Columns
How to Navigate Holiday Wine Tastings With Style
As we tiptoe toward the holiday season, you may find yourself with the opportunity to attend a wine tasting. A chance to try endless, free, tiny pours of wines and other alcoholic beverages in anticipation of having to endure the darkest and saddest time of the year —...
The V-Spot: How Do I Make Sexual Suggestions?
Dear Yana, I’m a 30-something guy in a long-term relationship with a bisexual woman. She’s got a high sex drive and wants to have sex almost constantly. My desire doesn’t really match up with hers but I wonder if the issue is really that her sexual techniques don’t...
Cinemadope: Decay Okay
When my grandfather died, some years ago now, my mother and I spent the days that followed going through his apartment to sort through the belongings he’d left behind, trying to figure out what we should keep and what we could safely shunt along to the garbage heap....
V-Spot: Watching Porn in Public with Bella Vendetta (NSFW Trailer Included)
Editor’s note: This week instead of answering a reader question, Yana writes about an event she co-sponsored involving, well … read on! It’s not what you’d expect — this whole watching porn in a room full of strangers with your friends thing. On Saturday night,...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: The Crawling Eye
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem and view an exhibit by Kirk Hammett. “Kirk who?” you ask. Why, none other than the lead guitarist for the thrash metal band Metallica. Can’t say I was ever a fan, but Hammett’s collection on...
O Cannabis: Hey Pilgrim, How Was Your First Weed Harvest?
The harvest is in and I can’t believe the results. My husband and I didn’t weigh our cannabis haul from our home garden, but we were able to fill a bunch of regular-size salsa jars with marijuana. This is more than good enough for me! Like many weed enthusiasts in the...
Basemental: New Tricks from the (not so) Young Tricksters
The Young Tricksters have returned. After what felt like forever, the Amherst quartet have broken their quiet to give the people what they want: a full-length album. After releasing a couple self-recorded demos back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth (March 2013 to...
Cinemadope: Calling in Sick
When we write the history of the last decade, the smartphone will surely loom large. Since 2007, when the iPhone was unveiled, these little packages of silicon and glass have become almost literally an extension of ourselves, attached to the ends of our arms to...
This Halloween, Let These Psychological Horror Movies Brainwash You
The leaves are changing, there’s a chill in the air, and every cafe has restocked their pumpkin spice syrup. Fall is finally here, and if you’re interested in movies, that means two things: nearby Oscar season means there are finally some good films in theatres again,...
Stagestruck: Going for Goal
The timing was kind of perfect. Last week, just as the U.S. men’s soccer team was being eliminated from qualifying for next year’s World Cup, Hartford’s TheaterWorks was opening The Wolves, an energetic if puzzling play about women’s soccer. Make that girls’ soccer....
Stagestruck: A Light, a Lake and a Lady
In last week’s column I covered a fistful of shows playing in the Valley, and now it’s the Berkshires’ turn. Shakespeare & Company’s God of Carnage recently completed a late-season run, and three quite varied fall productions are now running on other western...
Valley Show Girl: Luthier’s Unplugged: Metal, Grunge, and Singer/Songwriter Action
After having a so-long get together at Galaxy in Easthampton with my coworkers to send off Kristin Palpini on her next adventure, I dragged my sad ass down the street to Luthier’s Coop. And I tell ya, there’s nothing like seeing Pee Wee Herman’s inviting...
Moldovan wine a welcome invasion from former Soviet Union
You already know that Russia hacked our election. What you might not have heard is how Russia has also inadvertently hacked our American wine market. And the two main culprits currently under investigation are from Agawam, the husband and wife team of Andrei Birsan...
Stream Queen: Shudder Offers Thrills and Chills for Cheap
If you’re anything like me, you’ve shuffled through the Horror section on Netflix, glassy-eyed yet hopeful that somehow, while you weren’t looking, they added something worth watching. It feels like you’ve seen everything in this section worth seeing, and next month...
Cinemadope: Blank’s Canvas
In his four-plus decades of filmmaking, director Les Blank (1935-2013) embodied the best of American documentary filmmaking. While his best-known work remains Burden of Dreams (a wild look at the insanity that was the production of his fellow director and friend...
V-Spot: No Place for Your O-Face
Dear Yana, I recently had an ~interesting~ first sexual encounter with a man. We had been talking for a couple weeks and it was our second date, and it was all going pretty well. So far we seem to connect pretty well on an intellectual level and there was some great...
The Beerhunter: A Crafty New Crop
Stone Cow Brewing helps keep an old dairy farm going Massachusetts used to be covered in dairy farms. But industries change with the times. “You can’t really make it in New England solely as a dairy farmer anymore,” says Sean DuBois. “Wholesale milk prices have really...
Stagestruck — Fall Harvest: A Bumper Crop of Valley Shows
At the end of summer, there’s a pause before the fall season unfolds — or rather, explodes. Suddenly, this weekend and next there’s a bumper crop of shows in an abundance of Valley venues. By my count, no fewer than seven productions are on hand — 21 if you count the...
Basemental: Smartyr Packs Political Punches in its Short Punky Songs
Stretched between Brattleboro and Northampton, a new band, Smartyr, has come on the scene. I kept running into Chad, the main singer, at shows starting last summer. He had left behind his New Haven, CT-based band, The Chore Boys, and moved to Northampton. Every time I...
