Articles
by Kristin Palpini, compiled and illustrated | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Featured, 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 Advocate Staff | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The Pour Man
The rosé season is upon us, and a glass of Laurent Miquel’s Pere et Fils pale-pink wine is an excellent choice for welcoming warmer weather or enjoying while sitting on the porch and watching the sunset. Although Provence is France’s premier region for rosé, this dry,...
by Rob Brezsny | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Astrology, Wellness
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “A two-year-old kid is like using a blender, but you don’t have a top for it,” said comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Would you like to avoid a scenario like that, Aries? Would you prefer not to see what happens if your life has resemblances to...
by Advocate Staff | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Hope for Better Health Care Thank you for your piece in the Advocate (“Between the Lines: With Obamacare Under Fire, Massachusetts Must Lead on Health Care — Again,” May 11-17, 2017). However, it seems from it that you may not be familiar with House Bill 2987 and...
by Kristin Palpini | May 11, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music
Check out the full Appalachian Still Sessions concert Friday online at valleyadvocate.com. Can’t wait for Friday to hear more Sessions? Great! Head over to the archive and listen to sets by the likes of The Suitcase Junket, Ray Mason, Eavesdrop Trio, Hannah...
by Will Meyer and Nellie Prior | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, News, Newsletter
You may know Amber Wolfe. She fronted the “speakeasy, post-apocalyptic band,” O You Villain, books shows at Amherst Coffee, and is a veteran of the Institute for Musical Arts, where she found “some of the foremothers of local music.” Despite strong roots here in the...
by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter, Stage
That’s Not an Air Guitar The national Air Sex Tournament is coming to Northampton Monday night and for anyone who thinks they’ve got the pantomime moves to beat the competition, it’s not too late to enter the foray. A fun, and funny, sex-positive show, performers get...
by Photo Illustration by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 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 Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, News, Newsletter
Occupy. A joint art show by Eric Mandeville and McKenzie Stuetzel makes a powerful statement, but only for a short time — so be sure to see it. By utilizing imagery from street art in contrasting colors, their show explores the idea of living in society, but outside...
by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
Join the Herd Quintessential ’90s folk rock band Donna the Buffalo is coming to Holyoke as part of the group’s politically-active Stampede Tour. In addition to providing groove-heavy dance-able tunes, Donna the Buffalo seeks to bring attention to the inappropriate use...
by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter, Stage
So, You Know They Can Dance An homage to Wes Anderson’s highly stylized films and a self-reflective, choreographed spoken-word piece called “Perception” were among the performances featured in Hatchery’s debut show this winter. The pre-professional dance troupe’s...
by Blaise Majkowski | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Blaise's Bad Movie Guide, Columns, Film, Music, Newsletter
I was saddened when I heard the news that Paul O’Neil, the founder of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, had died. It seems my favorite bands have either passed away (the Ramones, the Cramps), or are eligible for AARP but continue to stumble on. In addition to Sparks and...
by Advocate Staff | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
One of the proudest moments that Madeleine Charney has shared with her son, Eli, is when she got to hold up the front page of the newspaper on Nov. 7, 2015, and show him that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline had been struck down by President Obama. Charney,...
by Advocate Staff | May 9, 2017 | Articles, Get Out With Staff Picks, Music, Newsletter
The Greys at The Still in Agawam • Friday The Greys came in a couple months ago to perform a Sessions set with us and the duo had me in awe. The powerful, whispering voice of singer Cait Simpson folds perfectly inside the jazz-styled stand up bass plucking of Chris...
by Chris Goudreau | May 10, 2017 | Articles, News
Local activist groups are staging an emergency rally calling for an independent investigation and for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russia. The planned peaceful demonstration will take place May 10...
by Advocate Staff | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News
Just a list of stuff any mother could love: An opportunity to finish a book … in less than six months. A box of tissues for those inevitable moments of disappointment in you (plus it’s allergy season). Michelle Obama merch (“When they go low, we go high” tote...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News, Newsletter
The Republicans did it. They cobbled together an Obamacare replacement bill so bad that they got the most conservative members of the House to vote for it — people like Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, who implied the majority of people with pre-existing conditions have...
by Rob Brezsny | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The process by which Zoo Jeans are manufactured is unusual. First, workers wrap and secure sheets of denim around car tires or big rubber balls, and take their raw creations to the Kamine Zoo in Hitachi City, Japan. There the denim-swaddled...
by Chris Goudreau | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
LATEST UPDATE: Twenty-four protesters affiliated with The Sugar Shack Alliance, a Northeast coalition that aims to disrupt the fossil fuel industry, have been arrested thus far at Otis State Forest in Sandisfield. Charges stem from allegations that protesters blocked...
by Naila Moreira | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News, Newsletter
The very schools we depend on to educate our children could be making them less smart. Drinking water in schools across Massachusetts, including here in the Pioneer Valley, has been found to contain lead significantly exceeding safety standards. Lead exposure,...
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...
