Articles
by Advocate Staff | Apr 17, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Hot Haikus In response to our call on our Facebook page “It is in the 80s today. Someone write a haiku about the weather in the comments”, here’s a few entries from the community: Massachusetts spring No rhyme or reason to it Roller coaster ride — Frank Giuliano Hot...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 19, 2017 | Articles, Food Booze and Beyond, Missed Connections
If you’ve never checked out Craigslist’s Missed Connection forum, you really should. The following is a sample from the Western Mass forum. Post dates have been added. Federal St, You were painting your house — m4w (Greenfield) About 3:45, I drove down federal...
by Warren Johnston | Apr 17, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The Pour Man
In the world of wine, Domaine La Manarine is a relatively minor player — about 89 acres of vines, 60,000 bottles of wine a year — and that’s a good thing. Good, because the wines made there by owner Gilles Gasq are well-crafted and a great value, and they reflect the...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Food + Booze, Food Booze and Beyond, Taste-Off!
Cheesecake is one of the most decadent and delightful treats of all the sweets. A cheesecake should be fluffy and creamy, sugary and buttery, fresh and delicate. Because when it’s not, it’s a damn waste of calories slathered onto your hips. Being one of the best...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 16, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
Dr. Jill Stein, activist and third party presidential candidate extraordinaire, will speak at Smith College on Wednesday, April 19. The talk will take place from 7 to 9 at the Weinstein Auditorium and is free and open to the public. Stein was the Green-Rainbow Party...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 14, 2017 | Articles, Blogs, News, Newsletter
I had never read Noam Chomsky before or seen him speak, but I’d definitely heard about him over the years. Most recently when watching the movie “Captain Fantastic,” when the main characters — a super smart, back-to-the-land family — all celebrate “Chomsky...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 13, 2017 | Articles, Featured, Music
Rick Murnane is a Northampton-based singer-songwriter who has played with more area bands than you can shake a drumstick at, but his guitar skills are equally impressive when he plays his powerful and tender songs solo. Whether you’re listening to “Last...
by Chance Viles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Machakos is a city and county in Kenya. It’s a beautiful place. The large palms, and safari grass are strong and bright, the blue sky dominates the flat and open landscape. But the beauty of Machakos can be deceiving: poverty is a struggle many people face. Because...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured
I love the idea of art galleries everywhere — in empty downtown storefronts, in the halls of hospitals and the community rooms of nonprofit agencies — but it’s always a bit awkward, at first, to enjoy them. There’s a buzzer to hit, or a camera to stare into, or a...
by Will Meyer | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Music
On the road with The Sun Parade From the streets of Nashville I called Lynne Bertrand, who manages the Northampton band The Sun Parade. There was a problem.I had stopped by the venue earlier and noticed the sign outside said they were going first. This wasn’t going to...
by Chuck Shepherd | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
Recently, in Dubai — the largest city in the United Arab Emirates — Dubai Civil Defense started using water jetpacks that lift firefighters off the ground to hover in advantageous positions as they work the hoses. Also, using jet skis, rescuers can avoid traffic...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Our Lady Laverne Laverne Cox grew up in Mobile, Alabama, raised by a single mother in a Christian family. Back then, it wasn’t at all clear that she would end up attending college in New York City and pursuing a career as an actress, let alone that she would become...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
I started masturbating when I was in high school and there would be times where something would feel good, but then I would feel my muscles relax and suddenly my bed would be wet with pee — sometimes a lot of pee. It was like in certain positions I had no control over...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Food Booze and Beyond, The Beerhunter
Two worthwhile breweries off exit 9 The naturalist John Muir once observed that “when one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” I’m no bearded environmental philosopher, but I do like to kick back with a pint sometimes and...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Stage
We’re still a few months out from July’s annual Green River Festival in Greenfield, but we’re right on time to share a special early announcement from producers Signature Sounds. This year, the festival will add a new stage called the Next Wave Stage, which will host...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Film
Strangers No More In the 1950s, Hampshire College professor Abraham Ravett relocated with his Polish Jewish family from Eastern Europe to the United States. Ravett was just three at the time of the move, but he carried with him a memory — and a single black-and-white...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts
Full Spectrum Painter Mary Witt (who composed the piece on the left) and multimedia artist Brianna Ashe (the piece on the right) are showing their new work in a playful exhibit called Colorplay, in the front room of Oxbow Gallery this month. They both love working and...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Close to Noam Leftist hero Noam Chomsky, now 88, has been around the block a few times, picking up new fields of expertise like normal people pick up groceries. He’s a world-renowned linguist, philosopher, author, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic,...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Stage, Stagestruck
It seems that lately, every time I go to a play — or a movie, for that matter — it gets me thinking about Donald Trump. Ever since he and his goon squad have taken over in Washington, I’ve noticed that so much of what we see and create seems newly topical and timely....
