Articles
by Jack Brown | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
Valley residents have never shied away from political activism. Issues of equality, discrimination, and civil liberty — and the many protests, marches, and rallies that often come with those issues — have always found a wealth of open hearts and open ears here. But...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
As the season winds down, several summer theaters in the area have already folded their tents, with others running through this weekend and a couple playing through the end of the month. You can have your pick of a classic American drama, a classic screwball comedy,...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
My partner and I spend a week on Cape Cod each summer, and while the beach is restorative, for me the trip is also a very welcome busman’s holiday. By sheer good fortune, the timing of our visit allows us to catch two productions by the hands-down hottest...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
After a long Sunday spent following Bernie Sanders on the campaign trial, I made a bet with my editor: 20 bucks says that man never kisses a baby on camera this election season. She took the bet, but I’m going to win. Why? For the same reason Sanders is not going to...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Eleanor Cresson, a mental health and substance abuse clinician who recently went on strike from nonprofit Clinical Support Options, has worked in the field of mental health for more than 20 years and has two masters’ degrees. Despite her experience and qualifications,...
by Jack Brown | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
In a few short months — smack in the middle of the holiday season, as it happens — we’ll get the gift of a new Star Wars movie. The hope is that director J.J. Abrams can give the franchise the kick in the pants that it so desperately needs after the disaster of the...
by James Heflin | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
When I was a budding science fiction fan, I stepped into a con — a science fiction convention — for the first time. I was into SF, you know, for the books. The convention, it soon became clear, was about the spectacle of science fiction as delivered via other media....
by Jennifer Levesque | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Along scenic Route 20 in Chester, is the Chester-Blandford State Forest. On a 95-degree summer afternoon, the natural shade from the tall trees kept us cool as we walked the mile up to the Sanderson Brook Falls. Walking along the path, we only saw a few small groups...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
Editor loves murder of unborn children Kristin Palpini is a proud pro-abort who says that killing the unborn is a “medically necessary procedure” that should be “acceptable” (“Why I Am Pro-Abortion,” July 30-Aug. 5, 2015). Of course, she’s lying. According to...
by Gary Carra | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Music, Nightcrawler
Several songs into their Aug. 2 Hartford, Connecticut concert, the nu-metal shock rockers of Slipknot had a choice to make. Their bassist, Alessandro “Vman” Venturella, had just collapsed due to an “unknown medical emergency” (later to be diagnosed as severe...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 5, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
A pair of two-character plays now on area stages illustrate the crucial importance of casting. With only two actors – both of them, in these cases, onstage the whole time – the stakes increase. The players not only have to complement each other, artistically and...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Stage, Stagestruck
The summer season still has a month to go — with new productions still in the wings — but already the hands-down winner for Most Intriguing and Strange can be named. It’s New Century Theatre’s season closer, Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, a meditation on human...
by Jack Brown | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
It was just a few weeks ago that this column looked at the resurrection of the superhero movie, something I largely attributed to the success of the Iron Man franchise — its billions in box office provided a sort of force field that allowed other, lesser-known,...
by Gary Carra | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Music, Nightcrawler
She married into the first family of jazz, forever linking her to the Big Easy. In recent years, however, Kristin Neville says that she has reconnected with Basketball City U.S.A. And when community leader Evan Plotkin informed her that Springfield’s Hoop City...
