 4, 1996: “Correction: Last week we erroneously reported that Tom Petty is playing with Johnny Cash this week at the Flynn. We apologize for any inconvenience or dashed hopes.”

10.14.15-10.21.15

Department of (Memorable) Corrections We at Seven Days work hard to ensure that the information in these pages is accurate. Everything we print has been edited, copyedited and factchecked by two editors and two proofreaders. But we’re only human, after all, and we make our share of mistakes. When necessary, we correct them on the Feedback page; columnists typically do so in a subsequent column. Here are a few of the memorable corrections we’ve printed over the last 20 years — all from the early days, when we had fewer eyes on the content.

29 87 88 88 88 88 89 89 90 90 90 90 91 92

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

Theater: Tribes, Vermont Stage BY ALEX BROWN

Mitzvot Accomplished

Drawing Out Miss Daisy

Adamant Appetite

Food+drink: A co-op cookbook celebrates 80 years of serving small-town feasts BY HANNAH PALMER EGAN

Religion: Retiring rabbi Joshua Chasan reflects on a controversy-courting career BY KEN PICARD

BY ALICIA FREESE

Underwritten by:

BY ETHAN DE SEIFE

BY AMY LILLY

Woodstock Digital Media Festival Probes New Tech in the Public Realm

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LOOKING FORWARD

the

MAGNIFICENT MUST SEE, MUST DO THIS WEEK COMPI L E D BY K RI STEN RAVIN

SUNDAY 18

Family Vacation “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” This Grateful Dead lyric and high school yearbook platitude could be used to describe playwright Maura Campbell’s new work Fantasia de Colores. This one-act drama follows a straitlaced mother and her suicidal daughter as they discover a wild mushroom in their refrigerator and embark on a mystical journey to Mexico. ¡Buen viaje! SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 60

SUNDAY 18

TUESDAY 20

FOR YOUR HEALTH

Ante Up

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 62

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 59

THURSDAY 15 & TUESDAY 20

Foreign Flick Cinephiles, prepare to see the world from your seat in Rutland County, courtesy of the Castleton International Film Festival. This monthlong series aimed at bringing global cinema to the local stage spotlights five Spanish-language movies, free of charge. The high-intensity 2012 thriller 7 Boxes kicks off the celluloid celebration with a bang. SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 55

MONDAY 19-WEDNESDAY 21

Professional Development It’s time for local enterprisers to get down to business: Burlington Startup Week calls on leaders, backers and newbies in the small-business world to strengthen the region’s entrepreneurial community. Five days of workshops, speakers, open houses and more school participants on everything from funding to marketing to sales training and beyond.

ONGOING

Noise Control One man’s noise is music to Wren Kitz’s ears. Challenging himself to structure songs from field recordings and his archive of found sounds, the Paper Castles guitarist crafted his latest solo release, For Evelyn, between a Burlington shed and Montréal’s Pietro Chango Studio. Kitz hits up the Skinny Pancake with ambient airs from the record named after an audio letter to his grandmother from her best friend. SEE SOUNDBITES ON PAGE 69

COURTESY OF VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 11

Wood can be a heat source , a building m artistic mediu aterial or, for m. “In Grain: some, an Contemporary exhibition feat Work in Woo uring work by d” is an 10 artists who saw, sculpted , by hand, lase the elementa r and chain l material into ing human figu un ique forms. Th res, architect e resultural structures on view at the and abstract University of shapes are Vermont Flem ing Museum of SEE REVIEW ON PAGE 78 Art.

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SEVENDAYSVT.COM

In 1917, Montpelier’s Lester H. Greene Co. was fined for manufacturing and selling a cough syrup made from alcohol, chloroform and heroin. Proving the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same, historian Gary Shattuck presents “Opiate Use in Vermont: The Present Reflects the Past,” examining the state’s addiction problems from the 1800s to now.

Players keep their cards close to their vests at Sunday’s Texas Hold ’em Tournament in Burlington. Competitors with both nerves and faces of steel buy in to benefit North End Studios. Cash prizes are on the line for the top contenders. Feeling lucky?

GET YOUR GROOVE ON THIS FALL

FAIR GAME

Cash Dash

ermont’s five declared gubernatorial candidates have been taking great pains to distinguish themselves from the unpopular incumbent they’re hoping to succeed. But when it comes to raising money from special interests — a specialty of Gov. PETER NOW CARRYING PAX 2, ’s — they’re each promising more SHUMLIN AS WELL AS G PEN, of the same. AND MAGIC FLIGHT Seven Days surveyed all five to find out whether they’d accept donations from corporations, unions, political-action committees, super PACs, registered lobbyists and those who do business with the state. By and large, the candidates said they’d take whatever they can get. That’s not surprising, says Vermont Public Interest Research Group executive director PAUL BURNS, who advocates for campaign finance reform but expects next year’s gubernatorial race to cost at least twice as much as is typical in 75 Main St., Burlington, VT 864.6555 Mon-Thur 10-9 Fri-Sat 10-10 Sun 10-8 Vermont. www.nor thernlightspipes. com “I think that most people would conMust be 18 to purchase tobacco products, ID required sider it too great a risk to leave money on the table,” he says. @ N o rt h e rn L ig h t sVT In the five years since Vermont’s last open gubernatorial election — the most 8v-northernlights101515.indd 1 10/1/15 12:13 PMexpensive nonfederal race in state history — the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the floodgates to special interest money. So has the Vermont Legislature, which voted in January 2014 to double the amount individuals, corporations and PACs can donate to candidates — from $2,000 to $4,000 apiece — and quintupled, to $10,000, what they can give political parties. Republican candidate BRUCE LISMAN, for one, says he’s worried all that cash might influence public policy. Unlike his rivals, Lisman says he would “probably not” take contributions from registered lobbyists or those who do business with the state — though he “might” take money from corporations and PACs. “I think everyone needs to be careful about from whom they take money to ensure they don’t sell their souls for tomorrow’s return,” he warns. That’s easy for Lisman to say. The retired Wall Street banker plowed so much of his own money into Campaign for Vermont — an ostensibly nonpartisan “advocacy” group he used to raise his featuring new photographs public profile — that he can’t quite recall by the amount. “I think it’s a million dollars,” he estimated. Later, campaign consultant SHAWN SHOULDICE — herself a corporate lobbyist — October 1st - November 2nd clarified that Lisman had actually donated $1.349 million to CFV before severing ties with it earlier this year. WWW.FROGHOLLOW.ORG The ex-banker says he’s “optimistic 85 Church St. Burlington, VT 802-863-6458 about raising money from a broad range

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October Exhibit

12 FAIR GAME

Jon Olsen

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OPEN SEASON ON VERMONT POLITICS BY PAUL HEINTZ

of people” but expects to dip into his own bank account. “I’m prepared to invest not only energy but money in my campaign,” he says. Lisman’s sole rival for the GOP nomination, Lt. Gov. PHIL SCOTT, claims he isn’t worried he’ll be outspent by the self-funder. “In Vermont, as we’ve seen in past campaigns, someone who spends a lot of money doesn’t necessarily win,” he says. “And sometimes that actually detracts and is seen as a negative.” Scott, who has taken corporate and lobbyist contributions throughout his career, plans to stay the course, arguing that the money “doesn’t influence my decision making.” One exception: He won’t take money from lobbyists and those who hire them until after the legislature adjourns next May. Legislators are prohibited from doing so, but Scott’s following the rule voluntarily.

I HAVE TAKEN MONEY FROM LOBBYISTS IN THE PAST, AND I DON’T THINK IT HAS IMPACTED HOW I SEE ISSUES. H OU S E S PE AKE R S H AP S M I TH

“I don’t think it’s right,” Scott says. “I think it sends the wrong message, so I’m not going to go there.” As the sole sitting legislator in the race, House Speaker SHAP SMITH (D-Morristown) is the only candidate prohibited by law from hitting up lobbyists and their clients before next May. But he plans to do so as soon as he gavels out the session. “I have taken money from lobbyists in the past, and I don’t think it has impacted how I see issues,” the speaker says. “My expectation is that I will take money from individuals, corporations and PACs.” Smith’s Democratic rival, MATT DUNNE, says he wants to ban corporate contributions to lawmakers, but that’s not keeping him from taking them this campaign season. “I don’t believe in fighting with one arm tied behind my back,” the former senator from Hartland explains. Dunne, the only candidate to report fundraising activity in advance of this past summer’s June 15 deadline, is already using one trick out of Shumlin’s playbook: circumventing personal contribution limits by laundering money through LLCs. On the same July day Hotel Vermont cofounder JAY CANNING and wife, CAROLINE, each gave Dunne the maximum $4,000,

POLITICS they contributed another $4,000 through Hotel Vermont. The third Democrat in the race, former transportation secretary SUE MINTER, was the most guarded about her fundraising intentions. In answer to each of the questions Seven Days posed, she said some variation of, “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals at this time.” Minter does say she’s hoping to win the financial backing of one out-of-state group, Emily’s List, which supports pro-choice Democratic women. “When my name surfaced, they reached out to me and expressed some interest in my race,” she says. “I hope I’ll get their endorsement, but that’s not at all clear. They have a lot of races they’re considering.” Emily’s List wouldn’t be the only interest group to invest in the race. Both the Democratic Governors Association and Republican Governors Association, which played heavily during the 2010 campaign, are eyeing Vermont closely. According to DGA spokesman JARED LEOPOLD, political director COREY PLATT has reached out to all three Democratic candidates to offer “advice and counsel and strategy.” “We’ll certainly be closely monitoring the race, and we’ll make financial decisions as the election gets closer,” Leopold says. His counterpart, RGA spokesman JON THOMPSON, says it’s “still very early in the race to determine how involved the RGA will be,” but he adds that both Scott and Lisman would be “strong” candidates “who would offer Vermont a fresh start.” A fresh start, eh? Not when it comes to corporate cash.

Friends With Benefits Vermont Democrats have been quick to question whether Lt. Gov. Scott’s ownership of a Middlesex excavation company poses an irreconcilable conflict of interest for the gubernatorial hopeful. Since Scott was first elected to the Senate 15 years ago, they note, DuBois Construction has received $3.79 million worth of state contracts — mostly from the Agency of Transportation. As a member of the Senate Committee on Transportation, Scott helped set AOT’s budget for years — and as governor, he would appoint its secretary. But the state’s not the only one to hire DuBois. So has the Vermont Democratic Party’s top officeholder: Gov. Shumlin. Three years ago, when the governor bought a 27-acre property in East Montpelier, he called on his lieutenant governor for assistance.

Got A tIP for PAul? paul@sevendaysvt.com

“It’s not good enough to just say, ‘Trust me. It was a fair market rate,’” she says. “The real key here is to ensure there wasn’t any kind of sweetheart deal. I think it should be incumbent on the governor to reveal the amount paid as a matter of public trust.” Kathleen clarK, a government ethics expert and law professor at Washington University, agrees. She says it doesn’t matter that Scott’s the lieutenant governor. What matters is that he’s a state contractor whose company has won millions in taxpayer projects. “We basically have a governor in a personal transaction with a state vendor,” she says. “I think it’s appropriate to get assurance that the transaction is arm’s length.” The kind of work DuBois did for Shumlin, Clark notes, is “not a run-ofthe-mill transaction.” “There’s a lot of discretion that could be involved in pricing,” she says. “That’s the reason I think it would be appropriate for the governor to make available this information, so someone could confirm that’s not a gift or a discount.”

Media Notes

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FAIR GAME 13

The 121-year-old News & Citizen has been owned and operated by a single family since 1923, when linotype operator arthur liMoGe bought the Morrisville weekly. His son, clyde liMoGe, came aboard in 1945, and his grandson, Bradley liMoGe, did the same in 1973. Last week, that era came to an end when the Limoge family sold the paper and its sister, the Transcript, to the owners of the Stowe Reporter and Waterbury Record. “I wasn’t really planning on retiring,” Bradley Limoge says. “But the Stowe Reporter people came to me and made an offer. I turned 66 in August, and my fiancée is retired and wanted me to retire so we could enjoy what time we have left.” Until last month, when Limoge shuttered his printing press on Brooklyn Street, the News & Citizen was the last weekly in Vermont to be printed in-house, he says. “It was just kind of a logical move for us to make,” says GreG PoPa, publisher of the Reporter and Record. “We’re 10 miles down the road, and we have a lot of the same customers, and we also cover a lot of the same issues.” Popa says he plans to move some News & Citizen operations to Stowe but intends to maintain a presence in Morrisville and hopes to keep on all 10 of his new employees. Limoge says he has “very mixed emotions” about selling the family paper, but he says he’s confident its new owners will “take it to a level that I just couldn’t attain.” “We’ve had a good run in this community,” he says. m

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“He just contacted me and asked me to come out and take a look at his property, tell him how much it would cost for a driveway and septic system and foundation and pond and so forth,” Scott recalls. “It was a good job. It was right up our alley.” Scott says Shumlin made the ask in the spring of 2012, not long before both men had to meet a June 14 filing deadline to run for reelection to their respective offices. By then, Scott had ruled out running against Shumlin, but Democrats were still casting about for a candidate to oppose Scott. The lieutenant governor, who believes he was the only one approached about the project, says he gave Shumlin a rough estimate and started work soon thereafter. He says he billed the governor for time and materials. “I don’t remember that there was any discount,” Scott says. “But, you know, we do a pretty good job of taking care of people, so I think it was a fair price, if I remember right.” In Vermont, it’s not unusual for parttime politicians to hold down other jobs, nor is it out of the question that one might work for another. But in other states — notably Connecticut and Alaska — elected officials have come under scrutiny for paying state contractors less than the fair market value for work done on their personal properties. In this case, it’s impossible to know whether Shumlin got a deal, because neither man will disclose details of the transaction. Scott says the bill was “under $75,000” but won’t provide an invoice, arguing that he cannot do so without his client’s permission. Shumlin’s spokesman, Scott coriell, initially refused to provide any information about the matter, calling it “a private transaction unrelated to state business.” But Shumlin’s own Executive Code of Ethics, which he signed in 2011, posits that there is a “risk” of injury to the public “whenever a conflict exists between the private interests of a public officer and his or her official responsibilities.” When Seven Days asked specifically about the executive code, which only applies to Shumlin’s appointees, Coriell said his boss had done nothing to violate it. “The governor paid for time and materials at the fair market rate for routine construction and excavation work performed at his residence, which he paid for with his personal funds,” Coriell said. “There was no gift or favor provided through this work by the lieutenant governor to the governor, nor was there any involvement by the governor with any agency procurement involving the lieutenant governor’s construction company.” But according to Meredith McGehee, policy director for the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, it’s impossible to verify that assertion without more information.

localmatters

Awaiting Sex-Assault Trial, McAllister Says He’s the ‘Victim’ B y mar k dav i s

SEVENDAYSvt.com 10.14.15-10.21.15 SEVEN DAYS 14 LOCAL MATTERS

Mark Davis

tate Sen. Norm McAllister leaned against a railing on the decaying front porch of his Highgate home, surveyed his 400-acre farm and acknowledged the obvious: It’s been a trying year for him. The Franklin County Republican was arrested at the Statehouse in May on highly publicized sex-assault charges. His constituents have circulated a petition calling on him to resign, and Senate leaders have said they’d initiate expulsion procedures if he doesn’t step down before the legislature reconvenes in January. McAllister recently sold a greenhouse he owned in town, and some farm equipment, to pay his attorneys, and he fears he may have to sell more land as the case continues. A friend concerned about McAllister’s mental well-being took his rifles away. So he couldn’t shoot a fox that killed most of the 100 chickens he kept for the egg money. “You feel like the whole world is coming down on you,” said McAllister, 64, who was stacking wood in his cellar when Seven Days knocked on his door last Wednesday. In beat-up tennis shoes, blue jeans and a tight red sweatshirt rolled up on his thick forearms, he asked, “What the hell did I do to deserve this?” McAllister has spent most of his time on the farm since he was charged with coercing two women to have sex with him: One lived — and still does — with her boyfriend in a trailer McAllister owns on the property; the other was an assistant who worked with the senator at the Statehouse. A third woman, a resident of Enosburg Falls who has since died, said he propositioned her, but she alerted police. In May, McAllister pleaded not guilty to six charges, including three felony counts of sex assault, in Franklin County Superior Court, and refused bipartisan calls to resign his legislative seat. Five months later, McAllister remains unbowed. Speaking matter-of-factly and without anger, he said he is innocent, the victim of spurious allegations that were made by vengeful women and published by reporters peddling “trash.” “You’re screwed, because in this state, women are considered the Holy Grail,” McAllister told Seven Days. “Women don’t lie. I’ve had landlords come up to me and say, ‘You know, this is going to scare us, because if you rent to a single

Politics woman, you’ve got to have witnesses.’ There’s something wrong with our system. It’s great that nobody is above the law. But how does that work when you get accused of something you didn’t do? There’s a presumption that you must have because you’re a man.” McAllister paused, and then let out a long sigh before continuing. “That’s the point that bothers me, because we keep talking about equal rights, equal footing — what’s equal about this?” he said. McAllister said he has no plans to resign his Senate seat and expects to be acquitted when his case goes to trial next year. No court date has been set. “I didn’t do anything wrong, so there won’t be a plea deal,” McAllister said. “My lawyer told me I shouldn’t say that. But I told him that at our first meeting.” McAllister, a Weathersfield native, is a fifth-generation Vermonter and a lifelong dairy farmer who earned an associate’s degree in agricultural management from Vermont Technical College.

Sen. Norm McAllister at his Highgate farm

He married his high school sweetheart, Lena Mae, and they bought their farm in 1975. She died of cancer in September 2013. McAllister was elected to the Vermont House in 2002 and won a seat in the higher chamber in 2012. In the legislature, he is a backbencher who garnered little press attention until Vermont State Police detectives arrested him outside the west entrance to the Statehouse in the final weeks of the last legislative session. It was the result of an investigation that began when the Enosburg Falls woman called police in May and said that McAllister had suggested she provide sexual favors in exchange for allowing her son, who was behind in rent, to continue to live in a trailer on McAllister’s property. Then the son’s girlfriend, with whom he shared the trailer, accused McAllister of forcing her to have sex with him in exchange for letting the duo reside on the

farm. She described dozens of nonconsensual sexual encounters that started in 2012. In a phone conversation police recorded days before they arrested him, McAllister acknowledged she was performing oral sex under pressure. “I understand why you felt that way, but it was not much of a turn-on,” McAllister told the woman, according to police affidavits. “I knew I was forcing you to do something you didn’t want to do … I knew that you didn’t really want to do that.” The investigation led police to McAllister’s former Statehouse assistant, who is now 20. She told authorities that McAllister first sexually assaulted her years ago, soon after he hired her to work on his farm. It continued last winter when he hired her to help him in Montpelier. They shared an apartment during the week with two other lawmakers. The young woman told Seven Days that she was 15 or 16 years old when the sexual relations started on the farm. The legal age of consent in Vermont is 16. As a general practice, Seven Days does not identify victims of alleged sex crimes. The Enosburg Falls mom died of natural causes in June, and her son and the other woman still live in McAllister’s trailer. McAllister said he initially allowed them to stay there rent-free, as long as they helped him around his farm. But when they didn’t meet his expectations, McAllister said, he asked them to pay $500 a month. That, he contended, motivated them to call the police. “That’s what this is all about — money,” McAllister said. “It’s all about money. As long as they were living there for free, they had no complaints. That started when I asked for rent.” The Statehouse assistant lied to authorities about the consensual nature of their sexual relationship, according to McAllister. He said she had a difficult upbringing and approached him for a job. He wanted to help, he said, so he created a job for her in Montpelier — checking his email and keeping his schedule — for around $200 a week out of his own pocket. “I said, ‘I can’t guarantee you anything, but you have a chance to get your life on track,’” he said he told her. Asked whether he’d had sex with the two women who have accused him of assault, McAllister didn’t hold back: “After

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done nothing but good for me and my While fellow legislators and the family, or I wouldn’t have been here for state’s top Republican, Lt. Gov. Phil 11 years. There’s never been any situa- Scott, have called on him to resign, tion where I’ve felt uncomfortable with McAllister has refused. He said he hasn’t Norm. No, nothing. There’s no way the made up his mind but is leaning toward man forced himself on anyone. No way. I returning when the legislature convenes don’t believe it.” in January. His family, McAllister said, has also “Everything in me wants to, because offered steadfast support. I know I didn’t do anything wrong,” Son Heath McAllister also stopped by McAllister said. “It’s too early yet to McAllister’s house last make that decision. But Wednesday. In contrast it will be hard. I’ll have to his dad, he struggled you and all the rest of to keep his anger subyou chasing me around dued when talking the Statehouse,” he about the charges filed told Seven Days. against McAllister. He McAllister sounds said his parents always like a man who isn’t allowed boarders — done with state polimany of whom were tics. He gave a long complete strangers soliloquy on how dairy — to stay in their apartfarmers are struggling ment if they asked. He, to meet new watertoo, is adamant that quality standards, and S E n . n ORM M C A L L iS T E R McAllister is the victim he decried proposals of false allegations. to install windmills in “Here’s the part that kills me. For 40 Swanton. But his primary concern, he years, the door has always been open to said, is that many lower-middle-class anyone who asked,” Heath McAllister Vermonters are struggling to find work. said. “People came hat in hand. Half the Furthermore, his experiences with people around here started in that apart- the legal system have him pondering ment. You’re talking about a guy who whether any laws can be passed to help has said ‘yes’ to just about everybody. He protect people who are accused of crimes ain’t giving any more. I’m glad my mom but eventually exonerated. “I don’t know isn’t here to see this.” what that would be,” he said. “We have

We have all sorts of laWs for the so-called victims, but in the

end, someone like myself — don’t i end up a victim?

all sorts of laws for the so-called victims, but in the end, someone like myself — don’t I end up a victim? And what’s my recourse? If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.” These days, McAllister’s life is quiet, he said, even boring. He sleeps about four or five hours a night, works on his farm raising vegetables, attends his grandkids’ soccer and football games, and roots for his beloved New England Patriots on Sundays. He has ventured out on a few occasions. As he does every year, McAllister visited Franklin County Field Days at the end of July. Most people, he said, were kind, though one young farmer asked why he hadn’t resigned. In September, McAllister went to the Tunbridge World’s Fair with some family members. While watching the oxen pull from the grandstand, he noticed a woman staring at him. For a while, McAllister thought that he knew her, but he couldn’t remember her name. As the event ended, she walked over to him. “I want you to know I think you’re a fucking pig,” she told him. It left him shaken, he said. McAllister figures it’s an indication that others in Vermont may feel the same. m Contact: mark@sevendaysvt.com, @Davis7D or 865-1020, ext. 23

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my wife died. Months after. I’ve never denied that I had sex with them.” He said his legislative assistant was at least 16 years old at the time. The two women did not respond last week to phone messages seeking comment, and nobody was at the trailer when Seven Days stopped by last week. Adding to McAllister’s legal woes, the female trailer tenant recently filed a civil lawsuit against him, suing as Jane Doe, with allegations that mirror those in the criminal case. She is seeking unspecified monetary damages. McAllister is representing himself in the civil suit, according to Franklin County Superior Court records. He said he is struggling to pay his attorneys in the criminal case. The total bill, he said, will exceed $100,000. He fears he will lose his farm. He still gets rent money for an apartment attached to his house. Melinda Hulbert, 31, has been McAllister’s tenant there for 11 years. She ambled onto the porch to tell a reporter that for many of those years, she was raising her three young children alone. When money was short, or she needed to skip rent so she could buy Christmas presents for her kids, McAllister always helped, she said. She said she believes he has been falsely accused. “Norm doesn’t deserve this crap. He’s a good man,” Hulbert said. “He’s

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Sanders Siempre: What Bernie Learned in Nicaragua B Y N A N CY R EMSEN

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DANIEL FISHEL

hat he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, didn’t stop Bernie Sanders from accepting an invitation to visit Nicaragua in July 1985. Sanders arrived at Managua’s Carlos Fonseca Plaza in a car provided by his hosts — the Sandinista National Liberation Front — as thousands of Nicaraguans trudged to an anniversary celebration of the political revolution that ended nearly a half century of dictatorship. Sanders joined other dignitaries — many from the Eastern Block countries in Europe and communist outposts such as Cuba, Laos and Vietnam — in special seats near the podium where Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega spoke. Burlington’s socialist mayor was the sole government official from the United States at the rally, according to Don Melvin, a Burlington Free Press reporter who covered the mayor’s weeklong visit. Roughly 300 U.S. Sandinista sympathizers attended the event. “I will never forget that in the front row of the huge crowd were dozens of amputees in wheelchairs — young soldiers, many of them in their teens, who had lost their legs in a war foisted on them and financed by the U.S. government,” Sanders would later write in his book, Outsider in the House. Sanders had earned his invitation to the celebration because he was a loud critic of President Ronald Reagan’s Central American policies. Burlington

in the 1980s was a hotbed of opposition to the administration’s efforts to undermine the Sandinista government by financing Contra fighters, based in nearby Honduras. Reagan claimed the Sandinistas were communists and terrorists. At a news conference that he and European socialists held in Managua the day of the celebration, Sanders repeated his criticism: “The real issue is a very simple one. Does the government of the United States of America have the unilateral right to destroy the government of Nicaragua because the president of the United States and some members of Congress disagree with the Sandinistas?” During his visit, largely financed by the Sandinista government — Sanders paid his airfare — Sanders met with President Ortega and other officials. He sat down with the editor of an opposition newspaper, who complained of government censorship. And he walked through Managua’s slums, occasionally asking residents about the impact of the 1979 revolution on their lives. When he returned to Burlington, a group of reporters came to the airport to meet Sanders, who summed up his impressions. “These are people who suffered for 45 years under a terrible dictatorship,” he said, “and they’re fighting back, and they’re trying to build a society where people can live decently.” He spoke of

“intelligent” Sandinista leaders who had been tortured by the previous regime, and of efforts to build hospitals and schools. In an undated statement in his archived mayoral papers, Sanders justified his trip. “My major concern is that I believe that there is a very real possibility that the United States is about to enter a Vietnam-type war in Central America,” it read. Having been granted a 75-minute meeting with the Nicaraguan president during his trip, Sanders said, he came away believing Ortega was willing to enter into talks with the U.S. to avoid war. “God only knows what role I, the mayor of a small city, can play in this process,” Sanders said, but he promised to write Reagan and Ortega to urge them to meet. Sanders’ trip was last minute. The commander of the revolution and organizer of the commemoration, Carlos Nuñez, sent the invitation in mid-June for the July 19 event. Nuñez said it was in recognition of Sanders’ “priceless solidarity and tireless labor on behalf of freedom and self-determination for the Nicaraguan people.” Sanders had been speaking out against the Reagan administration’s policies in Central America for much of his time as mayor and had reached out to the Nicaraguan government to link Burlington with a sister city there. Sanders “often referred to the idea that a small city like Burlington — and

a small state like Vermont — could, and should, lead by example in opposition to policies in Washington that were immoral and interventionist,” recalled Jim Schumacher, former campaign manager and congressional staffer for Sanders. “So, for many of us, it was a point of pride that Bernie was openly placing Burlington in opposition to Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy by going to Nicaragua and openly embracing the leaders of what many of us at the time saw as a true people’s revolution,” Schumacher wrote in a recent email. One of the people who felt that way in 1985 was a young Ben Truman. He recounted recently how a Sanders aide approached him about going to Nicaragua to help establish Burlington’s sister city relationship with Puerto Cabezas, a city of 14,000. The Burlington Board of Aldermen had approved the affiliation in 1984, and Sanders had been communicating with his counterpart in Puerto Cabezas. Truman jumped at the chance, he said, because he saw the sister-city program as a way to counter Reagan’s flawed policy. Truman recalled a June 1985 encounter on the streets of Managua with a boy who noticed his Vermont T-shirt. Truman and the boy peeled off their shirts and swapped. That, Truman said, was the first cultural exchange during his mission to start building people-topeople connections between Burlington and Nicaragua. Truman still has the boy’s white shirt. He held it up during an interview and offered a rough translation of the words printed on the front and back: “Follow me, I’m moving ahead,” and “My vote is for the FSLN.” Those letters stand for Sandinista National Liberation Front in Spanish. Truman never got to Puerto Cabezos because of fighting in the region — Sandinistas versus the Contras. But a few weeks later, Sanders toured the struggling Caribbean port city, where homes were constructed on stilts to protect against flooding. Sanders’ archived mayoral files, now in Special Collections at the University of Vermont Bailey/Howe Library, show he wrote to Reagan numerous times objecting to his foreign policy. In an October 1983 letter, he explained why a mayor cared about military and CIA spending in Central America: “At a time when your administration has imposed horrendous cutbacks to the American people in such areas as housing, aid to education, environmental protection and health care, I am appalled that you are using taxpayers’ money to destroy the government of a small nation.”

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Sanders sent copies to the state’s con- trip would help draw public attention to gressional delegation. Their responses a “reckless policy.” suggest he wasn’t completely out of Sanders’ papers contain a handful of step with Vermont’s leading politicians. letters about the trip, mostly supportive. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) noted he had A Benedictine monk at Weston Priory long opposed “Reagan’s support for the called the visit “a bold and courageous insurgents seeking to overthrow the gesture that made us happy.” Sandinista government in Nicaragua.” Some writers noted that Sanders Congressman Jim Jeffords (R-Vt.) went to Nicaragua despite warnings wrote that he’d support an amendment that it could hurt him politically — but it to cut off funding for “covert activities hasn’t, at least not yet. against Nicaragua.” “Bernie was very good Sen. Robert Stafford about making sure the (R-Vt.) responded city ran well — taking curtly that he supported excellent care of the nuts Reagan’s policies. and bolts of city governThe Reagan adminment, like plowing streets, istration also replied to taking care of the parks, Sanders. Jayne Plank, funding the police and director for intergovernfire departments, etc.,” mental affairs, argued explained Schumacher, Nicaragua had played a Sanders’ former aide. “I destructive role by supthink that insulated him porting guerillas in four of from the criticism that he its neighboring countries. shouldn’t be speaking out She noted, too, that it had on foreign policy.” accepted $200 million Now, as Sanders takes in military aid from the the national stage as a Soviet Union and hosted presidential candidate, 2,000 military advisers his praise for Ortega and from Cuba. She cited willingness to stand with examples of repression communist dignitaries by the Sandinistas — mob to celebrate a revolution attacks on Catholics and could become a political liforcible relocation of ability — or at least the stuff JIM SC HUMACHER Miskito Indians. of negative ads. (So could Sanders’ trip had its his “honeymoon” trip to critics who said Sanders shouldn’t chal- Yaroslavl in the Soviet Union to finalize lenge U.S. foreign policy and hobnob another sister-city relationship in 1988.) with communists but rather focus on “In the Democratic presidential prihis job and keep his nose out of foreign mary, I would not think so,” Schumacher affairs. predicted. “Many Democratic voters WVNY-TV aired a blistering edito- would see it as a positive that Bernie rial, telling Sanders to get back to work was open in his opposition to Reagan’s on the city’s problems, such as school Central American foreign policy, back funding and crime. The station also when it was not so popular to do so. objected to Sanders’ support of the “That said,” Schumacher added, “I Sandinistas, declaring, “We believe it am sure that if Bernie is on the ballot as is time you recognize the evil that lies the Democratic candidate in November, behind the Marxist government you Republicans will try to red-bait him.” praise so vociferously.” Truman, who today works in comPeter Welch, then a Democratic munications at the Vermont Department state senator and now Vermont’s sole of Health, didn’t think the Nicaragua congressman, rebuked the Burlington trip would become a political liability Free Press for criticizing Sanders. “The because Sanders was simply saying, “I suggestion that there is a dereliction am standing with the people.” And, he of duty when a locally elected official pointed out, that same message is resoconcerns himself with national issues nating with voters today. m disregards the important link between local and national events,” Welch wrote Contact: nancy@sevendaysvt.com, in a letter to the editor. He said Sanders’ 343-9288

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School Daze: Consolidation Confounds Craftsbury B y T err i Halle n b ec k

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photos: Jeb Wallace-BrodEUr

ast Thursday morning, a horsedrawn buggy passed in front of Craftsbury Academy — a whiteclapboard, cupola-topped building that sits across the street from the town commons. For a moment, it seemed like 1880. But inside the school these days, students walk the halls with laptops, take advanced-placement courses on-site and online, and draw crowds for basketball games in a sparkling new gym. The town of Craftsbury, which has one of the smallest public high schools in Vermont, with just 79 students, is hell-bent on keeping a foot in both eras. It wants to hold on to a quaint-as-it-gets, small-town institution, where students feel connected, while also serving up a first-rate, modern education that prepares students for the best colleges in the country. Principal Merri Greenia, who oversees the 179-student, prekindergartenthrough-12th-grade school district, said the town is succeeding. “I think our kids are doing well by any measure you can take,” she said. “The community support I’ve experienced in this town is nothing like I’ve ever seen.” Greenia and others are worried, though, that a new state law will force Craftsbury to consolidate into a larger school district and leave local residents with less say in their schools’ future. Act 46, which lawmakers passed last spring, requires all of the state’s 265 school districts to consider consolidating by 2018. It provides enhanced incentives for those that act quickly and mandates state intervention for those that don’t act at all. The law was an attempt to address concerns about rising property taxes and nosediving enrollments. In Craftsbury and around the state, the new law is causing angst. Community leaders who have tried and failed to consolidate school districts many times are being forced to try again. A few mergers are nearly ready to roll. Essex and Westford will vote on an agreement in November. Another five or so mergers may be ready for community votes in March. Consolidation is going more smoothly in the state’s most populated areas, where neighboring districts have more in common. But in many areas of the state, partnering up is not so simple. “It becomes very, very complicated,” said Jen Marckres, vice chair of the Craftsbury School Board, who served on a committee that studied merging area schools for three years before deciding against it in 2014. “There are a lot of places in the Northeast Kingdom where it just doesn’t work,” she said. As Craftsbury officials worry they’ll be

Students arriving at Craftsbury Academy

Education forced into a relationship that will quash local control, those in neighboring Wolcott have another fear. Will their town, which allows students to attend any high school they like, be forced to give up school choice? And new school district spending caps that were included in the law have some in the state so fired up they’re threatening to sue because they say the cost-saving stick is being enforced unevenly across the state. These issues have already become fodder in the 2016 gubernatorial race and are likely to become more prominent as districts delve into the details. “Certainly, there’s frustration out there,” said Nicole Mace, executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association. “Board members are in varying stages of the grieving process.” Mace has been traveling the state, trying to soothe their pain as she explains the new law to school board members.

The new gym

After five such intense meetings, she remained unfailingly optimistic. “Board members are in the best position to design what their future looks like,” Mace said. “What I hear is a sense of relief from school boards when they hear Act 46 isn’t one-size-fits-all. I see light bulbs go off, where they say, ‘OK, we could make that work.’” That’s the message state Agency of Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe hopes to convey as she, too, travels the state to more meetings than she can count. “There is no one-size-fits-all,” Holcombe said. “We’ve been saying everywhere we go we want boards to get together and come up with solutions.” Greenia is a mild-mannered principal with 36 years of experience in Vermont schools who can — without raising her voice — induce a lunchroom full of highschoolers to patiently wait for pizza to come out of the kitchen. But she gets fired

up when she challenges the notion that larger schools are better. “The piece of it that gets my ire is this whole idea we need to consolidate so we can offer richer programs to students. That’s put out there, generalizing without any certain facts,” she said. Just after she finished teaching her daily middle-school math class and before filling in as cafeteria monitor, Greenia sat in her office, put on her reading glasses and opened her laptop to make her case that smaller can be better. This year, she said, Craftsbury students are taking 63 advanced-placement classes. Last year, eight students took AP calculus. Six of them scored a perfect 5 out of 5 on the exams and two scored 4. On standardized tests in 2013, 92 percent of Craftsbury’s 11th-graders scored proficient or above in reading, compared to 74 percent statewide; in math, 62 percent were proficient or better, compared to 35 percent statewide. Unlike at many Vermont schools, enrollment at Craftsbury has been rising. Greenia said she asked a student who transferred this year from a larger school what the difference was. The student told her, “There’s more thinking here.” The public school that Greenia runs looks and feels like the kind of private college-prep school where parents pay big bucks to ensure that their kids get individualized attention. During a study period, senior Jared Benson sat in a small alcove on the school’s first floor, researching on his laptop for the school debate team. He is taking five advanced-placement classes, two of them online. He hopes to study physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Based on Craftsbury’s track record, he has a solid chance. Marckres’ oldest son graduated from Craftsbury this year and is now studying neuroscience at MIT. His small-school background posed no problem in the admissions process, she said. Some years, all of Craftsbury’s graduates go on to post-secondary education. To demonstrate Craftsbury’s fierce support for its school, Greenia showed off the school gym. Residents approved a $5 million renovation in 2010 that included replacing a gym that was so decrepit it was deemed too dangerous to use whenever outdoor wind speeds exceeded 30 miles per hour. Greenia still has a wind gauge in her office. Townspeople saved money on the project by laying the wood floor themselves with local timber, Greenia said. The new gym’s bleachers hold 300 people, and senior Anna Strong, who plays on the girls’ basketball team, said they’re full for most games. Strong, whose father and grandfather went to Craftsbury, said she

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Craftsbury Greensboro Wolcott Hardwick

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ard

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Certainly, there’s frustration out there.

Board memBers are in varying stages of the grieving process.

Ni C O L E MA CE, V ER MO NT SChOOL BO A Rd S A SSO Ci AT iO N

school and have school choice. That means any choice and non-choice towns that want to work together have to either give up choice or close schools. That’s thrown a wrench into merger plans throughout the state. Leaders in Windsor, which operates a high school, had wanted to merge their district with neighbors that don’t, but now have to go back to the drawing board. Some say this will pressure towns into giving up school choice, a precious tradition in Vermont. “I don’t think we can still have choice the way the bill is,” said Rep. Linda Martin (D-Wolcott), who voted for Act 46 amid assurances that choice had been protected but now fears it hasn’t. “I kind of feel like I was blind-sided,” she said. Mill Moore, executive director of the Vermont Independent Schools Association, a group that is keenly interested in keeping school choice as an option, does not view the situation so dimly. “All the hysteria about this being the end of school choice is M-Sa 10-8, Su 11-6 far-fetched,” he said. 4 0                     State law clearly says districts cannot be 802 862 5051 forced to give up choice, he said. “I think S W E E T L A D YJ A N E . B I Z most choice districts are so committed to the importance and value of choice that they will resist and will pressure the General 10/12/15 2:07 PM Assembly to change the statutes,” he said. 8v-sweetladyjane101415.indd 1 Mace said the law allows for creative options, even for choice and non-choice towns to work together. For example, she said, Wolcott and Stannard could become one district, retaining school choice, while Craftsbury, Hardwick, Woodbury and Greensboro form another. Such “side-by-side” districts would meet the letter of the law, she said. That arrangement would require Stannard and Greensboro to break their elementary union, however, which they were unwilling to do in previous talks. Holcombe conceded that some districts A portion of the won’t find partners. They could be granted sales from every dispensation under the law, but only if bottle of Trinchero they’ve tried, she said. wine and every Long Craftsbury is willing to make an effort, Trail draft sold goes Marckres said. After attending a regional directly to Fletcher meeting about the new law earlier this Allen’s Breast month, she came away buying some of Care Center. Mace’s optimism. “We’re trying to keep our minds open,” she said. “We have options.” Valid October 2014 Greenia, too, doesn’t shrink from the debate about consolidation despite her strong feelings about the value of her small lo ca l, f re s h , o rig in a l school district. “I think there is some wiggle room,” she said, tossing out a possible scenario by which Craftsbury could retain its own school board while forming a modified union with its 1076 Williston Road, S. Burlington neighboring towns. “That’s the thinking 862.6585 right now that I’m banking on.” m

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doesn’t hanker for more classmates, course options or extracurricular activities. “Being part of a small school is great,” she said. “You get to be really close to your teachers.” That closeness is endangered if Craftsbury becomes part of a larger district overseen by a single school board, with decisions made by residents from other towns, Greenia said. The principal is also convinced consolidating won’t save money. “I think people will, 10 years down the road, say that increased costs,” she predicted “Transportation is going to be a huge issue.” State officials aren’t promising that school consolidation will save a set amount of money, but rising education costs were the driving force behind Act 46. Craftsbury could be considered a highspending district, ranking 22nd out of 265 districts in the state in per-pupil spending. This year, the district spends $16,933 per pupil, compared to the state average of $14,442, according to the state Agency of Education. Craftsbury gets a $142,773 small-school grant from the state, which it would lose if it fails to come up with a satisfactory consolidation plan. The push to cut spending could force Craftsbury to take a more critical look at its operations. Next year, the district will face penalties if its budget goes up more than 1.56 percent, under the new law’s spending cap. School districts are just starting to see the potential impact of those caps, which vary by district, and some are yelping about it, Mace said. With health insurance costs slated to rise 7.9 percent, many districts will be forced to make cuts.