by Jack Brown | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
Maine Course Like so many of my middle-aged compatriots, I seem to have adopted food as a new hobby. Not cooking, necessarily — quite a bit of this particular enterprise is taken up simply by watching other people cook, it turns out — but eating, at least. And what...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News, Newsletter
Thanks to Republican dirty tricks, Trump-nominee Neil Gorsuch has been confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. But a little-known political maneuver from the 1930s might be the Democrat’s ticket to wresting back Court control. Gorsuch will be seated on the court with 54...
by Rob Brezsny | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Before visiting Sicily for the first time, American poet Billy Collins learned to speak Italian. In his poem “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa,” he describes how the new language is changing his perspective. If he were thinking in...
by Compiled By Kristin Palpiniillustration By Catherine Gibbs | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Food Booze and Beyond, Missed Connections, Newsletter
If you’ve never checked out Craigslist’s Missed Connection forum, you really should. The following is a samples from the Western Mass forum. Post dates have been added. RR Restaurant 3/26 — m4w (Spfld) You are soooo attractive! We exchanged glances multiple times. I...
by Naila Moreira | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News, Newsletter
We tell stories to know who we are. Speaking our own stories, we rediscover ourselves. And by hearing and identifying with one another’s journeys, we discover and reach each other, too. My world — my story — is one of science. I birdwatch. I teach students how to...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Movies are not my beat, but I often go to the theater at the Amherst Cinema. The ongoing National Theatre Live series of big-screen, high-def broadcasts from the London stage is a staple of my playgoing schedule. This month and next, the cinema screens encores of five...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Film, Leisure, Music, Newsletter, Stage
Tweet Puppets for the People From its founding in New York’s Lower East Side in 1963 to its decades-long residence in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, Bread & Puppet Theater remains one of the country’s most inventive and internationally recognized performing...
by Lena Wilson | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
In our world of studio filmmaking driven by franchises and sequels, creators looking to develop original ideas are often restricted to independent production. While indie filmmaking means working on a shoestring budget, it also often means the cast and crew are...
by Jennifer Levesque | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
A Woman Alive As I walked into Gateway City Arts in Holyoke for the first time, I came to a dead stop to admire the factory-style architecture. The ceilings are very high, with a huge industrial ceiling fan staring down. The large stage was lit up awaiting performers,...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Stage
War and Music Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes has jumped onto our cultural radar many times over the years — she received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful, and she wrote the book for the musical In The Heights alongside future...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Stay Home From School Better questions for the article (“Breaking the School to Prison Pipeline: Springfield reduces in-school arrests, but is it enough?”, March 30-April 5, 2017) would have been: Why were the students arrested? Did anyone do the same thing and were...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
Dynamic Duo Easthampton City Arts+ kicks off the third annual Easthampton Book Fest with the first installment of the new Grist for the Mill speaker series, with inaugural guests Michael Musto (a longtime writer at The Village Voice) and Mickey Boardman, the editorial...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
The Tribe That Quests In recent years, ensemble theater group Children of the Wild has managed something nifty: the full integration of the musical band dynamic into their touring acts. Music and theater fused completely in the show The Wastelands, an original...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
One of the Greats New Orleans native Terence Blanchard has become one of America’s most respected jazz musicians, working as a trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score composer. He was an integral figure in the 1980s jazz resurgence, and his trumpet...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
History Hangs Overhead If you’re looking to get out this week and into an immersive installation inspired by Islamic architecture — we’ve got just the local exhibit for you (actually, it’s the only one). Soo Sunny Park created ”Luminous Muqarna” for the Islamic Arts...
by Jack Brown | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
One of my favorite discoveries from the last year was Documentary Now!, a wonderfully endearing mix of parody and love letter to the modern documentary genre. Originally created for the IFC channel — I first ran across it on Netflix, where you can still check out the...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
No one knows how many timber rattlesnakes there are in Massachusetts — and this is a sticking point for opponents of a plan to boost the endangered species population.Does this species of venomous snakes really need saving? Over the past few years, state scientists...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
The word “shrill” makes some people want to instinctively cover their ears, but Lindy West decided to make it the title to her 2016 book Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman. The self-identified fat feminist will be reading from her book Saturday, 7 p.m., at the Hooker...
by From Our Readers | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
You Can’t Make an Omelette …Poem and illustration by Mary L. Rice, maryl.rice@yahoo.com Is Boston Super Racist?Readers weigh in on the question posed in a Between the Lines of the same name in the March 30-April 5, 2017.Via FacebookEvan H Gregg: “Beloved...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Featured, Newsletter, Wellness
Every year billions of ticks creep through wooded areas across Massachusetts and New England, feeding vampirically off the blood of wildlife, pets, and humans. With ticks comes the most obvious fear: Lyme disease. But how much of what seems like common knowledge about...
by Chuck Shepherd | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
China’s public-park restrooms have for years suffered toilet-paper theft by local residents who raid dispensers for their own homes — a cultural habit, wrote Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, expressing taxpayer feelings of “owning” public facilities — but the...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
I have a few questions about monogamy. I guess, part of it stemming from a recent post I saw on your Instagram — @the_vspot — about “The Relationship Escalator,” polyamory, and monogamy. In my last partnership, my partner and I were very intentional about not falling...
