Articles
Fighting for a Springfield Bike Park: Safety concerns, frustrations with Mayor Sarno spurring advocates to act
Dallas Anderson, 14, rides his bike about six hours a day, mostly through the streets of his hometown of Springfield. He has fun doing it, and has met friends while riding in groups downtown, but he does worry about his safety, and he said he doesn’t get support from...
Editorial: If It’s Not Your Body, It’s Not Your Business
I was 17 when I had my first abortion. I was not ready to become a mother. I was still in high school, no money in the bank, and admittedly still a child myself. I know if I didn’t have that choice, my life would be 100 percent different than it is today. Sometimes I...
Advocates speak out against abortion bans at Northampton rally
It was near the end of a Northampton rally in support of abortion rights on Tuesday that Shirley Jackson Whitaker took the stage. She spoke to more than 200 people who had gathered at Pulaski Park following the passage of restrictive abortion laws in states including...
O Cannabis: Bedtime weed to treat insomnia and sleep apnea
Patrick Baker, 29, works as a desktop support contractor for a health insurance company in a skyscraper in Springfield. During his lunch break, he slips away, heads down the stairwell straight for an empty closet on an empty floor. Still wearing his buttoned down...
Bizarro Briefs: RIP Grumpy Cat
RIP Grumpy Cat A generational meme icon is no more. At the age of seven, the beloved feline known to the internet as “Grumpy Cat” has been taken from us, but left us with her always grumpy face, which will surely delight generations of internet browsers in the years...
Stagestruck: Pre-Season Previews – Summer begins, spring continues
There’s usually a bit of a lull between the end of one theater season and the start of the next – the spring pause before the summer rush. But the pause keeps getting briefer and the seasons are starting to overlap. Take this week, when three Berkshire theaters open...
V-Spot: How Can I Let My Partner Touch Me?
Yana, I’m a trans male and my partner is non-binary. While I identify as asexual, I love pleasuring my partner so much! But I don’t let them touch me. I want to but I’m so self conscious about not having “male anatomy” (gender/sex am I right?) that them touching me...
Free Will Astrology: Ally Yourself With Pirates, Leo
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming weeks, I suspect you will have the wisdom to criticize yourself in constructive ways that will at least partially solve a long-standing problem. Hallelujah! I bet you will also understand what to do to eliminate a bad habit by...
Cinemadope: Summer season means outdoor movies
All of us have our seasonal touchstones. As New Englanders, especially, we seem to have a compulsion to carve up our years (maple season, mud season, mosquito season) and mark the moment that one quarter melts into another. For many, the spring-to-summer transition...
Guest columnist David Daley: Everybody does it? Not by a long shot, Rep. Neal
Everybody does it. That’s essentially Rep. Richard Neal’s response to my criticism in The Boston Globe of his pay-for-play fundraising and lavish galas where he’s wooed Washington lobbyists and stuffed his pockets with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash...
Jake Klar on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Advocate Sessions performer is singer-songwriter Jake Klar, who plays poetic folk and blues that stirs the soul. Check out his performance in the video below.
Letters to the Editor: Forget the wall; plant a hedge
Forget the Wall; Plant a Hedge I think that instead of building a wall along our southern border, we should plant a hedge. And granted the cooperation of the Mexican people, finance the planting of food trees and vegetable gardens that will provide some respite to...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Acid Dad, Majestic Open Mic, and Santo Taco
Acid Dad, Receivers, Phenomena 256, and Hot Flakes at Hawks & Reed // SATURDAY It’s a night of psychedelic rock n’ roll, experimental music, and a little bit of emo thrown in for good measure at Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield this Saturday....
Pioneer Valley Workers Center to establish worker-owned farm
The Pioneer Valley Workers Center (PVWC) plans on breaking ground this week on its planned four-acre worker-run cooperative farm on the border of Hatfield and Northampton. Lorena Moreno, a member of the PVWC and the seven-member farm cooperative, said the hope is that...
A Street Fair Named Desire: Valley festivals you can find downtown
It can be hard to remember it based on the cold, rainy weather we’ve had recently, but the middle of May is here. That means being outside, enjoying the flowers, and looking ahead to months more of being out and about before the temperature inevitably drops again and...