But it is the perceived inequity of the caps — which could hit low-spending districts harder than high-spenders — that is fueling the most complaints. Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he’s prepared to sue the state if the legislature fails to repeal the caps early next year. The Vermont School Boards Association and Vermont Superintendents Association plan to push legislators to change or eliminate the caps, Mace said. For Craftsbury, it’s not just the threat of being part of a larger district that has residents worried. Merging with its neighbors is downright complicated. Marckres has volunteered to serve on a new merger study committee, even though she just spent three years on the panel that concluded Craftsbury and its neighbors were too different to merge. Craftsbury is one of six towns spanning four counties that make up the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union. All six towns have different school configurations that are typical of Vermont but make it difficult to form a single school district. Craftsbury runs its own prekindergarten-12 school. Stannard is in a union elementary school with Greensboro, but offers choice for high school. Greensboro is in another union with Woodbury and Hardwick to form Hazen Union High School. Wolcott operates its own pre-K-6 school and offers high school choice. Stannard and Wolcott have been unwilling to give up school choice in previous talks, which makes merging with non-choice districts difficult under state law. The state Board of Education clarified last month that a consolidated district can go one route or the other but can’t run a

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was involved or anybody was involved except Mama Bove and Papa Bove.” But the architect’s fondness for the restaurant doesn’t stem from its physical attributes: “That’s the nature of vernacular architecture — that its value depends on something else,” he said. Normally eloquent, Lionni struggled to articulate that “something else.” He described a “haze of well-being” and noted, “When I walk in there, it is exactly like the first Italian-American restaurants that I walked into when I was an Italian immigrant in Philadelphia.” Lionni was 6 when he came to the United States in 1939. Bove’s bustling dining room is three booths wide with a cocktail bar in back and a 1956 jukebox — that plays 78s — near the entryway. The pistachio walls are cracking in several places.

building would require cutting a number of overhead wires on a busy commercial stretch of Route 7. A more practical route: transport the restaurant to the Lake Champlain waterfront and float it to the museum via barge. “I immediately envisioned doing this on the Fourth of July,” Lionni said in his sixth-floor corner office in downtown Burlington, which overlooks the lake. In addition to drafting boards and hundreds of books, he works in the company of a gleaming black piano and vintage exercise machine. Though casually dressed in jeans and gray sneakers, Lionni cut a dignified figure. The tall, ivory-haired man can be unapologetically blunt and doesn’t shy away from making bold proclamations. He declared Bove’s “probably

WE’RE JUST TOTALLY FLATTERED AND HUMBLED THAT SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO HONOR OUR RESTAURANT FOREVER AT A MUSEUM.

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M ARK BOV E

Patrons lining up outside of Bove’s Café

One Architect Aims to Save Bove’s B Y A LI CI A FR EESE

atrons of Bove’s Café have lined up outside plenty of nights since news broke that the retro restaurant would close at the end of the year. They’re making last-supper pilgrimages, according to Mark Bove, whose grandparents started the Italian eatery nearly 74 years ago on Pearl Street in Burlington. Louis Mannie Lionni isn’t waiting around. When he got the word from Mark’s brother, Rick, “I took it badly,” said the longtime Burlington resident. So the octogenarian architect of Italian heritage set out to preserve the place, which, he acknowledged, has “no particular architectural significance.”

The converted white clapboard house does have one distinctive feature: an Art Deco facade. White tiles spell “Bove’s” against a glossy black background and a neon sign repeats the restaurant’s name above. Lionni interprets the unusual entryway as a “gesture of optimism” on the part of Louis and Victoria Bove, who opened their restaurant on December 7, 1941 — coincidentally, the day the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor. “I think it anticipated the explosion of modernist architecture in Burlington,” he added. His appraisal of the interior: “It’s sort of effortless. It doesn’t look like an architect was involved or a designer

Prices are almost as anachronistic as the decor: Cocktails cost $4; spaghetti with massive meatballs goes for $7.90. Members of the large Bove family, which distributes its eponymous bottled tomato sauces, frozen meatballs and lasagna nationally, plan to run the family catering operation out of the Pearl Street building. For now, the restaurant interior will remain untouched. Asked about its future, Mark Bove said, “It’s too soon to tell.” Any changes to the building would need city approval. Constructed in 1877, it’s on the Vermont State Register of Historic Places. Its subject to the city’s historic preservation standards, which discourage alterations and demolition. Lionni has a clearer vision: to lift the building off its foundation, load it on a truck and move it to the Shelburne Museum, which already has 20 relocated historical buildings. It could serve spaghetti and meatballs at the original price of 30 cents. A phone call to Jason Messier, who runs the state’s largest house-moving business, made Lionni rethink the method of transportation. Moving the

the most significant cultural artifact in Burlington.” It’s the last vestige of the historic Italian neighborhood that was razed between 1964 and 1968 to make way for Burlington’s downtown shopping mall. The publisher of 05401, an occasional magazine about “local architecture, planning, food and sex,” has a history of championing offbeat causes. Lionni has advocated preserving Burlington’s defunct coal-fired Moran Plant in its current form rather than revamping or demolishing it. He made similar pitches to save the Naval Reserve building — where ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain is now — and the Pease grain tower that once stood on the waterfront. How would the Boves feel about donating their building to a museum? “We’re just totally flattered and humbled that someone would want to honor our restaurant forever at a museum,” said Bove. His parents had tears in their eyes when he told them, he added. As for putting it on a barge? Bove said that was actually his idea. Like Lionni, he points to an intangible quality at the family restaurant.

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“It’s very delicate because you’re dealing with people’s memories ... there are memories that I have of that restaurant as well — when I was a boy standing on a milk crate making lasagna with my dad.” “If I could bottle the atmosphere,” Bove said, “that would be a home run.” Shelburne Museum director Thomas Denenberg is less enthusiastic. “We were contacted, but I would say we’re not the focus of any conversation,” he said. He reiterated the museum’s lack of interest five times, with increasing finality. “It’s not even a conversation,” he insisted.

During the mid-20th century, one approach to historic preservation — typified by the Shelburne Museum — consisted of collecting different-style buildings from various eras and assembling them at a single site. “The problem is, you completely lose the historical context,” Colman said. “You lose a lot of historical material. You lose the entire foundation ... When you’re jacking it up and hauling a building around on wheels, there’s always a risk you lose the whole thing.” Lionni is aware his proposal would displease some preservationists. Still,

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he suggested, Bove’s would attract more visitors and be better cared for at a museum. The University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum also told Lionni no, grazie. The Vermont Italian Club? “It’s not really within our purview” to take a position, said volunteer president Stephen Baietti. He called back to say that “the preservation of Bove’s may interest some members” but they hadn’t discussed it as a group. In the event he can’t convince anyone to take the whole thing, Lionni is looking into other options — preserving just the facade, for instance. “Everybody I talk to thinks it’s a wonderful idea, except the people who need to think that it’s a wonderful idea,” he said. Lionni paused, then added, “So far.” m

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Denenberg did concede that he understands why people might consider the museum a natural home for Bove’s. After all, it already has a meetinghouse, a one-room schoolhouse, a lighthouse, a jail, a general store, a covered bridge and a steamboat. But the museum is no longer in the business of collecting buildings. The Round Barn, added in 1986, was its last acquisition, according to the director. These days, the practice of uprooting buildings is frowned upon in preservation circles, Denenberg said: “In the context of historic preservation, you don’t really abstract a building out of its neighborhood and its context.” Vermont’s architectural historian, Devin Colman, concurred. Noting that he wasn’t familiar with the Bove’s building, he said, “We really encourage, whenever possible, that buildings stay in their original location.”

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COURTESY of SD IRELAND

A rendering of the new neighborhood submitted to the Burlington Development Review Board

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With an Act 250 permit in hand, SD Ireland Companies can finally start constructing a 232-apartment complex on Burlington’s Grove Street. In a refinement of the project, the developer is offering to donate six acres to the Winooski Valley Park District. Located along the Winooski River, the land includes wetlands and steep slopes that are ill suited for development but desirable to the district. It’s been nearly three years since the company unveiled plans to build a new neighborhood on the site where it operates its concrete production plant. The project includes 19 apartment buildings, a maintenance building and a clubhouse. Burlington’s Development Review Board signed off last May. The project cleared its final hurdle in August, when the state granted an Act 250 permit. Previously known as the Grove Street Apartments, it’s now called the Bayberry Apartments in the permit. The development was scaled back during the review process, partly over

FILE: PAUL HEINTZ

Developer Gets Permit for 232 Burlington Apartments

Rep. Kesha Ram

concerns raised by neighbors who worried about traffic and the size of the buildings. Now that the project has been approved, the developer hired by SD Ireland, Patrick O’Brien, said he hopes to start construction “as soon as we can.” Describing the parcel that could be donated as a “really interesting property from a natural-resource standpoint,” WVPD director Nick Warner said it fits with the organization’s goal of conserving riparian lands. “We are thrilled about this for a whole bunch of reasons.” Since the six-acre property borders another property owned by the WVPD — known as the Valley Ridge parcel — it would create 24 contiguous acres of protected land. A new trail, starting at Schmanska Park on Grove Street, would allow access to the area. Warner emphasized that WVPD hasn’t accepted the land yet, and he said park district staff plan to discuss the plan with city officials and nearby residents.

Kesha Ram to Run for Lieutenant Governor After four terms in the Vermont House, Rep. Kesha Ram (D-Burlington) says she’s ready to serve as the state’s second-in-command. Ram tells Seven Days she’s running for lieutenant governor. “I have an eight-year track record of building consensus with conviction and courage in the legislature,” she says. “I think I have been a strong advocate for the people and have gotten results.” The Burlington Democrat has been reaching out to lawmakers this week to enlist their support, and she plans to hold a formal campaign kickoff on October 26 at Burlington’s Main Street Landing. Ram, who is 29 years old, isn’t the first young Democrat to announce plans to run for the position, which is being vacated by Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott. Twenty-eight-year-old Brandon Riker announced earlier this year that he’s seeking the job. But unlike Riker, a political novice, Ram has served in the legislature since she was 22. For the past three years, she’s worked as a public engagement specialist for the City of Burlington. Ram says she hopes to remain in the city’s employ even as she seeks higher office. “I think anyone who knows me sees me as a connector and someone who can take an agenda and advance it and bring the right people to the table,” she says. As lieutenant governor, Ram says, she would focus on strengthening the middle class, increasing access to higher education, expanding family leave policies and making childcare more affordable. Randy Brock, a former state auditor and senator, is the only Republican in the race. The 2012 gubernatorial nominee announced two weeks ago that he would make another run for statewide office.

A licia Freese

Burlington Landlords Say City Broke the Law When Assessing Properties Some prominent Burlington landlords contend that the city violated state and federal law when it reassessed their properties last spring. They allege that Burlington’s assessor gerrymandered tax districts to target their properties — the result of which is higher rents. The case is to be decided by Burlington’s Board of Tax Appeals. The group, including Redstone Commercial Group, Green Castle Group, Bissonette Properties and Offenhartz, has hired the law firm Sheehey Furlong & Behm to challenge the recent assessment. They say it affected roughly 2,000 rental units in two tax districts, downtown and in the Hill section, raising tax bills by an average of 30 percent. Sheehey Furlong & Behm sent a white

Alicia Freese

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Paul H eintz

paper to the city last May outlining the landlords’ objections. Prior to the reassessment, the city redrew the districts under debate, and, the paper states, “unlike every other tax district within the city, the two new districts are highly irregularly shaped.” Within these geographic regions, the city assessed only buildings with four or more units. Describing this as a new approach, the document states, “it appears to have been invented solely for the purpose of imposing a higher tax burden on property owners who may not reside and vote in Burlington, as well as on renters for whom the connection between housing costs and property taxes is less apparent.” Said Redstone partner Erik Hoekstra,

“When landlord expenses go up, they say ‘How am I going to recover that?’” The obvious answer: by raising rents. The landlords argue that the reassessment will undermine the city’s efforts to make housing in Burlington more affordable. During a brief interview Friday, city assessor John Vickery said his office hasn’t violated the law. He called the gerrymandering allegation “outlandish.” What prompted the resassessment? Vickery said the two districts under dispute were redrawn to more accurately reflect different property markets, and they had the greatest discrepancies between fair market and appraised values.

A licia Freese

READ, POST, SHARE + COMMENT: LIFELINES.SEVENDAYSVT.COM

lifelines

OBITUARIES, VOWS, CELEBRATIONS

OBITUARIES Melanie Campbell Menagh

at Cate Farm in Plainfield. Her first child, a son, McLean, was born in Oxford in 1991, and daughter Clare was born there in 1994. The family lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., until 1996, when Melanie decided to raise her children in her beloved Vermont. They moved to Maple Corner, and have resided in the Old School House since 1998. Melanie went back to school and received her master’s in education from the University of Vermont in 2006. She has worked as a high school English teacher ever since, most recently at Black River High School in Ludlow.

Melanie was a lover of all things literary, artistic, vibrant and joyous. She traveled the world and shared her immense love and thirst for knowledge wherever she went. She is survived by her husband, Stephen, children Mac and Clare, sister Melissa Menagh, and many great and loving friends the world over. Funeral services will take place at the Old West Church in Calais on Saturday, October 17, at 2 p.m. Patrons are encouraged to dress warmly, in bright colors, for a joyous celebration of life. A reception will follow at the Maple Corner Community Center.

Want to memorialize a loved one in Seven Days? Post your remembrance online and print at lifelines.sevendaysvt.com. Or contact us at lifelines@sevendaysvt.com, 865-1020, ext. 37.

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1959-2015, CALAIS On Thursday, October 8, 2015, Melanie Menagh, writer, teacher and resident of Maple Corner in Calais, died in the morning of complications from heart arrhythmia. She turned 56 on May 27. Melanie, who has lived in Maple Corner since 1996, was born in the Bronx, New York City, and was adopted by Charles and Betty-Jane Menagh, who raised her in Basking Ridge, N.J. In love with Vermont from her early years summering at Brownledge Camp in Colchester, Melanie attended Middlebury College, where she graduated in 1981. Melanie spent her young professional days in New York City, working first for Vogue magazine and then for Vanity Fair. She also worked in publishing as an editor and a travel writer, and is the author of several books. She studied for her master’s in English literature at Middlebury’s Breadloaf School of English, which took her to its Lincoln College campus at Oxford University, where she graduated. She met her husband, Stephen Mills, in London in 1987, and they were married in 1989

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Mark your family’s milestones in lifelines.

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COURTESY OF HA-SOO KIM

STATEof THEarts

Capital City Concerts Brings Apocalyptic Performance to Vermont B Y AMY LI LLY

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otherworldly realm — unnerving and, yes, atonal, but also ethereally beautiful. Messiaen scored the eight-movement work for the instruments his fellow prisoners happened to play — clarinet, violin and cello, with himself on piano. The instrumentation wasn’t unprecedented, but it is a haunting combination to hear, perhaps most so in the section dedicated to Revelation’s seven trumpets. Devoid of the expected brass, the movement derives its power from the fact that the four musicians play it in unison. That last task is a tricky one in a piece that has no set meter and is influenced, as were many of Messiaen’s works, by birdsong. Capital City Concerts’ artistic director, KAREN KEVRA, has assembled excellent musicians for the job. Clarinetist Daniel Gilbert, a CCC regular, teaches at the University of Michigan School of Music, where his email address begins with “nosqueak.” “He has my favorite clarinet sound,” enthuses Kevra, a flutist. New York-based Edward Arron and Jeewon Park will play cello and piano,

Jeewon Park and Edward Arron

respectively. Audiences may recognize the married duo from their performances with the LAKE CHAMPLAIN CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL and CENTRAL VERMONT CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL, among other regular

CLASSICAL MUSIC Vermont gigs. Violinist Theodore Arm, who teaches at Connecticut College, completes the quartet. Beyond the end times, CCC’s season will continue with an eclectic array of

Gore Society Screenings Bring Horror Back to Halloween

JAMES BUCK

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

t’s not often the apocalypse comes to Vermont, but come it will when CAPITAL CITY CONCERTS opens its season with two performances of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Inspired by the angel in the book of Revelation who announces that “time shall be no longer,” the French composer wrote the work in 1940 while being held in a prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germany. It remains as powerfully moving today as it was for its original audience of prisoners, officers and one enthusiastic German guard, who supplied the composer with paper and space to write. Messiaen wasn’t the only artist contemplating modern interpretations of angels in that testing time, but his is nothing like the terrifying “angel of history” in Walter Benjamin’s 1940 Theses on the Philosophy of History. (Based on a painting by Paul Klee, Benjamin’s angel is condemned to witness the pileup of disasters that humans call history.) Instead, the composer imagined an

B Y ETHA N D E SEIF E

alloween, as most of the country celebrates it, shed its connections to deathly matters long ago — unless you count the cardiac trauma caused by those “sexy nurse” costumes. Brightly colored candies and a parade of Frozeninspired costumes do not exactly call ghoulishness to mind. Leave it, then, to Burlington’s GREEN MOUNTAIN GORE SOCIETY to recover the true meaning of Halloween — even if it involves a labored pun or two. The film society hosts informal events yearround, but October is when it comes into its own: Halloween is ideal for screening some of the best/worst in cinematic horror. For the group’s second annual monthlong OkGOREberfest celebration, it will screen a bunch of blooddrenched movies, turn an unassuming

church into a temple of horror and even organize a “slashtastic” interactive cine-dance. Costumes are optional but recommended, a sense of humor is a must, and it’s BYOC — bring your own candy. Despite its name, the GMGS is run by a few amiable folks who just happen to love horror films, even — or especially — the bad ones. What better way to honor the recently deceased Wes Craven than by screening, on Saturday, October 17, two of the director’s “crappy classics”: Deadly Friend (1986) and The People Under the Stairs (1991)? GMGS cofounders IAN SHERMAN and JANINE FLERI started the group about 12 years ago as a way to watch horror movies with friends. “I wouldn’t say it was organized,” says Sherman. “It was more like, ‘Hey, come over and let’s watch Zombie Flesh Eaters!’” Fleri

FILM describes herself as “incredibly squeamish” and says that diving into gore films is a way to challenge herself. As a longtime admirer of the low-budget horror-comedy Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, she’s also drawn to movies that revel in their budgetary limitations. “I like cheesy stuff,” Fleri says with a grin. Sherman and Fleri were responsible for the “Summer Schlock” outdoor film series that, a few months ago, graced Burlington’s South End with showings

The Green Mountain Gore Society’s OkGOREberfest Horror Prom, held on October 10

of campy classics such as John Waters’ sleazy Female Trouble. Like the GMGS itself, those screenings started out as informal, impromptu affairs that grew mostly by word of mouth. GMGS has no formal website — just a Facebook page — and usually doesn’t announce events until shortly before they take place. “You’ll just hear about it when you hear about it,” says Sherman. “It works for us, and it’s kind of what keeps it fun, too.” But this October is different,

COURTESy OF CAPiTAl CiTy COnCERTS

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The Whiffenpoofs

The composer imagined an oTherworldly realm —

unnerving and, yes, atonal, but also ethereally beautiful. performers. The all-male Yale University a cappella group the Whiffenpoofs, an inspiration for the TV series “Glee,” is CCC’s first choral group offering. Also on the roster are Latin-flavored chamber music with Mary Bonhag and Evan PrEMo (otherwise of Scrag Mountain MuSic) and piano trios by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Kevra, who now lives in Middlebury, continues to expand CCC’s offerings beyond the capital city, where she founded the series. Rutland’s ParaMount thEatrE will host a second performance of the Messiaen. With the help of a concErt

three late-night horror (or horror-ish) screenings at the upcoming vErMont intErnational FilM FEStival. These films — the 1980s-style post-apocalyptic adventure Turbo Kid, the Irish monster movie The Hallow and the horrorcomedy He Never Died — will show during the fest’s “VTIFF After Dark” series, inaugurated last year to great success.

for screening some of The besT/worsT in cinemaTic horror.

Contact: lilly@sevendaysvt.com

INFo Capital City Concerts performs a program called “Time After Time,” including Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, on Saturday, October 17, 7:30 p.m., at the Unitarian Church of Montpelier; and Sunday, October 18, 3 p.m., at Paramount Theatre in Rutland. $15-25. capitalcityconcerts.org

screen at ArtsRiot, where the casual atmosphere and full bar promote convivial enjoyment of funny, scary movies. Ford, Fleri and Sherman all stress that such films are best experienced with a bunch of like-minded (or openminded) people. “It’s nice to see a movie with a group of people and not have to be afraid of offending somebody,” says Sherman. “These movies can be so wildly inappropriate that watching them with a bunch of people that you don’t know is kind of like the weirdest icebreaker.” The programmers of the GMGS are keeping the details of one of their upcoming events under wraps, mummystyle. They won’t reveal the film they’ll screen at S.P.A.C.E. Gallery’s Halloween party on Saturday, October 31, allowing only that it’s a “classic.” Go see it … if you dare. m Contact: ethan@sevendaysvt.com

OkGOREberfest ’15: Wes Craven’s Crappy Classics! Saturday, October 17, 7 p.m., at S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington. Free. More events at greenmountaingore.com.

Jacob Albee Goldsmith

jacobalbee.com . 802-540-0401 burlington, vt hours by appointment

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INFo

Intrigue.

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Eric Ford is a member of the GMGS and a longtime horror enthusiast; he’s also a board member and programmer at VTIFF, and he admits to a penchant for picking films that “mess with people.” Ford says that partnering with GMGS to show the three horror films “does meet our core mission: to show films in public that you wouldn’t see otherwise.” The “After Dark” films will

OUR WORLD

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halloween is ideal

Festival. And the univErSity oF vErMont lanE SEriES will host, among other ensembles, Burlington-born Scott Metcalfe’s early-music group Blue Heron. But first, central Vermont must prepare for the apocalypse. Kevra remembers well the first time she heard Quartet for the End of Time — at a performance imbued with the piece’s fascinating postcomposition history. That German guard who enabled Messiaen to compose Quartet never got to see the Frenchman after the war; attempting to visit, he was turned away , for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, the New Works in Charcoal and Casein cellist who played the premiere, Etienne Pasquier, went on to found the Trio through December 31 Pasquier; his nephew, Régis Pasquier, westbranchgallery.com became a noted violinist who, in turn, founded the Paris Piano Trio. About 10 years ago, Kevra heard the Paris 12v-westbranchgallery101415.indd 1 10/9/15 4:33 PM unique pieces in gibeon meteorite, perform Quartet. It was, she recalls, 100% recycled gold, diamonds, “transcendent.” m and other fine gemstones.

SEVENDAYSVt.com

with carefully curated gore-tastic events spilling over into numerous local venues. Last weekend, the OkGOREberfest Horror Prom invaded the South End’s S.P.a.c.E. gallEry, which hosts the annual “The Art of Horror” gallery show this month. Attendees were encouraged to wear grisly prom attire as they danced along to a screening of the 1980 slasher film Prom Night (natch). Similar in concept, but more complex in execution, is “Slash Dance 4D: Disco Slasher,” an “interactive Italo-Disco horror movie experience you dance to.” This multimedia event, part of Burlington City Arts’ artist-in-residence lEiF hunnEMan’s SiMulacruM ProjEct, takes place at BCA’s 339 Pine Street building on Wednesday, October 21. The Gore Society’s offerings aren’t the only indication that Vermont audiences have a cinematic taste for the bloody or campy. cinEMa caSualtiES, an occasional series at Burlington’s artSriot, has treated the strong-stomached to such cult horror classics as the 1982 chain-saw splatterfest Pieces. The vErMont intErnational FilM Foundation is also getting into the act, teaming up with the GMGS to present

artiStS Fund grant from the Vermont Community Foundation, Kevra will bring other concerts to two Chittenden County locales, the EllEy-long MuSic cEntEr at Saint Michael’s College and Burlington’s cathEdral church oF St. Paul. That leaves Burlington-area audiences with a rich fall classical calendar, including Burlington chaMBEr orchEStra’s four concerts under yutaka kono, its first conductor-director in many years. This year’s cathEdral artS series features an appearance by a trio who performed in the last Lake Champlain Chamber Music

GABRIEL TEMPESTA

stateof thearts Courtesy of Jet Propulsion Lab

The artists known as eteam: Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger

New Media

Woodstock Digital Media Festival Probes New Tech in the Public Realm B y etha n d e S e i fe

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n our daily lives, formerly “analog” activities such as hailing a cab, making a phone call and buying groceries are now conducted atop a digital architecture. Even more exciting, nearly every means of human artistic expression now contains a digital component. To find a writer, musician or filmmaker who doesn’t use digital tools is, in our technology-driven world, to find someone who’s being left behind. This weekend, tiny, bucolic Woodstock plays host to a festival that celebrates the many ways in which modern art and communication are shot through with digital tools of richness and complexity. On Friday, October 16, the Woodstock Digital Media Festival celebrates its fifth anniversary with speakers and events that revel in the possibilities of the digital age. Speaking with Seven Days via Skype from London, festival founder and organizer David McGowan expressed pleased surprise that the ambitious event has made it to its fifth year. Digital art is a smaller component of the festival now than in years past, he says, noting that in 2012 the event grew larger than his team’s ability to manage it. “So we decided that we’d be better off focusing on what we did best, which was digital media in the

public interest … And we define that in a pretty broad way. It’s kind of a ‘we know it when we see it’ definition.” For most of the year, McGowan is a media and telecommunications executive who focuses on European markets. He’s currently CEO of a Budapest-based telecom called Invitel. Woodstock, which he and his family made their home base long ago, has been the festival location from the beginning. WDMF deviates from the “cram as many screenings as you can into a single day” model typical of film festivals. It’s more like a symposium, says McGowan, with the emphasis on the exchange of new and exciting digital ideas. Most of the presenters and attendees use cutting-edge technologies in their professional lives, but everyone with an interest in new tech is welcome. All festival events are free and open to the public, though preregistration is required. One of the marquee attractions this year is Phoebe Judge, the North Carolina Public Radio host who cocreated the popular podcast “Criminal.” Judge, along with Vermont Public Radio’s Angela Evancie and Jonathan Butler, will speak about using digital podcasting tools at one of the festival’s several keynote talks. Other keynote conversations high-

light the works of digital luminaries of many stripes. One of them, author and activist Suey Park, attained notoriety in March 2014 for her Twitter campaign to cancel “The Colbert Report.” Park was responding to a jokey but contextfree tweet from the show’s account that some construed as an anti-Asian remark. She soon found herself the recipient of vicious online brickbats and will speak at the festival about the double-edged sword of internet virality. Other guests include the rabble-rousing conceptual artist collaborative known as eteam; and Jesse Kriss, a developer and designer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. “I think the work [Kriss] is doing is just fascinating,” says McGowan. “He’s working on how we would actually control robots on Mars … What is the relationship between the interfaces involved and the real world out in outer space?” Kriss’ presentation is titled “Outer Space, Undersea, and the Interstate — Making Robotics Work for Users.” Journalist Dan Archer will present on “Transmedia 101.” A former student at White River Junction’s Center for Cartoon Studies, Archer combines comics and interactive video with traditional journalism to create digital projects that viscerally explore human-rights issues.

If Archer’s name sounds familiar, that may be because of his recent run-in with the high sheriffs of Apple’s App Store. In September, his app Ferguson Firsthand was rejected by Apple for being “inappropriate” in ways that the computer giant refused to clarify. The app — whose Android version met with no opposition from Google — uses eyewitness interviews and virtual-reality computer re-creations to provide a multivocal perspective on the killing of Michael Brown by a police office in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014. Archer explains his motivation for creating the app: “A lot of the [news] coverage [of Brown’s killing] fell short, at least in my mind, about how users were going to relate to the space and the narrative mechanics of uncovering a news story as disparate pieces of information came out — most of which were contradictory,” he says. “I just thought that it would make the ideal opportunity to show people how blurred are the definitions and lines of ‘truth’ that journalists get to draw.” Ferguson Firsthand is available for smartphones in virtual-reality and “flat” versions.

Most of the presenters and attendees use cuttingedge digital technologies in their professional lives,

but everyone with an interest in new tech is welcome.

At the festival, attendees will be able to immerse themselves in Archer’s work via several Oculus Rift headsets on hand. The highly touted virtual-reality apparatus, which provides wearers with a multisensory experience, could transform industries as diverse as video gaming, real estate and design. The headsets won’t be available commercially until 2016, so the opportunity to test-drive them may attract people curious about the Next Big Digital Thing. Whether that Big Thing is Oculus Rift or something else, it’s almost sure to be discussed in Woodstock this coming weekend. m Contact: ethan@sevendaysvt.com

INFO Woodstock Digital Media Festival, Friday, October 16, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., in downtown Woodstock. Free; registration required. woodstockdigital.com

GOT An arts TIP? artnews@sevendaysvt.com

The Simulacrum Project Brings Artistic Mashups and Mayhem to the South End B y RA C HEL EL I ZA B ETH JO N ES

Art

Courtesy of Leif Hunneman

Athena Kafantaris interacting with video during the Simulacrum Project launch

Mountain Gore Society, which describes itself on Facebook as a “hovering, disembodied brain child” dedicated to screening cult films, will expand its focus at Simulacrum by hosting a horror-centric dance party, billed as an “Interactive Italo-Disco Horror Movie Experience You Dance To!” With its varied roster, the heart of the Simulacrum Project seems to be a good-naturedly defiant refusal to be classified.

INFO The Simulacrum Project: Rachel Hooper and Robin Perlah, Wednesday, October 14, 8 to 10 p.m., at Pine Street Studios in Burlington. Free. }hexdump{ performs on Saturday, October 17, 8 to 10 p.m. thesimulacrumproject.com

STATE OF THE ARTS 27

“It’s an artist toolbox concept,” says Hunneman. One tool he’s been developing involves micro-sensors that allow artists to “emote,” controlling images on a screen with their motion. For the uninitiated, he likens this to the technology behind the Wii, or physical interaction within a virtual setting. “The sensors are

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“hybrid,” “mysterious” and “alchemy.”

otherworldly theme. A “Sky Beast” had round lightbulb eyes and stick antlers; another sculpture had a floor-length “beard” of unraveled film. The final “track” of the tape featured Kafantaris engaging directly with a photograph of her mother on screen. Kafantaris notes that the entire piece was developed in less than two months. Six Simulacrum Project performances remain. Next up is a collaboration between Generator education coordinator Rachel Hooper and Champlain College professor Robin Perlah. Hunneman plans to lead a final “closing ritual” on Halloween. So leave your need for certainty and fixed categories at the door, and get a peek into Burlington’s mashup of art, tech and wild improvisation. Here be dragons. m

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Artist descriptions include words such as

something I’ve been cooking up over the last couple of months. [The Simulacrum Project] seemed like a perfect opportunity to try them out,” he says. This past Saturday, it was Athena Kafantaris’ turn to experiment. While she didn’t make use of Hunneman’s micro-sensors, she did work with him to develop a switch-controlled LED panel integrated into a costume — which Hunneman then wore. Kafantaris describes her work as exploring family structure, loss and transformation, and her performance “Triggerbox Mixtape” evoked all those things. A video title card depicting an actual mixtape introduced its two sides, “Spool” and “Unspool.” Each of these performance segments included a handful of video content set to music, most of which was accompanied by costumed dance from Kafantaris. Her friend Nikki Laxar also performed, and Hunneman himself danced in the opening scene. Audio recordings of myth scholar Joseph Campbell were interspersed throughout. Besides the video, audio and performance components, Kafantaris displayed DIY creations fitting an

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escribed on its website as “an experiment in rapid performance development,” the Simulacrum Project is certainly nothing if not an experiment. Since September, an eclectic lineup of artists and bands has been electrifying the space at 339 Pine Street, an offshoot of Burlington City Arts, every Wednesday and Saturday night. The series kicked off during this year’s South End Art Hop with sets from DJ Gabriel Night, who can usually be found spinning at Insurrection, a monthly goth and industrial dance party. Over the following few weeks, Night was followed by artists including cabaret performer Richard Siday, Champlain College professor Al Larsen and Sean Clute, who founded the Media Arts Research Studio at Johnson State College. The mastermind behind the project is Leif Hunneman, 45, a Burlington maker, musician and self-proclaimed geek. What kind of geek? Electronics, computer, video. “I’ve been doing improvisational video with DJs for three or four years,” Hunneman says. His band, }hexdump{, will celebrate its 20th anniversary at a Simulacrum Project performance this Saturday. Inspired by computer coding, the band name alone suffices to indicate that Hunneman has been at his geekery for some time now — a lifer. “[Burlington City Arts] asked me to do some video art, and then I got carried away,” Hunneman explains. In May, BCA approached him about bringing some of his video work to the 339 Pine location; he had a finalized artist lineup by July. The project is sponsored by BCA and Generator, where Hunneman is a dedicated studio member. The two organizations may have gotten more than they bargained for — 14 performances from various artists and bands (and one film collective, the Green Mountain Gore Society) whose common denominator is Hunneman. The Simulacrum Project artists have at least two more things in common: a predisposition for interdisciplinary pursuits and what appears to be relative lack of fear of the unknown. Artist descriptions include words such as “hybrid,” “mysterious” and “alchemy.” On top of his experience as a cabaret performer, Siday recently orchestrated a series of educational “sound laboratory” workshops for Phish. The Green

hackie

a vermont cabbie’s rear view bY jernigan pontiac

Little City

lancing over at my customer, Trudy McLaren, as she calmly worked on her needlepoint, I thought, This used to be known as one of the “feminine arts.” The term probably carries a condescending connotation now, I postulated to myself, because you hear it less frequently these days. In any event, as a pastime, her needlework seemed über-relaxing. (I’m on a mission to reclaim the word “über” from its appropriation by a certain taxi company.) “What ya sewing?” I asked. “It looks lovely.” “Why, thank you,” Trudy replied. She was probably about 70 and stylishly put together. Older women who are not caught up in the desperate and inevitably self-defeating effort to emulate the young can embody a beauty all their own, and Trudy certainly had her own glow. “I think it’s going to be a throw pillow,” she continued, “but I haven’t decided yet.” As we motored along Route 7, the day was sunny and brisk — everything you want in a Vermont early-autumn afternoon. We were on our way to a B&B in Vergennes, and here and there a few trees had begun their seasonal transformation. It would be a couple of weeks before the foliage achieved its ooh-la-la peak, but I’ve always felt that, like sex, the whole shebang is a delight: the prelude, the peak and the wind-down. “What brings you to Vergennes?” I asked. “A little getaway?” “I’m up here for a wedding next week,” she replied. “I’m rendezvousing with a friend who’s driving up from Cape Cod.

The wedding itself is taking place in Berlin, which is outside of Montpelier, I’m led to believe? Anyway, I wanted to stay at the Basin Harbor Club, but they were all booked for tonight and they recommended this Vergennes B&B. Then, for a couple of days before the wedding, we’ll transfer over to Basin Harbor.” “Oh, that sounds marvy. Who’s getting hitched?” “Well, he’s a great young man that my late husband and I used to mentor who grew to be one of the family, and now he’s marrying this lovely and accomplished Vermont girl.” “If I may ask, in what capacity were you mentors?” “My husband was an executive with Merrill Lynch, and the company sponsored a program helping out underprivileged city kids. Through the years, we mentored about 25 children. We frequently had them up to our home in Greenwich, Connecticut, for the holidays, and often other times of the year, as well. We’d try to help them out with their home lives, which were often atrocious. “I’m still in touch, all these years later, with maybe a dozen of the kids — well, now of course they’re adults,” Trudy went on. “Many have gone on to lead productive lives, like Steve, the young man who’s getting married next week.” “How did that go over with the community in Greenwich, bringing the kids into town?” “Not great, to tell you the truth, especially as they were all black and Hispanic. Mostly from the Bronx.”

She didn’t Sound enthuSed about the proSpect.

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day I would get a present. I was the little princess.” “Well, you seem to have recovered from that upbringing,” I observed, chuckling. “You don’t strike me as the least bit imperious.” Trudy smiled wistfully, saying, “You’d have to check with my husband about that, and he’s been gone three years.” We swung onto 22A and entered the über-quaint city of Vergennes. “This place has a unique claim to fame,” I explained to my customer, breaking into tour-guide mode. “Vergennes claims to be the smallest city in America at just two square miles.” “Yes, I know it well,” Trudy said, letting out a sigh as she tucked her needlepoint back into her sewing bag. “When the kids were young, we used to regularly vacation at Basin Harbor. And every winter, we’d come up to Vermont for skiing. I’m going to miss it when I move to California to be near my children and grandchildren.” “Are you keeping your Greenwich home?” I asked. “No, it’s already on the market. I’m planning to be in California by Christmas.” She didn’t sound enthused by the prospect. It’s not just a cliché: Change is hard. Even positive change, particularly late in life. “I’m sure it will be great living close to your family,” I said, by way of encouragement. “It will,” she agreed, “but I’ll miss New England, especially my time in Vermont.” “Well, these Green Mountains aren’t going anywhere,” I said, easing into the driveway of the B&B. “So I’m officially inviting you to come back and visit all you want. And bring the grandkids, too.” m All these stories are true, though names and locations may be altered to protect privacy.

INFo hackie is a twice-monthly column that can also be read on sevendaysvt.com. to reach jernigan, email hackie@sevendaysvt.com.

‘

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It’s not just a clIché: change Is hard.

“Well, that took guts on your part. I admire folks who use their own good fortune in life to help out others, particularly kids in need.” “It was our privilege to get involved with these kids. As Dick used to tell me, ‘What are we going to do — buy another boat? Take another vacation?’ He was a good man.” Nodding my head a few times, I said, “He sounds like one.” I used to take the position that individual charity is not the answer, that poverty and other social ills can only be effectively addressed systematically through governmental action. With age, however, my thinking has grown less limited. I still favor programmatic change, but I now believe everything helps. Life has shown me that each one of us can change the world for the better when our better angels inspire our actions. “So, are you a Connecticut girl from childhood?” I asked. “No, I grew up in Chicago, where my family owned an Italian restaurant. My parents immigrated there in 1919. It’s kind of a good story, if you’d like to hear it.” I shot her a smile, saying, “I would like nothing better.” Good stories are my catnip. “My parents were both from Tuscany and came to Chicago for their honeymoon. My father had an older brother who owned a restaurant, and this brother, my uncle Sal, had been asking my dad to come into the business for years. Well, he did — they arrived and never left! My mother always complained that, if she had known they were not returning to Italy, she would have taken her linens. My dad swore that it wasn’t a premeditated plan, but my mother thought differently. It all worked out, though.” “That’s a terrific immigrant story,” I said. “Did you have a big family, lots of brothers and sisters?” “Only nine,” Trudy replied with a laugh. “I was the youngest by five years — ‘my surprise gift from God,’ my mom would say. To be honest, I was quite spoiled. Every

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE BY CECIL ADAMS

Dear Cecil,

You mention Singapore. After it hooked up with Malaysia in 1963, disputes arose between the two sides, with violent riots in 1964 over Singapore’s failure to accord preferential treatment to ethnic Malays. The result, in 1965, was like a high school breakup — depending on whom you believe, either Singapore dumped Malaysia or Malaysia dumped Singapore. Most of the major map recolorings not resulting from war over the past few centuries have arisen from the unwinding of dubious land grabs. These aren’t as common as they once were, because neither are land grabs. Then again, as the Ukrainians can tell you, they’re not a thing of the past. Years ago, acquisitive empires finding themselves with more land than cash weren’t averse to trading the former for the latter. The U.S. was the beneficiary of several such deals, the two largest being the Louisiana Purchase (828,000

the last hundred years. The Philippines, won from Spain after the Spanish-American War, were granted independence in 1946. The AmericanMexican Chamizal Convention Act of 1964 ceded 630 acres of American territory in exchange for 193 acres from Mexico to settle a boundary dispute along the Rio Grande. Similar treaties in 1970 and 2009 resulted in the net transfer of a couple additional square miles from the U.S. to Mexico. Don’t expect to see larger transfers any time soon. The Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977 returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama in 1999. Can you imagine trying to get that through Congress now?

INFO

Is there something you need to get straight? Cecil Adams can deliver the Straight Dope on any topic. Write Cecil Adams at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611, or cecil@chireader.com.

