Articles
Show Us Your Tattoos Patti Fradette of Chicopee and Ted Perch of Easthampton
My tattoo reminds me “Life’s not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” And I’ve danced in a lot of rain in my life. Done by Tim Senecal at Off the Map Tattoo in Easthampton. — Patti Fradette, Chicopee The lotus flower grows in...
StageStruck: Six Degrees of Bloody Murder
The first time I saw Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller about a wheelchair-bound photographer who solves a murder while gazing out his window, I was so scared by the gripping climax that I couldn’t shut my eyes in bed for fear of intruders in the dark. Mind...
Food Deserts of Springfield: Lack of access to healthy food underlies high rates of diabetes, obesity
Ashley Christian makes one trip to the grocery store every month; it’s a carefully coordinated and premeditated affair. She needs to buy foods that will still be edible at the end of the month, which means fresh fruits and vegetables are mostly out and frozen or...
The V-Spot: Can I Ask my GF to Stop Using Her Vibrator?
Hi Yana, With previous girlfriends it’s been easier over time to bring them to orgasm as I get to know their preferences and bodies, however my current girlfriend owns a Hitachi Magic Wand that she has been using for nine months. It’s significantly more difficult now...
How to Spruce up a Traditional Thanksgiving … Without Ruining It
Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potato pie — we all know the traditional Thanksgiving meal, and some of us are sick of it. But invariably, whenever a host attempts to tweak the feast someone at the table is going to hate...
Review: Imo Nse Imeh’s Ten Little N—-r Girls
Imo Nse Imeh Ten Little Nigger Girls Art for the Soul Gallery, Tower Square, 1500 Main St., Springfield Imo Nse Imeh’s exhibit takes the wind out of visitors before they even enter the gallery. Most people will likely have a difficult time uttering the exhibit’s name....
Staff Picks: Bo Burnham at the Calvin, Springfield Falcons hockey and more
Bo Burnham at the Calvin • Sunday Bo Burnham turned heads five years ago when, at 20 (he looked 16) he cracked up crowds of all ages with his self-deprecating, oft-dirty, and clever music-based comedy. On Sunday, he makes his way to his native Massachusetts for an 8...
Between the Lines: Doesn’t Count – Deaths by police are not tracked in the US
So far in 2015, 965 people have been killed by U.S. police. A disproportionate number of those people are black, Hispanic or Latino; almost all are male. The causes of the deaths range from being shot by police to being hit by a police vehicle to dying — somehow — in...
StageStuck: Flying Fishes
I have a friend who’s an Episcopal priest. When we first met, I asked him if his was a High Church or Low Church, referring to the degree of formality in the service. He replied, “We’re a Whatever Works Church.” That’s pretty much the strategy adopted by Abigail, the...
From Our Readers: “Drowning in craft beer,” “Lube doesn’t solve all”
Drowning in craft beer Dear well-intentioned, creatively-spirited, entrepreneurial-minded, mechanically-gifted, young white men, Please refrain from moving forward with your impending craft brewery project, as we here in the Valley have gone well beyond the number of...
Cinemadope: Return Tickets, a mainstay reopens in Amherst
When a movie theater closes up shop, it often catches us by surprise. It isn’t that we don’t see it coming; we all know by now about Netflix, Hulu, and Redbox, and how the ever-expanding options of cable television and the Internet have siphoned off some of the...
News of the Weird: Annals of Justice
A 2015 decision of the Georgia Supreme Court has created a puzzle for drunk driver enforcement. In Georgia, and other states, blood alcohol tests are “voluntary” to bypass; meaning drivers can’t be forced, or even pressured, to endure a test that ultimately helps to...Free Will Astrology – Nov. 12-18, 2015
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “I demand unconditional love and complete freedom,” wrote Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun. “That is why I am terrible.” In accordance with the astrological omens, I’m offering you the chance, at least temporarily, to join Šalamun in demanding...
Madame Barfly: Pumpkin and Bone Marrow
Nothing tastes like fall more than a pumpkin martini, unless it’s a pumpkin martini with a bone marrow bar snack. The Federal fine dining restaurant and pub in Agawam serves such tasty treats, but with an $11 price tag on the cocktail “Son of a Pumpkin” I was...
