Articles
by Chuck Shepherd | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
Russian artist Mariana Shumkova is certainly doing her part for oral hygiene, publicly unveiling her St. Petersburg statuette of a frightening, malformed head displaying actual extracted human teeth, misaligned and populating holes in the face that represent the mouth...
by Advocate Staff | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
Stop Sending Weapons to Syria At a presentation given by the Northampton Committee to Stop Wars, I asked two Syrian speakers whether Syrians predominantly support President Assad or the rebels. They both said that the country is extremely divided and that their...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Editor’s Note: This column addresses rape, childhood sexual abuse, PTSD, and sexual orientation as a symptom of trauma. I’m in my late teens and have identified as gay/queer for the last few years. I have dated/hooked up with a few non-binary folks and trans guys, but...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 6, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
The rain made way for the rainbows, as it always does. Not half-an-hour after the thousands of rainbow shirts, flags, balloons, and all manner of rainbow apparel hit the streets to begin the Northampton Pride Parade on Saturday, the morning’s rain was a memory...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 5, 2017 | Articles, Get Out With Staff Picks, Leisure, News
The bloom is on the branch and spring has sprung. And even in my short commute to work, I pass about a dozen varieties of flowering trees and bushes. It occurred to me that I haven’t the slightest idea what most of them are called. So I took out my phone and...
by Kristin Palpini | May 2, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
In the last several years, Northampton Pride has been a blowout celebration of all people, places, and things LGBTQI, but this year the event is leaning more toward its political roots. They’re putting the march back into the parade, so to speak. Northampton Pride...
by Jennifer Levesque | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
The nostalgia of Pearl Street in Northampton always brings back so many MMM’s (magical music memories) from my past. The way the street light illuminates that bend in the road where the tour buses usually line up is always a happy trigger for me. We can hear the...
by Kristin Palpini | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
The Thunder Down East If you hear rumblings coming from Easthampton Saturday, come running — it’s the Thunder in the Valley Festival. This all-ages event will feature rock and roll, food trucks, craft beer, wrestling — with students from Kevin Landry’s Pro Wrestling...
by Jack Brown | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
In the world of film, it is sometimes depressingly simple to point out why a given film is popular: perfectly groomed stars with gleaming teeth, things going boom, good over evil. I get it — we are, by and large, easy to please, and that’s okay. It’s just not that...
by Advocate Staff | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
The Missed Connections forum on Craigslist is a wasteland of terrible poetry, dick pics, and whining, but among the detritus are some truly fascinating, funny, and occasionally sweet entries. The following are highlights from the Western Mass Missed Connections forum,...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
I recently began a polyamorous relationship with my girlfriend. We dated previously, but things didn’t work out due to extenuating circumstances, but we remained friends. We’ve recently gotten back together with a different foundation to the relationship. She...
by Advocate Staff | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Art TRACK More than 50 artists from around New England will participate in this year’s TRACK Artisan Fair in Three Rivers. The day will feature live music and food vendors. TRACK Artisan Fair: Saturday, May 6, 10 a.m. Free. Rain or shine. Palmer Historical &...
by Advocate Staff | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Get Wit It Wit may be the smartest, funniest one-act play about a woman dying of ovarian cancer. Focusing on the final hours of Dr. Vivian Bearing’s life, the English professor reflects on the similarities between how the doctors view her — as a piece of work to be...
by Advocate Staff | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
Forever Young@Heart Young@Heart, a chorus of people age 70 and older who love singing contemporary tunes, is celebrating 35 years of belting out the hits with a show this Saturday at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton. Hear new arrangements of songs by...
by Advocate Staff | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
No Cars Allowed The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge that connects Holyoke and South Hadley will be closed Sunday afternoon for the River Roll and Stroll open street festival. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. the bridge will be open to pedestrians, bicyclists, dog-walkers,...
by Chris Goudreau | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Music, Newsletter
The blues has always been about addressing heartbreak and strife going back to 1930s Depression-era America. Northampton-based indie garage rock blues duo Old Flame seem to share that sentiment for today’s world. The band’s debut seven-song EP, Wolf in the Heather,...
by Chuck Shepherd | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
Mother of Invention Robotic models of living organisms are useful to scientists, who can study the effects of stimuli without risk to actual people. Northwestern University researchers announced in March that its laboratory model of the “female reproductive system”...
by Rob Breszney | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Astrology, Wellness
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Beware of feeling sorry for sharks that yell for help. Beware of trusting coyotes that act like sheep and sheep that act like coyotes. Beware of nibbling food from jars whose contents are different from what their labels suggest. But wait!...
by Chris Goudreau | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News
Eighteen protesters were detained at Berkshire County Jail on May 2 after blocking access roads to the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company’s easement where construction of a $93 million 3.8-mile Connecticut expansion gas pipeline project at Otis State Forest in Sandisfield...
by Kristin Palpini | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
Splitting Radiation Hairs Radiation exposure at 10 mrem? 15? 25? Small fractions of what everyone gets from natural background? These being hypothetical exposures (outlined in “Nuclear Activists Raise Concern Over Vermont Yankee Quick Fix,” April 27-May 3,...
