Articles
Nightcrawler: It’s Been Awhile
Five years ago, homegrown rocker and country boy Aaron Lewis was teed off about the impending consolidation of his children’s school. True to form, he swiftly rose above the rhetoric to form his own nonprofit, the It Takes A Community Foundation, and reopened...
The V-Spot: Genderqueer, Breaking Binary
Hello Yana!I’ve had a lot of difficulty telling partners that I’m genderqueer and that I use they/them pronouns. It definitely comes into play as soon as sex gets involved. Maybe part of what I’m asking is how can I and my partners break traditional gender norms in...
The Pour Man: Rock Star Wine From France
The Perrins, who own Chateau de Beaucastel in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, are the rock stars of southern France’s winemaking world. At least they are to me. Not only does the family make award-winning, top-shelf wines in the $100 to $500 a bottle range, but they also make a...
StageStruck: Peerless Pirates
Two contradictory things are going on at Pittsfield’s Barrington Stage Company. On the mainstage, the fearsome title characters in The Pirates of Penzance never kill anyone because they can’t bear to harm an orphan and all the captives they seize claim to be orphans....
Author Q&A: Scott Haas Explores Achievement Among Indian Americans
A Sea of Stories “There came a point where I got tired of hearing, ‘Why is your English so good?’ I felt like a novelty at times. But now it’s better.” – Vaishali Sinha, filmmaker “Because I grew up in India, I have comfort...
4,500 Square Feet of Eden Blooms in Holyoke: A mega farm on a mini lot
In the middle of an ordinary residential neighborhood in Holyoke lies a hidden Garden of Eden, where pollinating insects buzz from flower to flower and nearly everything is edible. Despite appearances, this place was no act of divine creation. The garden was born of...
StageStruck: Not Just Child’s Play
One thing these two very different children’s theaters share is respect for their audience. They don’t talk down to the kids sitting before them, they don’t ludicrously overact or get synthetically hyperactive in order to whip up some energy. The scripts are witty,...
Lionel Smit’s South African Portraits
Windows InwardOne of South Africa’s most noteworthy young artists, Lionel Smit creates sculptures and paintings on canvas — done in bronze or in painted resin — that manifest his ongoing fascination and respect for the indigenous peoples of his country, notably the...
StageStruck: Lost in the Woods
In the Subscriber Enrichment Packet for the Berkshire Theatre Group’s world-premiere production of The Stone Witch, playing in Stockbridge through August 20, director Steve Zuckerman says of the playwright, Shem Bitterman, “He writes instinctively, and it just pours...
The V-Spot: Three-Way Nookie Rookie Needs Advice
Hey, Yana, I’m a queer lady in my mid-20s and I’ve been with my boyfriend for about four years now. We’ve got an awesome hot and freaky sex life and we’re on the brink of our very first threesome with another girl. We’re both really excited that this is happening, but...
Touch his hair, get an autograph or a selfie? Florence man’s Trump options
When staunch Bernie Sanders supporter Miles Chilson received Donald Trump’s “Empire” cologne as a joke from a Hartsbrook School classmate last year, he had no idea that gift would become the winning ticket to his national stage performance.Or that the Trump campaign...
Click It! Recycling: It’s Not as Mainstream as You May Think
In the Pioneer Valley, recycling feels like a given, but that’s a false sense of environmental do-gooding.There are multiple bins for your paper, plastics, and trash — and in some communities, for compost — in just about every public outdoor and indoor space. But...
News of the Weird: Weird Numbers
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced in May that it had collected $765,000 in loose change left behind in airport scanner trays during 2015 — an average haul for the agency of $2,100 a day. Los Angeles and Miami airports contributed $106,000 of...
Between the Lines: With Guns, Feelings of Safety Trump Actual Safety
At 1 p.m. on a weekday in Chicopee earlier this month, a 15-year-old boy accompanied by two friends was allegedly banging so hard on the triple pane window of a stranger’s door that it broke the first of three layers of glass. The youth never made it through the door,...
Basemental Music Review: The Lentils
Mental for Lentils The first time I heard The Lentils was live in my basement in Hadley two years ago. I was completely blown away not only by the wacky and wiry guitar solos, but by the pop melodies buried beneath layers of sand. It was as if strange debris – or...
