Articles
Monte Belmonte Wines: Wine with The Brothers Narkewicz
MNARK: I’m so proud of him. I actually have his bumper sticker on my car in San Francisco, which was interesting because we just had an election for mayor. DNARK: Did I get any votes? Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz may have made headlines when he was the first...
Lifting Every Voice: Springfield Black History Month lecture series educates and inspires
On a cold night in the middle of February, lights are glowing in the windows of Spring of Hope Church of God in Christ, a small brick church on Alden Street in Springfield. Inside, the pews are about three-quarters full, and the attendees are listening to a different...
Editorial: The ABCs of the #FakeNationalEmergency
It was, to put it mildly, an act of moral turpitude and callous disregard for the suffering of separated families and victims of violence when President Donald Trump announced he would be circumventing Congress to declare a national emergency that, by his own...
Bizarro Briefs: No Bananas Stolen
No bananas stolen Police in Sulphur, Louisiana, arrested a man wearing a gorilla suit, who allegedly broke into a home and hid underneath a mattress before his arrest. According to local news outlets in Louisiana, officers saw the costumed man walking through yards...
Letters to the editor: Men must respect boundaries and be supportive
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...
Mythic Women: The dolls of Turners artist Belinda Lyons Zucker
“The coming months will be a more favorable time than usual to boost feminine authority and enhance women’s ability to shape our shared reality.” So says Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology column this week under the entry for Taurus. Whether or not she believes in...
Cinemadope: Off the Wall
Art lovers in the Valley are never far from a good gallery. Between the extensive collections of local colleges, dedicated museums, and the smaller neighborhood salons that pepper our local downtowns, we are lucky to live in an area with such a vibrant artistic...
Stagestruck: Center Stage for Seniors
Two elder ensembles are this week’s headliners. The Berkshire-based WAM Theatre has just announced its plans for a troupe of women over 65, and the latest offering from the British stage in the popular National Theatre Live series features a cast of old folks....
Olivia Frances on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Olivia Frances is a folk/pop singer-songwriter with environmentalist themes. Check out her Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Olivia Frances:
Come on out to the Back Porch: Back Porch Fest starts Feb. 28
It’s not often that you find a music festival during late winter, let alone a diverse collection of shows across four nights ranging from zydeco to bluegrass, country music, and folk. But Signature Sounds’ annual Back Porch Festival, now in its fifth year, is right at...
The V-Spot: My Love No Longer Dominates
Hello from Vienna, Austria, Yana! Over the years I’ve realized that I like being dominated in sex. I want strong men who play with my brain, mainly verbally. A year ago I met a guy on a kinky hookup app. We went out on a date and hit it off immediately. In the...
Free Will Astrology: Time for female empowerment, Taurus
ARIES (March 21-April 19): South Koreans work too hard. Many are on the job for fourteen hours a day, six days a week. That’s why a new concept in vacations has emerged there. People take sabbaticals by checking into Prison Inside Me, a facility designed like a jail....
The Beerhunter: Shake Your Cabin Fever with a Taproom Day Trip
It is right about now, during the shortest month of the year, that I have sat through some of the longest evenings of my life. Cabin fever is no joke, even if your cabin comes equipped with a fire, good books, and a stockpile of craft beer (plus some loved ones, I...
Book Bag: ‘Enchantée’ by Gita Trelease; ‘Seven Full days’ by Ferris Shelton
ENCHANTÉE By Gita Trelease Flatiron Books gitatrelease.com In Paris in 1789, as poverty grips most of the populace, and the aristocrats’ indifference to people’s suffering breeds growing anger, 17-year-old Camille Durbonne is struggling to provide for herself and her...
Cinemadope: Natural Causes: The strange beauties of Rosamond Purcell
The photography of Rosamond Purcell is work that often feels plucked from another period. Her artistic impulse — what filmmaker Errol Morris described as “the contemplation of things that other people would normally just ignore” — harkens back to a time when many...
Wellness: Workouts that actually work out
It’s a month and a half into 2019, and what may have seemed like an easily obtainable fitness resolution on New Year’s Day might not seem that way anymore. To encourage those who may need a boost, we asked readers and fitness experts to share their best fitness...
V-Spot: How Do I Stop Faking My Orgasms?
Dear Yana, I’m in my early 30s and have been faking orgasms for about a decade of a colorful, explorative — if not straight up hyphy — sex life. I had my first orgasm about 13 years ago with a partner, who helped me discover simultaneous clitoral stimulation during...
Letters to the editor: Passing the volunteer baton
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...
Stoner Will & The Narks on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Stoner Will & The Narks play slacker rock with a biting satirical bent. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Stoner Will & The Narks
Bizarro Briefs: Nazi Art Not a Winner
Nazi art not a winner Adolf Hitler can’t seem to catch a break. First, his quest for world domination hit a snag in the 1940s when the Allies defeated him in World War II, and now, no one wants watercolor paintings attributed to him. None of the five paintings...