by Warren Johnston | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Food Booze and Beyond, Newsletter, The Pour Man
Les Hauts de Lagarde, Rouge Bordeaux, France; 2015. $12.99This is a period of transition on many fronts. There still may be snow on the ground and temperatures in the teens, but the warm spring sun is a clear signal that it’s time to start trimming down, putting...
by Rob Breszney | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Astrology, Newsletter, Wellness
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Be interested in first things, Aries. Cultivate your attraction to beginnings. Align yourself with uprisings and breakthroughs. Find out what’s about to hatch, and lend your support. Give your generous attention to potent innocence and novel...
by Jack Brown | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter
Hurt Feelings A few weeks back I found myself with a rare night off — the kids asleep early, the house somehow clean, the bills already paid. I was scrolling through my various Netflix queues when a familiar title popped up: V for Vendetta, the Wachowskis’ 2005...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Film, Music, Newsletter
The World in Frame Since opening its historic church doors in 2011, Next Stage Arts Project has been working to bring world-class events into the small town of Putney, Vermont (just north of Brattleboro). Never has that mission been more clear than with the group’s...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
WAM Theatre exists on two levels: to produce work that foregrounds women playwrights and performers, and to tangibly support, with a portion of ticket sales, organizations that work to better the lives of women and girls. Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Smile! (Or Don’t) Artist, photographer, and punk for the ages Cynthia Connolly made a name for herself in one fell swoop when she published Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the D.C. Punk Underground (79-85). That scrappy yearbook-style achievement snuck into...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 29, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Jazz-inspired indie duo on vocals and bass When Cait Simpson sings and Chris Merritt plucks his upright bass, something simple and enchanting happens. The friends just released their first EP, The Landing, available on iTunes and Spotify. Catch the full video this...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
You’re Wearing That? In her new exhibit, Jodi Colella engages with headwear and daguerreotypes from the collection of the Historic Northampton Museum and responds to forces that have shaped women’s identities since the 18th century. “Headwear has long played a role in...
by Will Meyer | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Music, Newsletter
How a fictional psychdrone collective from Berlin took form in Greenfield In 2015, a real writer and real College of the Atlantic professor named Daniel Mahoney published a real book called Sunblind Almost Motorcrash. In it, he wrote fictional reviews of imaginary...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
Guitar Around the World To hear NPR tell it, musician Jason Vieaux is “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation.” Vieaux’s album Play won the 2015 Grammy award for best classical instrumental solo, and he has played in hundreds of...
by Azrael Viles | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
More often than not, the hustle and bustle around me is white noise. Throughout the day I hear a cacophonous array of sounds from outside: cars, dogs, the wind, the mailman, humans in general, and even other cats. I stare out the window for most hours of the day, my...
by Steven Johnson | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
COLUMBUS, Indiana — While Vice President Pence’s gubernatorial career earned national controversy, his hometown and closest friends vouch for his character. Columbus, Indiana, fits the image he presents: practical, family-oriented, and subject to change over the...
by Chris Goudreau | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
You’re a teenager in high school. You’ve been texting on your smartphone when you shouldn’t be or otherwise refusing to listen to your teacher. You think you’ll probably get berated, maybe detention, but never thought you’d be handcuffed and taken into police custody....
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
Is Boston a racist city? If you’ve been watching Saturday Night Live lately, you probably caught “Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che give Boston that dubious title.Prior to the Super Bowl clash between the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots, Che...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food Booze and Beyond, News, Newsletter, O Cannabis!
Now that marijuana is legal, the perception of the drug is changing. We’re on the road of cannabis no longer being thought of as some seedy contraband in a sandwich bag tossed through a car window to potheads, but a varied, quality — and dare I say, refined —...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
A highlight of the recent upmarket surge in Brooklyn, New York, as a residential and retail favorite, was the asking price for an ordinary parking space in the garage at 845 Union St. in the Park Slope neighborhood: $300,000 — also carrying a $240-a-month condominium...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Columns, News, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
My boyfriend and I have been together for two years and we’re best friends. Mutual respect exists in almost every way between us. Sometimes, however, the sex feels, well, sexist. First, he enjoys watching porn together, but I really don’t. However, he always tries to...
by From Our Readers | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Tell it Like it IsEditor’s Note: This comment is in response to “Cinemadope: In Plain Site: Stories from overlooked worlds,” March 9-15, 2017, and the author’s statement, “Over the last few months, it has become impossible to ignore the rising tides of xenophobia,...
by Rob Breszney | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Astrology, Newsletter, Wellness
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The dragon that stole your treasure will return it. Tulips and snapdragons will blossom in a field you thought was a wasteland. Gargoyles from the abyss will crawl into view, but then meekly lick your hand and reveal secrets you can really...
