Articles
Club Picks: August 18 to 24
FRIDAY: Hello, Westfield! The sign FREE MUSIC doesn’t always promise a good time, but trust us, we vetted this one for you. Shenanigans hosts Easthampton’s James Alan Barry Jr., Haverhill alt-rockers Analog Heart, acoustic soul rocker Kelsey Veillette with a full...
Roomful of Teeth Returns to MASS MoCA
Around the World in 60 Minutes It’s fitting that the choral group Roomful of Teeth is on tour during the 2016 Olympic Games. For one thing, the eight-person ensemble — founded by Williams College professor Brad Wells in 2009 — has set out to “mine the expressive...
99th Time’s the Charm: Heath Fair Runs Aug. 19-21
Fair Play Family farms are as American as baseball, or a hot apple pie cooling on a breezy windowsill. And just like bases, or pies, farms get stolen. Large-scale agribusiness has helped to precipitate a decline in traditional and small-scale farming in this country...
Pam Tanowitz Dance is Beautifully Strange
Damn, Pam Choreographer Pam Tanowitz been garnering ever more attention over the past 15 years for creating new dance techniques and styles that spring from classical dance vocabulary but glitter with abstract shapes and postmodern ideas. Her show at Jacob’s Pillow...
Staff Picks: Get out there!
TITANIS Farewell Show in Florence – Friday Springfield’s ambient, heavy doomers TITANIS are bidding farewell? Insert sad face here. Make sure to check them out before you can’t. It’s worth it. Also that night, rockers A Moment To Riot, Nim and...
EP Release Party: Mystics Anonymous
The Supergroup Next Door Mystics Anonymous is local singer-songwriter Jeff Steblea’s new musical project, best defined as eclectic independent rock. “With Mystics,” says Steblea, “the whole point was to establish a project where nothing is off-limits.” His bandmates...
Nightcrawler: Rock the Boot
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Thomas Delmer “Artimus” Pyle comes to the Valley this Saturday, Aug. 20. He’ll be performing with his Artimus Pyle Band and their “ultimate tribute to Ronnie Van Zandt’s Lynyrd Skynyrd” as part of the Rock The Boot Music Fest,...
Group Show at the Montague Mill
Wade in the Water You can step into a peaceful art gallery from the streets of a bustling metropolis and still attain a bit of serenity (given a few minutes to de-stress from nearly being clipped by a speeding cab or two), but taking a deep breath and appreciating the...
Cinemadope: On the Road Again
Alien. Blade Runner. Black Hawk Down. The Martian. Over the decades, director Ridley Scott has built a career on making the kinds of films (often with a bit of a sci-fi bent) that combine quiet moments with explosive action. But for me, he will always be first...
Kitten Stolen from Springfield Shelter — Watch the Security Footage
SPRINGFIELD — Dakin Humane Society is reporting that two unidentified women entered the animal shelter at 171 Union Street at approximately 12:30 p.m. on Thursday and made off with an eight-week-old kitten. But now the cat’s out of the bag — the...
Big Box Pot Shop: Potco in Springfield aims to become the “Costco of pot”
Above a gray storefront on the corner of Sumner Avenue and Dickinson Street at the X in Springfield hangs a sign that reads, in leafy green letters, “Potco: Everything that goes in the POT…” Yes, “pot” is indeed written in all caps and followed by an ellipsis,...
Nerding Out: Dana Lemon, Bluebird Conservationist
If you’ve ever done any birdwatching in the quaint pastoral landscapes of the Wilbraham-Monson area, you may have noticed a striking abundance of bright blue little thrushes with vibrant orange and white stomachs merrily chasing bugs and perching on nest boxes and...
What It’s Really Like to Get a Medical Marijuana Card
I’m nervous going into the doctor’s office on King Street in Northampton — it feels like I’m doing something illegal.“That’s normal,” says the nurse practitioner when I sit down in the consultation room. “Everyone feels that way at first.”I’m at Canna Care, a national...
Astrology: Odds with Capricorns dumping baggage
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Using scissors, snip off a strand of your hair. As you do, sing a beloved song with uplifting lyrics. Seal the hair in an envelope on which you have written the following: “I am attracting divine prods and unpredictable nudges that will...