Advocate Staff Picks: Feb. 15 – 23
Ch’CHUNK! at Luthier’s Co-op // FRIDAY, Feb. 15 Ch’Chunk is self-described as “a modern take on classic swing.” The band plays great original songs as well as Tin Pan Alley classics that instantly transports your mind to a dimly lit speakeasy. So, with that in...
Free Will Astrology: There are more galaxies near the big dipper than you think, Gemini
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When directors of movies say, “It’s a wrap,” they mean that the shooting of a scene has been finished. They may use the same expression when the shooting of the entire film is completed. That’s not the end of the creative process, of course....
Stagestruck: Big Apple Bites
At first glance, you’d think the two plays I saw in New York City last week have little in common. One is an international import from London to Broadway, the other an Off-Broadway transfer from a small regional theater in Vermont. One is twice as long as the other...
Purging Plastic: The quest to break the addiction to single-use garbage
Eight billion metric tons. According to Industrial Ecologist Roland Geyer of the University of California, Santa Barbara, that is the amount of plastic that has been produced since the 1950s, and almost half of that, was created after the year 2000, causing plastic...
Valley Show Girl: And The Kids’ Whimsical Indie Rock
Signature Sounds recording artists And The Kids from Northampton have made a name for themselves throughout their active musician years in the Valley. They’ve been locally and nationally covered and very recently had a live set at Paste Magazine that was streamed...
Editorial: Back in the Weekly Swing
Excitement. Elation. Eagerness. Those were the emotions that bubbled up when I got the news that the Advocate would be returning to a weekly schedule, and that after six months performing other roles in the company I was being asked to return as its editor. What you...
Cinemadope: Movies for winter vacation
Listen, I love my kids. I do. But it’s been a long winter around here. The holiday season was a terrible round-robin of stomach bugs, the heat went on the fritz in their bedroom, and a cold snap kept us cooped up in the house on days when their energy level could have...
Stagestruck: Mashups in Makeup
How’s this for genre mashups: Brontë gothic in which two of the characters are animals. Wildean romcom in which all the actors are women. Golden Age Spain in which a woman lives as a man. Multidisciplinary invention in which diversity seeks community. Renaissance...
Electrio on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Electrio combines blues rock with progressive rock, funky grooves, and experimental stylings. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Electrio:
Stagestruck: Hi, Honey, I’m Home!
When Nora Helmer famously slammed the door on her empty marriage at the end of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, she changed the course of theatrical history, and social history as well. But shutting the door on one story implicitly opened another, and thus left a...
Raspberry Jam on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Raspberry Jam plays catchy progressive indie rock that’ll get you on the dance floor. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Raspberry Jam:
Stagestruck: Conversations and Conflicts
Theater, Sheryl Stoodley firmly believes, “can be the starting point for conversations – much-needed at this point in our United States and in the world.” To that end, Serious Play, the theater Stoodley leads, “works toward reshaping society’s conversation on...
No Lens on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
No Lens combines reggae rock with acoustic folk and funk grooves. Check out the band’s performance on Valley Advocate Sessions in the video below. Interview with No Lens:
Stagestruck: Found and Lost
In a program note for The Engagement Party, Samuel Baum says his play is “an exploration of secrets and lies.” Which puts it right in his wheelhouse, as his credits include the TV psycho-crime drama Lie to Me and the movie Wizard of Lies. He says he’s also interested...
The V-Spot: Sex Drives Are Slacking & I Feel Lacking
Hi Yana, I’m a junior in college and I’ve been dating my boyfriend since our freshman year. Initially the relationship was steamy and passionate. I was his first sexual partner so we did a lot of experimenting and discovering together. As is perhaps inevitable, that...
Dicey Riley with Zoe Darrow on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Dicey Riley with Zoe Darrow is a Celtic-folk influenced rock band with virtuoso fiddle and electric bagpipes. Check out the band’s full Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Dicey Riley and Zoe Darrow:
Cinemadope: Superhero overload
In the last decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has cast a long shadow over the rest of the filmmaking world. Beginning with the surprisingly wide-reaching hit that was 2008’s Iron Man, the series of interconnected films — now up to twenty titles and about as...
Cinemadope: Star Gazing – A Celebrity Tells Her Tale
Some years back, one of my many day jobs had me working a small newsstand. Mostly, it meant selling local papers and coffee, and, once a month or so, packing up all the glossier magazines that hadn’t sold during the previous weeks. Those days were like spending hours...
Stagestruck: Having a Go, Script in Hand
Allyn Burrows, Shakespeare & Company’s artistic director, calls it “a great way to get out in the middle of winter … a great opportunity for the audience to let their imaginations just run wild.” It’s the theater’s annual Studio Festival, a weekend of...