by Lena Wilson | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, News, Stream Queen
It’s nearly time to kick off Pride season with Noho Pride (see the Advocate’s Guide to Pride), where LGBT Valley citizens will be able to celebrate our identities and our history as we process down Main Street in a sea of rainbow. The parade, which will take...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News
I can’t say I was surprised when I read over the weekend that President Donald Trump had invited Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte – who has advocated extrajudicial killings of drug users in his home country – to the White House. But I was deeply disturbed....
by Warren Johnston | Apr 30, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Food + Booze, The Pour Man
Bread & Butter Chardonnay, 2015; Napa, California; $14.99 Bread & Butter Chardonnay is among the top-selling super premium wines in the country — and there’s a good reason for that. It’s a dry, white wine that is flavorful, well-crafted and sells for a...
by Chance Viles | Apr 30, 2017 | Articles, News, Scene Here
At one point gathering in crowds and smoking weed was a radical thing. Extravaganja participants would congregate in groups to sit and watch bands play in the unforgiving sun, dust kicked up by the constant flow of excited stoners ready to revel in their forbidden...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News, Wellness
Each week on Thursday afternoons is a Beyond Birth group in the little yellow house by Cooley-Dickinson Hospital. While my wife and I were on leave following the birth of our son, we tried to attend this group as often as we could. The group welcomes parents of babies...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 28, 2017 | Articles, Featured, Music
Bright-eyed and bolstered by a rapidly growing fan base, the award winning NYC duo has set out to make the world of singer-songwriters a more cheerful place. Although they’ve been favorably compared to Simon & Garfunkel and The Indigo Girls, these ladies have an...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 28, 2017 | Articles, News
Aditya Shastry of India had two years of statistics experience in the finance field, the start of what would have seemed a lucrative career. But he found his work limiting; he wanted to work on his own project. He applied to the University of Massachusetts Amherst...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Film, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Back in the day — way, way back — live radio drama was a staple of the airwaves. As script-toting actors gathered around microphones, their dialogue was peppered with live sound effects, backed by a live band and punctuated with live commercial breaks, often with a...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 25, 2017 | Articles, Get Out With Staff Picks, Newsletter
Upper Valley Music Festival – Saturday, April 29 My wife is going to be participating in an all-day yoga event Saturday, leaving me with our 3-month-old. What better way to entertain the little guy than 12 hours of live music in Greenfield with dozens of acts on...
by Jack Brown | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
While the idea of a “mockumentary” now seems almost old-hat, in 1984 director Rob Reiner gave birth to the zany medium. His ridiculously entertaining satire about life on the road with aging, British metal band Spinal Tap during their American comeback tour was mostly...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Nice Pot! Flowers are blooming on the trees, the sun is shining, and asparagus are being planted in the Valley, which means it’s time for the annual springtime Asparagus Valley Potter Trail. Every year the self-guided tour takes place across nine pottery studios in...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 26, 2017 | Articles, Music, Newsletter
Nice photo ^^ Nice video vv Can’t wait for more Sessions? Head over to the Sessions page and listen to more of the best local bands you might not have heard of – and a couple you probably have.
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Arts, News, Newsletter
For writer Elinam Agbo, words are like air.“If I go too long without expressing my thoughts in one way or another, I begin to feel suffocated and distant from my memories as well as my lived moments,” said Agbo, this year’s winner of the Valley Advocate’s Juniper...
by Kristin Palpini and Chris Goudreau | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, News
On a hill of gravelly mud in Kendrick Park — that little strip of grass in downtown Amherst flanked by Triangle and Pleasant streets — a family of protesters are passing around plastic instruments and bird masks in preparation for the March for Science.“Everyone got...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, The V-Spot, Wellness
Writer’s note: This column mentions depression and suicidality. When me and my BF first got together about a year and a half ago, we were having the best sex of our lives! Then I decided with the help of my therapist that I needed to be medicated due to suicidal...
by Will Meyer | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Newsletter
Editor’s note: Bella Ortia-Wren uses they/their pronouns. Bella Ortia-Wren, who goes by just “Bella” on stage, plays a blue Fender Mustang, a small-bodied guitar with single coil pickups, that sounds shimmery and crisp through a few hot-tempered distortion boxes....