Texas Roadhouse and the End of America
My gut told me that I should tune in to the Republican Convention last Thursday night for Donald Trump’s acceptance speech. So I tried, but I just couldn’t hack it. Every time the Donald opens his mouth for another ramped-up round of free-associative shouting, my...
Club Picks: July 28 to August 3
The Girl with All the Gifts For a few weeks in 2011, Adele had competition. Amazon Music’s Dance & DJ Pop chart held her at number 1, but Cooter! came in at number 2, the debut single from drag queen, actor, comedian, recording artist, and writer Pandora Boxx,...
Back Talk: Inspired by Erykah, Disgusted by Gerena
InspiredI am truly inspired by Erykah’s courage (“In Her Own Words: Incarcerated in a Greenfield men’s correctional facility, Erykah Carter documents her transition”). Even as painstaking as it must of been. The feelings of being scared, or accepted by not...
StageStruck: Old Becomes New
Two theater pieces transmute their originals What happens when you take someone else’s work and change it, adapt it, and mold it into something of your own? I’m not talking about plagiarism, but homage – giving new form or context to an admired original. Two new/old...
Free Will Astrology: White feathers and forbidden fruit, July 28- Aug. 3, 2016
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Free your body. Don’t ruminate and agonize about it. FREE YOUR BODY! Be brave and forceful. Do it simply and easily. Free your gorgeously imperfect, wildly intelligent body. Allow it to be itself in all of its glory. Tell it...
Scene Here: Tuesday Night Classics
The setting sun glints off a sea of chrome and glossy paint jobs — fiery reds, cool blues, and slick blacks. The sounds of classic rock ‘n’ roll echo through Stearns Square and the smell of fried food lingers. It’s Tuesday Cruise Night, an event put on by the...
Cinemadope: Music! Intrigue! Nuts! Documentary film screenings this week
In this political season, there has been a lot of talk about the meaning — good and bad — of dynasties in our national discourse. The truth is that, for a country that prides itself on its history of flipping the bird to royalty all those years ago, we sure do love to...
The CityBlock Summer Concert Series is back! Again.
Springfield’s Summer Concert Series at Stearns Square has undergone its fair share of transformations since it was founded in 1999. The latest happened last year when the concert series shed its title as the Stearns Square Concert Series and reclaiming its original...
StageStruck: Waiting for Life to Resume
Two plays at Valley theaters, both running through Saturday, share a common source – the ongoing Middle East catastrophe – and a similar circumstance: two Americans caught up in it, one unwillingly, the other almost compulsively. Both plays are receiving strong...
Click It! Are Your Neighbors Voting? Find out in our interactive map
Western Mass has a reputation for being politically active, but at least in terms of voting, some communities are more engaged than others.An analysis of city and town voter turnout rates in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties for the 2012 presidential election...
Free Will Astrology, July 21-27, 2016
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You now have more luxuriant access to divine luck than you’ve had in a long time. For the foreseeable future, you could be able to induce semi-miraculous twists of fate that might normally be beyond your capacities. But here’s a...
Between the Lines: A Rebar River Runs Through It
More than 100 yards of industrial concrete waste along the Connecticut River along Route 47 in Hadley is going to be removed, thanks to an anonymous phone call.Earlier this month, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued an enforcement order against...
Scene Here: On Tap Festival at Berkshire East
Last Call, Franklin County This past Sunday’s inaugural Franklin County On Tap festival drew over 400 intrepid fans of craft beer, cider, and mead to Berkshire East Mountain Resort in Charlemont to sample brews from a dozen local operations, including the...
Up Next at Stearns Square
Member Login Username: Password: JULY 21 The Machine performs Pink FloydThis four-member tribute band has played theaters, casinos, and festivals across the country for 25 years. Plenty of needed time to practice, given Pink Floyd’s rather jaw-dropping 16-album...
Flashback: Stearns Square Over Time
1881 — Chester W. Chapin, a railroad tycoon and congressman from Springfield, commissions renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create a bronze statue of his ancestor and early city settler, Deacon Samuel Chapin. Springfield builds a small park, Stearns Square,...