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stonia, eh? You guys know something about giving up territory. On August 6, 1940, the members of the elected assembly of Estonia petitioned the Supreme Soviet for admission to the USSR, in effect ridding themselves of their entire country. (The Soviets generously took them in.) True, Estonia was then occupied by Soviet troops, and a couple of months earlier, the Soviet government had demanded the creation of an Estonian puppet government that then called for elections, which produced the pliant assembly mentioned above. Doesn’t that sound voluntary to you? OK, one of your more blatant examples of being under pressure. My point is, just because a change in sovereignty is nominally voluntary doesn’t mean it is. On the contrary, some form of political, economic, ethnic or religious pressure lurks behind almost any division of a nation-state.

is Portugal’s return of the seaport of Macao, its former colony, to China in 1999. Unlike the British, the Portuguese had a treaty entitling them to manage and reside in Macao perpetually, but in the ’70s Portugal formally renounced all overseas colonies and territories, meaning getting out of Macao squared with its overall policy. The fact that Portugal could no longer defend a tiny outpost half a world away no doubt also eased the pain. Things didn’t go as smoothly when Portugal decolonized East Timor, in the Indonesian archipelago, in 1975. East Timor declared its independence, prompting Indonesia to invade. More than 100,000 died in the resultant conflict, which wasn’t fully settled until 2002, when East Timor became a sovereign state. Some countries don’t cede territory; they just break up. Starting in 1991, Yugoslavia fissioned into what ultimately became seven nations, the ensuing civil wars and ethnic cleansings helping to destabilize Eastern Europe for more than a decade. Czechoslovakia fractured into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 with considerably less drama. The U.S. has willingly given up territory a few times over

CARAMAN

It seems like an ironclad rule of geopolitics that countries never give up territory except under some form of pressure. In the last 100 years or so, when have countries actually gone out of their way to rid themselves of territory? The only example I’m aware of is Malaysia expelling Singapore from its federation. Chris S., Tallinn, Estonia

square miles for three cents an acre) and the acquisition of Alaska from Russia (586,412 square miles at two cents an acre). Those were about as close to voluntary as these things ever are — the Russians, for example, concluded they couldn’t defend Alaska, so they might as well sell it for whatever they could get. National territory isn’t sold much anymore, although the idea still comes up. In 2010 two German MPs seriously suggested that Greece consider selling several of its uninhabited islands to pay its national debt. The Maldives, a low-lying island nation threatened by rising sea levels, is considering purchasing land elsewhere to house its citizens if needed; Kiribati, in similar straits, has already pulled the trigger, acquiring 5,000 acres in Fiji last year. Sadly for Kiribatian national aspirations, all they’ve bought is real estate, not sovereignty. Most cases of unloading territory in the past century are a consequence of decolonization, the premier case being India, voluntarily-but-not-really cut loose by the UK in 1947. Embarrassment at the imperial adventure having finally sunk in, the British didn’t charge the locals to get the subcontinent back; they just left. Some might consider the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 a willful ceding of territory, but from a legal standpoint the UK’s 99-year lease just ran out. A better example

Mitzvot Accomplished Retiring rabbi Joshua Chasan reflects on a controversy-courting career BY k en p ic a rd

30 FEATURE

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ight fell as the lonesome moan of a cello filled the sanctuary of Burlington’s Ohavi Zedek Synagogue with the haunting refrain of “Kol Nidre.” The ancient Aramaic prayer announced the eve of Yom Kippur or “Day of Atonement.” The holiest day on the Jewish calendar, it’s a time when observant Jews cease their normal activities to pray, fast and take stock of their lives in the preceding year. On this solemn occasion, Jews are expected to perform a cheshbon hanefesh, or “accounting of souls,” so God will seal their names in the Book of Life for another year. This particular Yom Kippur, members of Ohavi Zedek also had reason to reflect on the soul of their longtime spiritual leader: Rabbi Joshua Chasan, who’s retiring this year after 25 years on the pulpit. As the cello wailed, a few stragglers hurried into the packed sanctuary and quietly found seats in a diverse throng: a single woman with a crying infant, a senior pushing a walker, men and women in business attire, a college student in beads and sandals, a middle-aged man with a beard and ponytail. Nearly all the men, and several of the women, wore yarmulkes, or skullcaps, and tallit, or Jewish prayer shawls. In Orthodox and other, more traditional synagogues, such religious garb is worn solely by men, who also run the service. Not so here. Standing beside Chasan on the bimah, or pulpit, was his assistant rabbi, Jan Salzman, who routinely chants the “Kol Nidre” and most of the Hebrew liturgy. Her spouse converted to Judaism from Roman Catholicism — as did Chasan’s wife, Kathy Comstock Chasan. More than a few of the worshippers seated before the pulpit were same-sex couples married by Chasan before it was acceptable for rabbis to do so. OZ is a Conservative synagogue, but that label refers not to its political leanings but to the branch of American Judaism with which it’s affiliated. With a name that translates as “lovers of justice,” Vermont’s oldest and largest Jewish congregation embraces progressive values on gender and marriage equality. At least, its leader certainly has. Over the years, 69-year-old Chasan has earned a reputation as an outspoken and committed political activist — for challenging not just his own flock of nearly 400 families but Vermonters of all creeds to confront issues of poverty, war, inequality and social justice. On occasion, that approach has put him at odds with more traditional members of his congregation. His stance on at least one contentious issue — performing interfaith marriages — nearly cost him his job.

Robert Resnik, a Burlington writer, musician, librarian and Vermont Public Radio host, likened the outgoing rabbi to another New York City émigré: Vermont independent senator and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “These are guys who’ve been singing the same tune for decades, and they’re not changing their stance for political reasons,” said Resnik, whose ancestors joined Ohavi Zedek back in the 1890s, when it was still an Orthodox shul. He said Chasan has sustained OZ’s tradition of “working with people of different beliefs and making people recognize that humankind is one, regardless of what you believe.”

Although Joshua is the rabbi of Ohavi Zedek, I would say he is actually

the rabbi of the people of Vermont, regardless of their religion. Yo r Am S a m e t s

Those “people of different beliefs” include Gary Kowalski, formerly minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, who now has a ministry in Taos, N.M. Kowalski calls Chasan “one of the most effective religious leaders I have ever known” and “a powerhouse in the prophetic tradition.” Kowalski, who served with Chasan on the board of Vermont Interfaith Action, which Chasan cofounded, cites Chasan’s work in founding the Vermont Kids4Peace camp, which each year brings together Jewish, Christian and Muslim youth. He also points to Chasan’s deep commitment to women’s rights. “He was one of the few clergy colleagues I could consistently count on when Planned Parenthood was

under attack,” Kowalski said. “When the hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church came to Burlington to spew venom against gays, Rabbi Chasan was the chief organizer who helped the city’s faith leaders form an effective response.” While Chasan is rarely shy about wearing his politics on his sleeve, his willingness to court controversy is always tempered by a sense of his responsibility to his congregation. A vehement opponent of the U.S. militaryindustrial complex — and himself a draft resister — he nonetheless kept silent publicly on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, because it conflicted with a more pressing rabbinical duty. Early in the war, Chasan explained, Marine Cpl. Mark Evnin of South Burlington was killed. Evnin was the grandson of Chasan’s predecessor, Rabbi Max Wall, a beloved figure who led Ohavi Zedek for more than 40 years. Chasan didn’t feel comfortable attacking the war with Evnin’s mother as a member of his congregation, he said. As he put it, “I had a pastoral role to fulfill.”

Talking the Talk About 40 minutes into the Kol Nidre service, Chasan stepped up to the lectern and greeted his congregation in Hebrew and English, then began his sermon. “It’s good to be here together,” he said. “It’s good simply to be here” — a joke about his age. Chasan’s beard has grown whiter, his hands occasionally shake and his voice doesn’t project as strongly as it likely did when he first arrived in Burlington in 1991. Still, his message was as powerful as ever. Throughout the 22-minute sermon, much of which was autobiographical, Chasan undertook what felt like a public soul searching. He began by describing his wandering exodus from New York City, which eventually led him to the Green Mountain State. “Some say that those of us who have chosen to live here in northern Vermont have chosen to live in midbar, in a Jewish wilderness,” he began. “Here, we escape the frenetic frenzy of the metropolis, the impersonality of life in big cities, where the passing by of a stranger in trouble is acceptable behavior.” As he continued, Chasan touched on many themes he’s championed throughout his tenure: the rekindling of Jewish spirituality; the preaching of humility to resist the urge of “placing ourselves at the center of the universe”; and the necessity of “doing t’shuvah,” or “‘turning around’ from the unkindness, hatred and violence which currently rule the world.”

matthew thorsen

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Chasan’s words also emphasized what many of his congregants say is his greatest strength as a rabbi: providing solace in times of trouble. “Here we find it easier to keep in mind the needs of our friends, fellow congregants and neighbors,” he said. “Here we are drawn to prepare a meal for someone unable to cook, just out of the hospital, or simply weakened by age. Here we are encouraged to fulfill those greatest of commandments — doing deeds of loving kindness, providing hospitality, visiting the sick and the dying, and making peace between one person and another.” As always, Chasan also pushed the envelope. “We all know that God is not a bearded white man sitting on a cloud in the sky,” he said. He referred to the Book of Life, a mainstay of Jewish High Holiday liturgy, as a metaphor and a “legend,” albeit a useful fiction. “We do not need to believe that such a book literally exists, or even, as our sages teach, that these particular 25 hours have a special power to nurture atonement between us and our creator,” Chasan said of Yom Kippur. “After all, let’s be realistic. For most of humanity, these are just another 25 hours — the beginning of the pope’s visit,” he added, provoking smiles with a reference to the biggest headline of the day. Chasan’s humility shone through, even when he spoke of his deeply personal relationship with God. “I have tried to walk the walk about which, year after year, I have talked,” he said. “Our sages understood creation to be an ongoing process that underscores that we are all works in process. “Remember that,” he added with a smile, “as you welcome your new rabbi.” Many in the room chuckled at the inside joke. Even after 25 years, some OZ old-timers still refer to Chasan as “the new rabbi” who could never replace his predecessor, Rabbi Wall. Though the service was far from over when Chasan concluded his remarks, a smattering of people quietly ducked out. Evidently, it was Chasan’s words they’d come to hear. One would never have guessed from his performance that when he applied to rabbinical school in 1981, Chasan didn’t know a word of Hebrew. Or that he considered social work, law, even veterinary medicine before the rabbinate. Or that some of his greatest spiritual teachers were Christians. For years, Chasan described Robert Lee, the reverend at Burlington’s First Congregational Church, as “my pastor.” When Chasan finally embraced the Jewish faith — with a full-body hug — he did so without the support of his family.

‘Red-Diaper Baby’

» p.32

Rabbi Joshua Chasan on the synagogue grounds

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Chasan grew up in New York City’s Stuyvesant Town, on Manhattan’s East Side — a “red-diaper baby” whose parents, Evelyn and William, were members of the Lovestonite, or anti-Stalinist, branch of the American Communist Party. Chasan’s father was a dentist for the Veterans Administration. His mother was an educator at New York City’s Seward Park High School. She was a small woman, he recalled, just 4-foot-11, who’d break up fights on the roof of the school among the neighborhood’s Chinese, white and Puerto Rican gangs. “She was tough.”

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She was also “a strict materialist,” Chasan added, who didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t perceive with her five senses, including God. Though Chasan’s parents took their Jewish cultural roots seriously, neither was religious. In fact, Chasan had to plead with them to give him a bar mitzvah. “My parents held their noses,” he recalled, but eventually acquiesced. Were Chasan’s parents disappointed that he became a rabbi? “More than disappointed,” he said. “They were crushed.” Chasan’s younger brother wasn’t supportive, either. Jonathan Chasan, who went on to become a well-known prisoners’ rights attorney — he successfully sued New York City to address overcrowding at Rikers Island — occasionally needled his elder brother about his faith, even after he was ordained. “My brother once said to me, ‘I don’t know whether you’re just a hustler and you really don’t believe this stuff,’” Chasan recalled, “‘or you really are crazy!’” Chasan attended Hobart College, in Geneva, N.Y., graduated in 1966, and applied to grad school to avoid the draft. When he received an induction letter from the Army, Chasan refused and was indicted. Through a stroke of luck, the U.S. Supreme Court shortly thereafter threw out the indictments of thousands of men, including Chasan, who should have received student deferments. By that time, Chasan was already in grad school at the University of Pittsburgh, working on his doctorate in American history. As he put it, “I was taught at an early age to finish what I start.” For his doctoral thesis, Chasan read the 19th-century sermons of the Rev. Ebenezer Cutler, who’d preached in St. Albans. It was those sermons, he said, that transformed his intellectual understanding of religion into a spiritual one: “Ebenezer Cutler taught me about concepts like redemption and forgiveness.” Growing up in a nonobservant household, “I didn’t know from such things,” he added. Chasan married his first wife, who wasn’t Jewish, in a secular service in 1970. They lived in Worcester, Mass., through most of the 1970s, until Chasan was admitted to Yale Divinity School. During his interview there, the administrator asked Chasan if he planned to convert to Christianity, as most students in those days were destined for Christian ministries. His response: “That’s not gonna happen.” He attended for just one year before dropping out. Chasan and his first wife had moved to New Haven so he could attend Yale, but after 10 years of marriage and a son, Cavan, he said, “We were coming apart.” The couple divorced in 1980. While still at Yale, Chasan landed a job as assistant director of Sage Advocate, an

Rabbi Joshua Chasan at home with his sculptures

association of churches in downtown New Haven, Conn., that Chasan described as “the agency of last resort for unchurched elders.” When the organization’s executive director resigned, Chasan stepped up, but some board members couldn’t envision a Jew as their leader. The local Episcopal priest, Harry Smith, “shamed” them into hiring him. Such interdenominational cooperation planted a seed that, years later, bore fruit when Chasan helped found Vermont Interfaith Action. Chasan found love at Sage, too. Kathy Comstock was a college senior when she came in looking for an internship. She and Chasan struck up a relationship while working in roach-infested apartments to assist seniors who were, as Chasan put it, “mentally off the grid.” Comstock, who’d been raised a Catholic, converted to Judaism. The couple married in 1982. That year, Chasan enrolled in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. Initially, he said, he attended

rabbinical school simply to gain a better grounding for his work with older people, with no plans to become a pulpit rabbi. But, after Chasan was ordained in 1987 and briefly preached with a congregation in Iowa, he and his wife decided he’d serve as a pulpit rabbi for no more than five years. He landed a job in Montclair, N.J., and when his two-year contract expired, he re-upped for another three. The OZ position opened in 1991, and Chasan leapt at the opportunity. He knew Burlington well, in part because his brother worked with prisoners across the lake in New York.

Big Shoes to Fill What was OZ like when Chasan arrived? Just remembering it made him chuckle. “Rabbi Wall ran a really tight ship,” he said. Indeed. Wall was a larger-than-life figure not just in Vermont but in American Jewry. During World War II, he rode with

General George Patton into the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate the Nazi death camps. After the war, many Jews wrote to him to learn the fate of their European relatives. Among other things, Chasan said, Wall is credited with leading Burlington’s Jewish community out of its self-imposed ghetto in the Old North End to its current home on the hill on North Prospect Street. Wall even officiated at Gov. Richard Snelling’s funeral when he died suddenly in office in 1991. When Wall himself died in 2009, the Burlington Free Press described him as “a state treasure.” “I can’t tell you how many suits I got from him, before he died and after he died,” Chasan recalled. They fit. The footwear, not so much. Chasan’s shoe size is 8 and a half; Wall’s was at least a 10. As many people reminded the younger rabbi, “I could never fill his shoes!” Despite Wall’s imposing presence, Chasan said he grew to love his Jewish mentor immensely. “My father was not an in-your-face father. He was a very kind, decent man. And he was very quiet about his parental instruction,” Chasan said. “Rabbi Wall gave me the opportunity to come up against a father who was in my face.” Chasan got good at confrontation himself. Even before civil unions appeared on the public’s radar, he was an early proponent of same-sex unions, a position that didn’t go over well with OZ’s old guard. “I managed to move the congregation toward acceptance of civil unions, first for partner benefits … then marriage equity,” he recalled. “We lost a few people, but it helped distill out who we are.” At the same time, Chasan’s stance brought many lapsed Jews, and even some non-Jews, into the OZ fold. Among them was Roz Grossman, who has now been an OZ congregant for 22 years. Raised Jewish in Valley Stream, N.Y., Grossman didn’t practice her faith for years, she said, in part because of her sexual orientation. Today, however, she credits Chasan with rekindling her faith; he officiated her wedding last year to her longtime partner, Diana Carminati, herself a convert. “Joshua leads with his heart,” she said. “One of the reasons I felt comfortable coming back to the synagogue, which I had not done in my earlier adult life, was because of his welcoming and inclusiveness.” Yoram Samets, a longtime OZ member and founding partner at KSV marketing firm in Burlington, agreed. Chasan, he said, has done “an incredible job of building and continuing to grow this congregation. He is literally the rabbi of a very large Jewish tent. When you look at the other Jewish organizations in Vermont, no one has the growth of Ohavi Zedek. And that is, ultimately, because of what the rabbi brings to this community.”

Chasan’s stance on at least one contentious issue — his desire to perform interfaith marriages —

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Chasan’s Burlington home is a modest gray house due west of the synagogue. Inside, the den is cluttered with wood and metal sculptures. For years, people brought the rabbi roots, stumps and driftwood that washed up on beaches, all of which Chasan carves into abstract pieces. His second son, Ari, creates sculptures, too, in Portland, Maine, where the Chasans are moving. Their daughter Ze’Eva lives in Burlington. There’s no indication of the Chasans’ impending relocation until you walk across the street to Joshua’s box-littered office, on the first floor of the temple. To get there, you pass beneath a mural recently rediscovered in an apartment on Hyde Street — once a place of worship in Burlington’s erstwhile Jewish neighborhood. The well-publicized restoration of Ben Zion Black’s Lost Shul Mural “put ‘Little Jerusalem’ on the map,” said Chasan.

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Which of his creations is likely to leave the greatest mark on Ohavi Zedek? The Kids4Peace campaign he spearheaded? The full-page ads against basing F-35 fighter jets at Burlington International Airport that he organized? His almostrun for lieutenant governor? His role as a kochleffel — Yiddish for “pot stirrer,” aka one who riles people up? Many say Chasan will be best remembered for the quiet deeds most congregants never see. Grossman, who considers Chasan “like an older brother,” pointed to his efforts to keep the synagogue’s kitchen kosher, and to ensure the presence of a nightly minyan — or quorum of 10 Jewish adults — for anyone wanting to say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. “To get 10 Jews together every night,” she noted, “is remarkable.” Temple president Jeff Potash, 51, has been affiliated with the synagogue since his bris at 8 days old; Chasan officiated his wedding and the funerals of both his parents. Potash said he suspects many congregants are oblivious to all the work Chasan does in his off hours. He’s grateful for the time Chasan spent with his mother when she was dying of cancer. “My mother struggled with the notion of what Judaism is all about, especially over the term ‘spirituality,’” he remembered. “But Josh, in a wonderful manner, explained to her that being spiritual was basically reaching out and caring and working with others.” After she died, Potash found his mother’s diary. She’d spent much of her life working with people with mental disabilities, and some of her final words suggest that she’d taken Chasan’s lesson to heart: “Maybe I am spiritual.” “I’ve always been indebted to Josh,” Potash said, “for discovering things in us that we don’t see in ourselves. For his part, Chasan said it took him a long time — perhaps too long — to discover how his own spirituality touched those around him. “I am very grateful for how much I’ve learned here about how loved I am as a human being,” he said. “It’s been a real blessing.” m

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Does Chasan’s outspokenness rub some congregants the wrong way? “Oh, definitely. You can’t be an activist without creating waves,” Samets said. “Although Joshua is the rabbi of Ohavi Zedek, I would say he is actually the rabbi of the people of Vermont, regardless of their religion.” Chasan’s next major battle within his congregation was over interfaith marriage. “I didn’t win that one,” he admitted. In 2003, Chasan put out the word that he planned to officiate the interfaith marriage of a staff member. When he asked his board to OK the ceremony — off the synagogue’s premises — he sparked an uproar. “I got a call from a good friend who said, ‘Not in my lifetime will it happen!’” Chasan remembered. “I called other people who were part of the opposition who said, ‘It’s going to split us apart.’” Eventually, the OZ board met, and “by the grace of God, they didn’t fire me.” Chasan promised never to raise the issue again as OZ’s rabbi. But even in defeat, he found a silver lining. “What changed was, now we could talk about it,” Chasan said. “To quote Joe Biden, ‘That’s a big deal.’”

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Drawing Out Miss Daisy After decades of research, folklorist Jane Beck wrote the book on freed slaves in Vermont B Y Mol ly Wal s h

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ane Beck has spent most of her 74 years telling other people’s stories. The founder of the Vermont Folklife Center has recorded the oral histories of local quarry workers, quilters, farmers, legislators and apple-doll makers. “Our understanding of history in Vermont is much richer because of all these stories that have been collected,” said Paul Bruhn, executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, of her work. No Vermonter has captivated Beck as thoroughly as Daisy Turner, the daughter of a slave who lived in the Green Mountains until her death in 1988. Now that interest has borne fruit in a definitive scholarly work. The renowned folklorist packed more than three decades of research into her new book from University of Illinois Press, Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga, for which she traveled to Virginia, Maine, England and West Africa. The journey started in Grafton, where Beck first met Turner, then 100, in 1983. For the next several years, the scholar chatted up the cantankerous centenarian, poured her ginger ale, ran her errands and recorded her stories. Beck subsequently brought the Turner family saga to life in audio, film and museum projects. Others shared it in children’s books, documentaries and history classes. Like her father, Turner was a brilliant raconteur — up until the day she died, at the age of 104 — but she also believed in the written word. She was convinced that a book was the best way to commit her family’s story to history. She urged Beck to write the tome, advising, “All these things ought not to be lost.” Those words could serve as a guiding motto for Beck, whose work has helped legitimize folklore, lending credibility and respect to a field of scholarship once dismissed as less important than anthropology or history. “She has been very significant on a national level,” said Greg Sharrow, Beck’s longtime colleague and friend, who stepped up at the Vermont Folklife Center after she resigned as executive director in 2007. Folklore is basically “cultural heritage,” Beck explained — “important to understand because it feeds into who we all are.”

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Ask who she is, though, and Beck immediately clams up. “I hate it,” she said of being the subject of inquiry. “Do we have to get into all of this?” The woman who spent years extracting, verifying and archiving the lives of others doesn’t have the slightest interest in talking about her own. Secondary sources provide some insight into Jane Choate Beck, who grew up in a prominent family on Long Island.

Her late father, Thomas Hyde Choate, worked as an investment banker. Her mother, Jane Harte Choate, still appears from time to time on the society pages for her work with the New York Botanical Garden and various charitable organizations. When Beck reached her teens, in the 1950s, her parents shipped her off to an all-girls school in Maryland. St. Timothy’s School is also the alma mater

of Shelburne philanthropist Lisa Steele, who attended about eight years after Beck. “It was very much like being locked up in jail,” Steele said of the place, describing it as a strict, old-fashioned boarding school that was rigorous in every sense of the word. “But we both got through it and, I think, are probably stronger because of it.” Beck graduated near the top of her class at St. Timothy’s; her parents wanted her to go to Radcliffe College, but “luckily I didn’t get in,” she recalled. She happily enrolled at Middlebury College, where she majored in American literature and met her future husband. Professor Horace Beck was two decades older and, like her, an independent sort who chose a simple, rural life over the well-heeled society in which he’d grown up. “Unpretentious” is the word Steele used to describe Jane, who shared that quality with her husband. Born in Newport, R.I., Horace studied the folklore of the West Indies, and in recognition of his seafaring side, liked to refer to himself as “Swamp Yankee.” Jane graduated from Middlebury College in 1963 and started her graduate studies in folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. She married Horace in 1965. An avid sportsman, he took his new wife duck hunting for their honeymoon. Jane shuttled back and forth between Vermont and Philadelphia to earn her doctorate as they started a family on a farm in Ripton. (Horace Beck would die in 2003.) Daughter Rowan Beck, a Charlotte resident and public relations director at Bitybean baby carriers, has vivid memories of their family life: a year on a sailboat; lambs in the kitchen; her parents’ collaboration on a National Geographic story — Horace wrote the article and Jane took the pictures, earning more money than her husband. “That was a long-standing joke in our house,” Rowan recalled. “A picture really is worth more than 1,000 words.” Rowan also remembered her mom chauffeuring children to hockey and skiing and making family dinners — including venison stew — as she built her career. Vermont’s first “state folklorist” walked the talk. “It was always very

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important that we could talk to anybody. My mom is not a showy, glitzy person,” said Rowan. “She’s very down-to-earth, and she has real, hard-core values. She’s more of a Vermonter than she is a New Yorker, and if you’re from New York, please don’t take offense.” Beck was state folklorist — working for the Vermont Arts Council — when she first heard about Turner. Beck’s usual ice-breaking tactic when approaching new research subjects was to get an introduction from a third party; with Turner, that wasn’t an option. After writing and calling repeatedly to try to arrange a meeting, she finally got Turner on the telephone, only to be asked sternly, “Are you a prejudiced woman?”

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When Beck stammered no, she didn’t think so, Turner responded breezily, “Well, come any time.” Beck did, and she was immediately riveted by Turner’s stories. Yet even on their second meeting, she was unsure how she would be received. She earned Turner’s trust by simply showing up, again and again, refusing to be offended by the old woman’s gruff exterior. Trim, fair-complected Beck has a no-nonsense air. Perhaps her unfussy demeanor appealed to Turner, who lived at the time of their first meeting in a cluttered old house down the hill from the family farm. She was known for ambling around town with a shotgun on her hip. Beck also brought significant reportorial skills to the table, including persuasion. As Sharrow put it: “It took almost an act of seduction to get Daisy to agree to having Jane visit her.”

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“She’s able to take her time and let people be who they are,” Steele observed. Predictably, Beck’s explanation of the “good relationship” they forged is more understated: “I think in the long run, she trusted me as much as she could trust anybody.” Beck went to see Turner at least several times a month for about three years. She learned to make herself useful. As Turner talked, Beck would help her organize papers and fetch things around the house. She steadied Turner into a chair when her legs became weak. And when Turner’s health took a bad turn, Beck visited her at the nursing home where she spent her final days. The hours with Turner contributed to Beck’s nuanced understanding of memories and their role in the folklorist’s trade. Even when personal recollections aren’t factually reliable, she said, they are significant. “It’s personal. It’s based in emotion,” Beck said. Years after Turner’s death, however, translating those recollections into a work of nonfiction proved to be a fact-checking challenge. Beck’s book traces the Turner family history from West Africa, where Daisy’s grandfather, Alessi, was probably born around 1810, to his enslavement on a plantation in Virginia, where his son Alec was born in 1845. Alec subsequently escaped, served in the Civil War with Union troops and eventually migrated to Vermont, where he raised 13 children. The creaky home of long-dead plantation owner Jack Gouldin still stands along the Rappahannock River, surrounded by the same spreading fields, according to Beck, who was surprised to find the property remarkably undeveloped. “Alec Turner would recognize it,” she said. Beck also visited West Africa and England to research Daisy Turner’s account of Alessi’s early years. According to Daisy, her grandfather was the son of an English lady who was shipwrecked and a chief ’s son who saved her in the surf off the coast of Africa. This would have taken place around 1800.

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It sounds more like a romance novel than Roots, but Beck maintains that Turner’s recollection is plausible. Beck spent long hours in England researching shipping company records, passenger and crew logs and accounts of wrecks off West Africa. At one point, she thought she came close to identifying an Englishwoman who could have been the shipwrecked great-grandmother. But the dates and details ultimately failed to match up, and, to her great frustration, Beck was unable to document the identity of either great-grandparent. She had better luck researching the slave ship that carried the kidnapped

attitudes — from racism to respect to neighborliness. Indeed, part of folklore’s appeal for Beck is that it opens a window onto people’s views of the world, and “that we understand, that we listen to these attitudes and values and stories. If you can relate to their stories, there’s a meeting, a bridging,” she said. Turner’s Grafton farm, known as Journey’s End, is now owned by the State of Vermont. The Windham Foundation and the Preservation Trust of Vermont are partnering to restore the only remaining structure on the property, a 1911 hunting camp, and to make it a visitor’s site. All the history that farm represents would likely have been lost without Beck, who had the patience and perse-

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young Alessi, later known as Robert Berkeley, most likely to Louisiana. Based on her study of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and other sources, Beck believes with “99.9 percent” certainty that the ship was the Fenix, a Spanish schooner that transported slaves from Calabar, Nigeria, and environs to New Orleans. Many captives died on the voyage, and the conditions on the ship matched Turner’s narrative, passed down from her grandfather to her father, in which it was described as “one of the worst sights that any human being had ever seen — that slave ship.” Throughout Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga, Beck points out aspects of Daisy’s narratives about the family that she believes to be wrong, half-wrong or impossible to verify. She also documents many parts of the story as Daisy told them and carefully constructs the historical context in fascinating and sometimes grim detail. The book is not just about facts, though, but about bigger themes and

verance to draw Turner out. Her work “makes what’s left of Journey’s End a very special African American site,” said the Preservation Trust’s Bruhn. While Alec Turner faced discrimination at times in Vermont, he was accepted and respected by most of his neighbors, and his story in Vermont is a powerful account of the African American experience after slavery. The Turner saga “tells the story of a former slave, a freed man, who came to Vermont by way of Maine and became a hill farmer and, just like lots of white families, struggled in the hills,” Bruhn said, summing up Beck’s work. “It’s really the story of the next step of history of African American families in the United States … It’s a big story.” m Contact: molly@sevendaysvt.com

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t was not yet 9:30 a.m. on a sparkling autumn Sunday in Craftsbury Common — an hour when most women in my demographic are indulging in cider doughnuts with their cup of coffee. Instead, I was doing doughnuts around a parking lot, gleefully following 15 other women as we lapped circle after circle. “Kitty, you trouble child!” shouted Sabra Davison. “You’ve got a good femur on you, woman!” We’d barely come to a stop to catch our breaths when someone yelled, “Now, let’s go jump some shit!” Welcome to the first-ever women’s mountain-biking camp staged by Little Bellas. The Vermont-based riding program for girls has taken the nation’s singletrack by storm, thanks to the singular focus of its founders — Davison and her sister, Lea, an Olympic and World Cup mountain biker — on female empowerment. Founded in 2007, Little Bellas uses mountain bikes as tools to teach girls ages 7 to 16 the skills they need to tackle not only the trails, but also the trials of life. The Vermont-based programs at Catamount Outdoor Family Center in Williston have expanded to sister sessions in Colorado and California, and those locations now host national Bellas camps that bring pros to the pint-size set. This fall, the Davison sisters decided to add a new twist: an overnight camp for women that fosters camaraderie among fat-tired females while teaching technical skills for the trails. Hence the Sunday morning parking-lot session, designed to instruct riders on correct body position. “This allows us to bring the program full circle,” explained Sabra Davison of the overnight adventure, “empowering women of all ages to feel more comfortable and confident on a bike.” The wheels started spinning for Davison and fellow leaders when mothers of girls enrolled in Little Bellas began asking about a “grown-up” clinic. “Their daughters have improved at riding to the point where it was difficult for some of the moms to keep up!” Davison said. “So we thought a skills clinic was a perfect way to close the ability and comfort gap between mothers and daughters who

want to ride together, and [for] women to start getting a better grasp on the sport.” At the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, I was certainly grasping the handlebars of my bike as we progressed from body position to handling obstacles. At the same time, I was still daydreaming about last night’s wine-and-cheese opening, where we’d confessed our trepidations over Bayley Hazen Blue and bottles of red. The sharing was followed by a locally sourced supper of beef tenderloin with Brussels sprouts and a bonfire that lasted past 11 p.m. as stars filled the Northeast Kingdom sky. The social gathering, explained Davison, is the adult version of Color Day, a Little Bellas tradition. Dressed in white, the girls are blasted by puffs of colored powder as they ride their bikes through an arch formed by older mentors. While the grown-up evening shared that celebratory feel, it was also a chance for us to open up about what’s holding us back on our own bikes. “I want to break down that fear barrier and deconstruct

the sport piece by piece, so each woman was inspired by her offspring to take leaves having a better understanding of the clinic. “It’s amazing to have this girl how to feel comfortable on her bike,” said who’s a badass, who comes home from Davison. “You can’t improve and change mountain biking and says, ‘Somebody everything in one day, so called me Timex, beit’s about making sure cause I can take a licking women know what to and keep on ticking,’” work on when they ride she said at the social, at home.” getting teary-eyed. “I Some of my fellow need to figure out how campers, I discovered strong I am, really.” at the social, grew up That’s something I’ve enjoying adventure been working on, too: sports in places like New Despite 20-odd years of Zealand, Slovakia, Brazil mountain-biking expeand Colombia. But the rience, I’ve never really demands of day-to-day learned the right way to life have sapped the handle a bike, or how to S ab r a D av i s o n confidence they need for hop obstacles. serious mountain biking. When Kitty Wade of Others, like Sandy Yusen, are simply Williston said, “My goal for this weekstoked by the joy of the sport. “Every end is not to die,” Crawford added, “My time I bike, I have this huge smile on my goal is not to cry!” face,” she said during the social. Davison’s co-instructors at the Caroline Crawford of Burlington is Craftsbury clinic were Michelle Douglas one of those Little Bellas moms who and Clarissa Finks, two top mountain

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and turns through densely packed pine trees and natural rock gardens. Carpeted by needles and lined with lush green ferns, it felt like a fantasy setting — until a narrow bridge jolted me back to reality. The happy hoots and hollers turned to cries of “Holy shit!” as we put our newly acquired talents to the test, some acing the challenge and others failing and wiping out on the bridge. But, as Davison reminded us repeatedly, change doesn’t happen in a day. Physically and mentally, we were all

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bikers who schooled us in braking, cornering and keeping our weight in our feet, before we headed out on the trails. The Craftsbury Outdoor Center started as the Green Racing Project six years ago; since then, it has built its singletrack network to a length of nearly 10 miles. On this day, I discovered those trails are perhaps the best-kept mountain-biking secret in the state. There was no dawdling on the doubletrack — we went right into Woodward’s Wheelie, which swoops

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Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit

FEATURE 39

Contact: tuff@sevendaysvt.com

Theater

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Common Language Theater review: Tribes, Vermont Stage

40 FEATURE

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B y al ex b r ow n

eing accepted isn’t the same as being understood. The six characters in Tribes who are striving for both use a torrent of words, but that’s only part of how they communicate. In the remarkable new play from English playwright Nina Raine that opens the Vermont Stage season, a whip-smart family adept at verbal sparring connects through speech, silence and their mutual understanding of each other as a family tribe. Tribes received the 2012 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Foreign Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. It premiered in London in 2010, and audiences will barely spot the changes necessary to make a British family American. Raine

has a finely tuned ear for natural language, and great wit. The characters are real enough to annoy as well as enchant, and seeing them argue is seeing them at their best. The parents are both writers: Christopher an academic critic with little tolerance for others’ arguments; Beth a would-be novelist attempting a personal tell-all that suffers from overuse of a thesaurus. Their three children, all in their twenties, have boomeranged back home. Daniel, the eldest child, won’t find a job but will take stabs at writing a thesis about the limitations of language. Middle child Ruth can’t find a boyfriend and is starting to realize that her singing career may not go much further than the

local pubs. Billy is the youngest, and the family swirls around him in loud chatter and half-finished arguments. The play opens with the cacophony of their dinner together. Billy is deaf, and when he stays alone at the table after the meal, the barrier between him and his family is suddenly clear and poignant. Billy was raised to be part of the hearing world, wearing hearing aids and lip-reading. His parents refused to let him limit himself as deaf, which also means they rejected something about him. When Billy meets Sylvia, a child of deaf parents who is losing her hearing, a new world opens up. Sylvia teaches him American Sign Language and introduces him to the deaf community, another tribe with its own hierarchies.

The play proceeds to explore both the tools of communication and the sense of identity that people draw from the tribes that welcome them. Conversation can be a competition, as this family proves. The play helps us notice multiple languages at work — speech, music, American Sign Language, opera lyrics, facial expressions, stuttering, lip-reading, online Chinese lessons, body language. All of these are used to express needs, and often those needs aren’t acknowledged, let alone met. The play is a stunning demonstration of how people connect emotionally using whichever language seems to suit their purposes. Director Mark Alan Gordon elicits nuanced performances from an

Courtesy of Lindsay Raymondjack

Dale Dymkoski (Billy) and Aly Perry (Sylvia)

AT THE FLYNN FlynnSpace Comedy Series

“Stand Up, Sit Down, & Laugh” In a complex role, Aly Perry triumphs as Sylvia. Without sentimentality, Perry portrays the wrenching transition from hearing to deafness. She gives the character all the sarcastic armor the script provides, and then reveals the harrowing need for it. When Sylvia describes, with visceral clarity, the experience of no longer hearing her own voice, she makes Billy understand a loss different from his own. Andrew Butterfield is all physical and verbal jangles as Daniel. He can’t stay still and can’t listen to anyone, but he can ridicule his loved ones, often just to prove he knows them that well. Dan is fighting his own problems, and Butterfield masterfully shows the character deteriorating before our eyes. His histrionic need to talk is a way of muting the auditory hallucinations that plague him. Pulling his hoodie over his head, Butterfield expresses acute pain with exceptional precision. Blair Mielnik’s set design emphasizes the family’s overflowing expressiveness by cluttering the stage with personal items linked to each character. FlynnSpace puts the audience so close that we can read the book and magazine titles and see what’s on an iPad screen. This dense pile of stuff also conveys the family’s reckless attitude toward housekeeping — as narcissists, they all have something better to do. Great productions often reveal theater’s power, as actors reach for expressive moments. With this exquisite production, Vermont Stage not only proves the power of live theater, but exemplifies the possibilities, and the limits, of communication itself. m

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FEATURE 41

Tribes by Nina Raine, directed by Mark Alan Gordon, produced by Vermont Stage. Through October 25, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m., at FlynnSpace in Burlington. $28.80-37.50. vtstage.org

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and seeing them argue is seeing them at their best.

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ensemble that works together with the attention of musicians. Because the characters interrupt and ignore each other, the actors must develop their own layer of communication. Gordon creates conditions that help the actors reveal character and connect with astonishing power. Dale Dymkoski uses an arresting physical stillness to center Billy and establish the character’s silent strength. His expressive face is free to release the emotions that Billy has been stuck guarding from a family that rarely listens. As he uses his entire body to express himself, he achieves eloquence without words. Dymkoski was born with significant hearing loss and can perform with a deaf person’s voice, but his greatest acting skill here is imbuing Sign with pure emotion. As the loud and bullying Chris, Steve Small has the courage to make the character so real he’s unlikable. Small snaps his attention from point to point, shutting a book to disparage the author’s argument with the same sharpness he uses to reject any family member’s statement he doesn’t care for. He towers like a tough guy, but Small is funny, too, and when he needs a reaction, he puts all his heart into getting it. Karen Lefkoe, as Beth, shows a mother’s little flickers of hope when her children seem to be at peace, but this mom’s no sideline cheerleader. Beth keeps right on ironing, head down, when her daughter indirectly asks for encouragement. And when she bickers, it’s not so much nasty as an acknowledgment of the family’s life force. Lida Benson gives Ruth a goofy ease with loose gestures and lots of playful body language. Sibling rivalry for these characters means keeping count of everything in a family where no one is ever loved enough. Benson has Ruth’s ears always up, but she also shows her heart, as Ruth struggles to love Billy and Daniel despite her jealousy of her brothers’ bond.

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photos courtesy of rob strong

Ordinary Marvels Theater review: Our Town, Northern Stage B y a l ex b row n

42 FEATURE

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Sutton Crawford (Emily) and Casey Predovic (George)

ang a spotlight to represent the moon, and focus it on a young girl’s face. Add the soft and distant sound of a church choir. Clear the stage of everything but two ladders to depict the bedroom windows of two high school kids. Make the dialogue so unremarkable that the audience can pour all their own memories into it. Then brush the background with the sound of crickets. This is a recipe for producing an ordinary summer night onstage. Thornton Wilder first blended these ingredients in 1938, and directors have been using them to stage Our Town ever since. Northern Stage opens its new theater in the Barrette Center for the Arts with a play whose bone-dry clarity produces powerful emotions in an audience, especially with a company of actors as strong as this one. The plot is as simple as can be. The families of Grover’s Corners, N.H., go about their business of getting born, falling in love, marrying, working and dying. We look in on them in 1901, 1904 and 1913, fastening most particularly on George Gibbs and Emily Webb, two next-door neighbors who do their

homework, have ice cream sodas, marry and have children. Wilder inserts a Stage Manager as a narrator who sets up the play’s perspective on time. He’s omniscient, capable of telling us that the little newsboy flinging papers onto doorsteps will die in World War I. With his voice in our ears, we share the Stage Manager’s godlike view of characters bustling through the mundane. This is how Wilder ingeniously fills us with concern for characters who overlook the beauty of the ordinary, a beauty that the audience is given the chance to see. This Northern Stage production tries a few novelties, but none radically alter the play’s impact. Director Carol Dunne, the company’s artistic director, chose to reveal the entire playing space, backstage and all, to christen the new theater. The idea suits Wilder’s desire to banish artificiality, even if it introduces a slightly self-conscious attention to every aspect of the space, from the seating aisles to the utilitarian bridge that would normally be concealed behind flats. Dunne tinkers with the play by adding some interstitial scenes between the acts. These contribute little to the

Left to right: Casey Predovic (George), Amanda Rafuse (Mrs. Webb) and Jamie Horton (Mr. Webb)

story, and perhaps only purists will fret that they detract from it. But wedging in George strumming the guitar, or staging the sentimental first dances of a wedding reception, inserts schmaltz into a play delightfully free of it. A fake home

movie projected at the end may have garnered some charmed “oohs” from the audience, but it violates just about every artistic principle Wilder embedded in the play, starting with the absence of props.

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theater conveys the character’s warm desire to tell us a story. Costume designer Laurie ChurbaKohn uses contemporary fashions that include retro quotations of past styles. Seeing Mrs. Gibbs in blue jeans nicely purges any nostalgia, while watching Emily twirl a modern floral print dress with 1930s influences borders on confusing. Modern dress can help an audience see social class more clearly, but the fairly humble doctor is given the rich attire of a banker — cuff links, sharp suspenders, a striped dress shirt. The costumes don’t redefine the characters but generally don’t interfere, either. The new theater has state-of-theart audio and lighting capabilities, which are showcased nicely in Ben Montmagny’s sound design and Dan Kotlowitz’s lighting design. Music director Max Gottschall plays piano for an extremely talented choir, and Eric Love fills out the arrangements on cello. Bill Clarke’s set design is effective in its stark simplicity.