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
The first thing you need to know about Krakatoa Picnic is that the imagery in this book of poems, by James Heflin, will sear you to the side of the Indonesian volcano.The collection of sci-fi-influenced prose is vivid in its tactile descriptions of place, people, and...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, News
Over the last few months, a proposal to sell the now-closed Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant to a company called NorthStar has gotten some attention. Vermont Yankee shut down in 2014 and is in Vernon, a town at the southeastern corner of Vermont. Most of Franklin County...
by Connolly Ryan | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Arts, News, Newsletter
Earth First & LastLike children in summertime, our planet thrives on vivid evidence that there is always something to be. Unlike fools who amass acres by way of massacres, nature plants herself in one area and creates worlds around her. Earth itself...
by Chuck Shepherd | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, News of the Weird
A June 2016 police raid on David Jessen’s Fresno County (California) farmhouse caused a $150,000 mess when sheriff’s deputies and Clovis Police Department officers “rescued” it from a trespassing homeless man — with the massive destruction leading to Jessen’s lawsuit...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 19, 2017 | Articles
The Valley Advocate would like to thank everyone that took time to vote in the 2017 Valley Advocate Best of the Valley Readers’ Poll. This year you will notice that we have changed how the winners are displayed on our new website. We hope that you will find our...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 25, 2017 | Articles, News
This spring, voters in eight towns in Western Massachusetts may pass resolutions requiring fossil fuel companies to pay fees to its citizens. The resolutions are non-binding, so the votes will be more about sending a message than actually leveraging the fees,...
by Rob Brezsny | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I have misgivings when I witness bears riding bicycles or tigers dancing on their hind legs or Aries people wielding diplomatic phrases and making careful compromises at committee meetings. While I am impressed by the disciplined expression...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 19, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News, Newsletter
Democrat and political newcomer Jon Ossoff failed to capture Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District in the first round. But Tuesday’s special election results may give Democrats across the country hopes of recapturing the House in 2018 and thwarting the...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 25, 2017 | Articles, News
Amy Goodman, host of radio program Democracy Now!, will speak at Mount Holyoke College at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 25. Goodman will speak at the Gamble Auditorium at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum about increased threats to freedom of the press and the...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 21, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration has been deemed mediocre – receiving a “C” for the second year in a row for its environmental policies and leadership, according to a report card from seven leading environmental organizations. “Unfortunately, once again we...
by Chuck Shepherd | Apr 17, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
If at first you don’t succeed… Samuel West announced in April that his Museum of Failure will open in Helsingborg, Sweden, in June, to commemorate innovation missteps that might serve as inspiration for future successes. Among the initial exhibits:...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 21, 2017 | Articles, News
The Internet has a problem, and that problem is that many of the people who use it are bullies and cowardly naysayers who hide behind their anonymity. On the other hand, Peter Tao, a junior and biochemistry major at UMass Amherst, is upbeat and positive to a fault. I...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 20, 2017 | Articles, News
In the age of President Trump, many people are stepping up to organize and counter the rising tide nationalism, xenophobia, racism and hate fueled far-right flirtations with Nazism. Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American Muslim civil rights and racial justice activist...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 19, 2017 | Articles, Music, News
Who is Hammydown? To see more come back Friday afternoon when we’ll post the full 20 minute concert and interview with Hammydown. Want more Sessions? Check out past performances from bands that include Mammal Dap, The Suitcase Junket, Mikey Sweet, Ray Mason, The...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
It was a terrible way to start the New Year. Three people died and nearly 50 were displaced as a fire consumed the five-story building at 106 North East Street on January 1, 2017. Looking for a quick way to respond, the City of Holyoke has expanded its federally...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 17, 2017 | Articles, Film, Uncategorized
This week, our resident Stream Queen Lena Wilson offers a journey into some high-minded flicks beyond old Cheech and Chong movies (see pg. 18). But Advocate staff thought it equally important to share a blacklist of movies and TV shows to avoid when high — at...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, News
UMass Amherst is getting a School of Earth and Sustainability and it will launch Wednesday, April 19. The keynote speaker at Wednesday’s event, which will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., will be Yale law and psychology professor Dan Kahan. Other...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
From the outside, 5 Appleton St. in Holyoke looks like any number of towering, brick artifacts from a time when Holyoke earned its unofficial title “The Paper City.” But looks can be deceiving. New life is being breathed into the 200,000 square-foot facility and...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 17, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
A chemical weapons attack in Syria, a missile strike from the United States and worsening relations with Russia have made this month a serious pivot point in the protracted Syrian conflict. Is this the moment future historians will identify as the start to a new Cold...
by Lena Wilson | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
It’s 4/20, and whether you consider today a national holiday or just a chance to gather some friends and smoke, you’ll probably end up watching something. Thankfully, now that it’s no longer the ’70s, stoners can open Netflix or YouTube and watch something unique and...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Over the past year, I’ve thought a lot about my sexuality. Recently, I came across the term “heteroflexible” and immediately, I felt like I identified with it more than any other sexual orientation I previously knew about. However, I continue to feel invalidated by my...
by Jack Brown | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Newsletter
TED talks — the bite-sized presentations given at the organization’s annual Technology, Education, and Design conference — have become an oddly popular cultural phenomenon. At once elitist and public-spirited (a standard conference membership will run you 10 grand,...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 17, 2017 | Articles, News, Stage
Shortly after 9 a.m. Monday, April 17, Owen Wormser changed out of his flip-flops and donned work boots. Fitting pieces of stone together in the lot in front of Ghost Bread and across the street from the former Serio’s market, Wormser is polishing off a...
by Rob Brezsny | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): After George Washington was elected as the first President of the United States, he had to move from his home in Virginia to New York City, which at the time was the center of the American government. But there was a problem: He didn’t have...
