Articles
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage
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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter
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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Arts
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...
by Naila Moreira | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News
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...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
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...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, News, Scene Here
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...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
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...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 18, 2016 | Articles, Astrology, Wellness
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,...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
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...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
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...
by Josh Charland | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Leisure
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...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 11, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Stage, Stagestruck
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...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter
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...
by Will Meyer | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter
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....
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
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...
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...
