Articles
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...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Stage
One-man band plays blues, rock, and folk on improvised instruments Some of us spend our days sitting at computers in nondescript rooms. In the new, handmade music video for his love song “Beta Star,” Matt Lorenz gives that a shot. He wakes up in the morning, washes...
by Chris Goudreau | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Amherst-based psychedelic dream-pop and surf-blues infused band Calico Blue released its second album early this month, 15 Sunrise, which presents songs that could be best described as meditations on life. They confront the ghosts that live in the corridors of the...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured
From Italy With Ash Featuring works seen for the first time outside Italy, this exhibit contains pieces from the ancient town of Oplontis. When Mount Vesuvius blew in 79 CE it buried more than just Pompeii. Pieces excavated from Oplontis reveal a life of luxury and...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Stage
Nasty Jazz The Ladies of Jazz music series is dedicating its Saturday, March 25, concert to all the “nasty” (aka “strong”) women fighting for female and reproductive rights. And all proceeds are going to benefit Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 21, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
The story goes that Samuel Beckett was walking through a London park with a friend on a glorious spring morning when his companion exclaimed, “Isn’t this just the kind of day that makes you glad to be alive?” To which Beckett replied, “Oh, I don’t think I’d go that...
by Jennifer Levesque | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
A couple weeks ago I picked up Echoes of the Dying Light by local metal titans, Disguise the Curse. “Holy shit, this is amazing,” I said to myself while drumming on my steering wheel with the music blasting through my car speakers. Produced by Chris Daniele at Yucky...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
President of the NAACP in AmherstPresident of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Cornell William Brooks will be giving a talk at Amherst College Friday night. The event is free and open to the public. What exactly Brooks will...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
Pamela Murphy, an Agawam firefighter, was vacationing on the Cape when she jumped into the water to save a six-year-old boy from being smashed against some rocks by the ocean waves.James Chartier, a former Army staff sergeant, completed a 90-mile walk from Western...
by Chuck Shepherd | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
Perhaps there are parents who, according to the Cinepolis movie chain, long to watch movies in theaters while their children, aged 3 and up, frolic in front in a jungle-gym playground inside the same auditorium. If so, the company’s two “junior” movie houses — opening...
by Lena Wilson | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
Whether or not Western Mass has gotten the meteorological memo, we’ve officially sprung forward. That means it’s time to emerge from hibernation, put on our rubber gloves, and get ready for some spring cleaning. In my case, I’ve decided to dust off some groundbreaking...
by Chance Viles | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Nerding Out, Newsletter
Andrew Quient is celebrated for his geometrical-style pottery. Quient, 66, of Florence, even has some of his pieces in the national White House archives. But if you run into him working in Northampton, it’s unlikely he’ll be at a potter’s wheel. You’re probably going...
by Craigslist.org | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
If you’ve never checked out Craigslist’s Missed Connection forum, you really should. The site is filled with longing, lust, and miscellaneous statements of the heart. The following is a sample from the Western Mass forum. Post dates have been added. Miss P. — m4w a...
by Amanda Drane | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, Newsletter, Third Eye Roaming, Wellness
Mary Kennedy of Northfield says she could barely move her neck before she began taking yoga with Pam Roberts at the YMCA in Greenfield about six years ago.Kennedy, a breast cancer survivor living with torticollis, a painfully twisted neck, says yoga has at times saved...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music
DIO know DIO is coming to town? Jump on your tiger, Holy Diver, because DIO is coming to town. Last in Line, a DIO cover band that includes members of the original DIO, is playing the Waterfront Tavern in Holyoke on Wednesday, March 29. The group will play some...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Film
Antarctica’s isolation and cold have always been attractive to me. A land of rolling ice mountains, silence, and snow where Mother Nature is commander in chief. In Antarctica — Ice and Sky, Oscar-winning director Luc Jacquet creates a portrait of French glaciologist...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
I recently saw a guy friend masturbating with lotion instead of lube and was wondering if lube would be a better alternative for him. If so, could you explain why? — A Little Help for My Masturbating Friends One of my favorite conversations to strike up with my...
by From Our Readers | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Our Hero! Thanks for the Facebook comments left in response to “Don’t Be Afraid to Get Arrested: Longtime Activist Paki Wieland Says Today’s Protesters Aren’t Disturbing Enough People” Jim Sorter: Now we have a new hero who will inspire our lives. Thank you for...