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Wilder’s recipe for helping an audience discover the transient wonder of life endures. The play annihilates the sentimentality that obscures deep emotion, and though this production makes some small stumbles toward the saccharine, it ultimately delivers Wilder’s vision through strong performances. m

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INFo Our Town by Thornton Wilder, directed by Carol Dunne, produced by Northern Stage. Through October 31, Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.; Sundays at 5 p.m.; matinée Thursdays at 2 p.m., at Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction. $15-55. northernstage.org.

FEATURE 43

These choices seemed too cute, yet Dunne deserves credit for trying to create a jolt between the joy of the wedding and the sorrow of the play’s conclusion in the graveyard of Grover’s Corners. Experimenting with a classic is a way of keeping it alive. Dunne’s thoughtful direction gives the actors all the time they need to build complete dramatic moments. The pauses between thoughts, such as the little “wooo” that Mrs. Gibbs shyly offers after being thanked for making French toast, are as expressive as the words. As Mr. Webb, Jamie Horton captures the rock-ribbed New Hampshire combination of nobility and “twern’t-much” perspective. He raises his head and ponders before answering a question, speaking from a bedrock of self-assurance but without a hint of vanity. And when he comforts his daughter before her wedding, the sweet sadness crossing his face reveals a precious, fleeting love that overcomes him. Amanda Rafuse makes Mrs. Webb a delightfully busy wife and mother, with no time to notice what’s astonishing about an ordinary life because she’s perfectly immersed in it. Casey Predovic, as George, and Sutton Crawford, as Emily, show exquisite restraint in roles that can become coy. Predovic conveys youth with an expression that’s ever alert, truly curious about picking the right thing to do next as he grows up before our eyes. Crawford is a carefree Emily in high school, swinging her arms loosely and turning a wide gaze on everything. As she matures, she gathers herself in physically, buffeted by the powerful experience of seeing how wonderful the least important day can be. Christian Kohn plays Dr. Gibbs with a stern crispness, refraining from making him an idealized father but limiting our connection to him, too. As Mrs. Gibbs, Amy Tribbey is excellent at veering from dreamy enthusiasm for foreign travel to a housewife’s stark practicality. Her warmth shines through both moods, and when it’s snuffed out in the graveyard scene, Tribbey achieves arresting composure. As the Stage Manager, John Hutton bends the script’s simple observations toward a folksy manner and lets the character’s omniscience shade into contempt. He plays the chummy laughs straight to the audience but never

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food+drink

Adamant Appetite A co-op cookbook celebrates 80 years of serving small-town feasts S TO RY BY HA NNA H PALME R EGAN • IMAGES BY JANE T MAC L E O D

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COURTESY OF ADAMANT CO-OP

ive dirt roads converge in Adamant, which is neither town nor incorporated village but a cluster of houses at the head of a pond whiskered with cattails. Years ago, the hamlet went by Sodom (the pond still bears that name), and though it has its own zip code — 05640 — Adamant is in Calais, part and parcel. Here, tiny Adamant Co-op serves coffee and scones, ice cream and candies, much as it has since 1935. The store is often described as Vermont’s (and maybe the nation’s) oldest co-op in continuous operation, but no one will say so with 100 percent surety. “An academic paper from Cornell said it was the oldest,” says Janet MacLeod, standing in the store’s upstairs kitchen last week. “And we can’t find anyone to refute that.” MacLeod has lived in the area for most of her 70 years. Her father-in-law was a co-op founder; her grandparents were original members. “Janet grew up here,” says Larry Floersch, who moved to Adamant in 1984. “Actually, not here,” MacLeod says. As a youth, she lived just down the road in East Montpelier, where she still is today. “But we call ourselves from Adamant,” she says. “I live in Adamant or near Adamant.” “I live in the suburbs of Adamant,” Floersch says with a grin. MacLeod and Floersch are two of a handful of volunteers who, along with six part-time staffers, run the co-op, handling day-to-day clerking, stocking, bookkeeping, cooking and other duties. They also tend the post office — a “CPU,” or contract postal unit in government-speak — tucked into a corner of the store. About half of its

Adamant Co-op

107 PO boxes are in regular use. The store also serves as a mail drop, where the postmaster receives and sorts mail for the local route. Without the signage advertising “baked goods,” “fresh eggs,” “produce” and “lunch,” the cedar-shingled building — once a dormitory for quarry workers — could pass for a private home. Up a few steps, the front door opens to a single room, all battered wood floors and shelving stuffed with dry goods, cans and sundries. Along the front wall, jars hold Swedish Fish, gummy bears and Tootsie Rolls; a nearby table is set with coffee pots and more jars filled with scones, muffins and cookies. At the center of the room, a woodstove radiates heat toward two chairs — inviting customers and workers to sit a while — and the register, a few feet away. And so it has been, with variations on this theme since the co-op’s original members co-opted the store from a local shopkeeper at the height of the Great Depression. Adamant is home to a couple of old churches and a music school, but the store is the sole amenity offering essential services in a place that’s close to everything — less than eight miles from downtown Montpelier — but convenient to nothing. It’s one of those small towns where the village store is the beating heart of the village: a rushed stop for morning coffee or a bottle of wine on the way home; host to summer cookouts or brunches; the place to grab lunch while posting a letter or stack of bills. The store tells of an everyday history, punctuated by food. Fitting, then, that co-op members would compile house recipes — for ADAMANT APPETITE

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sIDEdishes

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O’maDDi’s Deli & caFé Dives intO Dinner service

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not — and a few wines by the glass. The plan is to keep things simple, at least to start: “We’re not starting off with a two-page-long menu. We’re going to do what we know,” Kaylan says. Both Sweets have worked in restaurants their entire adult lives; most recently, they split their time between their own business 197 NORTH WINOOSKI AVE. BURLINGTON and the Knotty Shamrock, 863-8278 • VISIT US ON FACEBOOK! OPEN TUES-SAT 5:30-9PM where Shaun cooked and Kaylan managed the front of the house. Nightly specials — perhaps incorporating customer suggestions — will enhance O’Maddi’s regular bill of fare. Kaylan says she hopes to offer breakfast all day AUTHENTIC, FRESH GREEK on Sundays, and perhaps & MEDITERRANEAN FOOD on other days once she and GYROS • PANINI • SALADS Shaun get into the swing of FALAFEL • BAKLAVA things. “I don’t want to bite BOSNIAN GRILLED SPECIALTIES off more than I can chew,” she says. “I’ve been in the ESPRESSO DRINKS • BEER & WINE restaurant business long enough to know better.” New Baklava Flavors: Still, the two have NUTELLA & MAPLE high hopes for their new endeavor. “There’s an op17 Park St • Essex Jct. • 878-9333 portunity here to grow our DINE IN OR TAKE OUT business,” Kaylan says, “but Tu-Th 11-8 • F & S 11-9 • Closed Sun & Mon Full menu www.cafemediterano.com this is really for the town. There’s still room for more No need to travel to Montréal, Boston or restaurants in Northfield, even Europe... we’re just minutes away! and we’ve got a lot of people rooting for us, which is 11/13/14 12:58 PM really cool. I can’t see it not12v-cafemeditarano111914.indd 1 going well.”

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FOOD 45

siDe Dishes

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The signature chef’s-choice tasting menu is no longer an option. On Sunday night, the sweet braised pork known as kakuni had all been sold. So goes SAN SAi JApANESE REStAuRANt’s march into eternity. A pair of signs posted on the host stand let diners know that this would probably be their final meal

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When the Knotty Shamrock shut down in August, it was Northfield’s third restaurant to close this year. JT’s Fries & Pies shuttered midsummer after less than a year in business, and Northfield Village Pizza served its final pie last winter. The spate of closures left the town’s 6,200 full-time residents — and Norwich University’s 2,500 students and staff — with few choices for a sit-down supper. Now, o’mADDi’S DEli & cAfé owners KAYlAN and ShAuN SwEEt hope that serving dinner at their sandwich stop, which has been a cornerstone of the town’s daytime dining since it opened in 2010, will help reinvigorate the local scene. “Northfield’s a really small town,” says Kaylan, “so there’s a huge void in the town for options right now, which in turn causes people to leave town.” O’Maddi’s will close this Sunday, October 18, so the staff can upgrade kitchen equipment, install draft lines and renovate the seating area for evening service. The Sweets say they plan to reopen on November 2. When they do, the café will supplement its more or less unchanged selection of sandwiches, wraps, salads and baked goods with twists on pub classics such as fries, wings and burgers — those last topped with mushrooms, onions and Swiss; or Florentine spinach and cheese. “It’ll be almost like we’re running two different businesses,” Kaylan says. “We’ll have our usual breakfastlunch deli, and then at 4 [p.m.] when the servers come on, we’ll do dinner and drinks.” She says O’Maddi’s will offer a handful of beers on draft — some local, some

Tarts at O’Maddi’s Deli & Café

cOurtesy OF O’maDDi’s Deli & caFé

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serving dinner tuesday - saturday 5:00 - 8:30pm closed sunday & monday

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sweet breads and muffins, empanadas, soups, and pot pies, along with their favored party dishes — into a cookbook to celebrate the store’s 80 years in business. Assembled over the course of a year, the Adamant Co-op Cookbook offers quintessential Vermont food, the kind cooked at home with common ingredients such as eggs and flour and garden produce, prepared with care and thought but little fuss. Many recipes are formatted to feed a crowd, a sweet reminder that one’s cooking often tastes best when it is shared among friends. Floersch — a columnist at Montpelier’s weekly newspaper the Bridge and a former editor of medical journals — stepped up to edit the book.

He solicited co-op members’ poetry, essays and vignettes. They set scenes of winter cats lying “so close to the woodstove it’s a wonder they don’t combust”; describe neighborly relations (“no matter the opinions or politics, we all feel obliged to help each other out”); or detail summer’s evanescent edibles: “the moment of chanterelles is now and may not come again.” The anecdotes ring familiar to anyone who’s spent much time in the hills north of the capital, and they imbue the recipes with a sense of place. MacLeod — a Rhode Island School of Design-trained artist whose studio is above the store — painted soups and produce, quiches and cakes, creating more than 100 illustrations to color the book. While members tested the

recipes in their home kitchens, she would perch at the end of a counter, watching and sketching, nibbling and chatting, grateful for the excuse to visit, she recalls. As the days shorten and truck toward year’s end, we’ve excerpted recipes from the book (along with their introductions) to match the season. All geared toward group cooking or dining, they could provide a day’s labor for one — or a ready opportunity to convene, cook and commune.

Apple Butter Richard Czaplinski’s apple butter recipe (below) comes from the book Putting Food By by Ruth Hertzberg, Beatrice Vaughan and Janet Greene, but he modified it a bit. The secret is boiling the apples in apple cider and using apples that seem to capture that tangy apple flavor. Cook about 5 quarts of apples, unpeeled and quartered with stems and blossom

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TANTALIZE YOUR TASTE BUDS

Peel the squash and cut into small pieces. Finely cut the onion. Peel the potato and cut into small pieces. Peel and cut the ginger. Open the coconut milk and put the thick cream into a pot; heat slowly. Add onion, ginger and curry; stir and let cook for about five minutes. Add squash; cook for about two minutes. Add remaining coconut milk, broth, aDamant appetite

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ends (and cores if you like) taken out, over low heat in several cups of apple cider. Process in a food mill. To the processed applesauce, add spices (about a tablespoon of cinnamon, about a half teaspoon of ground cloves, about a half teaspoon of ground allspice). You’ll need to experiment here to get the taste you like. Add some sugar to bring out flavor, but avoid making it too sweet (use much less than recipes usually call for). You’ll need to experiment here, too. Simmer over low heat for two hours or more. The butter will get thick and take on a darker color. It will splatter as bubbles pop, so be careful. You’ll need to stir the butter frequently so the bottom does not scorch. Put butter in jars (leave plenty of room, as the butter will expand some in

1 pound butternut squash 1 onion 1 potato 1 walnut-size piece of ginger 1 can of coconut milk (400 grams/14 ounces) 2 teaspoons red curry paste (or 2 tablespoons curry powder) 14 ounces vegetable broth Salt

to order today.

SEVENDAYSVt.com

Butternut squash has a rich, nutty taste and is a “must-have” ingredient in the autumn and winter kitchen. This hearty and soul-warming soup is not only a great winter favorite but is also very popular during the holiday season. Imagine coming home, after a long snowshoe hike in the woods, to the mouthwatering aromas of squash and ginger.

802.540.8388

Adamant Appetite « p.47 cOurtesy OF aDamant cO-Op

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NEIGHBO

Great Food Deserves Great Music WED. 10/14 AL TEODOSIO & TOM FRINK *$5 GLASSES OF WINE 7PM THU. 10/15 “GRAVEL” JAZZ TRIO 7PM SAT. 10/17 PAUL ASBELL & JOHN STOWELL 7PM

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OPEN EVERYDAY • LUNCH 11AM-5PM DINNER 5PM-CLOSE • SUNDAY BRUNCH 10AM-5PM 802-489-5699 • 131 MAIN STREET, BURLINGTON

potato and salt. Cook until vegetables are soft (about 20 minutes). Purée and season to taste. Guests coming over? Garnish soup with roasted pumpkin seeds or a few dribbles of pumpkin-seed oil. Wine pairing: Enjoy this soup with a good dry Riesling.

Red Flannel Hash As made for the harvest supper at the Adamant United Methodist Church. We got this recipe from Kathi Doner and have modified it somewhat. It should feed at least 20 people — in any event, it fills a large roasting pan. You can use either ham or corned beef. We used ham for the harvest supper the last few years. 4 pounds corned beef or ham 6 quarts potatoes, peeled and quartered 2 pounds onions, peeled and quartered 4 pounds carrots, cut into 3-inch pieces 1 to 2 heads of cabbage 2 turnips, peeled and quartered (optional) Beets Bake or boil the beef or ham for about 30 minutes (until tender). Reserve

the broth and cook potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage and turnips until tender. Reserve liquid. Boil beets separately. Grind everything together. Add reserved liquid if too dry. No salt or pepper should be necessary. If you make this dish one day ahead of serving it, the flavors will blend together nicely. Just remember that it will take about two hours to warm it properly. Warm it to 250 to 300ºF so the beets won’t bleed. m Contact: hannah@sevendaysvt.com

INFo The Adamant Co-op Cookbook is available at the adamant co-op, morse Farm maple sugarworks in east montpelier, and the capitol region Visitors center and Hunger mountain co-op, both in montpelier. $30. On saturday, October 24, at 5:30 p.m., adamant co-op will host a dinner gala and auction at the adamant community club. $25. Info, 223-5760. adamant village.com

more food after the classifieds section. page 49

more food before the classifieds section.

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food+drink

sIDEdishes

Bikers welcome, spandex or leather.

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South End Kitchen

Russo said that for the moment, with only one restaurant to focus on, “We have more free rein” at Bento. That means he’ll have room to experiment, filling the signature segmented lunch boxes with new dishes. In its farewell weekend, San Sai was uncommonly packed to the (raw) gills. That level of traffic is nothing new for the Pine Street parking lot at South END KitchEN, which we’ve seldom seen not packed during its nearly two years in business. Nonetheless, LAKE chAmpLAiN chocoLAtES

Ride hard.

221 Main Street, Vergennes ■ 3squarescafe.com ■ 802-877-2772 6h-3squares093015.indd 1

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The leaves are falling, and so are prices!

20% OFF

Excluding Limited Editions, can’t be combined with other offers.

October 13 – October 19

—A.L.

SEVEN DAYS

ANYTHING WITH A LEAF ON IT

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Jewelry • Home Goods • Holiday & Much More!

coNNEct Follow us on twitter for the latest food gossip! Alice Levitt: @aliceeats, and hannah palmer Egan: @findthathannah

Middlebury Workshop & Store 52 Seymour Street & 46 Main Street

Burlington 111 Church Street

Waterbury Cabot Annex 2653 Waterbury-Stowe

Woodstock 9 Central Street

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will pull the plug on its short-lived café on December 20. In a press release, LCC owner and founder Jim LAmpmAN said, “The South End Kitchen has been a place to savor fresh, seasonal fare, a place to connect over a shared love of food and a place for our customers to have a deeper experience with chocolate. Unfortunately, operating this complex, dynamic and risky venture took focus off of our core business making chocolate lovers across the nation

Let us serve you.

SEVENDAYSVt.com

at Burlington’s lakeside sushi spot. San Sai will close after four and a half years on Sunday, October 18. A letter addressed to “all of our valued and loyal customers” asked guests to leave their email addresses so they might be informed of “what happens with the crew from San Sai next.” In closing, the note stated, “We hope to be seeing you and serving you delicious food again very soon.” Co-owner chriS ruSSo explained to Seven Days that the restaurant’s five-year lease is up in November. Rather than sign another one, committing to another half decade, co-owner KAzutoShi “miKE” mAEDA decided to look elsewhere. “The winter is long. You make your money in the summer and lose it in the winter,” Russo said of his waterfront location. According to Russo, Maeda is on the lookout for a new space, still downtown. Russo is not sure yet if he’ll join his mentor in the business. For now, he will continue to run his more casual sushi business, BENto, on College Street.

absolutely crazy for our caramels, chocolate bars, truffles and more.” Contacted last week, mEghAN FitzpAtricK of LCC media relations and PR explained that the company will keep the 8,500-square-foot building in the family. Offices that are currently in the LCC building next door will move into the SEK space, allowing the LCC production and retail spaces to restructure as they extend into the former office area. Fitzpatrick said that when that process begins, in 18 to 24 months, customers can expect a new and improved experience at the factory store. “We get 200,000 people coming in for tours every year, so we’re trying to make it work a little better,” she explained. Beginning on October 19, SEK hours will be scaled back, with lunch and dinner served Wednesday through Saturday, along with brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Classes will also continue until the December closure. Fitzpatrick said that LCC will work closely with SEK employees to find them employment within the company or elsewhere. Lovers of the café’s doughnuts and sundaes, however, will be left with a hole in their hearts — and stomachs.

Senior Cuisine

At Westview Meadows at Montpelier, a chef serves elders gourmet grub B y Al ic e Lev i t t

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Bill Koucky visiting with residents in the dining room

photos: matthew thorsen

SEVENDAYSvt.com

t a BYOB hot spot in Montpelier, the bacon, ham and pastrami are all cured and smoked in-house. Whole local animals are butchered on-site. Chef Bill Koucky wildcrafts fiddleheads, wild leeks and chanterelles himself. With attractions like that, it’s no surprise the spot is exclusive. In fact, Koucky (pronounced KOOSEkee) serves only 60 people daily. And they’re the same people, because they live there. Koucky is the chef at Westview Meadows at Montpelier, a senior residence just outside of downtown. Westview residents aren’t the only Vermonters enjoying exceptional cuisine in their golden years. The trend started in 2006, when Kathy King, director of dining services at Shelburne’s Wake Robin, enrolled that senior community in the Vermont Fresh Network. Today, the Arbors at Shelburne, Cathedral Square Senior Living in Burlington and EastView at Middlebury are all Fresh Network members. Most of the chefs in charge of those dining rooms graduated from the New England Culinary Institute, and many boast impressive résumés. King was the executive chef at Windham Hill Inn in West Townshend before she took her position at Wake Robin. David Merrill of EastView spent 19 years as executive chef at the resolutely upscale Basin Harbor Club in Vergennes. He left a job at Middlebury College last December for the senior center at the suggestion of Café Provence chef-owner Robert Barral. But Koucky, who has taken fromscratch cooking to the extreme at Westview Meadows since he arrived there four years ago, has particularly shining credentials. In 1996 he left Boston, where he had made a name for himself in restaurants such as Todd English’s Olives, to become a chefinstructor at NECI. For his final seven years at the school, Koucky taught in the popular meat fabrication kitchen. “I was overqualified when I started,” Koucky wildly understates as he describes his debut at Westview. But he wanted a job less stressful than

It would be awful if everyone just said,

“Mac and cheese for you for the rest of your life!” Ma r i a l i sa Ca lta

restaurant work, one that would allow him more time with his kids. “At my stage in life, I thought it was important,” he says of scaling back. What he didn’t expect were the challenges he’d face. On Koucky’s first evening on the job, the other cook took a bag out of the freezer — pot roast. “What do I do?” Koucky asked. “Just heat it up,” he was instructed.

Bacon from the smoker

Housemade pickles

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Contact: alice@sevendaysvt.com

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Potato latkes

“It would be awful if everyone just said, ‘Mac and cheese for you for the rest of your life!’” While spending one’s dotage at Westview isn’t exactly a budget option, it’s still a surprise to sit down in the dining room and encounter a tender, pink veal rib eye with porcinisherry sauce on one night, or beef tenderloin with lobster just a few days later. The key to that apparent largesse is using whole animals, Koucky explains. When he buys a side of beef, he notes, the filet mignon costs him no more than the chuck that gets ground into potential burgers and meatloaves. The half cow carries his staff of three cooks through six weeks of meals. That veal rib eye came from a whole calf from PT Farm — and it’s uncommonly juicy because the animal was free-range, the chef explains.

Koucky gets his pork from PT Farm, too. “I call them Thursday, and they slaughter the pig Monday and I get it Tuesday,” he says. So begins a process that engages the whole residential community. Once meats emerge from a brine sweetened with Cold Hollow Cider Mill cider, the chef pops them in the smoker. Built by Westview maintenance man Chuck Meeks using an old refrigerator, the smoker can fit as much as 60 pounds of ham and bacon in one shot. Residents always comment on the resulting smells, says Koucky. Some of that meat appears at the buffet brunches served every Sunday, some on the dinner table. On a Tuesday night, we sampled a chicken Cordon Bleu stuffed with smoky ham that we would never have guessed was carefully prepared with low sodium content for better heart health. We tasted only the sweet smoke of the thinly sliced pig flesh, wadded into a Misty Knoll Farms chicken breast almost tightly enough to burst it. In fact, all of Koucky’s cuisine uses less salt than commercial kitchens do. But the flavors don’t suffer. Cream of garlic soup tastes of cream and garlic, not salt. The chef prepares lower-salt pickles and cans vast jars of carawayspeckled sauerkraut. A recent antipasto plate featured smoked, pickled tomatoes alongside colorful pickled peppers, olives, smoked Gouda and lamb capicola, the fat of which melted on the tongue. Koucky is right to declare that many of his entrées would go for $40 a plate in his old Boston stomping grounds. But he admits that one of his greatest challenges is “riding the keel of not breaking culinary boundaries.” In other words, it’s not his role to teach old dogs new tricks. For instance, as much as it pains him to serve Russian dressing, he says, he makes it from scratch because residents want it on their green salads. He’s also learned not to push too far. “My first Easter here, I put rabbit on the menu,” he remembers with a laugh. “That was not received well at all. I called it bunny, too.” In four years at Westview, Koucky says the most important thing he’s learned is to keep his already-rustic cooking style simple and fresh. “I want to honor their past by serving whole food with real ingredients,” he says. That means that if the kitchen runs out of lettuce from primary supplier Littlewood Farm, he’ll run home and get some from his own garden. “I want to honor their sophistication.” With a clientele whose loyalty will last the rest of their lives, Koucky has plenty of exquisite meals ahead of him. m

SEVENDAYSvt.com

While Westview is hardly a downscale senior living option — current residents include accomplished people such as Bridge to Terabithia author Katherine Paterson — use of such processed foods is routine in institutional dining. When Koucky showed up, he remembers, the kitchen was already $6,000 over budget for the year. He told his boss, executive director Dawn Provost, that he could eliminate that debt in three months. “We ended that first year $2,000 under budget just by buying bags of flour and whole chickens instead of Tyson chicken fingers,” he recalls. “By making my own bread and butchering, we’ve saved a lot of money.” With those savings, Koucky was able to buy all local meats — and earn “an appropriate salary.” Provost says Koucky actually saved Westview more than the figure he mentions, but she prefers not to specify how much. In any case, Provost says, she’s most impressed by how the chef has contributed to the well-being of Westview’s residents. “We know that in eating well and being well taken care of, there’s longevity,” the director explains. Despite the active lifestyle at Westview, most new residents gain about 10 pounds when they arrive, Provost notes. For those concerned about the bulge, Koucky’s fresh-baked breads and rolls are a mixed blessing. Others, who relied on a diet of Lean Cuisine when they lived on their own, need the extra weight. Either way, Provost says, residents’ family members who marvel at their loved ones’ longevity often make specific mention of the meals as a factor. One of those family members knows her way around good cuisine: food writer and public relations specialist Marialisa Calta. Her mother has lived at Westview for four years, first in independent living, now in residential care following a stroke. The latter plan comes with breakfast, lunch and dinner, while independent living residents only eat dinner in the dining room overlooking the Montpelier hills. Calta dines with her mother once or twice a week at Westview, she says. Her recent favorite dishes have included a preparation of lamb two ways, including a grilled rib and a slice of leg served with chanterelles. She also raves about housemade lamb sausage served with barley pilaf and Swiss chard. “I’ve had some incredible, memorable meals there,” Calta says. And sophisticated ones. Dinners are three-course affairs, served by uniformed staff. “He does not infantilize the audience. He’s not cooking down to them,” Calta says of Koucky.

calendar 1 4 - 2 1 ,

WED.14 business

PAID FAMILY & MEDICAL LEAVE FORUM: A discussion outlines the mechanics of developing a staterun Temporary Disability and Caregiver Insurance program to fund employee time off. Woodstock Town Hall Theatre, 8-9:30 a.m. Free; preregister. Info, ashley@mainstreetalliance.org.

comedy

IMPROV-ING MEDIATION IN VERMONT: Instructors from the Vermont Comedy Club head a session on conflict resolution that is part workshop, part discussion and part performance. Morgan Room, Aiken Hall, Champlain College, Burlington, 5 p.m. Free. Info, 863-2345.

community

FOSTER CARE OPEN HOUSE: Potential foster parents and weekend buddies learn the ins and outs of caring for six children ages 4 through 18. Howard Center, Burlington, 5:30-7 p.m. Free. Info, 488-6742. LAKE CHAMPLAIN & SARANAC RIVER WATERFRONT PLAN PUBLIC EVENT: A series of storyboards depict the conditions along Plattsburgh’s lakefront and riverfront at an open house event where participants vote on a vision for the region. May Currier Park Building, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 11 a.m.7 p.m. Free. Info, 518-562-5800. MEN’S GROUP: A supportive environment encourages socializing and involvement in senior center activities. Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 1011:30 a.m. Free. Info, 223-2518.

10.14.15-10.21.15

PUBLIC HEARING: Locals gather to comment on the state’s transportation policy and the possible legalization of marijuana. Rockingham Town Hall, Bellows Falls, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 828-2942.

conferences

INVESTING IN THE NEW ECONOMY: INVESTMENTS FOR THE SAKE OF CLIMATE & COMMUNITY: Personal stories balance expert-led discussions on practical financial strategies in light of global warming. Chase Community Center, Vermont Law School, South Royalton, 2-6:30 p.m. $10. Info, 498-8438.

crafts

GREEN MOUNTAIN CHAPTER OF THE EMBROIDERERS’ GUILD OF AMERICA: Needleand-thread enthusiasts gather to work on current

projects. Living/Dining Room, Pines Senior Living Community, South Burlington, 9:30 a.m. Free; bring a bag lunch. Info, 372-4255.

dance

AFROLATIN PARTY: Dancers ages 18 and up get down to the kizomba, kuduro and kompa with DsantosVT. Zen Lounge, Burlington, lesson, 7-8 p.m.; party, 8-10 p.m. $6-12; free for party. Info, 227-2572. DROP-IN HIP-HOP DANCE: Beginners are welcome at a groove session inspired by infectious beats. Swan Dojo, Burlington, 6-7:30 p.m. $13. Info, 540-8300. SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCING: Jigs, reels and strathspeys for all ability levels exercise the body and the mind. Bring water and soft-soled shoes. Union Elementary School, Montpelier, 7-9 p.m. $7.50. Info, 879-7618. ‘UNTIL THE GOLDEN TIDES’: New works by Scotty Hardwig and Molly Heller explore everything from struggle, resistance, hope and faith to Dylan Thomas’ poetic process. Dance Theatre, Mahaney Center for the Arts, Middlebury College, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 443-3168.

SEVEN DAYS

Miniature Proportions Flanked by a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man figurine and abstract artwork, Derek “Deek” Diedricksen gives a spirited introduction to his YouTube channel relaxshacksDOTcom. It’s clear from the beginning that Diedricksen is not your average home builder, and his buildings are not your average homes. A video montage of his work shows compact structures that, from the outside, could be mistaken for sheds. The interiors, however, boast many of the comforts of full-size homes — kitchens, couches, storage space and even stylish interior decorating. The host of HGTV’s “Tiny House Builders” makes two stops in the Green Mountain State to discuss his book, Microshelters: 59 Creative Cabins, Tiny Houses, Tree Houses and Other Small Structures.

DEREK ‘DEEK’ DIEDRICKSEN

environment

‘THE YIN AND YANG OF CLIMATE CRISIS’ BOOK LAUNCH: Western environmentalism meets Chinese medicine in Brendan Kelly’s new title, available for purchase and signing. Shelburne Farms, 6-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 985-8686.

Saturday, October 17, 2 p.m., at Phoenix Books Burlington. $3. Info, 448-3350. phoenixbooks.biz; and Sunday, October 18, 11:30 a.m., at Bear Pond Books in Montpelier. Free. Info, 229-0774. bearpondbooks.com.

etc.

GHOSTWALK: SPOOKY IN WINOOSKI HAUNTED BUS TOUR: Ghosts and Legends of Lake Champlain author Thea Lewis leads an excursion to the Onion City’s creepiest sites. Meet 10 minutes before the start time. Gardener’s Supply Company, Burlington, 7 p.m. $29; preregister; limited space. Info, 863-5966. TECH HELP WITH CLIF: Folks develop skill sets applicable to smartphones, tablets and other gadgets. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, noon-1 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 878-6955. TURNON BURLINGTON: Communication games encourage participants to push past comfort zones and experience deep connections. OneTaste Burlington, 7:30-8:30 p.m. $10. Info, cj@onetasteburlington.us. VALLEY NIGHT: Ragged Company provide the soundtrack for a weekly bash with craft ales and movies. Big Picture Theater and Café, Waitsfield, 7:30-10 p.m. $5. Info, 496-8994.

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List your upcoming event here for free! SUBMISSION DEADLINES: ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY THURSDAY AT NOON FOR CONSIDERATION IN THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY’S NEWSPAPER. FIND OUR CONVENIENT FORM AND GUIDELINES AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTEVENT. YOU CAN ALSO EMAIL US AT CALENDAR@SEVENDAYSVT.COM. TO BE LISTED, YOU MUST INCLUDE THE NAME OF EVENT, A BRIEF DESCRIPTION, SPECIFIC LOCATION, TIME, COST AND CONTACT PHONE NUMBER.

52 CALENDAR

OCT.17 & 18 | TALKS

CALENDAR EVENTS IN SEVEN DAYS: LISTINGS AND SPOTLIGHTS ARE WRITTEN BY KRISTEN RAVIN. SEVEN DAYS EDITS FOR SPACE AND STYLE. DEPENDING ON COST AND OTHER FACTORS, CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS MAY BE LISTED IN EITHER THE CALENDAR OR THE CLASSES SECTION. WHEN APPROPRIATE, CLASS ORGANIZERS MAY BE ASKED TO PURCHASE A CLASS LISTING.

OCT.17 | OUTDOORS Roll Out It’s that time of year when Burlington is bursting with brilliant hues and seasonal spirit. What better way to get your leaf peeping on than by donning your most dashing duds and hitting the road for the fifth annual Herringbone Tweed Ride? This themed bike tour is a sartorial celebration of history and nostalgia, in which debonair dames and dandies get gussied up in their best — you guessed it — tweed attire for a slow-paced excursion through the Queen City. Socializing trumps speed on this ride, and pit stops are aplenty. Historic landmarks, handwarming hot cider, fancy cocktails and stories by local bicycle historian Luis Vivanco punctuate this two-wheeled tribute to days gone by.

HERRINGBONE TWEED RIDE Saturday, October 17, noon, at Scout & Co. in Burlington. Free. Info, 343-1218.

COURTESY OF DUSTIN DIEDRICKSEN

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

PEER SUPPORT CIRCLE: Participants converse freely in a confidential space without giving advice or solving problems. The Wellness Co-op, Burlington, 5-6 p.m. Free. Info, 777-8602.

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COURTESY OF DUSTIN DIEDRICKSEN

O C T O B E R

Stage to Screen When tickets for National Theatre’s Hamlet went on sale, the show’s entire run sold out in minutes, making it the fastest-selling production in the history of London theater. What sparked the frenzy over Shakespeare’s royal tragedy, written more than 400 years ago? One possible answer is its leading man, Benedict Cumberbatch. The Academy Awardnominated star of The Imitation Game and the BBC’s “Sherlock” has the role of the thinking-woman’s heartthrob on lockdown. So-called “Cumberbabes” on this side of the pond get their chance to see the Englishman in action when the play is broadcast live from London’s Barbican to area theaters.

SUICIDEGIRLS: BLACKHEART BURLESQUE Friday, October 16, 9 p.m., at Higher Ground Ballroom in Burlington. $25-85. Info, 877-987-6487. highergroundmusic.com

COURTESY OF JOHAN PERSSON

tar Wars meets sex appeal in an unlikely event at Friday’s Blackheart Burlesque. SuicideGirls, an online community known for touting alternative beauty — think NSFW videos and photos of babes with tattoos, piercings and wildly colored hair — present a one-of-a-kind stage show. References to The Legend of Zelda, A Clockwork Orange and other so-called uncool classics complement world-class choreography by Beyoncé collaborator Manwe Sauls-Addison for maximum entertainment. Gather your geek squad and head to Burlington’s Higher Ground Ballroom for the rhythmic romp Vice magazine calls “a sort of Comicon meets burlesque nerd orgy.”

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE Thursday, October 15, 2 & 7 p.m., at Middlebury Town Hall Theater. $10-17. Info, 383-9222. townhalltheater.org; 2 & 7 p.m. at Palace 9 Cinemas in South Burlington. $18. Info, 863-5966. flynntix.org; 7 p.m. at Catamount Arts Center in St. Johnsbury. $16-25. Info, 748-2600. catamountarts.org; and 7 p.m. at Loew Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H. SOLD OUT. $10-23. Info, 603-646-2422. hop.dartmouth.edu.

COURTESY OF DEREK BREMNER

OCT.16 | THEATER

OCT.15 | THEATER

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Sweet Dweebs

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calendar

Contemporary Documentaries of Japan: ‘Children of the Woods’: A four-part series spotlights films from across the Pacific. Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center, Middlebury College, 8-10 p.m. Free. Info, 443-5000. ‘Hands in the Dirt’: A collaborative cultivation project between senior citizens and the Vermont Community Garden Network blooms in this documentary film. Charlie Nardozzi offers opening remarks. Black Box Theater, Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $18; cash bar. Info, 861-4769. ‘Living in the Age of Airplanes’: Stunning aerial shots and narration by Harrison Ford propel this 2D and 3D salute to the marvels of modern air travel. Northfield Savings Bank Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 10:45 & 11:45 a.m. & 12:45, 1:45, 2:45 & 3:45 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $10.50-13.50; free for kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848. ‘Stray Dog’: A Vietnam veteran who loves motorcycles and pooches is the subject of this 2014 documentary. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 748-2600.

food & drink

Barre Farmers Market: Crafters, bakers and farmers share their goods. Vermont Granite Museum, Barre, 3-7 p.m. Free. Info, 505-8437.

SEVENDAYSvt.com 10.14.15-10.21.15 SEVEN DAYS 54 CALENDAR

games

Bridge Club: Strategic players have fun with the popular card game. Burlington Bridge Club, Williston, 9:15 a.m. & 1:30 p.m. $6. Info, 872-5722. Dungeons & Dragons Night: Quick thinkers 14 and up, grouped by age, rely on invented personas to face challenges and defeat enemies. Burnham Memorial Library, Colchester, 5:30-7:45 p.m. Free. Info, 264-5660.

health & fitness

Body Love Yoga Series: The transformative power of mindfulness cultivates radical body love in a three-part series with Brandy Oswald. Sangha Studio, Burlington, 6-7:30 p.m. $15-19. Info, 448-4262. Drop-In Gentle Hatha Yoga: Guided by breath, students rest, restore and rejuvenate in a sequence of slow movements. Bring a personal mat. Burnham Memorial Library, Colchester, 4:30-5:30 p.m. Free. Info, 264-5660.

R.I.P.P.E.D.: Resistance, intervals, power, plyometrics, endurance and diet define this high-intensity physical-fitness program. North End Studio A, Burlington, 6-7 p.m. $10. Info, 578-9243. Recovery Community Yoga: A stretching session for all ability levels builds physical and mental strength to support healing. Turning Point Center, Burlington, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 861-3150.

‘The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God’: Sensuous choreography and a soaring soundscape support Djanet Sears’ play rooted in African storytelling traditions. Centaur Theatre, Montréal, 8 p.m. $25-53.50. Info, 514-288-3161. ‘Funny Girl’: A romance with a gambling man interrupts a sassy songstress’ quest for stardom in this Peter Hinton-directed play. Segal Centre for Performing Arts, Montréal, 1 & 8 p.m. $32-64; $2759 for groups. Info, 514-739-7944. ‘Province’: It’s every man for himself in a Centaur Theatre drama examining humanity’s commitment to individuality and the environmental destruction that ensues. Centaur Theatre, Montréal, 8:30 p.m. $15-28. Info, 514-288-3161. ‘State of Denial’: A fictional Teesri Duniya Theatre production set in present-day Canada and 20th-century Turkey links the Armenian and Rwandan genocides. Studio. Segal Centre for Performing Arts, Montréal, 1 & 8 p.m. $32-64. Info, 514-739-7944.

Wednesday Night Sound Meditation: The sacred tones |L am is aL ar of Tibetan singing bowls, gong, am FP pan YO music S E T e didgeridoo and drum send participants l li | C O U R on a journey exploring body, heart and soul. Fiddle Jam: Acoustic players catch up at The Wellness Collective, Burlington, 7-8:30 p.m. a bow-and-string session. Godnick Adult Center, Donations. Info, 540-0186. Rutland, 7:15-9:15 p.m. Donations. Info, 775-1182. dy

Wine Tasting: Oenophiles are in a frenzy over samples of French rosé. Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe, 4-6 p.m. $20; preregister. Info, 253-5742.

Push-ups in the Park: Fitness fanatics get a sweat on at a fast and furious workout that benefits local charities. Oakledge Park, Burlington, 6-7 a.m. $5-15. Info, 658-0949.

montréal

Sun to Cheese Tour: Fromage lovers go behind the scenes and follow award-winning farmhouse cheddar from raw milk to finished product. Shelburne Farms, 1:45-3:45 p.m. $15 includes a block of cheese. Info, 985-8686.

Outdoor Backyard Boot Camp: Ma’am, yes, ma’am! An exercise expert helps folks increase strength, energy and agility. Call for details. Private residence, Middlebury, 7-8 a.m. $10. Info, 343-7160.

Beginner English Language Class: Students build a foundation in reading, speaking and writing. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

Rutland County Farmers Market: Downtown strollers find high-quality produce, fresh-cut flowers and artisan crafts within arms’ reach. Depot Park, Rutland, 2-6 p.m. Free. Info, 773-4813 or 753-7269.

Nia With Linda: World music and movements drawn from martial, dance and healing arts invite participants to find their own paths to fitness. South End Studio, Burlington, 8:30 a.m. $14. Info, 372-1721.

language

15 |

Newport Farmers Market: Pickles, meats, eggs, fruits, veggies, herbs and baked goods are a small sampling of the seasonal bounty. Causeway, Newport, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 274-8206.

Mindfulness Class: Dogma-free meditative techniques lead to peace, joy and freedom. Exquisite Mind Studio, Burlington, 6-7:30 p.m. $5-20. Info, 735-2265.

Young Adult Book Club: Fiction fans read between the lines in a discussion of Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. East Montpelier Room, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier, 6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

THU.

Middlebury Farmers Market: Crafts, cheeses, breads, veggies and more vie for spots in shoppers’ totes. The Marbleworks, Middlebury, 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free. Info, 377-2980.

Mindful Workweeks: Wednesday Night Meditation: Give your brain a break at a midweek “om” session followed by tea and conversation. Milarepa Center, Barnet, 7-8 p.m. Donations. Info, 633-4136.

film

Insight Meditation: Attendees deepen their understanding of Buddhist principles and practices. Wellspring Mental Health and Wellness Center, Hardwick, 5:30-7 p.m. Free. Info, 472-6694.

Story Time for 3- to 5-Year-Olds: Preschoolers stretch their reading skills through activities involving puppets and books. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 10-10:45 a.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

eat

Festival of Tibetan Arts & Culture of the Adirondack Coast: Mountain Lake PBS presents an ongoing celebration of traditional art, dance, music and culture. See mountainlake.org for details. Various Plattsburgh locations. Prices vary. Info, 518-563-9770.