by From Our Readers | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
Soon after we posted a link to Editor Kristin Palpini’s article “Why I Am Pro-Abortion And You Should Be Too,” to Facebook, the comments came pouring in. Here’s what readers had to say about the staunchly pro-choice Between the Lines that ran in the July 30, 2015...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Uncle Jerry’s Bands A psychedelic Saturday at the Gathering of the Vibes Fun fact: Bridgeport, Connecticut is the only city in America where Hula-Hoops cause more accidents than cars do. At least, that’s how it is once a year, at the sprawling fiesta in Seaside Park...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Careers & Education, Featured, News
Somewhere between climate change, the recession, and an ever-burgeoning Internet universe, the professional landscape changed a lot over the past decade. Naturally, we the worker bees can only scramble to keep up. Hit by the Great Recession, some baby boomers are...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Careers & Education, Featured, News, Wellness
When a zombie plague hits London in the movie Shaun of the Dead, several scenes pass before the protagonist realizes that his trudging, moaning white-collar cohorts have transformed. If you’ve ever wandered through the office like the resident undead, you should...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 1, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
I’m more a theater person than a dance person – though attending Jacob’s Pillow for the past three summers has given me a much greater appreciation for (and understanding of) the terpsichorean art. So this season I was especially interested in a couple of...
by Gary Carra | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Music, Nightcrawler
From “Knights In White Satin” to Pomeranians with problem foot pads: welcome to a day in the life of Russell Brooks. “I just opened my own dog grooming salon in Northampton,” the music scene stalwart explains, “and I’ve been busier than ever with my life and work. And...
by Story and Photos
Hunter Styles | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News
The past five years were rough on Brattleboro. In the summer of 2011, tragedy struck the town several times: Tropical Storm Irene caused extensive flood damage, a five-alarm fire destroyed much of Main Street’s historic Brooks House building, and the Brattleboro Food...
by Amanda Drane | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Blogs, Featured, News, The Uncanny Valley
Buses are big and so are the advertisements they often host — that’s no surprise. What is jolting, however, is when the typical music or beverage ad is replaced with a giant placard offering a $50,000 reward for information regarding an unsolved murder from 2013....
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Wellness
I am pro-abortion in the same way I am pro-triple bypass surgery and chemotherapy. In general, I am “pro” any helpful, legal medical procedure. Being pro-abortion is different than being pro-angioplasty, though, and that’s because, ostensibly, there is a second human...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Four plays I saw last week at Berkshire theater companies demonstrate the variety and versatility of the region’s summer stages: a musical born of adolescent angst; a period piece with – a rarity in any season – an all-African-American cast; a glossy drama about...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Wellness
By Advocate Staff Like an itchy sweater your auntie knitted, you can’t just throw kale out, you have to do something with it. Lord knows eating it is out of the question, so here are some suggestions for how to get the most out of that claw-like green: 1. Hang a sprig...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Goodbye, Kool Thing Standing inches away from me moaning her iconic voice into the mic for soundcheck stood Kim Gordon. The longtime Northampton resident is bidding farewell to the Pioneer Valley, and she picked the perfect place to say goodbye. On top of the historic...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Leisure, The V-Spot, Wellness
The first time I slept with a girl it was awkward as hell. Sure, I had dabbled in the giggling French kisses of curious high school sleepovers, but never did I go to a girl’s room with the intention of having lesbian sex with her. But this is what I did one tipsy...
by Amanda Drane | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Madame Barfly
For every season there is a drink. Just as beer nuts ditch cold-weather porters and quads to settle their summertime cravings for IPAs and light brews, cocktail sippers also change their choice of beverage with the heat. Fruity, delicious cocktails enjoyed on the...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Taste-Off!
It’s round three in our all-Valley pizza slice smackdown. This month we tasted pies from the northern half of the Valley, grabbing slices of cheese from Amherst House of Pizza, Sibie’s, and Sub and Pizza, all of Amherst; Antonio’s and Papa George’s, both of...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Wellness
E veryone has counted calories at some point. Some of us tally them religiously. I only think of them when I’m staring at the side of a cereal box at two in the morning. But given the state of our warming world — rising sea levels, falling bee populations, and all...
by Gary Carra | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Nightcrawler
In an industry in more upheaval than the Athens Stock Exchange, Rob “The Leprechaun” Allen’s aluminum anniversary at Lazer 99.3 FM would probably be more accurately accounted for utilizing dog-year calculations. The Crawler recently checked in with the veteran jock....
