Articles
by Jack Brown | Aug 9, 2016 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
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...
by Jennifer Levesque | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, News, Scene Here
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,...
by Michael Cimaomo | Aug 5, 2016 | Articles, Featured, Northeast Underground
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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Newsletter
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...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Third Eye Roaming
“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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Newsletter
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...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, News
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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Newsletter
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 5, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
“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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 2, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter
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...
by Ken Maiuri | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Music, Newsletter
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 3, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
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...
by Kristin Palpini, Hunter Styles, and Peter Vancini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
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...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Arts, News, Scene Here
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....
by Hunter Styles | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
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...
by McKenzie Armstrong | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Wellness
Two longtime groups working on issues affecting boys and men have merged, creating an entity organizers hope will eliminate male stereotypes and aid in the push for gender equality and paid parental leave. It is the unification of the two groups founded in western...
by Gary Carra | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Nightcrawler
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...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
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...
by Warren Johnston | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, The Pour Man
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 30, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Stage, Stagestruck
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....
by Hunter Styles | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Newsletter, Uncategorized
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...
by Peter Vancini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Leisure, News
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 29, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
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,...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Newsletter, Uncategorized
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, Stagestruck
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...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
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...
by Sarah Crosby, Daily Hampshire Gazette | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, News
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
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,...
by Will Meyer | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Newsletter
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...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Featured, Newsletter, Uncategorized
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...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
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,...
by From Our Readers | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Stagestruck
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...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Astrology, Leisure, Wellness
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...
by Peter Vancini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, News, Newsletter, Scene Here
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...
by Jack Brown | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
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...
by Peter Vancini | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Newsletter, Uncategorized
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 21, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Stage, Stagestruck
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...
by Peter Vancini, Kristin Palpini, Dave Eisenstadter | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, News
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...
by Rob Breszney | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Astrology, Featured, Wellness
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
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...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Food + Booze, News, Scene Here
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...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Newsletter, Uncategorized
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 20, 2016 | Articles, Music, News, Newsletter, Uncategorized
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,...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 20, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
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....
by Advocate Staff | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
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,...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, News, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
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...
by Warren Johnston | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Food + Booze, The Pour Man
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
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...
by Jack Brown | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
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...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music
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...