Citing ‘Hostility’ from the Government, Northampton Doc Stops Recommending Medical Marijuana
Jill Griffin, Western Mass’ top medical marijuana gatekeeper, is getting out of the game. On Aug. 1, Griffin posted an open letter to her patients and the Valley saying that she will no longer recommend medical marijuana to new or existing patients after Aug. 31. Her...
Between the Lines: Amherst, We Need to Talk
Another summer, another superintendent for Amherst public schools. Since 2000, the school district has been under the guidance of five superintendents — six if you double count the husband-wife team that ran the schools for under a year. This isn’t normal, and it...
The Beerhunter: Get ‘Em Here — or Nowhere
Compass Pints Four hidden corners of the Valley’s craft beer map Some people have trouble leaving their work at the office. As the Beerhunter, I’ve never really had to contend with that. In fact, if my editor turned around in her swivel chair and saw me...
StageStruck: The Ones That Got Away
I don’t fish. To be frank, I don’t approve of fishing, especially “sport” fishing, since, like hunting, it’s not a sport in the accepted sense, that is, a contest between two equal adversaries playing by the same rules. I don’t understand the outsize thrill folks seem...
No Animals or Vegetables Allowed
Heart of Stone We just spent 45 minutes aimlessly browsing WhereToFindRocks.com. We blame the website for Martin Zinn Expositions, which sent us there to learn more about how a whole lot of well-arranged molecules can make for some truly incredible feats of...
Taste-Off: Crunchies for the Munchies
One classic question among lazy, hungry people goes like this: if you had to pick one food to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be? It’s a fun question — and, if the Trumpocalypse triggers the end of global food supply lines, possibly a relevant one. But...
Charles Bradley Rocks MASS MoCA
Old-School Soul Revival Roll over, James Brown — soul singer Charles Bradley is coming to sweep the hearts of the MoCA masses gathered outdoors in the museum’s courtyard on Saturday night. Bradley has been hard at it since the mid-60s, when he spent years hitchhiking,...
Bon Appetit Burlesque
House of Hors Local performer and emcee Hors D’oeuvres — that’s “hors du-vors” — produces fun, gender-friendly, body-positive events up and down the Valley, including Maim That Tune Drag Show in Northampton and Drag Brunch in Holyoke. Personally, we’re partial...
In Springfield: Contemporary Art of Argentina
It Takes More Than Two Artist Nora Valdez, pictured here with some of her sculptures, is featured in the new Tango exhibit at Art for the Soul Gallery alongside works by Andrea Iturrioz and pieces recently on display at the U.S. Consulate of Argentina in New York...
Holyoke: Celebrating Spanish
Mother Tongues Holyoke es una ciudad bilingüe — una ciudad de español e inglés. En la nueva estación de Amtrak en las calles Main y Dwight, únete a nosotros para talleres de lengua española, lecturas de poesía y representaciones que celebran el uso del español en...
Down to Earth: Go Ahead, Watch That Cat Video, an animal bill of rights may depend on it
Very little seems more like a frivolous waste of time than watching cute animal videos on Facebook.But the more I’ve watched them, the more I’ve thought there’s something important, something vital even, that we’re communicating through critter videos — a shift in...
Back Talk: There is money to be made with co-ops
Cooperative Behavioral Health Care Deserves a Shot The Valley Advocate’s excellent piece on cooperative businesses (“Surprise! It’s a co-op. Any business can be a worker-owned business,” Aug. 4-10, 2016) was just the sort of education and inspiration we need to stem...
Between the Lines: Building on Lies, Trump’s Plans for Mexico
This morning I somehow ended up in the scant “positions” section of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign website on the “Pay for the Wall” page, hoping to settle in my mind once and for all exactly how The Donald...
Scene Here: Rosco’s Not Feeling It
Rosco just #can’t. After a full week of being a good dog — messing outside, not messing in the house, and being generally adorable — here he is, out on a river, of all places, hanging with these kids. “I’m too old for this,” he mutters to himself, sipping on an iced...