Arts & Culture: Landscapes, ho! Laura Radwell paintings in Westfield
Laura Radwell began to paint in the late ’80s and over the years has continued to explore various media: traditional oil painting, sculpture, calligraphy, and photography. The origin of her photo-based art is digital, a result of a familiarity and understanding of...
Mayan Art from the Guatemalan Highlands
This exhibit presents unique works of art from traditional Mayan villages in Guatemala. These paintings depict scenes such as harvesting crops, food markets, ceremonies and nature that are an integral part of the daily life and culture of these communities. Mayan Art,...
Journey to the Center
John Sheldon is tired. Tired, he says, “of seeing how we treat each other, how we treat ourselves, how we treat our planet.” He’s embarked on a Journey to the Center of the Earth — “the place where everything intersects, where life really comes from.” His vehicle for...
Greenfield Short Film Showcase
A night of short films from local independent filmmakers, including the world premiere of horror short Girl In The Basement by Jared Skolnick. Here’s the line up: The Answer also by Skolnick — One of the oldest questions is settled. Protesters by Marty Lang — An...
Nightcrawler: You Might Have Heard of Him
Oklahoma-based singer-songwriter John Moreland stops by Noho’s Parlor Room this Friday, Nov. 13, in support of his latest sonic labor of love. The new disc is called High on Tulsa Heat, and its arrival earlier this year was eagerly anticipated thanks in great part to...
Scene Here: Bird Brain
Photo by Greg Saulmon Motivated by hunger and a bit of sport, the peregrine falcon searches for a high perch from which she can keep a sharp lookout for prey. Her favorite meals are pigeons, ducks, and shorebirds, but in the lush Pioneer Valley any kind of medium-size...
StageStruck: The Odd Quartet – Barbershop harmony, with an ethnic difference
Mark St. Germain is a founding member of Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield and its practically-resident playwright, having debuted eight scripts there over the years. His best-known works are fictional peeks into the lives of real people, including Sigmund Freud...
Cinemadope: Autumn film trips in the Valley
Movie fans can be a pasty bunch. Ducking out of the sun to catch a sparsely attended matinee is par for the course — those nearly empty mid-week shows are a welcome respite from the cellphones and chatter of weekend opening nights. Netflix, Vimeo, and the local...
Nightcrawler: Out of the Shadows
Springfield-based metal-meisters Shadows Fall have had the hardcore community scratching its collective, shoulder-length locks-laden heads in recent months. Shortly after announcing an “indefinite hiatus,” frontman Brian Fair clarified that the sonic suspension may...
In the Lens of the Beholder: One small Valley town gets hip to police body cams
Erving Police Chief Chris Blair said that during his first day with a new body camera and a new policy making them mandatory for on-duty officers, an incident arose during which he was stoked to be so equipped. While out on a call, Blair said he was trying to wrangle...
Gone Rogue With Mady Pachios of The Mary Jane Jones
In front of a full crowd and three-piece band, a woman in a 1950s party dress, with her bangs curled and wearing bright red lipstick, wails on the mic. She’s like a Stepford wife gone rogue. This is Mandy Pachios, frontwoman and founding member of jazzy, funky...
The V-Spot: Help! My Small Penis Doesn’t Measure Up
Hey Yana, Does penis size matter? I’m a 20-year-old male and a tall guy who gyms a lot and has fairly good genetics … all but in the penis department. I’m 6 feet tall and I literally have a 4-incher. I’ve found that a lot of girls are size queens and the girls I...
Do You Read Me? The independent bookstore just might rise again
Some trends are stranger than fiction. When Amazon released the Kindle in 2007 – an immediate bestseller – e-readers looked like the thing of the future. Between 2008 and 2010, digital book sales increased by more than 1,200 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2010,...
StageStruck: Main Street Parade – A 20th-century travelogue comes back home
Double Edge Theatre may call their Ashfield farmstead home, but they are a world-class, and world-traveling, company. In addition to their annual farm-spanning summer spectacle and small-scale shows in their barn-theater, for the past couple of years they’ve been...
Ramen: It’s Not Just for College Anymore
The Valley is full of good Asian noodle soups, so we tried three. I’m a child of chilly New England, where steaming cups of soup are most often consumed under blankets while the snow flurries outside. But last year, in Thailand, I tried a piping hot bowl of rice soup...