Stagestruck: Jacob’s Pillow — Tapping into the Essence of Dance
If dance is “the hidden language of the soul,” as Martha Graham put it, tap is its least bashful dialect. For the past few years Jacob’s Pillow, the country’s premier modern dance festival, has featured tap dancing in its eclectic roster of summertime performances....
Down to Earth: Americans have no ‘right-to-roam,’ but we should
Last month, on a Sunday afternoon, I drove down to the Oxbow for an ultimate Frisbee pickup game. Clouds had been gathering all day and it began to rain as I drove, so when I arrived at the athletic fields, no one had turned up to play.I parked my car and decided...
News of the Weird: Fashion Challenges
Beautician Sarah Bryan, 28, of Wakefield, England, who garnered worldwide notoriety last year when she introduced a wearable dress made of 3,000 Skittles, returned this summer with a wearable skirt and bra made of donated human hair — a substantial amount of which,...
The V-Spot: Husband Seeking Female-Friendly Sex-ed
Hi Yana, My wife is interested in exploring her sexuality a little further — things she might be interested in trying, etc. — but is hoping to do so in a way that is female- and feminist-friendly. Do you have any suggestions for things she can do or read either...
The Pour Man: Graduate to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
Nobilo, Sauvignon Blanc, 2015; Marlborough, New Zealand; $13.99 During the last couple of decades, some of the world’s top wine critics have declared that the best Sauvignon Blanc comes from New Zealand, and I would agree with them.However, I also realize, as with...
Stagestruck: Shaking Up Shakespeare
Shakespeare & Company doesn’t only do Shakespeare. This season, only three out of nine productions are by the company’s namesake, though several others play with Shakespearean themes, from a contemporary reflection on war to a political farce that resonates...
Cinemadope: Fallout
Conspiracy Theories “Challenger” will forever be one of those words whose meaning — or at least its history — is immediately known to anyone old enough to have lived through the 1986 space shuttle disaster. That tragic moment, witnessed live by so many American...
Kristen Ford’s One-Woman Band Returns to the Valley
Ramblin’ Woman In May 2014, Greenfield native Kristen Ford packed up her stuff, sold whatever wouldn’t fit in her van, parked her fiancée in the seat next to her, and set off on what she refers to as “the never-ending tour.” After two years on the road, playing...
This Weekend: Paul Taylor Dance Company
Taylor Made It’s just a hop, skip, and a flying leap from Manhattan to the Berkshires, at least for the Paul Taylor Dance Company. The group has been trucking up shows to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center for nine years running now, but the good thing about a...
Club Picks: July 21 to July 27
SUNDAY: Build it YourselfSunday is for relaxing — and that includes a day of rest for the bartenders at Arkham at Harmony Place in Brattleboro. The quintessential hipster dive bar, complete with air hockey and arcade games, has a Build Your Own Bloody Mary party. It’s...
Seuss Day: Tue July 26
The Doctor Is Out and AboutAnd to think that he grew up on Fairfield Street! Theodor Seuss Geisel — a.k.a. Dr. Seuss — was born in Springfield to German immigrants in 1904, and although he moved to California for much of his adult life, it is on these local blocks...
Through Tuesday at ECA+ Gallery
Creative InletsAya Yamasaki and Jason Brown know how to flow. Working as a creative duo called Operatura, the two artists create hand-drawn animation, illustrations, comics, and installations, drawing inspiration from the natural and magical worlds, the humorous and...
This Friday: Dream Ring Dance Competition
Dare to CompeteBrooklyn-based flex dance pioneer Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray, the co-creator of the show FLEXN, performs at Jacob’s Pillow Dance for four days in August. But first, he has a dream. Gray hosts a D.R.E.A.M. RING (Dance Rules Everything Around Me)...
Nightcrawler: Root Effect
Musician and artist Wendell Rheinheimer, the owner of Moonlight Designs screenprinting in Easthampton, has been doing a little moonlighting of his own in recent months. The fruits of a new collaborative effort with his partner, organic vegetable farmer Shana Totino,...
va29-downTOearth-2016
More Rohmann!I sincerely wish you published more of Stagestruck columnist Chris Rohmann’s theater reviews. They are so important to so many of us, because what to see and what to miss is something I’ve counted on from Rohmann’s fine reviews over the years. I suspect...