The V-Spot: Women (and Men), Do Your Kegels
Hi Yana,I’m a young undergraduate student and yet I’ve been having issues with bladder control. I’ve been wanting to explore doing more Kegels and have heard of these kegel balls you can get. Do you know anything about that? I want to get a good brand/the right...
News of the Weird: Frontiers of Fashion
As Americans’ fascination with guns grows, so, too, does the market for protection against all those flying bullets. Texan John Adrain has introduced an upscale sofa whose cushions can stop up to a .44 Magnum fired at close range, and is now at work on...
Astrology: Avoid weed-whackers when seeking inner calm
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Can you imagine feeling at home in the world no matter where you are? If you eventually master this art, outer circumstances won’t distort your relationship with yourself. No matter how crazy or chaotic the people around you might be,...
News of the Weird: Designer Leather
The late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who dabbled in macabre collections, himself, might appreciate the work of acolyte Tina Gorjanc: She will grow McQueen’s skin from DNA off his hair in a lab, add back his tattoos, and from that make leather handbags...
Vermont’s Short-Lived GMO Experiment
Vermont’s experiment with GMO labeling was brief, but memorable. In July, the single month that House Act 120 was in effect, consumers saw new signs popping up at grocery stores — just not the type many were envisioning. “We apologize that we can no longer offer this...
Show Us Your Tattoo: Josh Charland
About seven years ago, I was tattooed by Bravo at Vipers Nest II in West Springfield. The past 20 years, technology and computers have always been a passion of mine. I’m an IT [information technology] consultant and learned a tremendous amount of knowledge from...
StageStruck: Lifted by Song
So often, music makes all the difference. It not only has those famous savage-breast-soothing charms, it can turn a so-so script into a winner. Take Unexpected Joy, playing through August 20th at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT). This world-premiere musical...
Music Review: Paper City Exile
Exile on High Street Young rockers Paper City Exile play Holyoke Musicians, like all of us, hold a few personal details close to the chest. For local rockers Paper City Exile, the little secret is hardly a secret: the three of them are still in high school. That’s...
Basemental: New Music from MalYMarco, Dirt Devil, ShowHorses, and Carinae
One of the pitfalls of writing a bi-monthly column is the fact that I can barely scratch the surface of all of the cool stuff that’s happening around the Pioneer Valley. There is so much! This week’s column will serve as an informal catch-up on some new(ish) releases....
Stagestruck: Cabin Fever
It’s such a pleasure to see a play in which language is as important as plot – a play whose dialogue doesn’t simply move the story forward but enriches it. Sister Play, at Chester Theatre Company, is such a gem – an absorbing, what’s-really-going-on narrative powered...
Sisters and Soldiers: New Films This Week
A quiet world, invaded Sometimes it seems like we have always been at war. Whether on a small scale or a world stage, we as a species seem never to tire of hurting each other, and of finding inventive new ways to do it. But perhaps even more depressing than that...
Amherst Cinema Turns Cloak and Dagger
In Vienna Once Quick, name this film: stylish, black and white, set overseas in or around the Second World War, but not about the ground fight in Europe.If you guessed Casablanca, you’re in good company. Michael Curtiz’s 1942 romantic drama, pairing Bogart and Bergman...
Scene Here: Dreaming Away with Deer Tick
Down an old country road, tucked into the mountains in Becket, rests the 200-year-old Dream Away Lodge. The romantic name suits the intimate atmosphere with dim lighting and couples in every nook. It’s a lot like entering a good friend’s living room with unique,...
Dinosaur Jr. Roars Again on New Album
Dinosaur Jr. Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not (Jagjaguwar) Release date: 8/5/16 Break out the ear plugs. Western Massachusetts’ own alt-rock power trio, Dinosaur Jr., is back. New album Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not marks the fourth release by the band since the...
Mmm… Food Fair in West Springfield
West Side Glory Food stalls line up and light their grills, and we bop along, with ever-less-empty stomachs, from blintzes to burgers to quesadillas and back again. But something happens in-between hot helpings of these local treats. Townspeople gather. Business...
Summer Yoga with Emily Dickinson
“The truth is stirless,” our yoga teacher recites during a moment of closed-eye silence. Seconds later, a boisterous squirrel in an overhead tree knocks loose something heavy. A cone-like fruit lands with a thud between my face and my neighbor’s, and we jump...