Cinemadope: Busting out. A comedy classic returns.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the upcoming reboot to the Ghostbusters franchise. Director Paul Feig’s (Bridesmaids) 2016 release is a female-centered take on the story that stars Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy as a pair of old friends who are thrown...Jones strips down; Pomeroy and Laine; Halloween shows
While new wave icon Howard Jones’ Nov. 4 Iron Horse show will be engaging, it will not be Engage, the crowd-funded multimedia project he recently performed in London, LA, and New York that includes interactive smartphone apps for audience members, specially...
The V-Spot: Fretting Over My First Time
Hi Yana, I’m a 17-year-old virgin. My partner and I tried having sex, but we couldn’t get it in. I went to the doctor for contraception and I asked her why we couldn’t get it in. She said that I needed to relax; how the hell do I relax?! During sex (or trying to) I...
Four Questions for Westfield’s Mayoral Candidates
This year, the Advocate is covering the Valley’s mayoral races a little differently. We’ve asked each candidate the same four questions, which we hope will provoke thoughtful and illuminating answers — with a little editing for length and clarity. This week we quizzed...
Four Questions: Springfield’s mayoral candidates hold forth — or back
This year’s mayoral race in Springfield is between incumbent Domenic Sarno, 52, who took office in 2008 and is currently in his third term, and Salvatore “Sal” Circosta, 30, the former owner of Sal’s Bakery and Cafe, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2013....
Review: Evil Dead the Musical
Evil Dead: the Musical Ghost Light Theater, Turners Falls For the first 45 minutes, the crowd clapped for the songs and laugh-groaned at the corny jokes. It wasn’t until Ash, our zombie-fighting hero (played by Joe Van Allen) grabbed a chainsaw and severed his own...
Scene Here: Laughs and Lingerie
AMANDA DRANE PHOTO The Mary Jane Jones kicks off the night of comedy and lingerie at One Bar and Grill in Northampton with several soulful love songs. Eyes closed, lead singer Mandy Pachios growls a velvet reverie. A shot girl in a form-fitting, black nightgown with a...
Four Questions: Holyoke’s Mayoral Candidates
This year, the Advocate is covering the Valley’s mayoral races a little differently. We’ve asked each candidate the same four questions, which we hope will provoke thoughtful and illuminating answers — with a little editing for length and clarity. This week we quizzed...
Live Hive: Christine Ohlman’s in town
She’s spent many a Saturday night in New York City. Kinda comes with the turf when you sing lead vocals in the Saturday Night Live Band as Christine Ohlman did in the ’90s — an honor that literally gave her a front row seat to Sinead O’Connor’s papal paper rip and...
Cinemadope: Scare Tactics, Halloween movies
Of all the holiday movie traditions, it might be that of Halloween that has given us in the film world the most joy over the years. Christmas has some winners, of course, but is often bogged down by moralizing, sappiness, or commercialism. Thanksgiving and New Year’s...
It’s Going to be a Looooong Wait
When the railroad tracks that run through the Valley were improved for heavy freight trains and passenger rail service, people were excited about the potential of ditching their cars and using the train to get up and down the Valley, taking it to work or to a show and...
5 things to love about Greenfield
Greenfield doesn’t get the same attention for being an arts and cultural center like Northampton, Amherst or Springfield, but we’d like to help change that perception. There’s a lot to love about this town and not just for its obvious attributes: Greenfield’s...
Annual Mannual: Road Trippin’ With The Advocate’s 2015 Best Of List
Feel that chill in the air? It’s only a matter of weeks before we’re all hibernating on the couch, looking out the window at the deep freeze and wondering where all the long, fun days went. Don’t spend the winter as a sad blanket case. There’s still time to bust out...
Bait and Switch? Cut and Run? or Just a Bump in the Road? Big changes test Springfield’s faith in MGM
In October 2007, MGM announced plans to build a $5 billion casino resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In addition to slots, tables, and hotel rooms, renderings of the 60-acre complex boasted restaurants, clubs, and retail space. Among 11 other nearby casinos, MGM...
Don’t Blink: Live Art Magazine showcases one-night-only local acts in Northampton
Within seconds of meeting each other, tap and jazz dancer David Bovat and percussionist Jeff Hinrichs are moving and grooving. Hinrichs lays down a quick tempo on the djembe, which makes a deep, hollow sound, and Bovat’s tap shoes start click-clacking in double time....
Four Questions: Greenfield’s Mayoral Candidates
This year, the Advocate is covering the Valley’s mayoral races a little differently. We’ve asked each candidate the same four questions, which we hope will provoke thoughtful and illuminating answers — with a little editing for length and clarity. This week we quizzed...