Stagestruck: Happening New Year — Valley stages ring in the 2019 season
Barely two weeks into the new year and already my theatergoing calendar is crowded with upcoming shows. From an operatic Sweeney Todd to a historical fantasy to a “pseudo-historical psycho-romance,” to pick three for this month, 2019 is off to a promising start. The...
Cinemadope: A city, one step at a time
One of the best things about The New Yorker magazine — other than the cartoons, of course — has always been the attention it pays to the oddball stories of the city. For this writer’s money, it will always be Joseph Mitchell who set the bar; have a look at his...
Moving Day on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Moving Day is a an indie rock duo in the spirit of 1960s pop music. Check out the band’s Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Moving Day:
Monte Belmonte Wines: Could Monte Love A New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc?
Liz: “We’re really a nation of innovators and I think it shows in our wine industry.” Monte: “Plus, you’ve got penguins, right?” Liz: “Right.” Monte: “New Zealand is one of the top places people looked up as to how to move there after the election of Trump. It it hard...
The V-Spot: Help! NRE Feels Bad to Me!
Dear Yana, How do I stay chill when I’m interested in somebody new? Getting too excited (read: obsessed) with new people is no good for any of my relationships, regardless of how well the new connection is going. I’m a polyamorous person with a wonderful,...
Valley Show Girl: The Gift of Music – A 2018 Local Music Retrospective
The gift that keeps on giving is always the gift of music. You can go all out and get someone you love a new record player with a handful of vinyl for them to christen the needle with. You can pick up a CD or even a cassette, and you can purchase the album online to...
Uncle Brothers on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Uncle Brothers is a a progressive jazz metal band with electric trumpets and heavy distorted guitar riffs. Check out the band’s Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Uncle Brothers:
Stagestruck: Six Degrees of Connection – The Berkshires’ Year in Theater
Six theater companies form a kind of chain across the southern and western Berkshires. From the closest to the Valley to the farthest, they are the hilltowns’ Chester Theatre Company, then westward (passing dance mecca Jacob’s Pillow) to Shakespeare & Company in...
Scott Meyers on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Scott Meyers is a mellow folk singer-songwriter with heart and soul. Check out his Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Scott Meyers:
Cinemadope: Holmes Sweet Holmes
When it comes to our popular heroes, few if any can match the long and varied history of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous “consulting detective” made his debut in the 1887 tale A Study in Scarlet, and from the get go Holmes changed the detective game...
Cinemadope: Hello Dolly – One man’s imaginary world
Eighteen years ago, Mark Hogancamp lost his life. That is not the same thing as saying that Mark Hogancamp died, because he didn’t. But when the Navy veteran was beaten so badly in a 5-on-1 attack outside a bar that he ended up in a nine-day coma, large parts of his...
The V-Spot: How Do I Get Fit to Be Tied?
Hi Yana I’ve got some sex stuff on my mind, mostly about BDSM/kink. I’m a kinskter just getting my footing in the local (Western Mass) scene and was wondering what sorts of resources other than FetLife are available. I also wanted to ask about ropes, and...
Dirty Words on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Dirty Words is a project that combines soulful poetry with introspective jazz presented by singer-songwriter Cait Simpson (The Greys). Simpson created a special version of her poetry-driven performance for Valley Advocate Sessions, which you can watch in the video...
Valley Variety — 2018 in Review
I attended over 30 theater productions in the Valley this year, but that wasn’t half of what was on stage. What struck me most was the variety of fare – from the breadth of established companies’ seasons, to the ethnic and gender diversity on campus stages, to...
Last-Minute Gift Guide: Learn to Homebrew at Beerology
The artisanal food scene is exploding here in the Valley, and that includes a wealth of locally-crafted libations from the newest crop of area breweries and vineyards. It’s likely you know someone who wants to know more about brewing and wine making, and the perfect...
Stagestruck: Not Throwin’ Away My Shot at “Hamilton”
What is there to say that you don’t already know about Hamilton, the game-changing musical that costs a bank loan to see on Broadway and is now on tour, where this month it’s at the Bushnell in Hartford for only an ATM max-out? Playing through Dec. 30 (by far the...
Cinemadope: How Swede It Is
If you’re anything like me, your schedule is a mess this month. End-of-year holidays, school vacations, shifted work schedules and last-minute shopping excursions: it all combines to make December the month where our regular calendars get thrown out the window. So it...
Stagestruck: Angels in Middle America
Harrison David Rivers specifies that his play When Last We Flew takes place in “a small town in Kansas (NOT Kansas City).” He also specifies that all eight characters are people of color. And that two of them are gay. As it opens, we find 17-year-old Paul in the...
Josh Pearson on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Josh Pearson plays country, blues, and folk music with a dose of wry songwriting wit. Check out his complete Valley Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Josh Pearson:
Michael Graffius on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Michael Graffius is a performer who plays sweet melancholy folk mixed with poetic indie and punk lyricism. Check out his Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Michael Graffius:E-Edition
Best Of 2024
Readers Choice 2024