Story Time & Playgroup: Engrossing plots unfold into activities for kids up to age 6 and their grown-ups. Jaquith Public Library, Marshfield, 1011:30 p.m. Free. Info, 426-3581.

fairs & festivals

Eating Well on a Budget for Families: A weekly workshop with Frances Fleming of the UVM Extension highlights ways to save and get healthy. Community Room, Hunger Mountain Coop, Montpelier, 5:30-7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 223-8000, ext. 202.

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Zumba: Lively Latin rhythms fuel this dancefitness phenomenon for all experience levels. Vergennes Opera House, 6-7 p.m. $10. Info, 349-0026.

Singers & Players of Instruments: Musicians of all levels bring voices and gear to meet and mingle with fellow performers. The Wellness Co-op, Burlington, 5-6 p.m. Free. Info, 999-7373.

kids

outdoors

DCF Book Club: Eager readers in fourth grade and above voice opinions about Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award winner The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye. St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 1-2 p.m. Free. Info, 748-8291. Lego Club: Youngsters ages 6 and up snap together snazzy structures. Fairfax Community Library, 3-4 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 849-2420. Music & Movement Story Time: Wee ones get the wiggles out with songs and narratives. Highgate Public Library, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 868-3970. One-on-One Tutoring: First through sixth graders get extra help in reading, math and science. Burnham Memorial Library, Colchester, 3:30-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 264-5660. ‘Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure’: A dolichorhynchops braves history’s most dangerous oceans in a National Geographic Studios 2D and 3D movie. Northfield Savings Bank Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 10:45 & 11:45 a.m. & 12:45, 1:45, 2:45 & 3:45 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $10.50-13.50; free for kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

talks

Barry Genzlinger: “Going to Bat for Bats: Ten Questions” sheds light on the after-dark fliers. Carpenter-Carse Library, Hinesburg, 6:30 p.m. Free. Info, gmas@greenmountainaudubon.org. Brian Lindner: Wreckage from Vermont’s most famous avian disaster is on view at the talk “The History of the Camels Hump Bomber Crash.” Vermont State Archives & Records Administration, Middlesex, 6-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 828-2308. Jason Smiley: Occult enthusiasts are enchanted as the presenter lifts the veil on a mystical clan in “The Devil’s Cabinet: The Famous Eddy Family of Spirit Mediums.” Fletcher Historical Society, 7-8 p.m. Free. Info, birchpond@compuserve.com. Johnson State College Free Speaker Series: Castleton University’s Joel Lombard gets bonedeep in “The Potential Role of MCP-1 in Skeletal Muscle Myoblast and Skeletal Muscle Injury.” Bentley Hall, Johnson State College, 4-5:15 p.m. Free. Info, 635-1327. Ricardo de Urrutia: The University of Havana graduate shares his perspective on the United States’ relationship with the island nation in “Cuba: A Perspective From a Cuban.” Charlotte Senior Center, 7-8 p.m. Free. Info, 238-0663.

theater

‘Gruesome Playground Injuries’: Physical scars map the history between two childhood friends in Rajiv Joseph’s drama staged by Lost Nation Theater. Montpelier City Hall Auditorium, 7 p.m. $10-20. Info, 229-0492. ‘Our Town’: A young couple fall in love, marry and build their lives in New England in Northern Stage’s production of Thornton Wilder’s iconic play. Byrne Theater, Barrette Center for the Arts, White River Junction, 10 a.m. & 7:30 p.m. $15-55. Info, 296-7000. ‘Tribes’: Billy was born deaf to a family that hears but doesn’t listen in this Vermont Stage production. FlynnSpace, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $28-37.50. Info, 863-5966.

words

Book Discussion: ‘Influential First Ladies’: Jean H. Baker’s Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography inspires lively discussion among nonfiction fans. South Burlington Community Library, 6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 652-7076. Short Fiction Workshop: Readers give feedback on stories penned by Burlington Writers Workshop members. 22 Church St., Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free; preregister at meetup.com; limited space. Info, 383-8104.

Great Vermont Corn Maze: With a new design every year, this labyrinth presents a fresh challenge for fall-time revelers. Danville, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. $1015; free for kids 4 and under. Info, 748-1399.

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seminars

Domestic Violence Awareness Month: The Clothesline Project: Statistics foster awareness of domestic abuse survivors in the community. Campus Green, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Free. Info, 658-3131.

60-Minute Experience: Quest for Fire: Sparks fly as folks of all ages observe various methods for igniting flames. Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, 2-2:40 p.m. $10-15; includes museum admission; preregister. Info, 475-2022. Lunch & Learn: ‘Hubbardton Forge: History & Design Concepts’: Lifelong learners take notes on the design and manufacturing process of the site over a bag lunch. Hinge, Burlington, noon-1 p.m. Free. Info, 923-3088.

sports

Women’s Pickup Basketball: Drive to the hoop! Ladies dribble up and down the court during an evening of friendly competition. See meetup. com for details. Lyman C. Hunt Middle School, Burlington, 7:30-9 p.m. Free. Info, carmengeorgevt@gmail.com.

activism

art

Sip Studio Painting Class: Participants tap into their inner artists through themed workshops in a relaxing atmosphere. Stowe Inn and Tavern, 6-9 p.m. $25; $45 per pair; preregister. Info, 253-4030.

business

Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility Networking Get-Together: Like-minded professionals merge to discuss employee well-being and management. The Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $10; free for members and state officials. Info, 862-8347.

comedy

Lisa Lampanelli: Comedy’s Queen of Mean brings her raunchy routine to the stage as part of her Leaner Meaner Tour. Paramount Theatre, Rutland, 8 p.m. $39.50-59.50. Info, 775-0903.

LIST YOUR EVENT FOR FREE AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTEVENT

community

FRANKLIN COUNTY REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MIXER: Friends and colleagues catch up in a relaxed environment while learning about current community projects. The Traveled Cup, St. Albans, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $5-8; preregister. Info, 524-2444. LAKE CHAMPLAIN & SARANAC RIVER WATERFRONT PLAN PUBLIC EVENT: See WED.14, Cumberland Head Fire Department, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. Info, 518-562-5800. LAKE CHAMPLAIN COMMITTEE ANNUAL MEETING: Community members come together for light fare, updates on the committee’s work and a presentation on the state of the lake. Chef’s Corner South End, Burlington, 6-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 658-1414. LEGISLATIVE NETWORKING EVENT: Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce members mix and mingle with Vermont lawmakers over food and drink. Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education, Shelburne Museum, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $1220. Info, 863-3489, ext. 208. M.A.G.I.C.: MASCULINITY AND GENDER IDENTITY CONVERSATION: Folks of any and all gender identities convene for a casual discussion of topics ranging from inequality to language and media to food. The Wellness Co-op, Burlington, 2-3 p.m. Free. Info, 370-5369. PUBLIC HEARING: See WED.14, Northeastern Vermont Development Association, St. Johnsbury, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 828-2942. THIRD THURSDAY MIXER: SOUND: HOW WE HEAR THE WORLD: Artists, engineers and entrepreneurs exchange ideas and create connections at a themed event. Generator, Burlington, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 540-0761. WATERFRONT ‘WORK-IN-PROGRESS’ PRESENTATION: A presentation outlines the ideas generated during two days of community conversations on the conditions along Plattsburgh’s lakefront. Cumberland Head Fire Department, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 6 p.m. Free. Info, 518-562-5800.

conferences

‘THE PHILOSOPHY OF JOHN DEWEY’: History buffs fête the Burlington-born educational theorist with two days of public presentations and conversations. Withey Hall, Green Mountain College, Poultney, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. Info, fesmires@ greenmtn.edu.

IT ONLY HURTS WHEN I CRAFT: Adults transform upcycled and unconventional materials into oneof-a-kind creations. Swanton Public Library, 6 p.m. Free. Info, swantonartscouncil@gmail.com.

dance

SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCING: See WED.14.

education

environment

etc.

GHOSTWALK: SPOOKY IN WINOOSKI HAUNTED BUS TOUR: See WED.14.

film

CASTLETON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: Movie lovers feast their eyes on a diverse lineup of foreign cinema. See castleton.edu for details. Herrick Auditorium, Castleton College, 6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 800-639-8521. KICKSTARTER FILM FESTIVAL: Cinephiles sit in for a series of shorts and features. Big Picture Theater and Café, Waitsfield, 7-10 p.m. Free. Info, 496-8994. ‘LIVING IN THE AGE OF AIRPLANES’: See WED.14.

food & drink

CHICKEN PIE SUPPER: A hearty spread comes complete with biscuits, squash, mashed potatoes, coleslaw and homemade pies. Puffer United Methodist Church, Morrisville, 5-6:30 p.m. $5-10. Info, 888-2248. DEPTH OF FLAVOR: Home cooks take healthful meals to the next level with seasoning that engages the senses. McClure Multigenerational Center, Burlington, 6-7:30 p.m. $5-10; preregister; limited space. Info, 861-9757. FOOD TASTING FROM FARM TO FORK: Gourmands devour samples and stories from Tracey Medeiros, author of The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook: 150 Home-Grown Recipes From the Green Mountain State. South Burlington Community Library, 5:30-7 p.m. Free. Info, 238-4927. FRENCH THURSDAY HAPPY HOUR: Francophiles fine-tune their French-language conversation skills over cocktails. Email to confirm location. Hilton Hotel, Burlington, 5-7 p.m. $4; free for Alliance Française members. Info, info@aflcr.org.

health & fitness

COMMUNITY MINDFULNESS: A 20-minute guided practice led by Andrea O’Connor alleviates stress and tension. Tea and a discussion follow. Winooski Senior Center, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 233-1161. FELDENKRAIS AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT: Whether you consider it relaxing exercise or active meditation, this experience can reduce pain and increase mobility. Living Room: Center of Positivity, Essex Junction, 6-7 p.m. $10. Info, 655-0950.

FREE CONCERT! Saturday, Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. Burlington Memorial Auditorium 250 Main St. Burlington, VT 05401 For FREE Tickets, please visit:

www.brownpapertickets.com SEARCH: Burlington http://usafbandinburlington.brownpapertickets.com ★ FREE Admission ★ Tickets are required ★ No reserved seats

Seats released to non-ticket holders 15 minutes before performance

FITNESS BOOT CAMP: Interval training helps participants improve strength, agility, endurance and cardiovascular fitness. Cornwall Town Hall, 10-11 a.m. $10. Info, 343-7160. FORZA: THE SAMURAI SWORD WORKOUT: Students sculpt lean muscles and gain mental focus when using wooden replicas of the weapon. North End Studio A, Burlington, 6:30-7:30 p.m. $10. Info, 578-9243. HIV & HEPATITIS C TESTING FOR IDUS: Intravenous drug or opiate users and their partners take advantage of free, anonymous screenings. Safe Recovery Support & Education, Burlington, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Info, 488-6067. PILATES WITH MARY REGELE: Fitness fanatics drop in to fine-tune their flexibility, posture and core strength. River Arts, Morrisville, 6:30-7:30 p.m. $5. Info, 888-1261. WINTER WELLNESS: Herbs and supplements serve as immune-strengthening remedies for the cold-and-flu season. Community Room, Hunger Mountain Co-op, Montpelier, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $2-5; preregister. Info, 223-8000, ext. 202.

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MOUNT MANSFIELD SCALE MODELERS: Hobbyists break out the superglue and sweat the small stuff at a miniature construction skill swap. Kolvoord Community Room, Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 879-0765.

FESTIVAL OF TIBETAN ARTS & CULTURE OF THE ADIRONDACK COAST: See WED.14.

SEVEN DAYS

ONE, TWO, TREE: CAPITALIZING ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT IN URBAN DESIGN: From building green to harnessing solar and wind power, architect Susanna Drake drafts a plan for new urban infrastructure systems. Room 304, Johnson Memorial Building, Middlebury College, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 443-6433.

fairs & festivals

10.14.15-10.21.15

FALL OPEN HOUSE: Parents and prospective students size up the EarthWalk Village School and the Teen Land Project. EarthWalk Vermont, Plainfield, 9 a.m.-noon. Free; preregister. Info, 454-8500.

TECH TUTOR PROGRAM: Teens answer questions about computers and devices during one-onone sessions. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 4-6 p.m. Free; preregister for a time slot. Info, 878-4918.

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

crafts

TEA & FORMAL GARDENS TOUR: Explorations of the inn and its grounds culminate in a traditional cup-and-saucer affair. The Inn at Shelburne Farms, 2:30-4 p.m. $18; preregister. Info, 985-8442.

www.usafband.af.mil 2v-unitedstatesairforceband101415.indd 1

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calendar

Plainfield Preschool Story Time: Tots ages 2 through 5 discover the magic of literature. Cutler Memorial Library, Plainfield, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 454-8504. Preschool Music: Kiddos have fun with song and dance. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918. Preschool Story Time: Captivating accounts pave the way for crafts and activities for youngsters ages 3 through 6. Burnham Memorial Library, Colchester, 10:30-11 a.m. Free; preregister. Info, 264-5660. Read to Archie the Therapy Dog: Budding bookworms join a friendly canine for entertaining tales. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6956. ‘Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure’: See WED.14.

Story Time: Kids up to age 6 sit tight for engaging narratives. Jeudevine Memorial Library, Hardwick, 10-11 a.m. Free. Info, 472-5948.

56 CALENDAR

SEVEN DAYS

10.14.15-10.21.15

SEVENDAYSvt.com

‘The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God’: See WED.14. ‘Funny Girl’: See WED.14, 8 p.m. ‘Province’: See WED.14. ‘State of Denial’: See WED.14, 8 p.m.

music

Cooper-Moore: An eclectic mix of jazz, folk, rock and classical music ring out courtesy of the pianist who designs and builds his own instruments. Stearns Performance Space, Johnson State College, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 635-1408. Drum Class: Percussion players make rhythmic music in an African-inspired lesson with Ismael Bangoura. Red Cedar School, Bristol, 6-7:15 p.m. $13-15. Info, 859-1802. Jazz Residency With Bruce Sklar & Jeremy Hill: The local keyboardist and upright bass player serve up syncopated rhythms at a weekly gig. Big Picture Theater and Café, Waitsfield, 7-9:30 p.m. Donations. Info, 496-8994. Loreena McKennitt: This multiplatinum-selling vocalist specializes in Celtic airs. Flynn MainStage, Burlington, 8 p.m. $26-66. Info, 863-5966. Summit to Union Music Performance: Students in the Summit School of Traditional Music & Culture ukulele, world music and jug band classes put on a session-end show. Hayes Room, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier, 4 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

outdoors

Great Vermont Corn Maze: See WED.14.

Douglas Brooks: The master watercraft constructor reflects on his experiences in “An Apprentice Boat Builder in Japan” as part of the One World Library Project. Lawrence Memorial Library, Bristol, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 453-2366. Lari Snorek-Yates: Ideas of spirituality and peace thread through “The Healing Power of Stillness.” Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 864-4709.

Howard Frank Mosher: An excerpt from God’s Kingdom triggers the talk “Where Does Fiction Come From?” Phoenix Books Burlington, 7 p.m. $3; limited space. Info, 448-3350. Young Adult Workshop: Readers swap ideas and opinions about YA stories written by Burlington Writers Workshop members. 22 Church St., Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free; preregister at meet up.com; limited space. Info, 383-8104.

bazaars

Rummage Sale: Bargain shoppers bag gently used items. Richmond Congregational Church, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. Info, lwatkins@gmavt.net.

comedy

Brian Regan: The acclaimed jokester melds wit and physicality in an evening of sidesplitting material. Flynn MainStage, Burlington, 8 p.m. $45. Info, 863-5966. Paul Reiser: The “Mad About You” star serves up knee-slapping observations about life, love and relationships. Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center, Stowe, 8 p.m. $20-43. Info, 760-4634.

Lembe Tiky: The University of Connecticut professor shares his perspective in “Africa’s Political Past & Present: From the Origins of ev SY community en TE in Democracy to Contemporary Political UR gw | CO it h C Feast Together or Feast to Go: k c l in t B l a Developments.” McCarthy Arts Center, Senior citizens and their guests catch up St. Michael’s College, Colchester, 7-10 p.m. over a shared meal. Montpelier Senior Activity Free. Info, 654-2000. Center, noon-1 p.m. $7-9; preregister. Info, M.J. Davis: “Caring for Family Treasures” offers tips 262-6288. for preserving sentimental items such as photo albums and legal documents. Montpelier Senior conferences Activity Center, 1-2:30 p.m. Free. Info, 223-2518. ‘The Philosophy of John Dewey’: See THU.15, Tamding Tseten: Listeners get a glimpse of the 8 a.m. artist’s escape from Tibet and his life since. Alumni Conference Room, Angell College Center, SUNY crafts Plattsburgh, N.Y., 4 p.m. Free. Info, 518-564-2474. Crafternoons: Judy Paxman leads participants ages 16 and up in creative endeavors. Swanton theater Public Library, 2 p.m. Free. Info, swantonartscoun‘Blithe Spirit’: The specter of an author’s dearly cil@gmail.com. departed wife is not ready to be laid to rest in Noel Coward’s ghost-story send-up staged by the Essex dance Community Players. Essex Memorial Hall, 8-10 p.m. Ecstatic Dance Vermont: A movement session $16. Info, 878-9109. with the Green Mountain Druid Order inspires ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’: A giant paw joy, transformation and divine connections. print is the key clue in a murder mystery adapted Auditorium, Christ Church, Montpelier, 7-9 p.m. $10. from Arthur Conan Doyle’s most pupular Sherlock Info, 505-8010. Holmes story. Montpelier City Hall Auditorium, 7 p.m. $10-65. Info, 229-0492. National Theatre Live: Benedict Cumberbatch plays the eponymous prince in a broadcast production of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. See calendar spotlight. Middlebury Town Hall Theater, 2 & 7 p.m. $10-17. Info, 383-9222. Palace 9 Cinemas, South Burlington, 2 & 7 p.m. $18. Info, 863-5966. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 7 p.m. $16-25. Info, 748-2600. Loew Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., 7 p.m. $10-23. Info, 603-646-2422. ‘The Nerd’: Side-splitting comedy ensues between buddies in the Friends of the Opera House production of Larry Shue’s hit play. Enosburg Opera House, 7-9 p.m. $12-15. Info, 933-6171. ‘Our Town’: See WED.14, 2 & 7:30 p.m.

English Country Dance: Clayton Clemetson, McKinley James, Laura Markowitz and Ana Ruesink provide live music for newcomers and experienced movers alike. Martha Kent and Val Medve call the dances. Elley-Long Music Center, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, 7-9:30 p.m. $10. Info, 899-2378. Scottish Country Dancing: See WED.14.

etc.

fairs & festivals

Festival of Tibetan Arts & Culture of the Adirondack Coast: See WED.14. Woodstock Digital Media Festival: Innovators in the field lend their expertise to keynote presentations, workshops and networking opportunities. See woodstockdigital.com for details. Various Woodstock locations, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. Info, info@woodstockdigital.com.

film

‘Living in the Age of Airplanes’: See WED.14. ‘Miss Representation’: This 2011 documentary exposes mainstream media’s limited portrayal of women in society. Vermont Commons School, South Burlington, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Free. Info, 865-8084.

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montréal

Dongping Han: Interviews and personal experience inform the Warren Wilson College professor’s talk “Economic and Political Crisis in China: From the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to the Present.” Livak Room, Davis Center, UVM, Burlington, 7-9 p.m. Free. Info, mikecassidy13@ yahoo.com.

Greg Pardlo: Lit lovers listen up as the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet shares passages from Digest and earlier works. Krinovitz Auditorium, Hawkins Hall, SUNY Plattsburgh, N.Y., 7:30-9 p.m. Free. Info, 518-564-2413.

Mandarin Chinese Class: Language lovers practice the dialect spoken throughout northern and southwestern China. Agape Community Church, South Burlington, 7-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 503-2037.

Dan Hopkins: The international traveler leads listeners on a virtual safari in “An African Journey: Adventures in Namibia and Botswana.” KelloggHubbard Library, Montpelier, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

words

Int

language

talks

‘Take’ Magazine Launch Party: Live music by And the Kids and Villanelles propels the release of New England’s new cultural publication. ArtsRiot, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free. Info, 540-0406.

F r i.16 | M u s ic | A n

Spooky Stories & ‘Boo’-tiful Bats: Nature lovers ages 3 through 5 and their adult companions spin webs and investigate echolocation. Green Mountain Audubon Center, Huntington, 9-10:30 a.m. $8-10 per adult-child pair; $4 per additional child; preregister. Info, 434-3068.

Burlington Rugby Football Club: New and veteran players are welcome to attend a practice to learn about the sport and join the team. Bring cleats and a mouth guard. Jaycee Park, South Burlington, 6-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, burlingtonrugbyevents@gmail.com.

‘Tribes’: See WED.14.

era House

Music With Robert: Sing-alongs with Robert Resnik hit all the right notes. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 10:30-11 a.m. Free; groups must preregister. Info, 865-7216.

sports

SUNY Plattsburgh Homecoming: A slew of celebratory events such as a bonfire, a tug-of-war and craft beer tastings welcome alumni back to campus. SUNY Plattsburgh, N.Y. Prices vary; some events require preregistration. Info, 518-564-2090.

n Op

Lego Club: Brightly colored interlocking blocks inspire developing minds. Burnham Memorial Library, Colchester, 4-5 p.m. Free. Info, 264-5660.

Theater Industry Mixer: Folks in the performance field rub elbows at a networking event with members of the Vermont Shakespeare Company. Palace 9 Cinemas, South Burlington, 5:30-7 p.m. Free. Info, 660-9300.

‘Cinderella’: Cate Blanchett shows her dark side as the evil stepmother in this 2015 fairy-tale adaptation. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 3 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

NAMI Vermont Family-to-Family Class: The National Alliance on Mental Illness builds understanding between individuals struggling with psychological health and their loved ones. Call for details. Various locations statewide, Vermont, 6-8:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 800-639-6480, ext. 102.

kids

seminars

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Queen City Ghostwalk: Darkness Falls: Paranormal historian Thea Lewis highlights haunted happenings throughout Burlington. Meet at the steps 10 minutes before start time. Burlington City Hall Park, 7 p.m. $18; preregister. Info, 863-5966.

food & drink

Bellows Falls Farmers Market: Grass-fed beef meets bicycle-powered smoothies at a foodie fair overflowing with veggies, cheeses, prepared eats and live music. Canal Street, Bellows Falls, 4-7 p.m. Free. Info, bellowsfallsmarket@gmail.com. Fishlanthropy for Fives: Asian-fusion cuisine and local-celebrity servers make for a memorable evening. Proceeds benefit the High Fives Foundation. Sushi Yoshi, Stowe, 6-10 p.m. Cost of food and drink. Info, 253-4135. Foodways Fridays: Cooks use heirloom herbs and veggies to revive historic recipes in the farmhouse kitchen. Billings Farm & Museum, Woodstock, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Regular farm and museum admission, $4-14; free for kids under 3. Info, 457-2355. Richmond Farmers Market: An open-air marketplace connects farmers and fresh-food browsers. Volunteers Green, Richmond, 3-6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 343-9778. Wine & Dine: Explore the World of Pinots: Joerg Kaluck and representatives from Vermont Wine Merchants guide diners on a tour of tasty vinos paired with chef Sarah Langan’s three-course menu. South End Kitchen at Lake Champlain Chocolates, Burlington, 6-8 p.m. $65. Info, 864-0505.

games

Bridge Club: See WED.14, 9:15 a.m.

health & fitness

Be Tobacco Free in 2015: A five-week class uses gum, patches or lozenges to help smokers kick nicotine’s butt. Burnham Memorial Library, Colchester, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 847-2278. Community Hatha Yoga: Students move at their own pace in a gentle, reflective practice. South End Studio, Burlington, 5:15-6:15 p.m. $6. Info, 683-4918. Laughter Yoga: Breathe, clap, chant and giggle! Both new and experienced participants reduce stress with this playful practice. Bring personal water. The Wellness Co-op, Burlington, noon-1 p.m. Free. Info, 999-7373. Recovery Community Yoga: See WED.14.

holidays

Haunted Basement Tours: Brave visitors explore resident ghost Charlie’s favorite haunt. A speakeasy-style bar offers invigorating elixirs. Stowe Inn and Tavern, 6-10 p.m. Free; $10 bar admission includes a drink. Info, 253-4030.

FIND FUTURE DATES + UPDATES AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/EVENTS

Pittsford Haunted House: Folks ages 6 and up are in for guts and gore galore at this annual house of horrors. 6-9 p.m. $5-10. Info, 236-0048.

talks

kids

Anna Winestein: Dance devotees listen up for a lecture on the Ballets Russes. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 748-2600.

Early-Bird Math: Books, songs and games put a creative twist on mathematics. Richmond Free Library, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 434-3036.

Education Enrichment for Everyone: Fall Series: Temperatures rise in “Climate Change in New England: What’s Happening and What Should We Expect” by Dartmouth College’s Erich Osterberg. Faith United Methodist Church, South Burlington, 2-3 p.m. $5. Info, 864-3516.

Crafternoon: Creative kiddos in grades 4 and up dig into a sand-art project. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 3:15-4:15 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’: Audience members have a scream when Rutland Youth Theatre performers stage a musical-comedy adaptation of the story of Ichabod Crane. Theater, Rutland Intermediate School, 2 & 7 p.m. $8-10. Info, 558-4177. Musical Story Time: Melody makers of all ages read and rock out with books, songs and instruments. Essex Free Library, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 879-0313. ‘Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure’: See WED.14. Songs & Stories With Matthew: Matthew Witten helps children start the day with tunes and tales of adventure. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 10-10:45 a.m. Free. Info, 878-6956. Story Time: Nicole entertains tots with stories, songs, crafts and parachute play. Hayes Room, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

lgbtq

Trans Town Hall: Family, Partners & Allies of Transgender Individuals: A panel discussion encourages folks with transgender individuals in their lives to be part of a solid support system. Pride Center of Vermont, Burlington, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 860-7812.

montréal

‘The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God’: See WED.14. fABBAlesque: Glitz and glam rule at an ABBAthemed spectacle featuring burlesque, cabaret and Dancing (drag) Queens. The Wiggle Room, Montréal, 9 p.m. $20-25. Info, 514-508-9465. ‘Province’: See WED.14.

music

‘Dido and Aeneas’: Opera Company of Middlebury breathes new life into the oldest English opera, set in the time of the Trojan War. Audience members can arrive 45 minutes early for a preperformance talk. Middlebury Town Hall Theater, 8 p.m. $40-50. Info, 383-9222.

Lise de la Salle: The French pianist tickles the ivories with selections by Ravel, Brahms, Bach and Debussy. UVM Recital Hall, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $10-30. Info, 656-4455. TURNmusic: Area musicians put a contemporary spin on classical chamber music. Green Mountain Club Headquarters, Waterbury Center, 8 p.m. $15; free for students with ID. Info, 578-5028.

Great Vermont Corn Maze: See WED.14.

‘The Matchmaker’: The St. Johnsbury Players bring classic characters to life in Thornton Wilder’s romantic farce set in 1880s New York. Auditorium. St. Johnsbury School, 7:30 p.m. $7-10. Info, 274-4496. ‘The Nerd’: See THU.15, 7-9 p.m. ‘Our Town’: See WED.14, 7:30 p.m. ‘Steel Magnolias’: A close-knit group of Louisiana women finds strength in friendship as they face challenges of love and health in this QNEK Productions performance. Haskell Free Library & Opera House, Derby Line, 7:30 p.m. $13-15. Info, 748-2600. SuicideGirls: Blackheart Burlesque: Billed as “the sexiest show on the planet,” this highenergy performance features pop-culture references, an indie soundtrack and a choreographed striptease. See calendar spotlight. Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 9 p.m. $25-85. Info, 877-987-6487. ‘Tribes’: See WED.14. ‘You Can’t Take It With You’: Theater lovers laugh until they cry during the Valley Players’ production of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s 1930s screwball comedy. Valley Players Theater, Waitsfield, 7:30 p.m. $12. Info, 583-1674.

words

Brown Bag Book Club: Readers voice opinions about Lisa Genova’s Still Alice. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918. Friday Morning Workshop: Lit lovers analyze creative works-in-progress penned by Burlington Writers Workshop members. 22 Church St., Burlington, 10:30 a.m. Free; preregister at meetup. com; limited space. Info, 383-8104. Writing Salon: Wordsmiths employ neuroscientific research to kick out the inner critic who can curb creativity. Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies, Burlington, 7-9 p.m. $20-25. Info, 865-4209.

SAT.17 activism

5K Walk for Justice & Peace For All: Active community members make strides with the Champlain Area NAACP. Registration, 9 a.m.; walk, 9:30 a.m. Peace & Justice Center, Burlington, 9:30 a.m. Donation of a nonperishable food item. Info, 489-7755.

bazaars

Plattsburgh Flea Market: Customers scoop up bargain buys to benefit the Elmore SPCA. Plattsburgh Farmers Market Building, N.Y., 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Free. Info, 518-643-2451.

community

Open House: Friends and neighbors celebrate the center’s 75th year of operation with information sessions and tasty fare. Yes, there will be cake! Heineberg Senior Center, Burlington, 2-5 p.m. Donations. Info, 863-3982. Queen City Memory Café: People with memory loss accompany their caregivers for coffee, conversation and entertainment. Thayer House, Burlington, 10 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 800-272-3900. Spookyville Vermont Pumpkin Carving: Helping hands garnish the grounds with festive gourds. Champlain Valley Exposition, Essex Junction, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Info, 355-3107. Vermont Compassion Centers: Folks get information about the Vermont law allowing for legal medical marijuana access. Peace & Justice Center, Burlington, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-2345.

conferences

Fall Conference: The Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society hosts its annual gathering of family-tree fans, featuring four historian speakers. South Burlington St. John Vianney Parish Hall, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. $30; preregister. Info, 238-5934. Leading Action on Climate: Tools for Faith Communities: Activist Tim DeChristopher keynotes this annual Vermont Interfaith Power & Light event encouraging environmental stewardship. Christ Episcopal Church, Montpelier, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. $45; preregister. Info, 434-3397. ‘The Philosophy of John Dewey’: See THU.15, 8:15 a.m.

Independent Community Meeting Place: Brainstorming leads to forming activity groups for hobbies such as flying stunt kites and playing music. Presto Music Store, South Burlington, 10 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 658-0030. John Dewey Day: Locals honor the Burlingtonborn educator and philosopher on his birthday with paper masks and a parade down Church Street. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 865-7211. Queen City Ghostwalk: Darkness Falls: See FRI.16. SUNY Plattsburgh Homecoming: See FRI.16. Work Day: Zen seekers spend the morning meditating, then labor side by side to winterize the spiritual center. Milarepa Center, Barnet, 9 a.m. $10 for lunch; preregister. Info, milarepa@milarepacenter.org.

fairs & festivals

Cabot Apple Pie Festival: Bakers tempt judges’ tastebuds with flaky pastries boasting fall’s signature flavor. Crafts and a silent auction round out this benefit for the Cabot Historical Society. Gymnasium, Cabot High School, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Free. Info, 563-3396. Festival of Tibetan Arts & Culture of the Adirondack Coast: See WED.14. Spirits of the Harvest: Revelers may never want to leave once they get a taste of the specialty foods, fine wines and craft brews that this fall fest has to offer. Robert H. Gibson River Garden, Brattleboro, 5-8 p.m. $20. Info, 246-0982.

film

‘Abegehauen’: A free screening of the 2014 Audience Award winner primes cinephiles for the Lake Champlain International Film Festival. Strand Theatre, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 8-9 p.m. Free. Info, 518-563-1604.

crafts

‘Living in the Age of Airplanes’: See WED.14.

Colchester Quilters Fabric Giveaway: Needle-and-thread fanatics bag tons of textiles. United Church of Colchester, 10 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 978-495-1955.

‘War of the Worlds’: Martians invade Earth in the 1953 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ radio fiction piece, shown on 16mm film. Newman Center, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 7 p.m. Donations. Info, serious_61@yahoo.com.

Adult Coloring: Grown-ups pick up colored pencils for a meditative and creative activity. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

Wire-Wrapped Jewelry Making: Aspiring artisans craft stone-pendant baubles. Fairfax Community Library, 10-11:30 a.m. Free; preregister; limited space. Info, 849-2420.

dance

Scottish Country Dancing: See WED.14. USA Dance VT Community Ballroom Dance Social: Twinkle-toed movers celebrate the art of dance from the foxtrot to the Argentine tango. Elley-Long Music Center, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, 7-11 p.m. $10-15. Info, usadancevt@ gmail.com.

etc.

Bike Recycle Vermont Shop Workday: Novice and experienced tinkerers volunteer to help with repairs, refurbishing and other projects. Bike Recycle Vermont, Burlington, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, dan@bikerecyclevt.org. ‘Birds Take Flight’ Benefit: Avian enthusiasts support Outreach for Earth Stewardship with raffles, live bird presentations, kids’ activities, local eats and more. Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms, 4-8 p.m. $5-15; free for kids 4 and under; cash bar. Info, 754-6977.

Silent Film Series: ‘The Lodger’: Jeff Rapsis performs an imaginative live score for a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s soundless thriller that debuted in 1927. Brandon Town Hall, 7 p.m. Donations. Info, 603-236-9237.

‘The Wind Rises’: Screened in Japanese with English subtitles, this 2013 film animates the life of fighter plane designer Jiro Horikoshi. Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center, Middlebury College, 3 & 8 p.m. Free. Info, 443-6433.

food & drink

Barre Farmers Market: See WED.14, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Burlington Farmers Market: More than 90 stands overflow with seasonal produce, flowers, artisan wares and prepared foods. Burlington City Hall Park, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 310-5172. Caledonia Farmers Market: Growers, crafters and entertainers gather weekly at outdoor booths centered on local eats. Parking lot, Anthony’s Diner, St. Johnsbury, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 592-3088. Capital City Farmers Market: Meats and cheeses join farm-fresh produce, baked goods, and locally made arts and crafts. 60 State Street, Montpelier, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 223-2958. Chocolate Tasting: With the help of a tasting guide, chocoholics of all ages discover the flavor profiles of four different confections. Lake Champlain Chocolates Factory Store & Café, Burlington, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Info, 864-1807.

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outdoors

‘Clarence Darrow’: History is in motion when the Old Shoe Production Company stages a play examining the lawyer’s life and impact on the American judicial system. Stowe Town Hall Theatre, 8 p.m. $15-25. Info, 253-3961.

The Logger: Rusty DeWees, joined by fiddler Patrick Ross, brings his signature blend of music, comedy and acting to the stage. Chandler Music Hall, Randolph, 8 p.m. $25. Info, 728-6464.

SEVEN DAYS

The Knights: The Brooklyn-based orchestral collective play a well-rounded program of works by composers ranging from Sufjan Stevens to Mendelssohn. Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., 8 p.m. $10-25. Info, 603-646-2422.

‘Blithe Spirit’: See THU.15.

comedy

Car Wash: Vehicles that cruise to this benefit for the Websterville Baptist Christian School Girls Varsity Basketball Team leave sparkling clean. Busy Bubble, Barre, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Donations. Info, 479-0298.

10.14.15-10.21.15

An Intimate Evening with Clint Black: Country music fans don their 10-gallon hats for a night of boot-tapping hits. Lebanon Opera House, N.H., 7:30 p.m. $59.50-69.50. Info, 603-448-0400.

‘As You Like It’: Rosalind and Orlando face the trials and triumphs of love in Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, presented by Lost Nation Theater. Montpelier City Hall Auditorium, 8 p.m. $10-100. Info, 229-0492.

South Burlington Flea Market: Shoppers score take-home treasures. Redeemed Thrift Shop, South Burlington, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Free. Info, 881-0277.

SEVENDAYSvt.com

Dayve Huckett: Bassist Art DeQuasie and vocalist Lena Cannizzaro Goglia band together with the guitarist for a collaborative concert. Robison Hall, Mahaney Center for the Arts, Middlebury College, 8 p.m. Free. Info, 443-6433.

theater

Rummage Sale: See FRI.16, 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m.

calendar

Hard Cider tastinGs: Imbibers tip back crisp samples of the limited release honey Plum and hopped Native beverages. Champlain Orchards, shoreham, noon-5 p.m. Free. Info, 897-2777. make Your own CHoColate Bars: First-time confectioners tie on their aprons to temper, mold and wrap full-size take-home treats. south End Kitchen at Lake Champlain Chocolates, Burlington, 3-4 p.m. $25. Info, 864-0505. middleBurY Farmers market: see WED.14. mount tom Farmers market: Purveyors of garden-fresh crops, prepared foods and crafts set up shop for the morning. Parking lot, Mount Tom, Woodstock, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free. Info, 457-2070. newport Farmers market: see WED.14.

wine tastinG: Cheese and bread complement mouthwatering samples of Italian Puglia reds. Trapp Family Lodge, stowe, 4-6 p.m. $20; preregister. Info, 253-5742.

health & fitness

outdoor BaCkYard Boot Camp: see WED.14, 8-9 a.m. r.i.p.p.e.d.: see WED.14, 9-10 a.m.

BiG truCk daY: Kiddos climb aboard fire trucks, military vehicles, police cars, and farm equipment at a fundraiser for the school. Food and craft vendors keep families’ motors running. Richmond Elementary school, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. $10 per family. Info, 434-2461.

tHe Hitmen ClassiC Hits: Music lovers can’t help but boogie to beloved songs by the Cars, Van Morrison, the Beatles and Michael Jackson. Elks Lodge, st. Johnsbury, 8 p.m. $10-15. Info, 748-2600. lewis FranCo & tHe Brown eYed Girls: The singer-songwriter gets listeners jumping and jiving to gypsy-swing stylings. Adamant Community Club, 7:30 p.m. $5-15. Info, 454-7103. manGo jam: The Burlington songsters continue the Fall Music series with Big Easystyle zydeco and Cajun sounds. Marquis Theatre & southwest Café, Middlebury, 8:30 p.m.midnight. $5 includes half-price café admission; cash bar. Info, 388-4841.

Hands-on GlassBlowinG projeCts & Classes: sunCatCHer: Aspiring artisans ages 7 and up choose natural and us niGHt Fever: an eveninG oF tHe A IC AR Bee Gees: Barry, Robin and Maurice |t nautical designs to create colorful hE Fs K Ni YO s E g T window hangings. Orwell Glass workhtS | CO uR Gibb are stayin’ alive through this tribute shop, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, trio’s spot-on impersonation. Barre Opera Vergennes, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. $15-20; preregister for a house, 8 p.m. $18-41. Info, 476-8188. time slot. Info, 475-2022. tHe simulaCrum projeCt: }Hexdump{: The ‘tHe leGend oF sleepY Hollow’: see FRI.16. three-person collaboration marks 20 years of experimental sonic research. Pine street studios, one-on-one tutorinG: see WED.14, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Burlington, 8-10 p.m. Free. Info, thesimulacrumprosaturdaY drop-in storY time: A weekly selecject@gmail.com. tion of songs and narratives engages all ages. Burnham Memorial Library, Colchester, 10-10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 264-5660. saturdaY storY time: Families gather for imaginative tales. Phoenix Books Burlington, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 448-3350. ‘sea monsters: a preHistoriC adventure’: see WED.14.

montréal

‘tHe adventures oF a BlaCk Girl in searCH oF God’: see WED.14, 2 & 8 p.m. ‘FunnY Girl’: see WED.14, 8 p.m. ‘provinCe’: see WED.14, 2:30 & 8:30 p.m.

‘time aFter time’: Capital City Concerts opens the season with a program featuring Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.” unitarian Church of Montpelier, 7:30 p.m. $15-25. Info, info@capitalcityconcerts.org. turnmusiC: see FRI.16, ArtsRiot, Burlington, 8 p.m. $15; free for students with ID. Info, 540-0406.

vermont sYmpHonY orCHestra CHorus open House: singers raise their voices at an open rehearsal where they meet the chorus director and schedule auditions for the vocal ensemble’s upcoming Masterworks Concert. Elley-Long Music Center, st. Michael’s College, Colchester, 1-4 p.m. Free. Info, vso-chorus@gmail.com.

SEVEN DAYS

Great vermont Corn maze: see WED.14, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. HerrinGBone tweed ride: Riders don dapper attire for a leisurely pedal through the Queen City. Rain date: October 18. see calendar spotlight. scout & Co., Burlington, noon. Free. Info, 343-1218. peak to peak on tHe trails oF woodstoCk: Family-friendly activities on the town green set the stage for guided hikes of Mount Tom and Mount Peg featuring trail games and picnic lunches. Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National historical Park, Woodstock, registration, 9:30 a.m.; hikes, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 457-3368.

seminars

aarp smart driver Class: Motorists ages 50 and up learn to safely navigate the road while addressing the physical changes brought on by aging. Winooski senior Center, 8:30 a.m. $15-20; preregister. Info, 655-6425. intermediate miCrosoFt word: students get familiar with the word processor’s advanced features and customization options. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Free; preregister. Info, 865-7217. vCam orientation: Video-production hounds master basic concepts and nomenclature at an overview of VCAM facilities, policies and procedures. VCAM studio, Burlington, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 651-9692. vision Boards: imaGine Your Future: Fulfillment seekers use images and words to symbolize goals and desires. Milarepa Center, Barnet, 1-4 p.m. Donations. Info, 633-4136.

talks

derek ‘deek’ diedriCksen: Less is more in a talk on the builder’s book Microshelters: 59 Creative Cabins, Tiny Houses, Tree Houses and Other Small Structures. see calendar spotlight. Phoenix Books Burlington, 2 p.m. $3. Info, 448-3350.