Club Picks for the Weekend
Swing and a HitSinger and guitarist Erin Harpe formed her Delta blues quintet in Jamaica Plain in 2010, and the group has been all over since then, winning the Boston Blues Challenge three times, playing the five-day International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2015,...
Libations and Ciders and Beers, Oh My!
Magic on the MountainThe lower Valley has plenty of reasons to boast about its brews, but this weekend, it’s Franklin County’s turn. Hilltown pride and local products prevail at the first-ever On Tap festival at Berkshire East, featuring local beer, mead, cider, and...
Northampton’s Scottish Invasion
Great ScotsYou thought your Independence Day was wild, food-stuffed fun? Just stop by the annual Glasgow Lands Scottish Festival to see how the brave of heart really get down. Highland dancers, pipers, and drummers (like Albannach, pictured here) cast a spell of sound...
MarKamusic Rocks Black Birch Vineyard
Music and MemorySouthampton has many a quiet corner, but the grounds of Black Birch Vineyard will be lively on Saturday as the winery hosts a summer concert benefit to raise funds for the Northampton Survival Center. Local food trucks will help to keep visitors fed...
Circus Smirkus Comes To Town!
Circus with a Smile No elephants were harmed in the making of this motion-filled picture. The only ASPCA likely to take notice of the new high-flying act by Circus Smirkus is the American Society for the Perpetuation of Cool Acrobatics — a group we just made up, but...
Cinemadope: Prince’s Purple Reign
We all have a tendency, as we get on in years, to remember our better days and let the not-so-great times wash away in the river of time. It’s human, and while you might roll your eyes at your great-aunt launching into that same story about sneaking into a Beatles...
Music Review: Haas Kowert Tice
Triple Threat I tried to be open-minded as a young music lover, but despite the curious sonic wanderings of my teenage years, my ears could never quite latch onto songs with no vocals. As soon as I’d hit a track called “Instrumental,” I’d stubbornly skip it (the...
StageStruck: Cat and Tat
Here’s one thing the two very different Tennessee Williams plays now running in the Berkshires have in common: The sets have no walls. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, on the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Stockbridge mainstage, four white-and-pastel pillars frame the sparsely...
Basemental: Inside the Western Mass DIY Music Calendar
Book It Yourself The Western Mass DIY music calendar does what Facebook can’t Amherst punk musician Will Killingsworth and Belchertown visual artist, musician, and show-booker Miranda Wiley have noticed a disconnect between subsets of the DIY music scene in...
‘Something about people lifting and throwing logs gets me all giggly and shouty’ Staff Picks for July 14-20, 2016
Split Shift/Fear Nuttin Band – Saturday Split Shift and Fear Nuttin Band are clebrating their 15th anniversaries this weekend. iRockRadio presents Rock Fest featuring the two bands, along with other locals: Sakara, Sever The Drama, NoSho, Neon Fauna, Sanity is...
Local YouTube Channels You Gotta See: Vulgar Chef, Favor 2 Betty, Richard D. Wolff, more
Among the billions of videos on YouTube, drowned out by commercials for real estate and cars, dwells awesome local content that is nearly impossible to find — unless you know where to look.What’s got 40 pages and some entertaining and/or enlightening channels to...
Is Sen. Elizabeth Warren a Sellout for Supporting Hillary Clinton? Your Thoughts
This election cycle is stirring up strong feelings left and right, but most of us confine our rants to social media and the comments sections of YouTube channels we love to hate-watch. That’s why we were surprised to find some political graffiti on Route 5 in...
News of the Weird: Blessings, Guaranteed
More and more churches — hundreds, according to a June Christianity Today report — offer hesitant parishioners a “money-back guarantee” if they tithe 10 percent, or more, of their income for 90 days, but then feel that God blesses them insufficiently in...
The V-Spot: Babe Needs to Break Up
Dear Yana,I want to break up with my boyfriend of a few years. As we both near 30 I’m getting clearer that he’s just not the guy for me.But here’s the thing: We live together. We have a lease together. We share a car and a cat and just have so many logistical ties to...E-Edition
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