Editorial: Even Politicians Are Beginning to Support Medicare For All in Mass
Earlier this week, both Holyoke and South Hadley overwhelmingly passed municipal resolutions in support of Medicare for All legislation. A few weeks earlier, Boston’s City Council did the same. They join Northampton, Cambridge, Williamsburg, and assorted other...
Bizarro Briefs: A daring escape (with cat)
A daring escape In what could easily be a scene from an action movie (starring an elderly woman and her cat), a Massachusetts woman managed to save herself and her feline companion from drowning when the car they were driving crashed into a river and sank. The woman,...
Q&A: ‘Rafiki’ film hopes to spark change in Kenya
The 2018 film, Rafiki, by co-writer/director Wanuri Kahiu, follows Kena and Ziki, two friends who encourage one another to follow their dreams by going to college and starting careers as young women in Kenya. Their friendship blossoms into love, but in their home city...
Valley Show Girl: Weege & The Wondertwins
Western Mass’s Weege and The Wondertwins turn it to 11 on the jazzometer and when listening to them, they send you to the nearest time machine. You emerge in a time where jazz was all around you and the speakeasy lounges were a dime a dozen. Do I Seem Weird Lately? is...
Monte Belmonte Wines: That Time I Almost Got a Fancy Wine Word into Merriam-Webster
“This is super important, Monte. You can do something. Having this knowledge that you do. Knowing both the word and knowing what you know about wine. You can do something to help this word along.” So was the charge of The Word Nerd, Emily Brewster, my resident...
V-Spot: We’re Stuck at a P-in-V Impasse
Yana, My partner of a year and I live together and emotionally I’m so content! However, our intimacy has hit a wall. For a while, we enjoyed our pleasure-based fun and our communication was on point! I didn’t think much about the fact that he didn’t seem interested in...
Cinemadope: Northampton Rafiki screening shows LGBTQ pride at home and abroad
Pride Day celebrations were just winding down in Northampton as I sat down to get to work on this column. Now in its 38th year, the event is still a powerful reminder of both the power of community and the necessity of equality and representation. But while the parade...
Free Will Astrology: Be Candid With Acute Vigor, Cancer
ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to humorist Dave Barry, “The method of learning Japanese recommended by experts is to be born as a Japanese baby and raised by a Japanese family, in Japan.” As you enter an intensely educational phase of your astrological cycle, I...
Fighting Giants on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Fighting Giants is an alt-rock band that combines soaring vocals with intricate songwriting. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Fighting Giants:
Letters to the Editor: It’s Time to Demand Cruelty-Free Circuses
It’s Time to Demand Cruelty-Free Circuses Shame on MGM. I was very dismayed and disappointed to see that MassMutual, now run by MGM, recently hosted Garden Bros. Circus, one of the most inhumane and dangerous circuses in the country. When MassMutual Center hosted it...
Basemental: Music for a World without Jails
Before prisons became the inevitable institutions they are today, believe it or not, they were introduced as a reform; a humane alternative to torture or death. In 1790, English common law condemned those guilty of “petty treason” to the punishment of being burned...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Weege & the Wondertwins, Old Flame, Sodada, and Bad Bad Hats
Weege & The Wondertwins Album Release Show // FRIDAY, 5/10 Weege & The Wondertwins’ sophomore album “Do I Seem Weird Lately?” is a gem to your ears. It’s strong and sophisticated and one of those albums you can put on to instantly change your mood. On Friday,...
Summer Times in the Pines – this summer’s music lineup at the Pines Theater in Northampton
This summer at the Pines Theater at Look Memorial Park in Northampton is shaping up to an eventful one with half a dozen shows featuring big name acts such as grungey alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. with indie folk-rocker Kurt Vile as well as jam rock acts Moe. and...
Death With Dignity: Doctor Assisted Death Bill Making Strides with Lawmakers
Last year, Northampton City Councilor Marianne LaBarge cared for a dear friend as she died from esophageal cancer. Near the end, LaBarge says she couldn’t breathe well, even on oxygen, and was in tremendous pain, even on pain medications. “She was begging to breathe,”...
Editorial: We Need To Support Healthy Food Programs For Low-Income People
With the constant hum of negative political news at the national and international level, it’s easy to miss the fact that we may be on the verge of something very positive on the local and state level with regard to food and hunger. The centerpiece has been a...