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OPENING ACT: Blues Master Nobby Reed

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Corn maze & HaYrides: Families fête fall with these outdoor pastimes. Bertrand Farms, Pittsford, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. $6; free for kids under 4. Info, 779-2184.

downtown BoB stannard & tHose danGerouse Bluesmen: Blues and jazz lovers dance, clap, sing and smile at this high-energy concert. Dwight & Nicole open. Vergennes Opera house, 7:30 p.m. $15-18; cash bar. Info, 877-6737.

Cardinal kids at tHe arts kids daY: Families drop in for hands-on creative fun. Room 224, Myers Fine Arts Building, suNY Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 a.m.2 p.m. Free. Info, 518-564-2474.

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9/24/15 4:54 PM

music

A Weighty Tome

Fattie B on his new book, I Was a 400-Pound ’80s Night DJ: My Memoirs Through Music B Y J UST I N BOL A ND

10.14.15-10.21.15 SEVEN DAYS 68 MUSIC

SD: Your book documents a huge legacy. Have you given any thought to passing the Retronome torch, or is that momentous day still years away? KT: I have thought about who I’d pass it off to if given the choice, but honestly I am having more fun doing it than I have in a long time. This is mainly because, as the years keep rolling on, the crowd has gotten younger and younger, and Retronome now includes four decades of music, from the 1970s to the 2000s. This allows me much more freedom throughout the nights to play newer, fresher music. I’m enjoying it a ton, and the crowds have been really responsive to the “updating.” So I’d say I’ve still got some years ahead of me. JAMES BUCK

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

even more exciting for me is how many of the people who’ve read it and love it are not DJs. I wanted to try to reach the casual music lover as well, and I’m so happy that it seems I was able to do that. The response overall has been simply amazing.

Kyle Thompson

yle Thompson, better known to Vermonters as Fattie B, stays busy. Very busy. As an artist, rapper, DJ and, as local hip-hop’s elder statesman, an enthusiastic mentor, he’s a vital part of the connective tissue of Burlington’s music scene. For 17 years, he’s hosted Retronome, a hugely popular dance party at Club Metronome that goes down every Saturday. Under yet another name, M.K. Thompson, Fattie B recently released a biting and hilarious memoir about exactly that, cheekily titled I Was a 400-Pound ’80s DJ: My Memoirs Through Music, which retraces his life from his youth in Bristol to the present day.

A lot of stories are on tap here, many of them X-rated. Although you will learn more about Thompson’s testicles than you probably want to, the book remains hugely entertaining. That’s because, throughout his narrative, Fattie B comes off as an overgrown, excited kid — albeit one with no filter whatsoever. Thompson is a natural storyteller and a keen observer of local culture, strengths that make it easy to forgive the gross parts. After all, those gross parts really happened. Aside from the lurid decadence, Thompson relates tributes to his late mother, stories about growing up in a tiny town and some vital history about your favorite venues. He even confides

the secret to getting a DJ to take your request immediately. (You’ll have to read the book to find that out.) Seven Days recently caught up with this perpetual-motion machine at a local watering hole to talk about the success of the book, the insanity that is Retronome and what the future holds. SEVEN DAYS: Have you gotten feedback from other DJs on the book? I’m betting they all believe your stories without hesitation. KYLE THOMPSON: One of the best parts of receiving feedback on the book is that fellow DJs who are reading it are so locked in to all of these stories, having shared similar experiences. But

SD: Has there ever been a lull or an off year, or has Retronome been a thriving BTV institution pretty much the entire time? KT: It has slow weeks here and there due to holidays and bad weather, but overall it’s easily the strongest night in town. I am utterly amazed by — and eternally grateful for — its consistency and longevity. SD: You have a great riff in the book about how Burlington’s band boom subsided with the end of the ’90’s as venues realized it was cheaper to hire a DJ. Do you see that pendulum starting to swing back with all the young instrumental talent we’ve got these days? FB: I see the venues in town that offer live music regularly, such as Nectar’s, Metronome, Halflounge [Speakeasy], A WEIGHTY TOME

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undbites

Got muSic NEwS? dan@sevendaysvt.com

B y Da N B Oll E S

COUrTESy Of WrEN KITz

Wren Kitz

For Evelyn, Forever Ago

wed 10.14

Oddisee

wed 10.14

emancipator

thu 10.15

Comedy: Owen Benjamin

fRi 10.16

hmfO: A hall & Oates tribute

sAt 10.17

tumbleweed wanderers

Good Cmpny, The Lynguistic Civilians

Wax Tailor (solo set), Yppah

sun 10.18

the front Bottoms

mOn 10.19

Chon

tue 10.20

Late night Radio marvel Years

The Smith Street Band, Elvis Depressedly

Gates

JUST ANNOUNCED — 11/7 Paradise Waits 11/20 Kill Paris 11/22 Gibson Brothers 12/29 Girls Guns & Glory: A Tribute to Hank Williams

SEVEN DAYS

SOUNDBITES

suicideGirls: Blackheart Burlesque

10.14.15-10.21.15

you listen and form an opinion based on tastes, context and expectations. The difference is that a critic has to express those opinions publicly; he or she has to come up with an angle, a take, that summarizes whether or not a record is worth your time. It’s not enough simply to like or dislike something. You have to explain why. That’s harder than you might think. And when you do it as a day job, the pressure of explaining yourself can sometimes siphon the enjoyment out of listening to music. For months now, I’ve been enjoying For Evelyn in a way I don’t often experience. On a basic level, it simply appeals to my particular sonic tastes. It’s hazy and mysterious and weird and lovely. It’s also dense and complex. It surprises me almost every time I listen, because I hear things I hadn’t noticed before, or hear things in a way I hadn’t previously. It fascinates. It soothes. It provokes. Maybe this is selfish, but I wanted to savor those feelings for as long as I could without overanalyzing them. I didn’t want to think about why I

fRi 10.16

SEVENDAYSVt.com

» p.71 1214 Williston Road, South Burlington

for up-to-the-minute news abut the local music scene, follow @Danbolles on Twitter or read the live Culture blog: sevendaysvt.com/liveculture.

802-652-0777 @higherground @highergroundmusic

MUSIC 69

I’ve been sitting on For Evelyn, the latest record from Burlington songwriter wrEN Kitz, for a while now. For too long, really. The album was released over the summer on local imprint Section Sign Records, and it even caught a bit of buzz, locally and beyond. Stereogum premiered a track, “Hall of Lame,” back in April. Vermont Public Radio ran a fine profile of Kitz in May. I’ve had the record in my possession at least since then and have planned to review it on several occasions. But for one reason or another, I’ve put off writing at any length about the album until now. Why? I could offer an excuse, citing scheduling quirks or the backlog of album submissions that never seems to dwindle these days. There would be some truth in either explanation. But the real reason I’ve yet to offer any critical insight into Kitz’s record is far simpler: I haven’t wanted to. Not to peel back the curtain too far, but when you make your living listening critically to music, it can be hard, bordering on impossible, to turn off that analytical part of your brain. In essence, a critic’s approach to music isn’t fundamentally different from most people’s. Whether you’re

robErt chriStGAu or just a casual fan,

love Kitz’s record. I just wanted to love it. And so I’ve held onto it for months and done exactly that. This, of course, is a disservice to you, the Seven Days reader, not to mention to Kitz — though I doubt he lies awake at night fretting over what I think of his music. Still, I’ve hoarded For Evelyn long enough. With Kitz set to perform at the Skinny Pancake in Burlington this Friday, October 16, it seems a good time to finally break down why it is such a remarkable album. Kitz is a gifted songwriter who pens impressionistic lyrical sketches. He is rarely direct, typically favoring blurry metaphors over confessional or observational writing. The aforementioned “Hall of Lame,” for example, is built on a series of claustrophobic rhyme schemes that evoke emotional insecurity with equal measures of empathy and disdain. “Paranoid canary in a coal mine,” he sings in a wavering croon. “Oh my my, Oh my / He’s tryin’ to hide / from the sound of his own name / His knives are dull / and that’s a shame.” Compositionally, the song shares some similarities with another local band that specializes in hazy indie jangle, PAPEr cAStlES. The sonic kinship makes sense, given that Kitz plays guitar in that band. But there’s another crucial element of Kitz’s sound that sets him apart. Kitz is an avid collector of found sound. He has reams on reams of field recordings — suitcases full of them, according to the VPR piece. The jigsawpuzzle manner in which he deploys them throughout For Evelyn defines the record. Most notably and overtly, the opening title track is built around a recording of Kitz’s grandmother Evelyn’s best friend, Doris, reading Evelyn a letter. As Doris reads, sounding every bit the old Jewish grandmother, Kitz weaves a warm cocoon of sound using gently played acoustic guitar and weeping fiddle. Snippets of what might be a TV infomercial or news broadcast appear in flickers and then vanish. There’s an ominous, unidentifiable,

s ’ t n i o The P r u o T d l Wor ! k c a b is

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r chance Listen for you Norfolk, Virginia, to win a trip to niel Rateliff a to catch Nath eats and w & the Night S concert! in Leon Bridges

For all the details hit www.pointfm.com ... or just tune in!

104.7 & 93.3 BURLINGTON 10.14.15-10.21.15

93.7 MIDDLEBURY 104.7 & 100.3 MONTPELIER 95.7 THE NORTHEAST KINGDOM

70 MUSIC

SEVEN DAYS

103.1 & 107.7 THE UPPER VALLEY

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A Weighty Tome « P.68 ArtsRiot and Radio Bean — they’re all trying to strike more of a “balance” in this regard. The value of the live acts is making a comeback, if you will, due to the incredible live talents here, like Madaila, Kat Wright, Waylon Speed, the Dupont Brothers, Rough Francis and tons of others. I think these venues can still find ways to use DJs to their advantage, either by booking live acts earlier in the evenings and DJs late, or just [by] optimizing their week-night lineups. SD: The mash-ups and remixes you spin are ridiculously good. Have you considered moving into straight-up beat/song production and making your own? FB: I have really tried to be the DJ locally that is known for having the dope mash-ups and remixes. I am an “old-school head,” so I love to find a classic song with a funky electronic or nu-disco beat to breathe new life into it. I get my mixes from multiple sources — blogs, record clubs, DJ friends from around the country. But actually, some of them are also my own. I do some of them live, and use MixMeister and Audacity for others. Most of them, though, are just discoveries from my insomnia. On late nights when my body is tired but my mind isn’t, I just scour the web for the gems. I’d love to do more production, but my plate is full with other projects, my design work, my art, and now this book. SD: Has getting a project this ambitious finished given you a bug to write more? FB: Finishing this was really one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve ever experienced … It was much more work than I — naïvely — fully comprehended going into it. I decided to use the ’80s song lyrics to frame each chapter, and that helped to keep the creative juices flowing and, in the end, keep it fresh. But receiving all of the amazing responses from those who’ve bought and read it, it was all worth every painstaking hour. I just finished this one, so I’m now immersed in the promoting and sales of it, but I do see a natural follow-up book beginning to formulate in my twisted mind. The perfect transition would be an all-’90s-songs-driven book with all of the amazing stories from eight years of touring with my band Belizbeha back then. And, honestly, those stories blow this book’s [stories] out of the water. I

EVEN MORE EXCITING FOR ME IS HOW

MANY OF THE PEOPLE WHO’VE READ IT AND LOVE IT ARE NOT DJS.

I WANTED TO TRY TO REACH THE CASUAL MUSIC LOVER AS WELL. K Y L E T HO M P S O N , A K A FAT T I E B

just need to get permission from all of my former band members first … wish me luck with that. SD: Are you grateful that the format of Retronome lets you avoid EDM requests, or do you enjoy our new robot overlords? FB: I love finding new electronic remixes of classic disco, soul and hiphop jams from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Some of the patrons “pleasantly” let me know they’d prefer the original version, but I like updated-yet-classic sounds. As far as the EDM that lands on the Beatport Top 100, yeah, I’d rather spin a 5-year-old’s Disney-themed birthday party than have to play some of that crap. SD: You clearly don’t flinch from telling very personal stories, or relating some quality debauchery. But I had to wonder: Were there stories so extreme you left them out? FB: There are a few stories that were borderline. But those may be showing up in the next book.

INFO Fattie B hosts Retronome every Saturday at 10 p.m. at Club Metronome in Burlington. $5. I Was a 400-Pound ’80s DJ: My Memoirs Through Music by M.K. Thompson, Steez, 222 pages. $20.

UNDbites

GOT MUSIC NEWS? DAN@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

CO NT I NU E D F RO M PAG E 6 9 COURTESY OF FUNKWAGON

Funkwagon

I promise I won’t take six months to review it like I did with Wren Kitz’s album. Last but not least, welcome back, AARON

BURROUGHS! Earlier this year, the smart-

ass — er, vivacious vocalist — loaded up his wagon o’ funk and moved to Detroit. But, as anyone who has ever tried to leave Burlington knows, you always come back. Burroughs is back in VT for a spell and will reconstitute his old BTV gospel-funk band FUNKWAGON for a series of shows this month. Every Tuesday in October, catch the band at Red Square, where they will reprise the six-hour marathon residencies they played last year. That’s right. Six hours. For a more abridged Funkwagon experience, try Nectar’s on Wednesday, October 28, when local sax icon JOE MOORE sits in.

10.14.15-10.21.15

psychedelic fog that seems to close in around you. With its wide-open tones, “Canyon” offers some relief, but it’s fleeting. Kitz lulls with hushed vocals, chiming guitars and a meandering clarinet. But he breaks the serenity by conjuring intermittent storms of feedback and distortion. These strike and dissipate quickly, yet there’s a constant, uneasy sense that more disturbances loom on the horizon. Even more conventional songs, such as “As Glass” and “Kids,” are shaded by Kitz’s unique sense of sonic curiosity. And his experiments rarely feel superfluous. Every crackling field recording and unorthodox instrumental break has a purpose. They imply mood and tone as effectively as his lyrics or song structures do — in some cases, even more effectively. The result is a fascinating album whose mysteries only deepen each time you listen.

BiteTorrent

Listening In

SEVEN DAYS

A peek at what was on my iPod, turntable, eight-track player, etc., this week.

CITY AND COLOUR If I Should Go

Before You

ALEX BLEEKER & THE FREAKS Country

Agenda

DEERHUNTER Fading Frontier

JANET JACKSON Unbreakable

MUSIC 71

We haven’t heard much from Montpelier’s State & Main Records in a while. After a productive run the last couple of years, the label and its associated co-op, the Golden Dome Musicians’ Collective, have been awfully quiet. However, this Friday, October 16, the label hosts a showcase at Positive Pie featuring a trio of cool S&M bands: rap duo BOOMSLANG, garage-blues duo LAKE SUPERIOR and punk rockers PISTOL FIST. Speaking of Pistol Fist, the band recently released a nifty debut record called Wrist Soup. I really dig it. But

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

industrial-sounding noise that scrapes and claws for space against Kitz’s serene guitar as Doris continues to read. We hear from her again on the album’s last track, a postscript of sorts called “Doris.” Tracks such as “Bags” and “Siddhartha” are composed almost entirely of sound clips pasted together in ramshackle fashion — the former prominently features a grainy bagpipe recording. But on other cuts, Kitz wields elements of sound collage as foundational instrumental tools on par with guitars and drums and synths. “Woodshedding” begins as a grating conflux of steely noise. But it transitions into a lush, ticking, ethereal suite that’s as placid as the earlier movement is sinister. This leads to a song couplet composed of two eight-minute works that serve as literal and figurative album centerpieces. “Is This Dreaming Now” simmers with a dark and disorienting

EAGLES OF DEATH METAL Zipper Down

Untitled-28 1

9/28/15 11:27 AM

music

CLUB DATES NA: NOT AVAILABLE. AA: ALL AGES.

burlington

THE DAILY PLANET: Seth Yacovone (blues), 8 p.m., free. DRINK: Feared Beard: Spoken Nerd, Enemy Self, Loupo, NoKing, DJ Bay6 (hip-hop), 8 p.m., $3. FINNIGAN'S PUB: Dino Bravo, Doom Service, Shepard's Pie (rock), 9 p.m., free.

RUSTY NAIL: Open Mic, 9:30 p.m., free.

middlebury area

chittenden county

HIGHER GROUND SHOWCASE LOUNGE: Owen Benjamin (standup comedy), 8 p.m., $15/17. 14+.

ON TAP BAR & GRILL: Jenni Johnson & the Junketeers (jazz, blues), 7 p.m., free.

LIGHT CLUB LAMP SHOP: Irish Sessions, 8 p.m., free. Film Night: Indie, Abstract, Avant Garde, 10 p.m., free.

northeast kingdom

PENALTY BOX: Karaoke, 8 p.m., free.

MANHATTAN PIZZA & PUB: Open Mic with Andy Lugo, 9 p.m., free.

LE BELVEDERE: Fishhead Unplugged (acoustic rock), 6 p.m., free.

NECTAR'S: VT Comedy Club Presents: What a Joke! Comedy Open Mic (standup comedy), 7 p.m., free. Nectar's 40th Anniversary Celebration: Project/Object (Frank Zappa tribute), 9:30 p.m., $12/15. 18+.

PARKER PIE CO.: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free.

RED SQUARE: DJ Cre8 (hip-hop), 11 p.m., free. THE SKINNY PANCAKE (BURLINGTON): Josh Panda's Acoustic Soul Night, 8 p.m., $5-10 donation. SWITCHBACK BREWING: Music Wednesday in the Tap Room: Chuck & Adam (rock), 6 p.m., free. ZEN LOUNGE: Kizomba with Dsantos VT, 7 p.m., free. Loveland with DJ Craig Mitchell, 10 p.m., free/$5. 18+. SEVENDAYSVT.COM

PIECASSO PIZZERIA & LOUNGE: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free.

TWO BROTHERS TAVERN LOUNGE & STAGE: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free.

RADIO BEAN: Steve Dunn (singer-songwriter), 7 p.m., free. Jared McCloud (singersongwriter), 8:30 p.m., free. Daryll Hance Powermuse (funk rock), 10 p.m., free.

10.14.15-10.21.15

MOOGS PLACE: Jeremy Harple (rebel folk), 8 p.m., free.

ZEN LOUNGE: Killa Twan & JoJo Simmons (hip-hop), 9 p.m., $7. 18+.

MONKEY HOUSE: Bless the Child (hip-hop), 8:30 p.m., $3/8. 18+.

JUNIPER: Taylor Haskins Quartet (jazz), 8 p.m., free.

SEVEN DAYS

THE BEE'S KNEES: Heady Topper Happy Hour with David Langevin (piano), 5 p.m., free.

RÍ RÁ IRISH PUB & WHISKEY ROOM: DJ Kermit (top 40), 10 p.m., free.

CITY LIMITS: Karaoke, 9 p.m., free.

JP'S PUB: Pub Quiz with Dave, 7 p.m., free. Karaoke with Melody, 10 p.m., free.

72 MUSIC

stowe/smuggs area

chittenden county

HIGHER GROUND BALLROOM: Emancipator, Wax Tailor, Yppah (electronic), 8:30 p.m., $20/23. AA. HIGHER GROUND SHOWCASE LOUNGE: Oddisee, Good Cmpny, the Lynguistic Civilians (hiphop), 8:30 p.m., $17/20. AA. MONKEY HOUSE: Quiz for a Cause (film trivia), 5:30 p.m., $10. Bow Thayer, the Rugged, Kelly Ravin (Americana), 8:30 p.m., $5/10. 18+. ON TAP BAR & GRILL: Pine Street Jazz, 7 p.m., free.

barre/montpelier

BAGITOS BAGEL & BURRITO CAFÉ: Tim Sullivan (folk), 6 p.m., donation. THE SKINNY PANCAKE (MONTPELIER): Cajun Jam with Jay Ekis, Lee Blackwell, Alec Ellsworth & Katie Trautz, 6 p.m., $5-10 donation. SWEET MELISSA'S: Wine Down with D. Davis (acoustic), 5 p.m., free. Cookie's Hot Club (gypsy jazz), 8 p.m., free.

JASPER'S TAVERN: Below Zero Blues Jam, 7:30 p.m., free.

THE STAGE: Open Mic, 6 p.m., free.

outside vermont

MONOPOLE: Open Mic, 10 p.m., free. NAKED TURTLE: Jay Lesage (acoustic), 5:30 p.m., free. OLIVE RIDLEY'S: So You Want to Be a DJ?, 10 p.m., free.

THU.15

burlington

BARRIO BAKERY & PIZZA BARRIO: High Low Jack (folk), 6 p.m., free. CHURCH & MAIN: Cody Sargent Trio (jazz), 8 p.m., free. CLUB METRONOME: UVM SSC presents Third Thursday: Lespecial, Wild Adriatic (death funk), 9 p.m., free/$5. THE DAILY PLANET: Hot Pickin' Party (bluegrass), 8 p.m., free. DRINK: BLiNDoG Records Acoustic Sessions, 5 p.m., free. FINNIGAN'S PUB: Craig Mitchell (funk), 10 p.m., free. FRANNY O'S: Karaoke, 9 p.m., free. THE GRYPHON: Gravel (jazz), 7 p.m., free. HALFLOUNGE SPEAKEASY: Half & Half Comedy (standup), 8 p.m., free. LIGHT CLUB LAMP SHOP: PHILEEP (indie folk), 8 p.m., free. Smarty McFly (ambient), 10 p.m., free. NECTAR'S: Trivia Mania, 7 p.m., free. Bluegrass Thursday: Blind Owl Band, 9:30 p.m., $2/5. 18+. RADIO BEAN: Jazz Sessions with Julian Chobot, 6:30 p.m., free. Rick Cusick (singer-songwriter), 7 p.m., free. Shane Hardiman Trio (jazz), 8:30 p.m., free. Soul Sessions with Def Ears, 10:30 p.m., free. Super Birdman Birthday Bash (reggae), 12:30 a.m., free. RED SQUARE: D Jay Baron (hip-hop), 10 p.m., free.

COURTESY OF SUPERHUMAN HAPPINESS

WED.14

SAT.17// SUPERHUMAN HAPPINESS [INDIE ROCK]

barre/montpelier

BAGITOS BAGEL & BURRITO CAFÉ: Dave Loughran (acoustic classic rock), 6 p.m., donation. SWEET MELISSA'S: BYOV Thursdays, 3 p.m., free. 2 Cents in the Till (folk), 7:30 p.m., free. WHAMMY BAR: June Morse Sing-Along, 7 p.m., free.

stowe/smuggs area MOOGS PLACE: Open Mic, 8 p.m., free.

middlebury area CITY LIMITS: Throttle Thursdays, 9 p.m., free.

northeast kingdom PARKER PIE CO.: Parker Pie Music Night, 7:30 p.m., free.

outside vermont

MONOPOLE: Magic Dan & Fancy Music (rock), 10 p.m., free. NAKED TURTLE: Ladies' Night with DJ Skippy, 10 p.m., free.

Great Escape Brooklyn-based dance-pop band

SUPERHUMAN HAPPINESS

are the brainchild of Antibalas’ Stuart Bogie, an in-demand saxophonist whose credits include recent stints touring with Arcade Fire and Iron & Wine and work with the likes of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Passion Pit, the Roots and Yeasayer. SH’s new album, Escape Velocity, reflects their bandleader’s varied musical experiences, presenting a diverse array of styles all filtered through a hooky and irrepressibly danceable prism

OLIVE RIDLEY'S: Karaoke, 9 p.m., free.

of prog rock and electropop. Touring in support of that new record, Superhuman

FRI.16

indie rockers TERROR PIGEON.

burlington

ARTSRIOT: Take Magazine Launch Party: And the Kids, Villanelles (indie), 6 p.m., free. BLEU NORTHEAST SEAFOOD: Gabe Jarrett (jazz), 8:30 p.m., free.

Happiness drop by the Radio Bean in Burlington this Saturday, October 17, along with

10 p.m., free. Iron Eyes Cody (indie folk, rock), 11:30 p.m., free.

Burlesque, 9 p.m., $25/28/85. 18+.

Pistol Fist (rock, hip-hop), 10 p.m., $5.

RED SQUARE: DJ Craig Mitchell (house), 11 p.m., $5.

HIGHER GROUND SHOWCASE LOUNGE: HmfO: A Hall & Oates Tribute, 8:30 p.m., $10/12. AA.

THE SKINNY PANCAKE (MONTPELIER): Jason Lee (folk), 8 p.m., free.

JERICHO CAFÉ & TAVERN: Bob Gagnon Quartet (jazz), 7 p.m., free.

SWEET MELISSA'S: Honky Tonk Happy Hour with Mark LeGrand, 5 p.m., free. The House Band (rock), 9 p.m., $5.

RED SQUARE BLUE ROOM: DJ Con Yay (EDM), 9 p.m., $5.

CLUB METRONOME: Carnival with DJ Luis Calderin (dance), 10 p.m., free/$5.

RÍ RÁ IRISH PUB & WHISKEY ROOM: Supersounds DJ (top 40), 8 p.m., free. Supersounds DJ (top 40), 10 p.m., free.

FRANNY O'S: Smokey Newfield Project (rock), 9 p.m., free.

RUBEN JAMES: DJ Cre8 (hip-hop), 10 p.m., free.

JUNIPER: Barbacoa (surf noir), 9 p.m., free.

THE SKINNY PANCAKE (BURLINGTON): Wren Kitz, #trashbag (indie), 8:30 p.m., free.

LIGHT CLUB LAMP SHOP: David Johnston (chamber swamp), 8 p.m., free. Taka (vinyl DJ), 11 p.m., free. NECTAR'S: Seth Yacovone (solo acoustic blues), 7 p.m., free. Blues for Breakfast (Grateful Dead tribute), 10 p.m., $6. RADIO BEAN: Friday Morning Sing-Along with Linda Bassick & Friends (kids' music), 11 a.m., free. Spencer Goddard (singer-songwriter), 7 p.m., free. Breadwinner (experimental folk),

ZEN LOUNGE: Antara (folk), 7 p.m., $5. Jah Red (Latin), 8 p.m., $5. Feel Good Friday with D Jay Baron (hip-hop), 11 p.m., $5.

chittenden county

BACKSTAGE PUB: Acoustic Happy Hour, 5 p.m., free. Karaoke with Jenny Red, 9 p.m., free. HIGHER GROUND BALLROOM: SuicideGirls: Blackheart

MONKEY HOUSE: About Time (jazz), 9 p.m., free. ON TAP BAR & GRILL: King Me (acoustic rock), 5 p.m., free. Sideshow Bob (rock), 9 p.m., free.

barre/montpelier

BAGITOS BAGEL & BURRITO CAFÉ: Montpelier HS Jazz Band, 6 p.m., donation. CHARLIE-O'S WORLD FAMOUS: Abby Jenne & Friends (rock), 6:30 p.m., free. Anachronist, Teleport (rock), 8:30 p.m., free. ESPRESSO BUENO: Stroke Yer Joke! Comedy Open Mic, 8 p.m., free. LA PUERTA NEGRA: New Nile Orchestra (Afrobeat), 9 p.m., $5. POSITIVE PIE (MONTPELIER): Boomslang, Lake Superior,

WHAMMY BAR: Marc Delgado of Wounded Knee (folk), 7:30 p.m., free.

stowe/smuggs area MOOGS PLACE: Abby Sherman (folk), 6 p.m., free. John Daly Trio (folk rock), 9 p.m., free. RIMROCK'S MOUNTAIN TAVERN: DJ Rekkon #FridayNightFrequencies (hip-hop), 10 p.m., free.

mad river valley/ waterbury

THE CIDER HOUSE BBQ AND PUB: Tim Kane (piano), 6 p.m., free. FRI.16

» P.74

GOT MUSIC NEWS? DAN@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

REVIEW this Billy Sharff, Carry Me Home

(SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL DOWNLOAD)

Singer-songwriter Billy Sharff has a knack for balancing acts. As vocalist, fiddler and guitarist of the Upper Valley roots band Pariah Beat, he is comfortable playing a rollicking, boisterous interpretation of Americana. Yet he is also content to strip his music to the barest of bones, as he did on his 2014 debut solo album, This Side of Town. In 2015, Sharff again dabbles in both group and solo pursuits. After being

largely on hiatus for a few years, Pariah Beat embarked on a cross-country tour this past spring, hitting the Southeast before swinging out for Texas and California. This month, Sharff drops a new solo album called Carry Me Home. Sparse and intimate as ever, it features only Sharff ’s battered voice and simple acoustic guitar. Elements of the American cultural and musical fabric — perhaps inspired by experiences on Pariah Beat’s tour — find their way into Sharff ’s songs. On Carry Me Home, Sharff still employs a plainspoken and unfussy vocal style. Some numbers, such as “Young and in the Way,” are intensely throaty, while others hardly rise above a worn whisper. Barely singing on “Saint John for Me,” Sharff uses a spoken-word tone to describe a walk through a former home. “Coming back into this house / feels like I’ve left something out / forgot myself inside a drawer / checking every shelf just to be sure,” he says/sings. In the lyrical tradition of country-folk troubadours, Carry Me Home is both observational and personal. Songs such as “Beauty Queen on Broad Street” draw touching, if slightly clichéd, character

(SELF-RELEASED, CD, DIGITAL DOWNLOAD)

LIZ CANTRELL

Wilmarth Aldrich to Jekyll Island. There they convened a secret meeting that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve. The album’s eight remaining tracks generally follow the same blueprint, with similarly entertaining and educational results. “Economic Words” is based on Blind Blake’s “Diddie Wa Diddie” but replaces that tune’s not terribly subtle sexual references with a handy explanation of financial terms. “Ace in the Hole” updates James Dempsey and George Mitchell’s 1909 classic as a cautionary tale warning of the role of money in politics. While much of the record has a lighthearted air, there are also serious underpinnings and sharp social commentaries. “Send the Banks” uses George M. Cohan’s “Over There” to outline the ways in which economic warfare has come to replace physical violence as a means of destruction. “The Wealthy White Man” flips the script on minstrel songs, presenting a different sort of nefarious stereotype. The New Economistas celebrate the release of Making Money Out of Air: Songs for a New Economy with a show at Bagitos Bagel and Burrito Café in Montpelier this Saturday, October 17. The album is available online via SoundCloud.

SEVEN DAYS

DAN BOLLES

AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST OR BAND MAKING MUSIC IN VT, SEND YOUR CD TO US! GET YOUR MUSIC REVIEWED: IFDANYOU’RE BOLLES C/O SEVEN DAYS, 255 SO. CHAMPLAIN ST. STE 5, BURLINGTON, VT 05401

6v-pencils1995.indd 1

MUSIC 73

week, Hallsmith and Taub release their debut record, Making Money Out of Air: Songs for a New Economy. In crafting the album, Hallsmith and Taub followed a time-honored folk tradition of adopting melodies that exist in the public domain and fitting them with new lyrics — in this case, typically ones of an economic bent. Undoubtedly, the New Economistas’ chosen subject matter is a tad dry, which ups the degree of difficulty. But there’s a folksy charm in their reimagining of American folk standards that makes the novelty, well, novel. For example, the opening cut, “Aldrich Cannonball,” is a pastiche of the folk staple “Wabash Cannonball.” The New Economistas’ version plays on the original’s locomotive theme with the story of how, in 1910, a group of Manhattan bankers and politicians took a private train car owned by Senator Nelson

SALSA NIGHT FRIDAY NIGHT WORLDWIDE

10.14.15-10.21.15

This just in: Not everyone is happy with the current state of the American economy. For the sake of argument, let’s just put that number of economically dissatisfied Americans at, oh, 99 percent. While the majority of that majority has little recourse when it comes to affecting economic change beyond the occasional occupation of public spaces or the far more occasional Facebook meme, a select few outraged citizens are endeavoring to make a real, tangible difference in the monetary standing of everyday folks. For example, Montpelier’s Michael Taub and Gwendolyn Hallsmith. Hallsmith and Taub are cofounders of a small nonprofit group called Vermonters for a New Economy, an organization that seeks to develop and promote more equitable, creative and sustainable economic models on a hyperlocal level. More germane to our purposes, they are also an amateur folk duo who bill themselves as the New Economistas. This

KIZOMBA ZENSDAY COLLEGE NIGHT

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

The New Economistas, Making Money Out of Air: Songs for a New Economy

“Love is a verb.”

sketches of local townsfolk. “Take It” pays homage to the queen of rock and roll — Janis Joplin — with a cherishing touch ONLINE@ZENLOUNGEVT that suggests that she is one of Sharff ’s personal idols. W.10.14 with DSANTOS VT 7PM, 18+ Tunes such as “House of Rust” are searing and universal. “The sun up in the with D JAY BARON 10PM, 18+ sky / one day it’s not gonna shine / unlike Tuesda KARAOKys Th.10.15 KILLA TWAUN MIX TAPE this love of mine / so they say it can’t be 9PM, 18+ E RELEASE FEATURING / now your body, I agree / so I say I can’t MTV’S JOJO SIMMONS 10PM, 18+ live without you / this earth, my body, I give / so I don’t believe when you die / F.10.16 ANTARA LIVE 7PM, 21+ your soul goes up in the sky / and lives with JAH RED 9PM, 21+ forever like this love of mine,” Sharff sings. The hushed 11-track album plays with DAVE VILLA & RON STOPPABLE 11 P.M. 21+ like one of National Public Radio’s Tiny Desk Concerts — and a quick one at that, Sa.10.17 JAMIE LEE THURSTON 8 P.M. 21+ clocking in at 27 minutes. Yet that’s all DJ CRAIG MITCHELL 10 P.M. 21+ the time Sharff needs. He conveys his 165 CHURCH ST, BTV • 802-399-2645 sentiments simply and briefly, through yearning vocal changes or small tweaks of a guitar string. On his sophomore 12v-zenloungeWEEKLY2015.indd 1 10/13/15 11:21 AM solo effort, Carry Me Home, Sharff uses both small-town vignettes and sweeping images to appeal to the individual and universal feelings we all experience. Carry Me Home by Billy Sharff will be available on Tuesday, October 20, at billysharff.bandcamp.com.

10/13/15 6:23 PM

UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT PREGNANCY STUDY

music

cLUB DAtES NA: not availaBlE. AA: all agEs.

Researchers at the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health are looking for women who are currently pregnant to participate in a study on health behaviors and infant birth outcomes. This study involves:

Perfect Strangers

9 short appointments (approximately 20 minutes each)

iconic indie rockers appear to still be in command of the attributes that have

Flexible scheduling, including weekend and evening appointments

loaded with angular — and spooky — guitar riffage, volatile vocal attacks

Compensation $700

Prior to unveiling Strangers to

Ourselves in March, it had been eight years since moDESt moUSE released a

record. Eight. Friggin’. Years. Despite the layoff — and the record’s title — the made them great since the early 1990s. Strangers is classic Modest Mouse, and unrelenting backbeats. In short, it was worth the wait. This Monday, October 19, Modest Mouse play Memorial Auditorium in Burlington with

2 Free Ultrasounds If interested, please visit our website to complete the recruitment questionnaire: http://j.mp/1yLwkLO

HoP ALoNG.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 802-656-1906 6h-uvmdeppsych(pregnancystudy)051314.indd 1

8/10/15 3:33 PM

SEVENDAYSVt.com

moN.19 // moDESt moUSE [INDIE RocK]

10.14.15-10.21.15

GROUP EXERCISE ONLY MEMBERSHIPS Available for purchase until 10/14/15

« p.72

middlebury area

51 MAIN AT THE BRIDGE: Anthony Santor Jazz Group, 8 p.m., free.

JP'S PUB: Karaoke with megan, 10 p.m., free.

northeast kingdom

JUNIPER: Jackie Lee (folk), 9 p.m., free.

THE STAGE: Karaoke, 8 p.m., free.

NECTAR'S: Last Daze Acoustic (rock), 7 p.m., free. Grippo Funk Band, 9 p.m., $7.

MONOPOLE DOWNSTAIRS: Happy Hour tunes & trivia with Gary Peacock, 5 p.m., free.

SAT.17

SEVEN DAYS

burlington

ARTSRIOT: tURNmusic (modern chamber music), 8 p.m., $15. AA. 9/30/15 3:59 PM

FRANNY O'S: Karaoke, 9 p.m., free.

TOURTERELLE: The Grift (rock), 7:30 p.m., $10.

MONOPOLE: capital Zen (rock), 10 p.m., free.

3v-sportsandfitness100715.indd 1

CLUB METRONOME: Retronome With DJ Fattie B (’80s dance party), 9 p.m., free/$5. THE GRYPHON: Paul Asbell & co. (jazz), 7 p.m., free.

outside vermont

ESSEX | SOUTH BURLINGTON | WILLISTON

BLEU NORTHEAST SEAFOOD: Peter Krag (jazz), 8:30 p.m., free.

CITY LIMITS: city Limits Dance Party with top Hat Entertainment (Top 40), 9:30 p.m., free.

JASPER'S TAVERN: InKahootz (classic rock), 9:30 p.m., $5.

802-860-EDGE edgevt.com/join 74 music

fri.16

LIGHT CLUB LAMP SHOP: Soleilune (indie), 7 p.m., free. Diane cluck (indie), 8 p.m., $8/10. taka (vinyl DJ), 11 p.m., free.

RADIO BEAN: marc Delgado of Wounded Knee (Americana), noon, free. mIlton Busker and the Grim Work (suit folk), 8:30 p.m., free. Vows (indie), 10 p.m., free. Superhuman Happiness, terror Pigeon (indie rock), 11:30 p.m., NA. RED SQUARE: mashtodon (hip-hop), 11 p.m., $5. RED SQUARE BLUE ROOM: DJ Raul, 6 p.m., $5. DJ Reign one (EDm), 11 p.m., $5. RÍ RÁ IRISH PUB & WHISKEY ROOM: The complaints (rock), 8 p.m., free.

CoUrteSy of ModeSt MoUSe

ESPRESSO BUENO: mark LeGrand (blues), 7:30 p.m., donation. SWEET MELISSA'S: Andy Pitt (folk), 5 p.m., free. WHAMMY BAR: Live music, 7:30 p.m., free.

stowe/smuggs area

MOOGS PLACE: John Lackard Blues Band, 9 p.m., free. RUSTY NAIL: tar Iguana, Revibe, cosmosis Jones (jam), 9 p.m., $7.

GET 10% OFF

STOWE INN AND TAVERN: Ben Slotnick (folk), 9 p.m., free.

mad river valley/waterbury THE CIDER HOUSE BBQ AND PUB: Dan Boomhower (piano), 6 p.m., free.

w h E n yO u p u r c h a s E a Full sETup*

THE RESERVOIR RESTAURANT & TAP ROOM: The Usual Suspects (blues), 10 p.m., free.

middlebury area

51 MAIN AT THE BRIDGE: The Doughboys (soul), 8 p.m., free. BAR ANTIDOTE: Hot Neon magic (’80s New Wave), 8 p.m., free. CITY LIMITS: city Limits Dance Party with DJ Earl (top 40), 9:30 p.m., free.

northeast kingdom

JASPER'S TAVERN: Wound for Sound (top 40), 9 p.m., free. PARKER PIE CO.: tribute Night: the ’90s, 8 p.m., $5.

outside vermont

MONOPOLE: Blind Spots with mike Suave (rock), 10 p.m., free.

SUN.18 burlington

FRANNY O'S: Kyle Stevens' Happiest Hour of music (singer-songwriter), 7 p.m., free. NECTAR'S: mi Yard Reggae Night with DJs Big Dog and Jahson, 9:30 p.m., $3. THE OLDE NORTHENDER PUB: open mic, 7 p.m., free.

RUBEN JAMES: craig mitchell (house), 10 p.m., free.

ZEN LOUNGE: old School Revival (hip-hop), 11 p.m., $5.

chittenden county

GOOD TIMES CAFÉ: Nancy Beaven (folk), 8:30 p.m., $15.

MONKEY HOUSE: The cornerstone, mcclain Sullivan (reggae rock), 9 p.m., $3/8. 18+. ON TAP BAR & GRILL: mitch & Friends (acoustic rock), 5 p.m., free. The Real Deal (r&B), 9 p.m., free.

barre/montpelier

BAGITOS BAGEL & BURRITO CAFÉ: Irish Session, 2 p.m., donation. New Economistas cD Release (novelty), 6 p.m., donation.

chittenden county

BACKSTAGE PUB: Karaoke/open mic, 8 p.m., free. HIGHER GROUND BALLROOM: The Front Bottoms, the Smith Street band, Elvis Depressedly (punk), 7:30 p.m., $17/20. AA. PENALTY BOX: trivia With a twist, 4 p.m., free.

barre/montpelier

THE SKINNY PANCAKE (MONTPELIER): Randy Niles (folk, soul), 5:30 p.m., free. SWEET MELISSA'S: Julia Kate Davis (folk), noon, frees. Live Band Rock & Roll Karaoke, 8 p.m., free.

stowe/smuggs area

*A Full setup is a Snowboard, Boots & Bindings Offer Valid 10/12 - 10/25 Some restrictions apply

SEVEN DAYS

HIGHER GROUND SHOWCASE LOUNGE: tumbleweed Wanderers (Americana), 8 p.m., $8/10. AA.