by Hunter Styles | Jul 8, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, The Beerhunter
Thinking about “light beer” brings up distasteful, albeit fun, memories. Long nights in college spent pouring cans of Keystone into red plastic cups; fly-fishing with grouchy uncle Roy, paddling around with a cooler full of Molson; going to that barbecue last summer...
by Hunter
Styles | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, Music, News
How do a city’s business owners create a nightlife that is not only lively, but built to last? The short answer: by dreaming big. Running an entertainment venue takes daily stamina and quick thinking, of course. But it also requires a deeper, grander feeling to fuel...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
There’s a right way and a wrong way to selfie, people. Selfies can either be a silly, fun way to document a moment or the epitome of narcissism. So, please, selfie posters, consider your audience and: 1. Do turn your face towards the light. 2. Do pass the camera to...
by Amanda Drane | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
I just wanna dance. The itch comes in the form of a restlessness you’d think I could scratch with a good run, but I’ve tried and it doesn’t quite work. The need to dance comes from the soul as much as from the body. It’s like a primordial drive to shake and sway to...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
Julia Child said it best: people who love to eat are always the best people. That’s the springboard for our new occasional series @lunch, in which we sit down for a quick and candid midday meal with interesting locals, ready to chew the fat. For our inaugural lunch we...
by Amanda
Drane | Jun 30, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
My boyfriend, who is not white, returned home from a shift bartending down the street from our Northampton apartment. Still shaking, he explained he’d just been interrogated by two police officers during his walk home. They questioned where he had been and what he was...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 8, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
I ran for my life. It wasn’t fast enough. A paintball came whipping through the clearing as I crossed in a running crouch, shot by the enemy team from 20 yards away. I felt it explode against my thigh. It stung for a few seconds, like someone had whacked me hard with...
by Hunter Styles | Jun 30, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
A t the end of Bible study on Wednesday night, Steve Powell tells a joke. “This guy is talking to God,” he says. “God says that in his eyes, a million years is like a minute, and a million dollars is like a penny. So the man says: well then, God, give me a penny!”...
by Kristin Palpini | Jun 30, 2015 | Articles, Blogs, Featured, News, The Uncanny Valley
You’ve probably seen the signs — “Fast $$ for Houses,” “We Buy Ugly Homes” — tacked onto telephone poles or scrawled onto yard signs by the side of a main road. The advertising doesn’t inspire confidence. The hand-scrawled, occasionally misspelled signs scream scam....
by James Heflin
Photos by Jerrey Roberts | Jul 8, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
On a recent Thursday at the Ludlow Fish and Game Club, things were abuzz. The skies were repeatedly ripped through with the blare of engines as aircraft traveled the skies around Westover Air Force Base; gunfire crackled from the firing range nearby. Amid that din,...
by
Amanda
Drane | Jun 30, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure, Living By The Stars, News, Wellness
In the work-driven culture we live in, self-care is sometimes lost in the abyss of work, chores, sleep. To make matters more complicated, we all have ways of taking care of ourselves that are strikingly different from one another. Yoga, while good for all, can be...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 8, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Scene Here
A thin man in a red basketball jersey and nylon shorts strides down Dwight Street in Holyoke, arms swinging, a smile on his face. His thick black hair is slicked back, and his ankles look like saplings sprouting from his foam slippers. He reaches the intersection with...
by Hunter Styles | Jun 23, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Stage
Bernice Kwade lives in two worlds at the same time. “When I’m at home, it’s a totally different environment than when I go out,” she said. “My parents are trying to instill traditional African values in me, but we live in America now. I want to have a more liberal...
by Hunter Styles | Jun 23, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Scene Here
Stage lights shine down on a legion of beards. They sprout from Ashfield men young and old, tall and short. Some beards are just wiry tufts, some fluffy and soft like cumulus clouds, some as thick and full as a field of wheat primed for harvest. The beards are black,...