Cinemadope: Smuggling a pile of Tibet to exiles in India
I’ve lived in the Valley for some 18 years now, which is exactly as long as I lived under my parents’ roof. Everything in between there and here — my two homes, each of which, now, has had its own family life — has been a way station, a stop along a longer road. But...
Nightcrawler: Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Were it not for the marking of a certain sonic milestone, The Lonesome Brothers’ appearance at the Iron Horse this weekend couldn’t be more business as usual. Another weekend, some original tunes from their catalog of more than 100, another venue. “Basically, the gist...
The Uncanny Valley: Do Ghosts Haunt Spoleto?
by Hunter Styles Staff writer Amanda Drane has worked in the local food industry for 10 years, and she’s shared with us some truly great stories of her time in the kitchen, including a couple about the haunted room at Spoleto, an Italian restaurant in Northampton. One...
StageStruck: NT Liveliest
If proof were needed of the sheer variety in the transatlantic fare served up by the National Theatre’s NT Live, we’d need to look no farther than the next two offerings in that stage-to-screen series coming to the Amherst Cinema. One is a classic Restoration...
Cinemadope: Octoberfest, a new film festival hits Northampton
We here in the Pioneer Valley love a good festival. Just this year I’ve seen festivals devoted to asparagus, tomatoes, garlic, or one that just throws it all together to celebrate the harvest season. Our small towns have festivals to celebrate their small-towniness,...
Between the Lines: Chill Out on the Marijuana, Man
As I write these words, on the other side of Conz Street, Western Mass residents are strolling into Northampton’s New England Treatment Access on opening day to purchase medical marijuana from the area’s first dispensary. Would that have seemed possible in 2007? As...
Basement to Big-Time: Valley Free Radio is building a studio where local artists can record — for free
Valley musician Mikey Sweet spent two weeks hitchhiking around the Northeast last month, holding a sign reading: “broke musician, need money to finish album.” After a storied 14 days’ worth of busking, gigging, and drawing attention to his Kickstarter campaign, Sweet...
Review: We sent a wimp and a horror buff to see the gruesome Green Inferno
The Green Inferno Blumhouse Tilt/Universal Pictures In theaters nationwide Two Advocate staffers — horror movie buff Jen Levesque and total wimp Hunter Styles — saw the controversial horror flick The Green Inferno last weekend. The extremely gory film, directed by Eli...
Nightcrawler: Don’t Worry; Be Hoppy, band brewfests, Frehley manages to one-up the blood moon
Fans of suds ’n’ sounds will find no shortage of occurrences in which to quench their multi-sensory cravings this weekend. On Saturday, Oct. 10, at the King Phillips Stockade at 1200 West Columbus Ave., in Springfield, Log Cabin/Delaney House and Samuel Adams will...
Fall Bites … at Valley restaurants
With the chill of fall finally beginning to bite, it’s the perfect time to indulge in something more substantial than summer fare. Pumpkin, squash, apple, maple syrup, and any number of other fall delights await at restaurants throughout the Valley. So, when you’ve...
Stagestruck: Endless Summer – Berkshire theaters carry on into the fall
Time was, at the end of August the summer theaters would fold their (figurative) tents and wait for spring. While that’s still true of the Valley theaters that brighten our hot-weather months, three of the Big Four Berkshire festivals now extend their seasons into the...
Nightcrawler: Media Darlings, Darlingside celebrates latest sonic labor of love; Gates open for Holyoke performers
Bay State quartet Darlingside have become veritable media darlings in their just over half a decade of existence. Their lush, harmony-laden amalgam of indie folk rock garners kudos as steadily and readily as “Dump Trump’’ petition signatures at a Cinco De Mayo party....
Cinemadope: Hurts So Good, remembering the ’80s
As much as I love good film — the transformative power of a story well told, the otherworldly experience of settling into the dark as the lights come up on someone else’s dream — there is something to be said for the bad ones out there. To be clear, I’m not talking...
Get In Here! Local Fall Arts Preview
What’s on tap for arts and culture over the next few months in the Pioneer Valley: Party Animals How do you describe The Surrealist Cabaret by the Royal Frog Ballet? You let the frogs do it. From the event’s website, The Surrealist Cabaret “is a walking...E-Edition
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