THE SKINNY PANCAKE (BURLINGTON): Bluegrass Brunch Scramble, noon, $5-10 donation. Spark open Improv Jam & Standup comedy, 7 p.m., $5-10 donation.

10.14.15-10.21.15

THE SKINNY PANCAKE (BURLINGTON): Vows, the Snaz (indie), 8:30 p.m., $5.

SEVENDAYSVt.com

RADIO BEAN: Gospel Brunch with Aaron Burroughs, 11 a.m., free. Pete Sutherland & tim Stickle's old time Session, 1 p.m., free. The cornerstone (rock, reggae), 7:30 p.m., free. Joe Holt (folk), 9 p.m., free. Shift the Paradigm (indie rock), 10:30 p.m., free.

MOOGS PLACE: The AcaFella (frank Sinatra tribute), noon, free.

THE STAGE: open mic, 5 p.m., free.

CHARLIE-O'S WORLD FAMOUS: Drag Ball Benefit for VtPWAc with the House of Lemay, 10 p.m., donation. MoN.19

MUSIC 75

Burton Flagship Store 80 Industrial Parkway, Burlington 802-660-3200

northeast kingdom

» p.76 Untitled-66 1

10/12/15 7:31 PM

music

na: not availABLE. AA: All ages.

« p.75

courtesy of shannon and the clams

sun.18

CLUB DATES

MON.19 burlington

FRANNY O'S: Standup Comedy Cage Match, 8 p.m., free. HALFLOUNGE SPEAKEASY: Family Night (rock), 10:30 p.m., free. JP'S PUB: Dance Video Request Night with Melody, 10 p.m., free. JUNIPER: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free. LIGHT CLUB LAMP SHOP: Lamp Shop Lit Club (open reading), 8 p.m., free. MANHATTAN PIZZA & PUB: Karaoke, 9 p.m., free. NECTAR'S: Magic Mondays: Squimley & the Woolens (jam), 10 p.m., free/$5. 18+. RADIO BEAN: Briget Boyle (folk rock), 7 p.m., free. moonheart (folk soul), 8:30 p.m., free. Latin Sessions with Mal Maiz (cumbia), 10:30 p.m., free. RED SQUARE: Mashtodon (hip-hop), 8 p.m., free. THE SKINNY PANCAKE (BURLINGTON): Kidz Music with Raphael, 11:30 a.m., $3 donation.

chittenden county HIGHER GROUND SHOWCASE LOUNGE: Chon, Gates (rock), 8 p.m., $12/14. AA.

tue.20 // Shannon and the Clams [indie rock]

MONKEY HOUSE: Aaron Waldman & Chris Heller (folk), 8:30 p.m., free/$5. 18+.

barre/montpelier

CHARLIE-O'S WORLD FAMOUS: Open Mic Comedy Café, 8 p.m., free.

Digging Clams Oakland’s

SWEET MELISSA'S: Kelly Ravin (country), 8 p.m., free.

adds palpable emotional depth to that potent formula, arriving at a sound that swoons as much as it snarls. Dig some Clams at the Monkey House in

76 music

SEVEN DAYS

10.14.15-10.21.15

SEVENDAYSvt.com

stowe/smuggs area MOOGS PLACE: Seth Yacovone (solo acoustic blues), 7 p.m., free.

northeast kingdom PHAT KATS TAVERN: Jay Natola (solo guitar), 9 p.m., free.

outside vermont

OLIVE RIDLEY'S: Karaoke with DJ Dana Barry, 9 p.m., free.

TUE.20 burlington

CLUB METRONOME: Dead Set (Grateful Dead tribute), 9 p.m., free/$5. JP'S PUB: Open Mic with Kyle, 9 p.m., free. LEUNIG'S BISTRO & CAFÉ: Dan Liptak Trio (jazz), 7 p.m., free. NECTAR'S: Coquette, Carraway (rock), 8 p.m., free. The Jauntee, Cosmosis Jones (jam), 9 p.m., free/$5. 18+. RADIO BEAN: Lokum (music of the Near East), 6:30 p.m., free. Pulling Yo' Chain: A Standup Comedy Showcase, 8 p.m., free. Grup Anwar (classical Arabic), 8:30 p.m., free. Honky Tonk

Shannon and the Clams

forged their own distinct niche in the landscape of indie music by pairing the

bubblegum melodies of vintage rock and roll with the ragged swagger of lo-fi garage rock. But on their latest record, Gone by the Dawn, the trio Winooski this Tuesday, October 20. Shopping and Gymshorts open the show. Tuesday with Brett Hughes & Friends, 10 p.m., $3. RED SQUARE: Craig Mitchell (house), 10 p.m., free. ZEN LOUNGE: Killed It! Karaoke, 9 p.m., free.

chittenden county

HIGHER GROUND SHOWCASE LOUNGE: Late Night Radio, Marvel Years (electronic), 8 p.m., $10/12. AA. MONKEY HOUSE: WW Presents: Shannon & the Clams, Shopping, Gymshorts (indie rock), 8 p.m., $10/12/15. 18+. ON TAP BAR & GRILL: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free.

barre/montpelier

stowe/smuggs area

Open Mic with Andy Lugo, 9 p.m., free.

middlebury area

NECTAR'S: VT Comedy Club Presents: What a Joke! Comedy Open Mic (standup comedy), 7 p.m., free. Mac Swan & Black Holly (rock), 9:30 p.m., free/$5. 18+.

MOOGS PLACE: Jason Wedlock (rock), 7:30 p.m., free.

TWO BROTHERS TAVERN LOUNGE & STAGE: Karaoke with Roots Entertainment, 9 p.m., free.

WED.21 burlington

THE DAILY PLANET: Paul Asbell and Clyde Stats (jazz), 8 p.m., free. THE GRYPHON: Al Teodosio and Tom Frink, 7 p.m., free.

BAGITOS BAGEL & BURRITO CAFÉ: Old Time Music Session, 6 p.m., free.

JP'S PUB: Pub Quiz with Dave, 7 p.m., free. Karaoke with Melody, 10 p.m., free.

CHARLIE-O'S WORLD FAMOUS: Karaoke, 9:30 p.m., free.

JUNIPER: Ray Vega/Mercurii Ensemble (jazz), 8 p.m., free.

SOUTH SIDE TAVERN: Open Mic with John Lackard, 9 p.m., free.

LEUNIG'S BISTRO & CAFÉ: Mike Martin (jazz), 7 p.m., free.

SWEET MELISSA'S: Bruce Jones (folk), 5 p.m., free.

LIGHT CLUB LAMP SHOP: Irish Sessions, 8 p.m., free. Film Night: Indie, Abstract, Avant Garde, 10 p.m., free. MANHATTAN PIZZA & PUB:

RADIO BEAN: Aaron Waldman & Chris Heller (folk, pop), 6 p.m., free. Hadley Kennary (singer-songwriter), 7:30 p.m., free. The Blind Continuum (alternative rap), 9 p.m., free. Pocket Protector (hip-hop, jam), 10:30 p.m., free.

chittenden county HIGHER GROUND SHOWCASE LOUNGE: Cam Meekins (hiphop), 8:30 p.m., $12/15. AA.

MONKEY HOUSE: Bison (rock), 8:30 p.m., free/$5. 18+. ON TAP BAR & GRILL: Blues Jam with the Collin Craig Trio, 7 p.m., free.

barre/montpelier

BAGITOS BAGEL & BURRITO CAFÉ: Papa GreyBeard (blues), 6 p.m., donation.

SIGNAL KITCHEN: Bongzilla (stoner metal), 8 p.m., $12/14.

THE SKINNY PANCAKE (MONTPELIER): Cajun Jam with Jay Ekis, Lee Blackwell, Alec Ellsworth & Katie Trautz, 6 p.m., $5-10 donation.

THE SKINNY PANCAKE (BURLINGTON): Josh Panda's Acoustic Soul Night, 8 p.m., $5-10 donation.

SWEET MELISSA'S: Wine Down with D. Davis (acoustic), 5 p.m., free. Open Blues Jam hosted by Jason Jack, 8 p.m., free.

SWITCHBACK BREWING: Music Wednesday in the Tap Room: Dan Tomaino (singersongwriter), 6 p.m., free.

stowe/smuggs area

RED SQUARE: DJ Cre8 (hip-hop), 11 p.m., free.

ZEN LOUNGE: Kizomba with Dsantos VT, 7 p.m., free. Loveland with DJ Craig Mitchell, 10 p.m., free/$5. 18+.

THE BEE'S KNEES: Heady Topper Happy Hour with David Langevin (piano), 5 p.m., free. MOOGS PLACE: Christine Malcolm (folk), 8 p.m., free.

PIECASSO PIZZERIA & LOUNGE: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free.

RUSTY NAIL: Open Mic, 9:30 p.m., free.

middlebury area

51 MAIN AT THE BRIDGE: Blues Jam, 8 p.m., free. CITY LIMITS: Karaoke, 9 p.m., free. TWO BROTHERS TAVERN LOUNGE & STAGE: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free.

northeast kingdom LE BELVEDERE: Fishhead Unplugged (acoustic rock), 6 p.m., free.

PARKER PIE CO.: Trivia Night, 7 p.m., free. THE STAGE: Open Mic, 6 p.m., free.

outside vermont

MONOPOLE: Open Mic, 10 p.m., free. NAKED TURTLE: Jay Lesage (acoustic), 5:30 p.m., free. OLIVE RIDLEY'S: So You Want to Be a DJ?, 10 p.m., free. m

venueS.411 burlington

StoWE/SMuggS ArEA

MiDDlEburY ArEA

51 mAiN At thE BriDgE, 51 Main St., Middlebury, 388-8209 BAr ANtiDotE, 35C Green St., Vergennes, 877-2555 citY LimitS, 14 Greene St., Vergennes, 877-6919 toUrtErELLE, 3629 Ethan Allen Hwy., New Haven, 453-6309 two BrothErS tAVErN LoUNgE & StAgE, 86 Main St., Middlebury, 388-0002

One of the most innovative songwriters working today. — Chicago Tribune Susan Werner composes skillful songs that effortlessly slide between folk, jazz, and pop, all delivered with sassy wit and classic charm.

122 Hourglass Dr., Stowe • 760-4634 • SprucePeakArts.org 6h-sppac101415.indd 1

10/12/15 1:54 PM

THIS IS OUR IDEA OF LUXURY

rutlAnD ArEA

hop’N mooSE BrEwErY co., 41 Center St., Rutland 775-7063 pickLE BArrEL NightcLUB, Killington Rd., Killington, 422-3035

CHAMPlAin iSlAnDS/ nortHWESt

chow! BELLA, 28 N. Main St., St. Albans, 524-1405 SNow ShoE LoDgE & pUB, 13 Main St., Montgomery Center, 326-4456

uPPEr VAllEY

BrEAkiNg groUNDS, 245 Main St., Bethel, 392-4222

nortHEASt kingDoM

JASpEr’S tAVErN, 71 Seymour Ln., Newport, 334-2224 mUSic Box, 147 Creek Rd., Craftsbury, 586-7533 pArkEr piE co., 161 County Rd., West Glover, 525-3366 phAt kAtS tAVErN, 101 Depot St., Lyndonville, 626-3064 thE pUB oUtBAck, 482 Vt. 114, East Burke, 626-1188 thE StAgE, 45 Broad St., Lyndonville, 427-3344 tAmArAck griLL, 223 Shelburne Lodge Rd., East Burke, 626-7390

Bold harmonious design, pure uncluttered luxury, intuitive technologies, advanced safety features and comfort for seven.

outSiDE VErMont

moNopoLE, 7 Protection Ave., Plattsburgh, N.Y., 518-563-2222 NAkED tUrtLE, 1 Dock St., Plattsburgh, N.Y., 518-566-6200. oLiVE riDLEY’S, 37 Court St., Plattsburgh, N.Y., 518-324-2200 pALmEr St. coffEE hoUSE, 4 Palmer St., Plattsburgh, N.Y. 518-561-6920

Route 7, Shelburne, VT 1-800-639-5088 www.almartinvolvo.com

85-1030 MUSIC 77

BEE’S kNEES, 82 Lower Main St., Morrisville, 888-7889 cLAirE’S rEStAUrANt & BAr, 41 Main St., Hardwick, 472-7053 mAttErhorN, 4969 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-8198 moogS pLAcE, Portland St., Morrisville, 851-8225 piEcASSo, 899 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-4411 rimrockS moUNtAiN tAVErN, 394 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-9593 thE rUStY NAiL, 1190 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-6245 SUShi YoShi, 1128 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-4135 SwEEt crUNch BAkEShop, 246 Main St., Hyde Park, 888-4887

Big pictUrE thEAtEr & cAfé, 48 Carroll Rd., Waitsfield, 496-8994 thE cENtEr BAkErY & cAfé, 2007 Guptil Rd., Waterbury Center, 244-7500 ciDEr hoUSE BBq AND pUB, 1675 Rte.2, Waterbury, 244-8400 cork wiNE BAr, 1 Stowe St., Waterbury, 882-8227 hoStEL tEVErE, 203 Powderhound Rd., Warren, 496-9222 pUrpLE mooN pUB, Rt. 100, Waitsfield, 496-3422 thE rESErVoir rEStAUrANt & tAp room, 1 S. Main St., Waterbury, 244-7827 SLiDE Brook LoDgE & tAVErN, 3180 German Flats Rd., Warren, 583-2202

SEVEN DAYS

BAckStAgE pUB, 60 Pearl St., Essex Jct., 878-5494 gooD timES cAfé, Rt. 116, Hinesburg, 482-4444 highEr groUND, 1214 Williston Rd., S. Burlington, 652-0777 hiNESBUrgh pUBLic hoUSE, 10516 Vt., 116 #6A, Hinesburg, 482-5500

BAgitoS BAgEL & BUrrito cAfé, 28 Main St., Montpelier, 229-9212 cApitAL groUNDS cAfé, 27 State St., Montpelier, 223-7800 chArLiE-o’S worLD fAmoUS, 70 Main St., Montpelier, 223-6820 ESprESSo BUENo, 248 N. Main St., Barre, 479-0896 grEEN moUNtAiN tAVErN, 10 Keith Ave., Barre, 522-2935 gUSto’S, 28 Prospect St., Barre, 476-7919 kiSmEt, 52 State St., Montpelier, 223-8646 LA pUErtA NEgrA, 44 Main St., Montpelier, 613-3172 mULLigAN’S iriSh pUB, 9 Maple Ave., Barre, 479-5545 North BrANch cAfé, 41 State St., Montpelier, 552-8105 poSitiVE piE, 20 State St., Montpelier, 229-0453 rED hEN BAkErY + cAfé, 961 US Route 2, Middlesex, 223-5200 thE SkiNNY pANcAkE, 89 Main St., Montpelier, 262-2253 SoUth SiDE tAVErN, 107 S. Main St., Barre, 476-3637 SwEEt mELiSSA’S, 4 Langdon St., Montpelier, 225-6012 VErmoNt thrUSh rEStAUrANt, 107 State St., Montpelier, 225-6166 whAmmY BAr, 31 W. County Rd., Calais, 229-4329

MAD riVEr VAllEY/ WAtErburY

10.14.15-10.21.15

CHittEnDEn CountY

bArrE/MontPEliEr

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 7:30 PM

SEVENDAYSVt.com

242 mAiN St., Burlington, 862-2244 AmEricAN fLAtBrEAD, 115 St. Paul St., Burlington, 861-2999 ArtSriot, 400 Pine St., Burlington, 540 0406 AUgUSt firSt, 149 S. Champlain St., Burlington, 540-0060 BArrio BAkErY & pizzA BArrio, 203 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington, 863-8278 BENto, 197 College St., Burlington, 497-2494 BLEU NorthEASt SEAfooD, 25 Cherry St., Burlington, 854-4700 BrEAkwAtEr cAfé, 1 King St., Burlington, 658-6276 BrENNAN’S pUB & BiStro, UVM Davis Center, 590 Main St., Burlington, 656-1204 chUrch & mAiN rEStAUrANt, 156 Church St. Burlington, 540-3040 cLUB mEtroNomE, 188 Main St., Burlington, 865-4563 thE DAiLY pLANEt, 15 Center St., Burlington, 862-9647 DoBrÁ tEA, 80 Church St., Burlington, 951-2424 DriNk, 133 St. Paul St., Burlington, 951-9463 EASt ShorE ViNEYArD tAStiNg room, 28 Church St., Burlington, 859-9463 fiNNigAN’S pUB, 205 College St., Burlington, 864-8209 frANNY o’S, 733 Queen City Park Rd., Burlington, 863-2909 thE grYphoN, 131 Main St., Burlington, 489-5699 hALfLoUNgE SpEAkEASY, 136 1/2 Church St., Burlington, 865-0012 Jp’S pUB, 139 Main St., Burlington, 658-6389 JUNipEr At hotEL VErmoNt, 41 Cherry St., Burlington, 658-0251 Light cLUB LAmp Shop, 12 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington, 660-9346 LEUNig’S BiStro & cAfé, 115 Church St., Burlington, 863-3759 mAgLiANEro cAfé, 47 Maple St., Burlington, 861-3155 mANhAttAN pizzA & pUB, 167 Main St., Burlington, 864-6776 mUDDY wAtErS, 184 Main St., Burlington, 658-0466 NEctAr’S, 188 Main St., Burlington, 658-4771 rADio BEAN, 8 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington, 660-9346 rASpUtiN’S, 163 Church St., Burlington, 864-9324 rED SqUArE, 136 Church St., Burlington, 859-8909 rÍ rÁ iriSh pUB, 123 Church St., Burlington, 860-9401 rUBEN JAmES, 159 Main St., Burlington, 864-0744 SigNAL kitchEN, 71 Main St., Burlington, 399-2337 thE SkiNNY pANcAkE, 60 Lake St., Burlington, 540-0188 thE VErmoNt pUB & BrEwErY, 144 College St., Burlington, 865-0500 zEN LoUNgE, 165 Church St., Burlington, 399-2645

JAmES moorE tAVErN,4302 Bolton Access Rd. Bolton Valley, Jericho,434-6826 JEricho cAfé & tAVErN,30 Rte., 15 Jericho, 899-2223 moNkEY hoUSE, 30 Main St., Winooski, 655-4563 moNtY’S oLD Brick tAVErN, 7921 Williston Rd., Williston, 316-4262 oAk45, 45 Main St., Winooski, 448-3740 o’BriEN’S iriSh pUB, 348 Main St., Winooski, 338-4678 oN tAp BAr & griLL, 4 Park St., Essex Jct., 878-3309 pArk pLAcE tAVErN, 38 Park St., Essex Jct. 878-3015 pENALtY Box, 127 Porter’s Point Rd., Colchester, 863-2065 rozzi’S LAkEShorE tAVErN, 1022 W. Lakeshore Dr., Colchester, 863-2342 ShELBUrNE ViNEYArD, 6308 Shelburne Rd., Shelburne, 985-8222 wAtErworkS fooD + DriNk, 20 Winooski Falls Way, Winooski, 497-3525

SUSAN WERNER

Untitled-10 1

9/14/15 12:04 PM

Far From the Tree

art

“In Grain: Contemporary Work in Wood,” Fleming Museum of Art B Y AMY LI LLY

ood is a familiar material, something everyone grows up handling. So, in a museum setting, it’s a fantastic medium for bringing disparate types together — from woodworking fans who don’t normally care about art to art enthusiasts who secretly suspect wood is an outmoded material. The current exhibit at the University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum of Art, “In Grain: Contemporary Work in Wood,” holds surprises for both groups. That’s due in part to the wide range of potential uses of wood on display. The 10 artists represented have employed the material to compose abstract assemblages, carve lifelike figures and erect dollhouselike constructions. Their work is roughhewn or laser-cut, painted with trompe l’oeil grids or a smooth, manufacturedlooking enamel. In every case, the artist’s appreciation for the look and feel of wood is evident. (A large sign at the entrance warns against touching the works, but it takes an enormous effort to resist.) And not one artist has completely masked the material. One trio of works comes close. Three weighty burls by A.M. Disher are initially unrecognizable as wood because they so powerfully suggest interior body parts. Painted on the human-intestine color spectrum, the burls are positioned on white surfaces. One is balanced on a chair back (“Sit Proper”), another attached at shin level to a wall (“Adrasteia (the inescapable)”), the third wrapped like a tumor around a protruding room corner (“Fester”). There is a kind of clinical violence in their choppedoff tubular branches, the ends painted white, and in the tiny surface irregularities accented with darker red to look like gashes. The shock of coming across them is, well, visceral. Their creator is a young graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design who appears to enjoy needling conventions of the art world and propriety alike. An earlier work of Disher’s, a grotesquely restuffed armchair, lists among its materials “French Toile de Jouy fabric with depictions of white middle-class families enjoying everyday life” and “Generations of silence.” Yet the most unsettlingly beautiful works in “In Grain” are also the most traditional: a life-size bust of a young woman

Eric Nelson’s sculptures

78 ART

SEVEN DAYS

10.14.15-10.21.15

SEVENDAYSVT.COM

REVIEW

“Backstage” by Ross Smart

THE 10 ARTISTS REPRESENTED HAVE EMPLOYED THE MATERIAL TO COMPOSE ABSTRACT ASSEMBLAGES,

CARVE LIFELIKE FIGURES AND ERECT DOLLHOUSE-LIKE CONSTRUCTIONS. “Nelle neve voglio stare” by Bruno Walpoth

and a reclining figure of another, both carved by Italian sculptor Bruno Walpoth. The son and grandson of wood-carvers, Walpoth grew up in a town known for its centuries-old carving tradition. He traces his inspiration even further back, to the deeply human portraits of early Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca. Walpoth’s figures have idealized proportions and faces so rivetingly introspective that it seems impossible they’re carved from wood. Yet their medium is unmistakable: The artist has left tool marks and crosshatching visible, particularly on the bust, “Julia II.” This haunting woman’s gaze is direct yet seemingly focused inward, on her own unreadable thoughts. Her face and neck emerge from a vessel-like base, and her skin is painted a translucent, fragile-looking white. Walpoth’s reclining nude, “Nelle neve voglio stare” (“In the snow I want to remain”), is a remarkable display of carving skill. The flattened underside of the woman’s back is mounted a few inches above its pedestal, yet her hands and hair, bound in a bun, fall below that plane. It’s as if her body has been draped over a sarcophagus, which has subsequently vanished. Fleming director Janie Cohen, who curated the show, says she spotted Walpoth online and learned that these two works, owned (and loaned) by a New York couple, were the only two on the East Coast. Six of the 10 artists live in Vermont, Cohen adds. One is Eric Nelson of Middlebury, whose 365 unique sculptures, each carved from a 2-by-2-by-4-inch block of mahogany, greet visitors in a double line that marches around three central walls. Nelson, recently retired after 33 years of teaching sculpture and drawing at Middlebury College, previously worked in large-scale steel, so “downsizing” for him has clearly taken on a whole new meaning. Expecting to carve one small block a day, Nelson instead finished “Three Hundred Sixty Five” in 12 years, finding inspiration in everything from Egyptian art to prehistoric fertility figures. Tartan is the inspiration for Duncan Johnson’s new work. Previously, the Bellows Falls artist joined salvaged wood strips, their original paint intact, into beautifully crafted “paintings,” as he called them. The smooth surfaces of those assemblages were interrupted, if at all, by patterns of flush nailheads meant to catch the light.

art shows

“Pelican,” one of Johnson’s works in this show, shares that immediately recognizable idiom. Now the artist has begun experimenting with depth. In “Tartan III,” he has made the crossed bands of a plaid appear three-dimensional, attached over and under one another in complex configurations. Touching that last work (again, resist) would probably give one a splinter, but it seems particularly cruel that one can’t touch Duxbury artist Nori Morimoto’s four works. Each is like a Flor sample — those small carpet squares that come in endless patterns — designed to show off a texture, including burnt pieces, carved chunks and other organic forms. Morimoto’s works are nothing like the smoothly mod, rounded squares of Greg Mencoff (Disher’s professor at Mass College), with their enamel-painted surfaces. Nor do those bear any relation to

“Sit Proper” by A.M. Disher

call to artists Focus on Mt. Mansfield Photo Competition: Photographers are invited to submit a photo of Mount Mansfield from any angle for an exhibit/competition, with a $75 prize for the public’s favorite. Submissions will be displayed at MMCTV as they are received. Deadline: October 15. Photos must be framed or mounted. More details online at mmctv15.org. Mt. Mansfield Community Television, Richmond. Info, 434-2550. The Gallery at LCATV: Lake Champlain Access Television (LCATV) is looking for artists to exhibit visual arts at a spacious community media center in northern Colchester. Artists must meet the criteria of LCATV membership (live, work or attend school in Colchester, Milton, Georgia, Fairfax, Westford, South Hero, Grand Isle or North Hero). Exhibitions can be one, two, or three months and include a reception. Group shows are welcome. Proceeds from any sales go to the artists. Lake Champlain Access Television, Colchester. Through August 1, 2016. Info, 862-5724. Island Arts Gallery 2016: Artists are invited to submit an application for the 2016 juried gallery schedule. Submit an artist statement including the medium(s) used and two to five digital images of work to the Island Arts South Hero Gallery Committee by October 31. All mediums welcome. Info, maryjomccarthy@gmail.com or 372-6047, or Heidi Chamberlain at 372-3346. Island Arts South Hero Gallery.

NEW THIS WEEK chittenden county

Milton Artists Guild: Twenty artists share photographs that represent meaningful passageways in life. October 16-February 5. Info, lstech@ comcast.net. Milton Municipal Building.

f Robert Chapla: “New Directions in Plein Air

upper valley

Adelaide Tyrol: “The Outside Story,” images of the natural world, many of which have been featured alongside ecology-related articles in regional publications. October 17-November 29. Info, 6492200. Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich.

manchester/bennington

f Dona Mara Friedman: “The Nature of Things,” encaustic oil paintings by the regionally recognized artist. Reception: Thursday, October 15, 5:30 p.m October 15-November 16. Info, 362-4061. The Gallery at Equinox Village in Manchester Center.

art events

INFO visual art in seven days:

Meet the Artist: Tyler Wilkinson-Ray: In conjunction with the exhibition “Eyes on the Land,” the filmmaker discusses his trade, encourages aspiring filmmakers and discusses authentic storytelling. Shelburne Museum, Saturday, October 17, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Free with museum admission. Info, 985-3346. The Squashed Gallery Opening: Photographer Peter Miller has transformed his former gallery space into a new, smaller gallery with attached photography-centric Airbnb accommodations. Miller’s images from Paris as well as Vermont landscapes and portraits are on view. The Squashed Gallery, Waterbury, Friday, October 16, 5 p.m. Info, peter@petermillerphotography.com Vermont Land Trust’s 2015 Celebration: The conservation organization features remarks by museum curator Kory Rogers about the current collaborative exhibit “Eyes on the Land: Artists Explore Farms and Forests Conserved by the Vermont Land Trust.” Light fare and beverages served. RSVP. Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education, Shelburne Museum, Sunday, October 18, 5:15-8 p.m. $25 members; $35 nonmembers. Info, 262-1204, eyesontheland.org/events.

ONGOING Shows burlington

‘2015 South End Art Hop Juried Show Winners’: Featuring juried winners in order: “Bill at Conant” by Eleanor Lanahan; “Slum Landlord” by John Brickles; “Desk Chair” by Amey Radcliffe; and People’s Choice winner “Waiting for the Parade” by Sarah McGarghan. Through October 31. Info, 859-9222. SEABA Center in Burlington. Anne Massicotte and Gerald K. Stoner: “Beasts and Other Reflections” by the artists from Québec and Vermont, respectively. Through October 31. Info, 363-4746. Flynndog in Burlington. Art Hop Group Show: An exhibit organized by SEABA for this year’s South End Art Hop features works by 30 local artists. Through November 30. Info, 651-9692. VCAM Studio in Burlington. ‘The Art of Horror’: Beautiful decay, bloody abstracts and depraved imaginings by 55 New England artists. Through October 31. $5. Info, 578-2512. The S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington. Casey Blanchard: Monoprints, notecards and original unframed works by the Vermont printmaker. Info, 238-7767. Jon Olsen: “Barns,” portraits of old structures, studies of the beauty of wood in a state of decay. Through October 31. Info, 863-6458. Frog Hollow Vermont State Craft Center in Burlington. Ellen LaPointe Fontaine & Sienna Fontaine: The mother-and-daughter artists depict realistic and representational images of Vermont life, and

art listings and spotlights are written by nicole higgins desmet and pamela polston. Listings are restricted to art shows in truly public places.

‘In Grain: Contemporary Work in Wood’: Contemporary wood sculpture with examples of hand- and machine-carved figurative, abstract and geometric works and laser-cut biomorphic forms by 10 artists. Through December 18. ‘Sex Objects: Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality’: An exhibition of everyday and ceremonial art and artifacts curated by 40 anthropology and art history students. Through May 22, 2016. ‘World Leaders & Global Citizens: Photographs by Patrick Leahy, U.S. Senator’: An exhibit organized on the 40th anniversary of Sen. Patrick Leahy’s first term, featuring his view of historical events over the the past few decades. Through December 18. Info, 656-0750. University of Vermont Fleming Museum of Art in Burlington. Innovation Center Group Show: First floor: Catherine Hall, Elizabeth Bunsen, Kasey Prendergast, Matt Gang, Michael Buckley and Michael Pitts. Second floor: Jason Boyd, Kathy Hart, Kelly O’Neal, Meryl Lebowitz, Lyna Lou Nordstorm and Billy Bob Green. Third Floor: Haley Bishop, Janet Bonneau, Jessica Drury, Lynn Cummings and Meryl Lebowitz. Through November 30. Info, 859-9222. The Innovation Center of Vermont in Burlington. Jane Ann Kantor: “The Equus Series,” layered paintings in bold colors inspired by a blind horse near the artist’s home. Through October 30. Info, 660-9005. Dostie Bros. Frame Shop in Burlington. Jeremy Lee MacKenzie: “Hidden Blueprints,” intricate wood scrollwork by the Champlain College student, who secretly made drawings for his artwork while incarcerated. Through November 28. Info, 652-4500. Amy E. Tarrant Gallery, Flynn Center in Burlington. Jordan Douglas: “Images of Havana,” photography by the local artist. Through October 31. Info, 864-2088. The Men’s Room in Burlington. Justin Atherton: “The Moon Suggested Adventure,” prints chronicling a bored, lonely ghost who follows the moon’s advice. Through October 31. Info, 318-2438. Red Square in Burlington. Kim Gifford: “Out of the Doghouse: An Artistic Exploration of Pets in Our Lives,” digital collage narratives combining photography with hand drawing in pastel, crayon and colored pencil. Through October 31. Info, 863-6713. North End Studio A in Burlington. Michael Metz: “Summer on Long Beach Island,” photographs from 2008 to 2014 of the ocean front in New Jersey. Through October 31. Info, 598-6982. Mirabelles Café in Burlington. Michael Smith: “Old Paintings” by the Burlington artist. Through November 30. Info, 660-9005. Art’s Alive Gallery in Burlington. ‘Never Had No One Ever: The Art of Collage’: Artworks that explore “the human experience of discovery through loss” by Carl David Ruttan, Molly Bosley, W. David Powell, Shavon Kenney, Athena Tasiopoulos and Paula Grenon. Through October 27. Info, 735-2542. New City Galerie in Burlington. NVAA Fall Show: A wide variety of work from Northern Vermont Artist Association members. Through October 31. Info, 660-9005. Art’s Alive Gallery @ Main Street Landing’s Union Station in Burlington. ‘ burlington shows

get your art show listed here!

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If you’re promoting an art exhibit, let us know by posting info and images by thursdays at noon on our form at sevendaysvt.com/postevent or galleries@sevendaysvt.com

ART 79

“In Grain: Contemporary Work in Wood,” on view through December 18 at the Fleming Museum of Art, University of Vermont, in Burlington. uvm.edu/~fleming

BCA Summer Artist Market: A juried outdoor market featuring handmade original fine art and crafts by Vermont artists and artisans, in conjunction with the Burlington Farmers Market. Burlington City Hall Park, Saturday, October 17, 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Info, 865-7166.

Holly Hauxjeffers and Jude Domski: A retrospective of paintings and photographs, respectively. Through October 31. Info, 310-1886. Brickwork Art Studios in Burlington.

SEVEN DAYS

‘The Simulacrum Project’: Rachel Hooper and Robin Perlah: The adjunct professors of communication and creative media at Champlain College use digital applications to create surreal moments from everyday life and to explore memory and abstraction through programmed, generative and interactive systems, respectively, in this hybrid media project instigated by Leif Hunneman. Pine Street Studios, Burlington, Wednesday, October 14, 8-10 p.m. Info, thesimulacrumproject@gmail.com.

Artist Talk: Magdalena Campos-Pons: The internationally exhibiting artist and teacher at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, discusses her work. Lowe Lecture Hall, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Friday, October 16, 8-9 p.m. Info, 635-2727.

Emily Mitchelle: Playful acrylic paintings. Through November 30. Info, 658-6016. Speeder & Earl’s Coffee (Pine Street) in Burlington.

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the rough — and roughly gouged — figures carved by Ria Blaas. Her “Little Man,” resembling a short and stocky version of Auguste Rodin’s “Monument to Balzac” but with a friendly expression, is entirely endearing. And, as any Star Wars fan would know, Blaas’ “Seated,” with its long white, anteater-like head, is definitely related to the Separatist battle droids. “In Grain,” in other words, provides pleasures for everyone. Viewers of the exhibit may find that the practical material filling their homes in the form of salad tongs, chairs and doorframes will never seem quite the same. m

Kat Clear Collection Launch Party: The Burlington metal artist debuts her new jewelry collection, made with fine metals, hot-pink lacquer and semiprecious stones. Perrywinkle’s Fine Jewelry, Burlington, Thursday, October 15, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Info, 865-8390.

mixed-media expressionist paintings, respectively. Through October 31. Info, 488-5766. Vintage Inspired Lifestyle Marketplace in Burlington.

SEVENDAYSvt.com

Painting,” oil and acrylic landscapes by the Newbury artist. Reception: Sunday, October 18, 1-3 p.m. October 15-November 22. Info, 899-3211. Emile A. Gruppe Gallery in Jericho.

Artist Talk: Won Lee: The internationally exhibiting artist discusses his work. Lowe Lecture Hall, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Thursday, October 15, 8-9 p.m. Info, 635-2727.

art burlington shows

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Of Land & Local 2015’: Stella Marrs, Jeroen Jongeleen, Olga Koumoundouros and Jim Westphalen are four of 14 artists who created work in a variety of mediums inspired by local landscapes. More are on view at Shelburne Farms. Through November 14. Info, 865-7166. BCA Center in Burlington. RILEY: “Pieces of My Mind,” abstract paintings. Through November 15. Info, 448-3657. Revolution Kitchen in Burlington. ‘Rio Blanco Riders’: Collages and assemblages by Varujan Boghosian, W. David Powell, Marcus Ratliff and Peter Thomashow. Through November 30. Info, 540-3081. South Gallery in Burlington. ‘Strength in Numbers: Exploring Material and Techniques’: A group of 18 art teachers exhibit ongoing explorations in multiple media. Through December 30. Info, 865-7211. Mezzanine Gallery, Fletcher Free Library in Burlington. Vermont Photo Group: Eight photographers exhibit images of landscapes, nature and animals on media including aluminum and cotton-rag paper. Through December 28. Info, 434-5503. New Moon Café in Burlington. William Chandler: Photos of Vermont scenes. Through November 30. Info, 658-6400. American Red Cross Blood Donor Center in Burlington.

chittenden county

Adam Forguites: New oil paintings by the local artist. Through October 19. Info, 598-6698. Monkey House in Winooski. ‘Between Bottomlands & the World’: Ryan Griffis and Sarah Ross use photography, video and writing to explore the rural town of Beardstown, Ill. Through November 6. Info, 654-2795. McCarthy Arts Center Gallery, St. Michael’s College, in Colchester. ‘Birds of a Fiber’: A community art show. Through October 31. Info, 434-2167. Birds of Vermont Museum in Huntington.

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Corrina Thurston: Colored pencil art featuring domestic animals and wildlife. Through November 1. Info, 760-8206. Metrorock Vermont in Essex. ‘Eyes on the Land’: Installations, sculpture, paintings and photographs by 13 artists who were matched with 15 farms and forests conserved by the Vermont Land Trust over one year’s time. Artists include painters Mark Nielsen, Cameron Davis, Bonnie Acker, Charlie Hunter, Susan Abbott and Neil Riley; sculptors and multimedia artists Brian D. Collier, Dan Snow, Karolina Kawiaka and Gowri Savoor; and photographers Tyler Wilkinson-Ray, John Willis and Caleb Kenna. Through January 3, 2016. ‘Rich and Tasty: Vermont Furniture to 1850’: A decorative arts showcase of furniture from Shelburne Museum and other collections that helps define the styles, economics and aesthetic innovations in 19th-century Vermont design. Through November 1. Info, 985-3346. Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education, Shelburne Museum.

Jonathan VanTassel What is the wēmosphere? It’s hard to say, but “wēmosphere,” at Montpelier’s Vermont

Supreme Court Gallery, suggests it has a lot to do with bright color, abstraction and at least a little bit of playfulness. Artist Jonathan

VanTassel describes his series of new oil paintings as addressing “elegance and his distrust of it” and belonging to a genre he calls abstract-realism. State curator David Schutz notes that the strength of VanTassel’s work holds forth in its current imposing,

John W. Long: Wall-hung sculptural works using reclaimed wood. Through November 30. Info, 985-9511. Rustic Roots in Shelburne.

governmental setting “with supreme color and vibrantly explosive effects.” He also believes that “Jonathan is, without any question,

‘Joined: Inspired Approaches to Vermont Contemporary Furniture and Wood Design’: Inventive fine design by eight Vermont wood and furniture designers, including curator David Hurwitz. Through October 21. Info, 985-3848. Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery in Shelburne.

Based Data System.”

‘Travel With Ogden Pleissner’: A selection of the artist’s lesser-known American and European landscapes, along with other American paintings from the museum’s permanent collection. Judy B. Dales: “Ahead of the Curve,” an exhibit of contemporary quilts from the last 18 years of the artist’s flowing, abstract style. Through October 31. Info, 985-3346. Shelburne Museum.

one of the hottest young artists working in Vermont today.” How could you refuse? On view through December 31. Pictured: “Cloud

‘Juxtaposed Spaces’: Works in a variety of mediums by Shelburne Craft School instructors and staff including Wylie Garcia, Sarah Ahrens and Sage Tucker-Ketcham. Through December 1. Info, 985-3648. Shelburne Craft School.

the BCA Center in Burlington. Through October 18. Info, 865-7166. Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms.

‘Of Land & Local 2015’: Shelburne Farms Installation: Works created this summer at residencies in Vermont state parks by Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees, Wendy Copp and Susan Raber Bray, Alyssa Oxley, Angelo Arnold, Elizabeth Nelson, Riki Moss, Lynn Sullivan, Rebecca Schwarz and Lyal Michel. Four other artists are on view at

Victoria Blewer: “Fall’s Call,” black-and-white hand-colored photographs inspired by “quiet cycling of the Earth in autumn that recurs each year.” Through October 31. Info, 985-8222. Shelburne Vineyard.

Robert Vogel: Twelve paintings by the local artist. Through October 31. Info, 863-6363. Harper’s Restaurant at the Holiday Inn in South Burlington.

‘Visions of Lake Champlain and Beyond’: Local landscape paintings by Carolyn Walton, Helen Nagel and Gail Bessette; pastels by Athenia Schinto and Betty Ball; and jewelry by Tineke Russell. Through December 30. Info, 985-8223. LuxtonJones Gallery in Shelburne.

barre/montpelier

‘Rock Solid for 15 Years’: This annual exhibit showcases stone sculptures and assemblages by area artists in the Main Floor Gallery. In addition, a variety of sculptures created from granite are on

art shows

permanent installation around downtown Barre. Through October 30. Alex Costantino: “Pattern & Signal,” paintings and ceramic sculptures by the Burlington artist, Third Floor Gallery. Through October 30. Linda Bryan: “Tarpentry,” a visual narrative of landscape and culture, Second Floor Gallery. Through October 30. Info, 479-7069. Studio Place Arts in Barre. Almuth Palinkas and Jeanne Cariati: “Interface,” alabaster sculptures and works in fiber and watercolor. Through December 31. Info, 828-0749. Governor’s Gallery in Montpelier. ‘Avian Encounters’: Watercolors and watercolor collages by Nancy Tomczak. Through October 28. Info, 828-3291. Spotlight Gallery in Montpelier. Elliot Burg: “Athletes for the Ages: Transcending the Limits of Age,” black-and-white photographs of track-and-field athletes taken at the National Senior Games. Through November 2. Info, 2724920. Yvonne Straus: “Playful Moments in Color,” works in acrylic, watercolor and mixed media from the local artist. Through October 31. Info, 223-4665. Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. Janet Wormser: Paintings using simple elements of form, color and line. Through November 28. Info, 426-3581. Jaquith Public Library in Marshfield. Jonathan VanTassel: “Wemosphere,” new abstract oil paintings by the Vermont artist. Through December 31. Info, 828-5657. Vermont Supreme Court Gallery in Montpelier.