by Jack Brown | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
The annual Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival returns Now in its twelfth year, the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival (PVJFF) has long been a wonderful part of the Valley’s plentiful film offerings. Carefully curated, the festival screens films big and small,...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Stage
Team Raja “With spidery limbs and a sprawling imagination,” writes Dance Magazine, “Brooklyn-based Raja Feather Kelly brings a vivid boundlessness to all he does. Whether dancing for the likes of Reggie Wilson or cooking up his own darkly entertaining...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 12, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
On the first page of Fiona Kyle’s dramaturgical notes for Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9, at Hartford Stage through March 19, is a photo of Margaret Thatcher. The next page features the less- recognizable face of Cecil Rhodes. He was the epitome of 19th-century British...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Talk about prejudice… Without knowing anything about the play, I walked into a rehearsal of Sweet, Sweet Spirit last week and made some snap judgments that turned out to be quite wrong. The play, which receives its regional premiere next weekend at the Academy of...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter
In a Glass of Their Own Last fall, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center invited kids in kindergarten through sixth grade to create drawings and descriptions of imaginary creatures, with the promise that some of those creatures would be featured in the upcoming...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Street Smarts Hampshire College, Holyoke Community College, and Smith College host visits this week from community activist Iris Morales, who rose to prominence in the Vietnam era. As a teenage activist in New York City, Morales joined the paramilitary Young Lords...
by Lena Wilson | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
There are a lot of zippy phrases floating around right now that blur the concept of journalistic integrity — “fake news,” “alternative facts,” “White House press secretary Sean Spicer” — but in the film world, objectivity and performance coalesce into a kind of...
by Sam Riedel | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, News
“Right now you must be thinking ‘Jesus, is she on drugs?’” says the sly, weathered-yet-energetic voice on the other end of the phone. “I’m not. I have a caffeinated beverage.”That voice belongs to Patricia “Paki” Wieland, the (in)famous...
by From Our Readers | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
‘West Mass’ Responses on Facebook… We had some questions about the ‘West Mass’ video, an effort by the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts to re-brand the area and attract tourists —...
by Will Meyer | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Pavement certainly planted some type of “slacker” flag in the 90s. Whether or not they were the original “slackers” — they weren’t — is irrelevant, but that label has often evoked that band. Today the same label, certainly a compelling angle for write-ups, is attached...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
I recently started dating somebody who ticks nearly all of the “right” boxes for me. This is the first time since breaking up with my sweetheart of over two years that I’ve felt this way, and it’s really exciting. There’s only one hiccup: He prefers...
by Chris Goudreau | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, News
So, you’ve decided you want to get arrested at a protest. You want your arrest to make a political statement, but would also like to face as little physical harm as possible during the course of your arrest. Bill Newman, director of the Western Regional Office of the...
by Jack Brown | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
Talk about the American Dream, and one of the first things that will likely come up is the idea of owning your own home. To be sure, having a house of one’s own brings with it a host of benefits — if you have kids, for instance, cleaning all those rooms every day...
by Warren Johnston | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Food + Booze, Food Booze and Beyond, Newsletter, The Pour Man
Lunetta Prosecco is one of the hottest sparkling wine brands on the American market, and there’s a good reasonta why — it’s well-made, inexpensive and widely available, an excellent wine to celebrate. It also is lower than many wines in alcohol, about 11.5 percent, so...
by Chuck Shepherd | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
In February, two teams of South Korean researchers announced cancer-fighting breakthroughs by taking lessons from how two of medicine’s most vexing, destructive organisms — diarrhea-causing salmonella bacteria and the rabies virus — can access often-unconquerable...
by Amanda Drane | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, News, Newsletter
Vanessa Carlton may be best known for playing piano on the back of a truck while singing her hit song “A Thousand Miles,” but that doesn’t mean she’ll play just anywhere. The artist has standards — and they’re apparently higher than at least what one Northampton venue...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Food + Booze, Music, Newsletter, Stage
With the SYRUP Festival, Piti Theatre Company in Shelburne Falls has hit on a tradition that most of us would never have realized we were missing: all-ages live performance, featuring world-class artists, mixed with handcrafted food and sweets from local artisans. Now...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
A Porch to be Reckoned With Most Valley radio listeners have spent at least a little time on Jim Olsen’s back porch. For years the president of Northampton-based record label Signature Sounds has hosted a Sunday morning radio program on 93.9 The River that focuses on...
by Jennifer Levesque | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
I consider myself a musical schizophrenic. I can get into just about any genre you put in front of me — especially if it’s live. I may not be a musician, but music has been a passionate subject for me for as long as I can remember. One of the first local shows I went...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food Booze and Beyond, Newsletter, The Beerhunter
Local homebrewer Josh Britton scales up with a low-key launch On quiet winter days between reports of Valley craft beer happenings, your friendly neighborhood Beerhunter has been wandering a bit further afield. Over the past few months, I’ve written articles about my...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Early last month, the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts announced a new brand identity: West Mass. The groups spent $80,000 on the campaign, hiring Oklahoma-based agency Cubic Creative...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Film, Newsletter
Miss Major Known to many simply as “mama,” Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a trans elder and activist who blazed the trail for other high-profile transgender women of color. Griffin-Gracy has been involved, up close and personal, in decades of fights for rights, including...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Some of those leaving the American Repertory Theater’s current production must be surprised and baffled, not to mention disappointed. On my way out of the Cambridge theater on opening night, I overheard a man asking, “Why did James Earl Jones have such a small part?”...