Bizarro Briefs: The ‘Pooperintendent’ Returns
The ‘Pooperintendent’ Returns Previously on Bizarro Briefs: a mysterious serial track field defecator was revealed to be a rival school’s superintendent. He was fired. But wait folks, that’s not all! Now, the former New Jersey ‘pooperintendent’ has sued a police...
Beerhunter: 15 Local Havens with Great Craft Beer Selections
Since I started this column in 2014, it hasn’t gotten any easier to keep up with the craft beer news pouring out of the Valley (not that I’m complaining). I try to go straight to the source by touring breweries, chilling in taprooms, and talking with local brewers....
Cinemadope: Love, Gilda: Gilda Radner, in her own words
When Gilda Radner was in her heyday as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, I was still too young to know her hilarity first-hand; SNL was past my bedtime. But when she passed away in May of 1989, I was in high school. That was a Saturday, and I can still recall the...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: Howard the Duck (1986)
On its opening weekend, Avengers: Endgame took in a staggering $1.2 billion. I’ve seen it and now I am caught up in the frenzy. I even scoured the area McDonald’s and got 12 of the 24 avengers happy meal toys. The clerks there cringe when I come strolling through the...
Stagestruck: Scully, Scandal, and Buckets of Blood – National Theatre Live in Amherst
Two revisioned classics, a brand-new political drama, and some audience favorites are on tap in the Amherst Cinema’s series of broadcasts from the London stage via National Theatre Live. First up, this Saturday and again on the 14th, is Shakespeare’s most lyrical...
Guest Column: Richard Neal and the sabotaged free tax filing program
This is a story about what happens behind closed doors in Washington, how politicians quietly sell out the public interest to lobbyists and campaign donors, and how both groups then manipulate the truth to get away with it. Our main characters: The powerful tax prep...
Free Will Astrology: Can you be as efficient as a firefly, Taurus?
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Time to shake things up! In the next three weeks, I invite you to try at least three of the following experiments. 1.) See unusual sights in familiar situations. 2.) Seek out new music that both calms you and excites you. 3.) Get an...
V-Spot: Has Sobriety Killed My Sex Drive?
Content note: This column talks about substance use, sobriety, and sexual abuse. Hi there! I’m in a pickle about my sexual experience and identity. I’m curious what you know about the ways sex drive and desire may change for people in recovery and/or for people who...
Ed Bentley on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Ed Bentley performs open mic-honed folk music with a sweet crooner voice. Check out his Advocate Sessions set in the video below. Interview with Ed Bentley:
Letters to the Editor: I’ve got my own Nifty Nabber now
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
Review: ‘The Promise of Elsewhere’ by Brad Leithauser; ‘Offline’ by Brian Adams
THE PROMISE OF ELSEWHERE By Brad Leithauser Knopf Mount Holyoke College, where he previously taught, once described Brad Leithauser as “polymathic” — for good reason. A Harvard Law School graduate who worked in law before turning to writing, Leithauser has lived in...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Maniac, Valley Winds Cinco de Mayo, and Motherhood Out Loud
Motherhood Out Loud at STCC // FRIDAY-SATURDAY Stagestruck columnist Chris Rohmann recently wrote about this production and described this play as 14 vignettes that “traverse the full terrain of the mom experience, from the throes of labor to the empty nest.” While...
Stagestruck: Liaisons, both neighborly and dangerous, at the Bushnell
When the twin towers crumpled on September 11, 2001, American airspace was closed for fear of further attacks and all U.S.-bound flights were diverted to other airports. One of these was Gander International, i n Newfoundland, where 38 airliners landed, carrying...
Who Gets To Be Cured of HIV?: Equitable access at issue on the brink of a scientific breakthrough
Dino Schnelle, a 66-year-old resident of Heath, was diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in 1996. An openly gay man, he contracted HIV through unprotected sex sometime in the early- to mid-1980s. He waited about a decade before getting tested due to fear...
Bizarro Briefs: A Dream Fake-cation To Nebraska
A Dream Fake-cation To Nebraska You’re down on your luck and feeling the blues. It happens to everyone. Maybe you need a trip to Disneyland to lift your spirits … or Nebraska? You don’t have to actually go to Nebraska to go on vacation because a Nebraska-based...