Mark Lorah: Blocky abstract artworks. Through November 30. Info, 479-7069. Morse Block Deli in Barre. Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr. and Edward Kadunc: New works in multiple mediums by the Vermont artists. Through November 13. Info, 262-6035. T. W. Wood Gallery in Montpelier. ‘Sound and Fury’: A group show by 18 artists who attempt to answer life’s unanswerable questions. Through November 8. Info, 728-9878. Chandler Gallery in Randolph. Sylvia Walker: Landscape paintings by the self-taught Vermont artist and teacher. Through November 27. Info, 223-2518. Montpelier Senior Activity Center. ‘Women of Norwich: Trailblazers and Torchbearers’: Photographs, documents, uniforms and objects celebrating the women who were “first,” from the first ladies of university presidents to the first women in the Corps of Cadets and so-called nontraditional fields. Through December 31. Info, 485-2183. Sullivan Museum & History Center, Norwich University in Northfield.

stowe/smuggs area

‘2015 Legacy Collection’: Landscapes painted by 25 living and 13 now-deceased artists that reflect the legacy of museum namesakes and artists Alden and Mary Bryan. Through December 30. Info, 644-5100. Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville.

Carole Rosalind Drury: “To Joe,” a selection of paintings from “The Fall” series, dedicated to the artist’s former partner. Hal Mayforth: “Two Trains Running,” large abstract paintings, small works on wood panel and sketches by the Vermont illustrator. Through November 2. Info, 888-1261. River Arts in Morrisville. ‘Edge of Nature’: Artwork in a variety of media by eight female artists who explore the joy and variety of nature. Through October 14. Info, 253-2597. Comfort Farm in Stowe. Ellen Granter: “Lotus Pond,” colorful oil paintings inspired by aquatic life. Through November 30. Info, 253-1818. Green Mountain Fine Art Gallery in Stowe. ‘Exposed’: The 24th annual outdoor exhibit features 18 sculptures and installations by regional artists, sited at the gallery, downtown and along the recreation path. Through October 14. ‘Fractured: Works on Paper’: Two- and three-dimensional works by 11 artists including Kiki Smith, Leonardo Drew and Olafur Eliasson that deconstruct space as interpreted through architecture, optics and narrative. Through November 22. Info, 253-8358. Helen Day Art Center in Stowe. Gabriel Tempesta: “Our World, Charcoals & Casein,” highly detailed paintings rendered from photos of the natural world. Through December 31. Info, 253-8943. Upstairs at West Branch Gallery in Stowe.

f Kate Dean: “Meditations on the Gestures of Wind on the Water,” installation of stitched, waxed and layered cloth. Artist talk: Thursday, October 15, 3 p.m. Through October 17. Info, 635-1469. Julian Scott Memorial Gallery, Johnson State College. ‘Photographing the Flower’: Photographs by seven participants in River Arts’ workshop taught by Kent Shaw. Through November 2. Info, 888-1261. Morrisville Post Office. Raven Pfaff: Realistic graphite portraits in the living room. Through October 20. Info, 635-7423. The Lovin’ Cup in Johnson. ‘Slope Style’: Thirty-five fully accessorized vintage ski outfits, with a special section of the exhibit dedicated to Vermont ski brands. Through October 31. Info, 253-9911. Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum in Stowe. Stephanie Bush: “20 Years; An Artist’s Evolution,” a mid-career retrospective of works on canvas and Mylar exploring cultural diversity, color and artistic traditions. Through October 31. Info, 253-8943. West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park in Stowe. Tod Gunter Aviation Art: Illustrations currently include the F4U Corsair, a WWII fighter and the F-4 Phantom II, a fighter-bomber active in Vietnam. More drawings and renderings are continually added. Through December 31. Info, 734-9971. Plane Profiles Gallery in Stowe.

mad river valley/waterbury August Burns: “More Than Meets the Eye: Portraits and Figures,” paintings by the former women’s health advocate. Through November 21. Info, 244-7801. Axel’s Gallery & Frameshop in Waterbury. Bob Aiken: “Vermont Impressionist,” landscapes depicting rural fields, rivers, mountains and small villages, in acrylic with a palette knife. Through December 31. Info, 496-6682. Festival Gallery in Waitsfield. HiVE Collective Fall Exhibit: Paintings by members Liz Harris, Nancy VanDine and Jessica Churchill-Millard and furniture and decorative objects by Kelly Fekert-McMullen, along with works by 30 local artists. Through November 30. Info, 496-7895. The Hive in Middlesex.

Marilyn Ruseckas: Moody pastel landscapes by the Vermont artist. Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m., or by appointment. Through October 18. Info, 583-5832. The Bundy Modern Gallery in Waitsfield.

middlebury area

Catherine ‘Catchi’ Childs: Still life and figure paintings from the 75-year career of the internationally recognized artist. Through October 31. Info, 458-0098. Edgewater Gallery Mill Street in Middlebury.

though, you just have to go with both, and this is precisely what Hal Mayforth does in “Two Trains Running,” a new exhibition at the Gallery at River Arts in Morrisville. Borrowing its name from a blues song, as well as the 1990 play by August Wilson, the show presents two different directions in Mayforth’s painting: large abstract works on canvas and smaller, cartoon-esque pieces on

SEVEN DAYS

Hal Mayforth So much creative expression comes from attempts to reconcile contradictory impulses. Sometimes,

‘The Farm: Drawings of Rowland Evans Robinson, 1850-1880’: Drawings from agricultural papers capturing 19th-century Vermont farm life and times by a member of the museum homestead’s family. Through October 25. Info, 877-3406. Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh.

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‘Mission Infinite & the Possibility of Art’: Six artists using materials in innovative ways to promote the inclusivity of art at large. Through October 31. Info, 617-842-3332. Walker Contemporary in Waitsfield.

SEVENDAYSvt.com

Kitty O’Hara: Representational acrylic paintings of landscapes, still life and portraits. Through October 31. Info, 496-5470. Three Mountain Café in Waitsfield.

Jean Cherouny: “OPEN,” new works by the Ripton artist and teacher. Through October 31. Info, 877-2211. Bixby Memorial Library in Vergennes.

wood panels. Mayforth’s illustrations have been featured in national publications including the New York Times and Rolling Stone. If November 2. Pictured: Details of “Madagascar” and a sketchbook page.

middlebury area shows

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you’re not familiar with him, now’s a good time to become so — but don’t wait too long: “Two Trains Running” comes down Monday,

SEVENDAYSvt.com

art

‘Rio Blanco Riders’ From decoupaged suitcases to teen girls’ bedrooms to riot grrrl, collage is one of the most accessible ways of creating new worlds with

the materials that we find in this one. Associated with both lo-fi youth fantasy and high surrealism, collage takes front and center in a new show from four artists who have been

cutting and pasting for a long time: Varujan Boghosian, W. David Powell, Marcus Ratliff and Peter Thomashow. “Rio Blanco Riders” brings together complementary works and also

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includes “Cadavre Exquis,” a collaborative work by three of the four artists. French for “exquisite corpse,” this is perhaps the most direct reference to the group’s surrealist legacy — the exercise is well-known as a parlor game of the movement’s founding figures. Incidentally, W. David Powell is behind the cover art for the Allman Brothers’ 1972 album Eat A Peach, if you’re into that sort of thing. On view through November 30. Pictured: “Darwin” by Marcus Ratliff. middlebury area shows

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Joan Curtis: “Watchful Guardians,” abstract and figurative drawings, paintings and wall sculptures incorporating papier-mâché and mixed media. Through November 7. Info, 382-9222. Jackson Gallery, Town Hall Theater, in Middlebury. ‘Naked Truth: The Body in Early 20th-Century German and Austrian Art’: Prints, drawings and watercolors by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Käthe Kollwitz and others whose work addressed the relationship of the nude body and contemporary morality. Through December 13. Info, 443-3168. Middlebury College Museum of Art. ‘Portrait of a Forest: Men and Machine’: Contemporary images from Weybridge photojournalist George Bellerose presented alongside

archival material from the logging industry. Through January 9, 2016. Info, 388-4964. Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury. Stacey Stanhope Dundon: “Back in the Saddle: 25 Years of Horse Play,” oil paintings, dinnerware and decorative, large-scale horse heads. Through November 30. Info, 388-1639. The National Museum of the Morgan Horse in Middlebury. TJ Cunningham: “Landscapes and Still Lifes,” en plein air landscapes, studio still lifes and portraits by the New Haven artist. Through October 31. Info, 989-7419. Edgewater Gallery Merchants Row in Middlebury. ‘Warren Kimble, All-American Artist: An Eclectic Retrospective’: The internationally known Vermont artist exhibits a lifetime of work, including his “Sunshine” series, “Widows of War” paintings and sculpture, and more recent “House

of Cards” and “Into the Box” series, which features open-faced boxes filled with found objects and architectural assemblages. Also on view is the Kimbles’ personal collection of folk art. Through October 18. Info, 388-2117. Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury.

rutland area

Judith Stone: “See Feelingly: Weigh and Balance,” sculptural pieces responding to the gritty nature of construction sites. Through October 24. Info, 468-6052. Castleton Downtown Gallery in Rutland. ‘Love of Fantasy’: Two- and three-dimensional paintings and multimedia constructions that explore fantasy and creation by Jim Abatiell, Joan Curtis, Robert Hooker and Mark Horwedel. Through October 31. Info, 775-0062. Chaffee Downtown Art Center in Rutland.

‘Love of Kinship’: Diverse artwork from members and a former director. Through October 17. Info, 775-0356. Chaffee Art Center in Rutland. ‘What EMMA Loves’: A group exhibit exploring a variety of media by 10 East Mountain Mentoring Artists (EMMA). Through November 1. Info, 2474295. Compass Music and Arts Center in Brandon.

champlain islands/northwest Steve Boal, Jan Brosky & Elizabeth Martin: Photographs of the natural world by Boal, hand-knitted scarves and bracelets by Brosky and pottery by Martin. Through October 31. Info, 933-6403. Artist in Residence Cooperative Gallery in Enosburg Falls.

Art ShowS

upper valley

‘Birds Are dinosAurs’: An exhibit tracing the evolution of birds from their ancestors includes skeletons and life-size replicas by paleo-artist Todd Marshall. Hands-on activities include a replica dig site. Through October 31. $11.50-13.50. Info, 359-5000. VINS Nature Center in Hartford. CArrie Pill: “Nature’s Palette,” landscape paintings on canvas and paper. Through October 31. Info, 359-5001. Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee. ColleCtive FAll show: Hooked rugs by Janet Avery, jewelry by metalsmith Susan Riach, ornaments and whistles by Mary Stone and hand-molded beeswax candles by Vermont Honey Lights. Through December 31. Info, 457-1298. Collective — the Art of Craft in Woodstock. ‘Crisis de oCtuBre; the CuBAn Missile Crisis’: The ninth annual Slavo-Vermontia-philic exhibition featuring art, artifacts, memories, music and photographs of the Cold War era from the United States, Russia and Cuba. Through November 1. Info, 356-2776. Main Street Museum in White River Junction. ‘FeAther & Fur: PortrAits oF Field, Forest & FArM’: Portraits celebrating the beauty, intelligence and grace of animals by nine artists. Through April 30, 2016. Info, 885-3061. The Great Hall in Springfield. JAnet CAthey: New prints by the Vermont artist. Through October 31. Info, 295-5901. Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction. Keith sonnier: A survey of early neon works, 1968-1989, by the American artist. Peter sAul: A retrospective exhibit that spans 1959 to 2012 and includes colorful paintings that incorporate humor, pop-culture imagery, irreverence and, occasionally, politically incorrect subject matter. Open weekends and Wednesdays by appointment. Through November 29. Info, info@ hallartfoundation.org. Hall Art Foundation in Reading, 05062.

f Monique vAn de ven: “Gleaned Near South Royalton,” ceramics inspired by and incorporating objects found in nature. Reception: Friday, October 23, 5-7 p.m. Through December 5. Info, 763-7094. Royalton Memorial Library in South Royalton.

brattleboro area

deBrA BerMinghAM: “Threaded Dances,” surreal landscapes in oil. JiM dine: “People, Places, Things,” a retrospective in multiple media. rAy ruseCKAs: “Close to Home,” landscapes in pastels. rodrigo nAvA: “Expanded Forms,” steel sculptures on the museum grounds. Through October 25. Info, 257-0124. Brattleboro Museum & Art Center.

AMAndA AMend: Watercolor landscapes capturing all four seasons in Vermont. Through October 31. Info, 586-2200. The Art House in Craftsbury.

‘dust’: Displays include samples of “this most ubiquitous substance” from around the world, and the cosmos, as well as unique moments in the history of dust and a visual history of dust removal. Through November 30. Info, claredol@sover.net. The Museum of Everyday Life in Glover. Judy lowry: “New Landscapes,” paintings of northern Vermont. Through October 26. Info, 525-3366. Parker Pie Co. in West Glover.

PrillA sMith BrACKett: “Fractured Visions II,” artworks that express a contemporary view of the environment in various media including painting, drawing and monotype, and that combine forest scenes with ghostly pieces of furniture. Through October 25. Info, 748-2600. Catamount Arts Center in St. Johnsbury. verMont Artists grouP show: Fine art and handcrafted goods by 110 Vermont artists exhibited in a former grist mill. Through October 17. Info, 533-2045. Miller’s Thumb Gallery in Greensboro.

manchester/bennington

‘grAssroots Art: inwArd Adorings oF the Mind’: Folk, outsider and visionary artists’ works from the museum’s and the Gregg Blasdel/Jennifer Koch collections include textiles, ceramics, weathervanes, drawings, paintings and sculpture. Through November 1. ‘PeoPle/PlACe: AMeriCAn soCiAl lAndsCAPe PhotogrAPhy, 1950-1980’: Photographs exploring the human condition within the public sphere and the social landscape by Jonathan Brand, John Hubbard, Neil Rappaport, Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. Through November 8. JenniFer KoCh And gregg BlAsdel: Seven collaborative prints from a series titled “Marriages of Reason” by the Burlington artists. Through October 16. Info, 447-1571. Bennington Museum.

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north Bennington outdoor sCulPture show: Outdoor sculptures sited in and around the village by 44 artists. Through October 25. Various locations around North Bennington.

outside vermont

‘ColleCting And shAring: trevor FAirBrother, John t. KirK And the hood MuseuM oF Art’: Almost 140 paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and early American furniture from the Fairbrother-Kirk collection and the museum, featuring works by Andy Warhol, Marsden Hartley, Carl Andre, John O’Reilly, John Singer Sargent and others. Through December 6. Info, 603-646-2095. CAnAletto’s vedute Prints: An exhibition honoring collector and donor Adolph Weil Jr. features etchings from the early 1740s of Venetian scenes by Antonio Canaletto. Through December 6. Info, 603-646-2808. Hood Museum, Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. ‘george s. ZiMBel: A huMAnist PhotogrAPher’: Images from collection of the documentary photographer covering 1953 to 1955, which includes his shots of Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grate during the filming of The Seven Year Itch by director Billy Wilder. Through January 3. Info, 514-285-2000. ‘MetAMorPhoses: in rodin’s studio’: Nearly 300 works by the French sculptor, including masterpieces shown for the first time in North America, in collaboration with the Musée Rodin in Paris. Through October 18. Info, 514-285-2000. Montréal Museum of Fine Arts.

SEVEN DAYS

‘dinosAur disCoveries: AnCient Fossils, new ideAs’: Fossils and models reveal how current thoughts on dinosaur biology have changed since the 1990s. Organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Through December 15. Info, 748-2372. Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in St. Johnsbury.

otto: Prints of recent work from “The Book of Wales” by Newport artist Brian McCurley (aka OTTO). Through December 15. Info, 323-7759. The 99 Gallery and Center in Newport.

10.14.15-10.21.15

northeast kingdom

f Meri stiles: “Attractor,” drawings, paintings and constructions by the psychology professor and self-taught artist. Reception: Friday, October 16, 4-6 p.m. Through November 21. Info, 748-0158. Northeast Kingdom Artisans Guild Backroom Gallery in St. Johnsbury.

SEVENDAYSVt.com

toM sChulten: Vivid works by the renowned Dutch painter of consensusism. Through December 31. Info, 457-7199. Artemis Global Art in Woodstock.

‘MeMories’: The annual exhibition and sale of work by Vermont Watercolor Society artists, in the Downstairs Gallery. Through October 31. Info, 3341966. MAC Center for the Arts Gallery in Newport.

ART 83

‘MeMory worK: sCulPtFest 2015’: Sculptural works by Robert Bennett Jr., Katherine Langlands, Mark Lorah, Zoë Marr Hilliard, Stella Marrs, Angus McCullough, Samuel Spellman and Mary Zompetti in the annual outdoor exhibit. Through October 25. Info, 438-2097. The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center in West Rutland. m

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movies The Walk ★★★★

teven Spielberg has described Jaws as a film containing two distinct movies: First, the land-based story of a town stalked by a great white. And second, the saga of three mismatched hunters who take to the sea in pursuit of the monster. The latest from Robert Zemeckis (Flight) features a similar bifurcation. The Walk is the story of French aerialist Philippe Petit and the high-wire walk he took between the towers of the 110-story World Trade Center on the morning of August 7, 1974. If this sounds like something you’ve seen before, it is. The 2008 documentary Man on Wire chronicled the same events and earned director James Marsh an Oscar. That film was narrated by Petit. The Walk is narrated by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit. It begins inexplicably with the character introducing himself atop the Statue of Liberty beside the great metal torch. The Towers gleam momentarily in the background before the first of the two films-within-the-film commences. It’s the longer of the pair, but not the stronger. Set in Paris, this part of the film offers glimpses of the young street performer doing theoretically charming street performer things such as juggling on a unicycle

while wearing a top hat. He is also a mime. Then there’s the accent, not The Walk’s most special effect. One day, Petit comes across an article about the Twin Towers, still years from completion. A light bulb all but appears above the elfin teen’s head. He’s found his calling. Now all he needs are a merry band of accomplices; technical advice from Czech aerialist “Papa” Rudy (Ben Kingsley); lots of practice — his girlfriend, Annie (Charlotte Le Bon), jiggles his wire to simulate wind gusts; and a ticket to New York. Zemeckis condenses years of preparation to speed the second film-within-the-film to its bravura climax. He devotes just enough screen time to the caper aspect of what Petit called the “coup” to impart the playful side of his subject’s scheme, then pulls out all the technical stops to re-create the grandeur of that morning’s dance in the clouds. Petit’s walk was called “the artistic crime of the century.” Where the Hollywood version proves superior to the documentary, ironically, is in its power to give us a version of Petit’s magical piece of performance art that is more hyper-real than the real thing — which was captured statically in black and white by a sidekick. This is one film that absolutely must be seen in 3D.

THE CABLE GUY Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays French aerialist Philippe Petit in Zemeckis’ digital re-creation of history’s most audacious balancing act.

Once considered a likely successor to Spielberg, Zemeckis is today regarded primarily as an effects-obsessed visualist. The obsession works to his benefit in that aweinspiring final act. Having digitally rebuilt the city with astonishing historical accuracy, he stages Petit’s 45 minutes on a metal cable, 1,600 feet above the street, as one of the most lovely, terrifying, suspenseful and joyous sequences in cinema. And, where one might expect a studio production to goose the sequence for ticketselling scare tactics, Zemeckis instead exercises surprising restraint. In real life, Petit’s rushed setup resulted in the cable hanging loose and low, making the crossing even

SEVENDAYSVT.COM 10.14.15-10.21.15 SEVEN DAYS 84 MOVIES

RI C K KI S O N AK

REVIEWS

Pan ★★

ne source of the odd poignancy — and oddness, period — of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan series is the ordinariness of the magical title character’s origin. In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), readers learn that Peter Pan was once a regular London boy who flew out the window (OK, that part’s odd). He returned to find it locked, and his parents inside cooing over a new baby. What could be more terrifying to a young reader? Thus Barrie gave his fantasy a firm base in all-too-real experiences — sibling rivalry, fear of abandonment. By contrast, the new overblown fantasia Pan, which purports to be Peter’s real origin story, is based almost solely on other movies. In 2010, Tim Burton made Alice in Wonderland a monster hit by turning Lewis Carroll’s famously bizarre tale into a conventional quest narrative modeled on Star Wars and the Harry Potter saga. Director Joe Wright (Atonement, Anna Karenina) and writer Jason Fuchs have taken an almost identical approach with Pan. The result is a film as stuffed with visual bric-a-brac as a Victorian junk shop, and devoid of any reason to care. In this version, Peter (Levi Miller) is a trouble-making 12-year-old weathering the London Blitz in a cartoonishly awful orphanage. The nuns are so awful that they’re surreptitiously selling their charges to a crew of pirates, who nab Peter and bear him off in their flying ship to Neverland. There

more precarious. Zemeckis (who wrote the script with Christopher Browne) makes no mention of that fact. The filmmaker employs similar restraint with regard to the Towers themselves; the specter of 9/11 is inescapable, but it is never invoked for easy pathos. Zemeckis says everything there is to be said without a word when he frames the Towers in the final shot. I doubt a film has ever faded to black with greater eloquence.

EVER-BLAND Wright’s fantasy is perhaps the most cynical version of Neverland yet.

our hero joins crews of children forced to mine “pixum,” aka pixie dust, for pirate boss Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), who’s addicted to the stuff. Wearing a glittery black bustle and prone to trancey pontifications, à la Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, Blackbeard also, for no good reason, periodically requires his young workers to join in a rousing chorus of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Such details might trick you into thinking Pan is wondrously weird, or at least a fascinating travesty in the Baz Luhrmann mode. No such luck. The film offers as many random curiosities as a carnival midway, yet its

relentlessly breakneck action and relentlessly familiar plot are about as fun as listening to a prerecorded barker’s spiel. Wright has always been a creator of visual phantasmagorias, but his best films have strong source texts — Austen, Tolstoy, McEwan — to give meaning to the surface distractions. Here, having jettisoned most of what makes Pan Pan, he’s left with a Neverland that causes Avatar flashbacks, a Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) who looks like she raided a curtain shop for her “native” headdress, and a bunch of “chosen one” mumbo-jumbo about Peter’s special destiny.

With the notable exception of Mara, everybody plays as if to a live theater audience, telegraphing emotions such as wonder, fear and insecurity (because convention dictates that even the cocky Peter have a crisis of faith before he proves how very special he is). Typical of the film’s slapdash opportunism is the portrayal of Peter’s future nemesis, James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), whom he meets as a fellow prisoner of Blackbeard. Hedlund has been costumed like Indiana Jones and given the Han Solo role of a reluctant ally — allusions that might be fun, if the actor appeared to be having any. No plausible evolution is ever sketched between this devil-may-care Hook and the bitter, spoilsport Hook of the canon. Rather than sow the seeds of conflict, the screenplay simply makes occasional winking references to future events, as if Fuchs had reasoned, Plenty of time to work that out in the sequels. For a child who’s not already well versed in the fantasy film genre, Pan could still be a magical experience. But it completely lacks the unfaked emotions on which children’s classics are built. More frightening than anything Blackbeard does to the Lost Boys is the prospect that this movie might have sequels. Clap your hands if you believe chintzy pixie dust is no substitute for Barrie’s wild magic. MARGO T HARRI S O N

movie clips PRESENTS

new in theaters BRiDge oF spies: an ordinary american lawyer (tom hanks) finds himself playing a key role in a prisoner exchange between the cIa and Kgb in this cold war drama directed by Steven Spielberg and coscripted by Ethan and Joel coen. with Mark Rylance and alan alda. (142 min, Pg-13. capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Roxy, Stowe) cRimsoN peAk: In this gothic fantasy from guillermo del toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), a Victorian maiden (Mia wasikowska) makes the classic mistake of marrying a handsome stranger and moving to his country estate, which just might be haunted. with Jessica chastain, tom hiddleston and Jim beaver. (119 min, R. capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace) gooseBUmps: how scary can you get with a Pg rating? In this family-oriented meta-take on the tween horror novels of R.l. Stine, the author’s daughter battles his monsters when they turn out to be real. with Jack black as Stine, dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush. Rob letterman (Gulliver’s Travels) directed. (103 min, Pg. bijou, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Paramount, welden) He NAmeD me mAlAlA: This documentary from davis guggenheim (Waiting for Superman) profiles Malala yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who defied the taliban and won a nobel Prize for her activism on behalf of girls’ education. (88 min, Pg-13. Roxy) WooDlAWN: In this inspirational drama about the youth of running back tony nathan, the high school football star (caleb castille) tries to hold to his faith in the face of alabama’s racial tensions. with Jon Voight and Sean astin. andrew and Jon Erwin (October Baby) directed. (123 min, Pg. Essex)

now playing 99 HomesHHHH In this drama set at the height of the foreclosure crisis, a struggling dad who just lost his home (andrew garfield) gets a new job working for the broker (Michael Shannon) who evicted him. with laura dern and clancy brown. Ramin bahrani (At Any Price) directed. (112 min, R)

H = refund, please HH = could’ve been worse, but not a lot HHH = has its moments; so-so HHHH = smarter than the average bear HHHHH = as good as it gets

tHe mARtiANHHHH Stranded on Mars, the last member of a manned mission (Matt damon) must survive, contact naSa and help engineer his own rescue in this sci-fi adventure directed by Ridley Scott and based on the science-savvy novel by andy weir. with Jessica chastain, Kristen wiig and Jeff daniels. (141 min, Pg-13) mAZe RUNNeR: tHe scoRcH tRiAlsHHH The adaptation of James dashner’s young adult action saga continues, as the gladers venture out in search of clues about the organization that stuck them in the titular maze. dylan O’brien and Kaya Scodelario star. wes ball again directed. (131 min, Pg-13)

Thursday, October 29 Doors: 7:30/Show: 8:00 Ballroom

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10/12/15 3:54 PM THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

meet tHe pAtelsHHH1/2 actor Ravi Patel made this humorous, family-focused documentary about his efforts to deal with his traditional parents as they strive to find him a proper wife before he hits age 30. his sister, geeta Patel, codirected. (88 min, Pg)

JAMES MARSH PROFESSOR-AT-LARGE

DAN AND CAROLE BURACK PRESIDENT’S DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES

mississippi gRiNDHHHH a washed-up gambling addict (ben Mendelsohn) joins forces with a winner (Ryan Reynolds) in an effort to make just one big score. Ryan fleck and anna boden (It’s Kind of a Funny Story) directed the road-tripping drama. (108 min, R) pANH1/2 did Peter Pan really need an origin story? Regardless, he gets one in this family adventure about a 12-year-old orphan (levi Miller) who finds his destiny in magical neverland. with hugh Jackman and garrett hedlund as two pirates you may have heard of, and Rooney Mara as tiger lily. Joe wright (Anna Karenina) directed. (111 min, Pg; reviewed by M.h. 10/14) sicARioHHHH1/2 Emily blunt plays a naïve fbI agent who gets embroiled in the drug wars on the Mexican border in this intense drama from director denis Villeneuve (Prisoners). with benicio del toro and Josh brolin. (121 min, R) tHe visitH1/2 writer-director M. night Shyamalan returns with this found-footage horror-comedy in which a single mom makes a questionable decision to send her kids to grandma and grandpa’s house. with Kathryn hahn and Olivia deJonge. (94 min, Pg-13; reviewed by R.K. 9/16) tHe WAlkHHH1/2 Joseph gordon-levitt plays high-wire walker Philippe Petit in this fact-based drama about the events surrounding his famous 1974 stroll between the towers of the world trade center. with charlotte le bon, ben Kingsley and Vermont-born circus artist Jade Kindar-Martin doing some of the actual wire walking. Robert Zemeckis directed. (123 min, Pg; reviewed by R.K. 10/14) nOw PlayIng

Andrew Balmford

Professor of Conservation Science, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge

Moderated by Jane Lindholm, host of VPR’s Vermont Edition

Stephen Polasky

Regent’s Professor, Fesler-Lampert Chair in Ecological/Environmental Economics, University of Minnesota

AN ECONOMIST AND AN ECOLOGIST WALK INTO A BAR… AND DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF THE PLANET Tuesday, October 27, 2015

3:30 pm – 5:00 pm • Billings North Lounge Reception immediately to follow in the Billings Apse Hosted by the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics

MOVIES 85

RatIngS aSSIgnEd tO MOVIES nOt REVIEwEd by Rick kisoNAk OR mARgot HARRisoN aRE cOuRtESy Of MEtacRItIc.cOM, whIch aVERagES ScORES gIVEn by thE cOuntRy’S MOSt wIdEly REad MOVIE REVIEwERS.

tHe mANHAttAN sHoRt Film FestivAl: after watching this curated showcase of 10 short films from around the world, audiences can vote for their favorite. More info at manhattanshort.com. (Running time n/a, nR. Roxy)

PINK TALKING FISH ARE DEAD

seveN DAYs

ratings

tHe iNteRNHH1/2 a 70-year-old widower (Robert de niro) interns for a young whippersnapper of an online fashion mogul (anne hathaway), and hilarity ensues — in theory, anyway. with Rene Russo. nancy Meyers (It’s Complicated) directed. (121 min, Pg-13)

10.14.15-10.21.15

eveRest: a snowstorm on the world’s highest mountain sends climbers into chaos in this disaster drama based on the events of May 10 and 11, 1996, also chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air. Jason clarke, Josh brolin, ang Phula Sherpa and Jake gyllenhaal star. baltasar Kormákur (2 Guns) directed. (121 min, Pg-13. now in wide release: bijou, capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Stowe)

Hotel tRANsYlvANiA 2HH adam Sandler once again voices dracula in this animated family monster goof, in which the vampire patriarch grapples with raising his half-human grandson. with the voices of andy Samberg and Selena gomez. genndy tartakovsky again directed. (89 min, Pg)

seveNDAYsvt.com

BlAck mAssHHHH1/2 Johnny depp plays infamous, well-connected boston crime boss — and fbI informant — whitey bulger in this biodrama directed by Scott cooper (Crazy Heart). with Joel Edgerton, benedict cumberbatch and dakota Johnson. (122 min, R; reviewed by R.K. 9/23)

gRANDmAHHHH a fiercely independent poet (lily tomlin) takes a road trip with her pregnant teenage granddaughter (Julia garner) to seek cash for an abortion in this offbeat indie comedy from writer-director Paul weitz (Admission). with Marcia gay harden, nat wolff and Judy greer. (79 min, R; reviewed by M.h. 9/23)

For more information contact Brendan Fisher at bfisher@uvm.edu

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10/12/15 10:50 AM

movies

LOCALtheaters

The Martian

(*) = new this week in vermont. for up-to-date times visit sevendaysvt.com/movies.

BIG PICTURE THEATER

48 Carroll Rd. (off Rte. 100), Waitsfield, 496-8994, bigpicturetheater.info

wednesday 14 — thursday 22

SEVENDAYSvt.com

Schedule not available at press time.

BIJOU CINEPLEX 4 Rte. 100, Morrisville, 888-3293, bijou4.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15 Hotel Transylvania 2 The Martian Pan A Walk in the Woods

10.14.15-10.21.15

friday 16 — thursday 22 **77 Chances premiere (Mon only) *Goosebumps Hotel Transylvania 2 The Martian Pan (except Mon)

SEVEN DAYS

CAPITOL SHOWPLACE 93 State St., Montpelier, 229-0343, fgbtheaters.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15 Black Mass The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) Sicario The Walk (2D & 3D)

86 MOVIES

friday 16 — thursday 22 *Bridge of Spies *Crimson Peak Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D & 3D) The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) The Walk

ESSEX CINEMAS & T-REX THEATER

21 Essex Way, #300, Essex, 879-6543, essexcinemas.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15 Black Mass *Bridge of Spies (Thu only) *Crimson Peak (Thu only) Everest (2D & 3D) *Goosebumps (Thu only; 3D) Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D & 3D) The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Pan (2D & 3D) Sicario The Visit The Walk (2D & 3D) A Walk in the Woods *Woodlawn (Thu only) friday 16 — wednesday 21 **Back to the Future trilogy (Wed only) Black Mass *Bridge of Spies *Crimson Peak *Goosebumps (2D & 3D) Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D & 3D) The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Pan (2D & 3D) The Walk *Woodlawn

MAJESTIC 10

190 Boxwood St. (Maple Tree Place, Taft Corners), Williston, 878-2010, majestic10.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15 Black Mass Everest (2D & 3D)

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D & 3D) The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Pan (2D & 3D) Sicario The Walk (2D & 3D) friday 16 — thursday 22 *Bridge of Spies *Crimson Peak Everest (3D) *Goosebumps (2D & 3D) Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D) The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Pan (2D) Sicario The Walk (3D)

The Manhattan Short Film Festival The Martian (2D & 3D) friday 16 — thursday 22 99 Homes *Bridge of Spies Grandma *He Named Me Malala The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D)

PALACE 9 CINEMAS

10 Fayette Dr., South Burlington, 8645610, palace9.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15

**My Fair Lady 50th Anniversary (Sun & Tue only) **New York Film Critics Series: Meadowland (Fri only) Pan (2D) Sicario The Walk (2D)

PARAMOUNT TWIN CINEMA

241 North Main St., Barre, 479-9621, fgbtheaters.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15 Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D & 3D) Pan (2D & 3D)

friday 16 — wednesday 21

friday 16 — thursday 22

MERRILL’S ROXY CINEMA

222 College St., Burlington, 864-3456, merrilltheatres.net

*Bridge of Spies *Crimson Peak *Goosebumps (2D & 3D) Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D & 3D) The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials **Met Opera: Otello (live Sat; encore Wed)

Sunset drive-in

155 Porters Point Rd., Colchester, 8621800. sunsetdrivein.com

friday 16 — saturday 17

WELDEN THEATRE

friday 16 — thursday 22 Schedule not available at press time.

*Bridge of Spies The Intern The Martian

THE SAVOY THEATER

**The Fighting Breed Hotel Transylvania 2 The Martian

wednesday 14 — thursday 15

friday 16 — thursday 22

*Goosebumps (2D & 3D) Pan (2D & 3D)

friday 16 — thursday 22

Main St., Middlebury, 388-4841, middleburymarquis.com

Everest The Intern The Martian

Pan & The Intern Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation & Vacation The Rocky Horror Picture Show (playing twice)

**BBC: Last Night at Proms (Wed only) Everest Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D) The Intern The Martian (2D & 3D) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials **National Theatre Live: Hamlet (Thu only) Pan (2D & 3D) Sicario The Walk (2D & 3D)

MARQUIS THEATRE

wednesday 14 — thursday 15

26 Main St., Montpelier, 229-0509, savoytheater.com

104 No. Main St., St. Albans, 527-7888, weldentheatre.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15

Meet the Patels Mississippi Grind

Hotel Transylvania 2 The Martian Pan (2D & 3D)

99 Homes Meet the Patels

STOWE CINEMA 3 PLEX

friday 16 — thursday 22 *Goosebumps Hotel Transylvania 2 The Martian Pan

Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-4678. stowecinema.com

wednesday 14 — thursday 15 99 Homes Black Mass Grandma The Intern

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SEEKING

PREGNANT WOMEN FOR SMOKING STUDIES!!! NOW PLAYING

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A WAlK iN tHe WooDsHH1/2 Robert Redford plays travel writer Bill Bryson in this adaptation of his comic memoir about walking the Appalachian Trail with a friend (Nick Nolte). Ken Kwapis (He’s Just Not That Into You) directed. (104 min, R)

now on video tHe GAlloWs 1/2H High school theater kids make the mistake of putting on a deadly play — which apparently is not Macbeth — in this found-footage horror flick from writer-directors Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing. (81 min, R; reviewed by R.K. 7/15)

sAN ANDReAsH1/2 Dwayne Johnson, formerly known as the Rock, may not be able to stop the notorious fault line from plunging California into mega-quake chaos, but he does his damnedest in this disaster pic. (114 min, PG-13; reviewed by M.H. 6/3)

• For women who are currently pregnant and currently smoking cigarettes

tomoRRoWlANDH1/2 Walt Disney’s midcentury vision of a bright technological future takes on new meaning as George Clooney plays a disillusioned wunderkind drawn toward the mysterious otherworld of the title. Brad Bird (The Incredibles) directed. (130 min, PG; reviewed by R.K. 5/27)

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7/16/15 11:11 AM

Ready. Ready.Set. Set. Go anywhere. anywhere.

film series, events and festivals at venues other than cinemas can be found in the calendar section.

The The2015 2015GLA. GLA.

offbeat fLICK of the week B Y MARGOT HARRI SON

Ready. Set. Go anywhere.

He Named Me Malala

Introducing the all-new GLA.

THE 2015 GLA 4MATIC®

Make every trip an adventure with the muscular, versatile 2015 GLA. Its power liftgate

THE 2015 GLA

31,300* *

$ STARTING AT

31,300

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33,300*

This week i'm watching: "Battle for milkquarious"

Make every trip an adventure with the muscular, versatile, all-new GLA. Its power

If a film's chief purpose is to sell you a product, does that make it less of a film? Maybe, but "Battle for Milkquarious" is so damned entertaining that it hardly seems to matter.

design details and an exceptional starting price, it’s everything you could want and

10.14.15-10.21.15

what I’M watching

STARTING AT THE 2015 GLA

Make every an adventure with the versatile 2015making GLA. Its power liftgate opens to antrip expansive cargo space andmuscular, split-folding rear seats, it the perfect ATsplit-folding companion for anySTARTING excursion. With advanced aerodynamics, striking designitdetails and opens to an expansive cargo space and rear seats, making the perfect an exceptional starting price, it’s everything youaerodynamics, could want andstriking more in design a compact SUV.and companion for any excursion. With advanced details 2015 GLA.starting An entirely new from and the company always anThe exceptional price, it’sautomotive everythingexperience you could want more in athat’s compact SUV. been known pioneering them. Visit MBUSA.com/GLA The 2015 GLA.forAn entirely new automotive experience from the company that’s always been known for pioneering them. Visit MBUSA.com/GLA

liftgate opens to an expansive cargo space and split-folding rear seats, making it the perfect companion for any excursion. With advanced aerodynamics, striking

seveN DAYs

more in a compact SUV. The 2015 GLA. An entirely new automotive experience from

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the company that’s always been known for pioneering them. Visit MBUSA.com/GLA

one career ago, I was a professor of film studies. I gave that up to move to vermont and write for Seven Days, but movies will always be my first love.

2015 GLA 250 4MATIC® shown in Cirrus White metallic paint with optional equipment. *MSRP excludes all options, taxes, title, registration, transportation charge and dealer prep. Options, model availability and actual dealer price may vary. See dealer for details. ©2015 Authorized Mercedes-Benz Dealers For more information, call 1-800-FOR-MERCEDES, or visit MBUSA.com.

In this feature, published every saturday on Live Culture, I write about the films I'm currently watching, and connect them to film history and art.

HEADLINE: 38 pt. • SUBHEAD: 18 pt. • BODY COPY: 9.25 pt

sevendaysvt.com/liveculture.

MOVIES 87

HEADLINE: 38 pt. • SUBHEAD: 18 pt. • BODY COPY: 9.25 pt 3328 Shelburne Rd. |St.Shelburne, Vermont 200 Varick New York, NY 10014 : Phone05482-6849 212-805-7500 802.985.8482 | TheAutomasterMercedesBenz.com Client: MERCEDES-BENZ USA, LLC RDA WO: ’15 N-N GLA Toolkit Update “Ready Set...” ReaD These eaCh week oN The LIve CuLTuRe BLoG aTMR2_GLA_P52841_4CP PATH: M.P_MECHANICALS:Volumes:M.P_MECHANICALS:Mercedes:MR2:GLA:P52841:MR2_GLA_P52841_4CP

200 Varick St. New York, NY 10014 : Phone 212-805-7500

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seveNDAYsvt.com

offbeat Flick of the week: we pick an indie, foreign, cultish or just plain odd movie that hits local theaters, DvD or video on demand this week. If you want an alternative to the blockbusters, try this!

T:10”

Talk about a role model: Fresh from the festival circuit, this documentary from Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman) profiles Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who defied the Taliban and won a Nobel Prize for her activism on behalf of girls’ education. The “he” in the title is her dad, also an activist-educator and a strong presence in the film, which starts Friday at Merrill's Roxy Cinemas in Burlington.

Dave Lapp

fun stuff Edie Everette

88 fun stuff

SEVEN DAYS 10.14.15-10.21.15 SEVENDAYSvt.com

Michael Deforge

lulu eightball

more fun!

jen sorensen

straIgHt dope (p.29) crossword (p.c-5) caLcoku & sudoku (p.c-7)

tech DIVE INTO THE...

TANK

Find out how Vermont companies are hiring local talent to build apps, secure data and store renewable energy.

Harry BLIss

THINKmd Pwnie Express Logic Supply Green Mountain Power JoyRyde