by James Heflin | Jun 23, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
So this, it turns out, was the Father’s Day I had Cheetos up my nose. Not in a funny way, but more a sort of philosophical reverie way, like that glazed look you get after you’ve had seven ice cream sandwiches and a heat stroke. This was the latest result of my...
by Amanda Drane | Jun 23, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Madame Barfly, News
The Ale House on Worthington Street in Springfield is surrounded by boarded-up buildings that loom ominously up over the small, cozy one that the bar occupies. But inside, the vibe is warm and welcoming. “It’s somewhere you can go in Springfield where you don’t have...
by Story and Photos by
Hunter Styles | Jun 16, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News, Wellness
“I always knew that I wanted to be a dad,” Joey Mella tells me. “Then I got married and we had three children very quickly. Now I’m kind of maxed out.” The middle child, two-year-old Ati Mella-Reiss, pushes a miniature shopping cart across the wood floor of the...
by Amanda Drane | Jun 16, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News, Wellness
Soon-to-be parents Amy Mathers and Paul Kearney, of Limerick, Ireland, were in Florence recently visiting Mathers’ family. Mathers and Kearney are expecting their first child in September. The two said they talk about moving to the U.S. to raise a family, but Ireland...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 16, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure
Dad jokes. The phrase probably just made you groan and roll your eyes a little. The dad joke is an overly familiar pun, cliche, gag, or prank that would sort of amuse a three-year-old. But somewhere along the journey to adulthood, when kids develop a sense of irony,...
by Hunter Styles | Jun 16, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, News, Taste-Off!
Now that summer is almost here, we’re reaching for one of our favorite ice cream combos to get us through the work week: thick ribbons of fudge and belts of peanut butter cups in sweet vanilla ice cream. We’d call it Moose Tracks, except that name has been owned by...
by Amanda Drane | Jun 9, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
At the Waterfront Tavern in Holyoke, a rap battle between Hoodie Cruger, who is black, and Petey Mitch, who is white, turns racist. “I got rap sheets to rival my rap sheets,” spits Petey. “For your life, somewhere someway, had to pay two cents a day. That’s not what I...
by Gary Carra | Jun 10, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Nightcrawler
Noho’s And The Kids are more than allright. In fact, they’ve been called everything from “fearless and entertaining” to one of “Western Massachusetts’ indie scene’s brightest creative lights,” depending on whom you ask. The observations cited just happened to come...
by James Heflin | Jun 9, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Blogs, Columns, Featured, Leisure, Music, News, Nightcrawler
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by Hunter Styles | Jun 10, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Millions of augmented humans now walk among us. Their implants, tweaks, and enhancements aren’t always visible. But medical technology — which gave Americans cardiac pacemakers in the ’50s, and now artificial hearts — keeps pressing forward, and the human species...
by Kristin Palpini | Jun 10, 2015 | Articles, Blogs, Featured, News, The Uncanny Valley
For more than a decade, the island at the corner of Hampton Street and Route 5 in Holyoke has borne the word “Quota” — spelled out in flowers in the warm weather and black plastic edging in the cold. On my ride home from work down Route 5 south, I often wondered...
by Nancy Bryant | Jun 9, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
My favorite walk is around my backyard. Although this may seem rather common, my yard is still new to me and very much an evolving space. Four years ago my backyard was a dense forest filled with pines, oaks, and poison ivy. The thick trees were covered with poison...
by Amanda Drane | Jun 2, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, News
As if the stationary restaurant business weren’t tumultuous enough with its high overhead costs, perishable products, and unpredictable customers, food truck owners kick it up a degree by taking it to the streets and exposing themselves — and their kitchens — to the...
by James Heflin | Jun 2, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Film, Leisure, Music, Stage
Summertime, and the livin’ is greatly enhanced by a calendar ripe with performances. In a Valley that comes alive with music, theater, and every other incarnation of the arts, it can be tough to know where to turn. We’ve compiled a short list of highlights from the...