Editorial: We’re Living in a Teachable Moment On Vaccines
Last week, a Facebook comment thread on a Valley Advocate parenting column about dealing with tantrums went in an unexpected direction. Despite the article having nothing to do with vaccines, a reader took the opportunity to rail against them and espouse conspiracy...
‘Recovering Out Loud:’ At RX Drug & Heroin Summit in Atlanta, nonprofits show pathways to support lifelong recovery
As co-founder of the Kentucky-based Voices of Hope, a nonprofit that promotes and supports lifelong recovery, Alex Elswick, a former heroin user who now says he is “recovering out loud,” knows the hard way about substance misuse, addiction, sobriety and recovery. At...
Valley Show Girl: Lime-Infected by Deer Tick
The last time Deer Tick had a headlining show in the Valley, it was canceled the day of because guitarist/singer John McCauley was too sick to perform. Wahhh! I was set to cover the show so I told myself the next time they had a headlining show here, I was going to...
Monte Belmonte Wines: My Wine Mother – A Tribute
Everything I know about wine I learned from my mother. Not my biological mother. Her relationship to wine consists of one wine cooler a year and White Zinfandel at family gatherings. Everything I know about wine I learned from my Wine Mother. And as we approach...
Stagestruck: Around the World in 80 Minutes
Jules Verne’s 1873 novel/travelogue, Around the World in 80 Days, is best remembered these days from its movie versions, including Disney’s in 2004 and the Oscar-winning three-hour blockbuster from 1956, both of them teeming with exotic multitudes and spectacular...
V-Spot: I’m a Virgin and I’m in College
Hi Yana, I’m a virgin and I’m in college. Being in college seems to come with a hookup culture and an expectation to be having sex which isn’t the case for everybody. I find myself either lying or being very quiet during conversations about sex with people I’m not...
Cinemadope: The human penchant for horror
Much has been written, by better minds than mine, about the human penchant for horror. That impulse to indulge in our most deeply seated human fears and frailties is behind both traffic jams at accident scenes and modern gods-and-monsters tales about the undead (or...
Free Will Astrology: Manatees Are As Lovely As Mermaids, Sagittarius
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. “How slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls!” Your first assignment in the coming days, Aries, is to devote yourself to quenching the...
Home Body on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
This week’s Advocate Sessions band is electro fever-pop, new wave and experimental pop duo Home Body. The duo just released their new record, Spiritus, and will be performing at their release show on Friday, May 3 at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls. Check out...
Letters to the Editor: Thoughts on the Stop & Shop Robots
Thoughts on the Stop & Shop Robots In response to “Human Support for the Striking Shop & Stop Workers,” published April 18-24. I fully support Stop & Shop workers in their strike but I don’t understand the hate for the robot. It roams around the...
Stagestruck: The Dollar Princess – WAM Theatre premieres “Lady Randy”
Anne Undeland, the playwright and star of Lady Randy, says she wanted to find a 19th-century woman to build a one-person show around. “It soon became clear that if I wanted name recognition, I had to find a woman who was associated with a famous man. Dammit!” She...
Trump claims to be doing more to fight opioid abuse than any other president — to a crowd smaller than Obama’s
In months to come, this may become a point of dispute in the history of the national RX & Heroin Drug Summit: The 2016 appearance by President Barack Obama drew a larger audience than did President Trump’s keynote in 2019. And Sean Spicer won’t be there to settle...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Opal Canyon album release, experimental music, and the Radical Interconnectedness Festival
Opal Canyon album release @ The Parlor Room // FRIDAY, 4/26 A little bit country, a little bit psychedelic rock and a lot of heart and soul. Valley supergroup Opal Canyon are releasing their debut album, “Beauty and Loss,” this Friday at The Parlor Room. The group is...
Basemental: Breakfast Party, Rock n’ Roll During the Day
Recently, on a Saturday morning, I was lying in bed trying to muster the will to get up when a man dressed in all black, who seemed vaguely familiar, started poking around — letting himself into my room unannounced — and generally scoping out my personal dwelling...E-Edition
Best Of 2024
Readers Choice 2024