TENDERNESS Takes the Ko Fest by Storm
A Nation of FirstsThe First Generation Ensemble is based in Springfield, but its members — who range in age from 16 to 25 — originate from Haiti, Burundi, Rwanda, Puerto Rico, Guinea, South Sudan, and the U.S. “There are many ways to be ‘first generation,’” the youth...
Are GMOs Safe to Eat?
The research-based answer to this question is: yes, GMOs are no more or less safe to consume than traditionally grown foods. The FDA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies of Sciences, the World Health Organization, and the...
Andiamo! Enfield’s 91st Annual Italian Fest
Mangia, Ragazzi!The problem with eating a home-cooked Italian dinner is that three days later you’re hungry again. Fortunately, Enfield knows how to throw a four-day party. From Thursday to Sunday, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel hosts its 91st annual Italian Festival for...
Stage Struck: The Blast of War
“Theater is so subjective!” said my friend as we left the Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare & Company. She was in tears, but I was relatively unmoved. Ugly Lies the Bone, by Lindsey Ferrentino, takes an unflinching look at a searingly dramatic subject that’s too...
Jazz and Roots, Baby!
Taj and FriendsThe free outdoor Jazz and Roots Festival, in the heart of Springfield, gets musicians, local businesses, nonprofits, community groups, and families out into the open air to celebrate great music together. This year’s lineup includes Taj Mahal, Eric...
StageStruck: Sins of the Mothers – and Nannies
The Valley’s oldest and newest professional summer theaters end their seasons this week with two very different plays. New Century Theatre closes its 26th season with Jar the Floor, a multigenerational family drama that furthers the company’s reputation for putting...
Food, Stories, and Song at the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival
Take Me to the River Culture We always have a bunch of local outings in mind for the weekend, but this Saturday, hanging out in the sunshine with some Penobscot hoop dancers is right at the top of our to-do list. The third annual Pocumtuck Homelands Festival...
Valley Musicians Gather for Jeff Fest
Jeff Martell called himself a “New Age Psychedelic Folksinger.” The Northampton singer-songwriter filled his life with music, whether it was performing solo or with bands across New England, working with the Green River Festival since 2001 (festival director Jim Olsen...
StageStruck: Aphra; or, Behn
Aphra Behn was probably the first Englishwoman to write professionally, that is, to make her living from writing. She’s best known as a playwright, though only recently rediscovered by audiences. While she wasn’t, as Shakespeare & Company’s website has it, “the...
Surprise! It’s a Co-op. Any business can be a worker-owned business
Co-ops and granola go together like seitan and soy sauce — but what if there is no granola?We love our local grocers, and we’re psyched that the food co-op movement is growing, but working cooperatives aren’t just for breakfast anymore. Almost any kind of business can...
Between the Lines: ‘At Least He Let Me Go’ A woman’s life on the streets
Julia is standing at one of the I-91 intersections in Holyoke after hitchhiking down from Vermont. On the back of her cardboard sign is a small, hand-written phone number.Some guy in a truck gave it to her, she says. He says he has a moving company and to give him a...
Mommy, Where do Engineers Come From?
An Advocate analysis of U.S. Census occupation data allowed us to pinpoint where like-minded career folk are congregating in the Valley. By comparing residents employed in each sector to the overall number of people working in each town, we found pockets of job...
News of the Weird: Painting Eyes on Cow Bums for Science
A conservation biologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales said in July that his team was headed to Botswana to paint eyeballs on cows’ rear ends. It’s a solution to the problem of farmers who are now forced to kill endangered lions to...
Scene Here: Cat 4 Prez
A crowd of several hundred people, made up largely of children, packed the lawn of the Springfield Museums Quadrangle on Tuesday morning in eager anticipation of a stump speech by the self-proclaimed “children’s candidate,” the latest to enter the presidential fray....
Exhibit: Block Prints by Neil Brigham
Making the CutBelchertown illustrator and printmaker Neil Brigham has created linocut block prints for magazines, books, and greeting cards, having worked with companies like Outdoor Life magazine, Scholastic, and Little, Brown and Company. His focus, much to our...E-Edition
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