Down to Earth: Are Maples Next On Climate Change’s Chopping Block?
No living being on this Earth symbolizes my childhood and its joys more clearly than the maple. In my backyard as a child, my favorite climbing tree was a slender sugar maple right at the farthest edge of the back woods. I’d shimmy up the branches and feel the tree...
Cinemadope: Films Fulfilling Three Kinds of Dread
It’s October in New England, and that means it’s time for some annual traditions. Some are timeless, passed down through the generations—apple picking, hayrides—while others are more recent, and hopefully less long-lasting—the inane back and forth bickering of the...
Valley V-Spot: Facing Jelly as a Poly
Hi Yana, I’m newly in a poly triangle with two dear friends. We’re all very open about how we view partnership and love in all forms, and I didn’t hold any jealousy for their relationship until recently. Before I was a part of the relationship I wasn’t at all jealous...
Stagestruck: “Tuna” on Wry − Lake Wobegon, Texas-style
One way to put a big play on a small stage and stay on budget is by having two actors play all the parts. In Silverthorne Theater Company’s current offering, that’s not a cost-cutting shortcut, it’s the key concept. Greater Tuna, playing this weekend and next,...
Valley Show Girl: The Neon Oxen
On the first fall evening that actually felt like fall I walk into the 13th Floor Music Lounge in Florence just in time to catch soundcheck for the first band, Holyoke’s stoner psych-rock, Oxen. Let’s take a trip down memory lane. Oxen’s first EP The Glass...
Monte Belmonte Wines – Cooler Than You: Portuguese Wines
What’s a hipster’s favorite wine grape varietal? I mean, it’s wicked obscure, you’ve probably never heard of it. I’ve adapted one of my favorite hipster jokes to highlight one of the still obscure, I-knew-these-wines-before-they-sold-out regions: Portugal. Portugal as...
The V-Spot: Healing an Ex-Shaped Hole in the Heart
It’s been over a year now since I got my heart stomped by my ex-girlfriend. We were together for 11 years and our relationship ended very badly. Even after such a long term relationship, I’m still pretty young — in my mid-30s — and I’m pretty sure I’m a catch. But,...
Cinemadope: Dick Pics
It would be unfair to the memory of Philip K. Dick to say that he’s having a resurgence. The author, who passed away at the age of 53 in 1982, has been more visible than usual of late thanks to a few headline grabbing adaptations, most notably the sci-fi sequel Blade...
‘E’-asy Come.. ‘E’-asy Go: The Big E’s final weekend and more
Still haven’t secured your Maine baked spud or lobster-laden Mac N’ Cheese from the New Hampshire building? Better hurry. Its almost time to shepherd the Clydesdales back into the trailers and put the burlap sacks of the Giant Slide in mothballs. But that...
O Cannabis: A How-To Guide to Harvesting Weed
You can smell fall in the air — and in Massachusetts the aroma is a lot danker than usual. This October will mark the first major outdoor weed harvest since people ages 21 and up were given the green light to legally grow marijuana in Massachusetts on Dec. 15, 2016....
The V-Spot: Real Sex-ed for Students
I recently moved into my aunt’s house, and I now live with my 16-year-old female cousin. Being in her life now makes me realize that I can give her advice on her first relationships and her first love … possibly. When I was 16, I wish I could have had someone in...
Cinemadope: Northampton Film Fest
Even though the town has lacked a dedicated movie house for more than five years, Northampton has continued to find ways to bring film to area moviegoers. Cinema Northampton has done a fine job of scheduling its fun, community-focused, outdoor movie nights, screening...
Stream Queen: Shows and Films to Lose Your Sanity To
For all the amazing potential of life, sometimes things just suck. In times of confusion and desolation, we often turn to art. Maybe we want to use fictional problems to understand our own real ones, or maybe we just want to turn something on as a distraction. Hard...
Basemental: Water Your Waiting For
Last Monday, I reluctantly went to a house show in Hadley. I was going ’cause my friends were going — probably, but I was also vaguely interested in seeing some band from Minnesota that was supposed to be good. Honestly, I had radically low expectations. I saw the...
Stagestruck: Culture Clashes on the Border and on the Island
Two plays in the Valley this weekend couldn’t be more different but at the same time so close to the bone of our current national crisis of xenophobia and identity. Building the Wall, in Northampton, is a tense confrontation that touches on today’s headlines and then...
Valley Show Girl: Millpond.live Hosts Music Under the Stars
For the last six weekends of summer, Millpond.Live puts on a free grassroots festival at Millside Park in Easthampton for all ages to enjoy. Produced by Laudable Productions, a creative agency in Easthampton that has a plethora of services including community...
The V-Spot: Is My Romance Dead?
I know your column is mainly about sex, but for me, it’s all about the romance. I’ve been struggling for decades to balance my love of flowers, dancing, and candlelight with my love of a husband who struggles with intimacy (for good reasons) and who promises me these...
Stagestruck: Summer Theater Wrap Party, in Living Color
The area’s summer theaters have folded their metaphorical tents for the year, though three of the Berkshire companies are also mounting fall shows. For this critic, it was a Sergio Leone season: good, bad, and occasionally ugly. (An example of the extremes —...
Cinemadope: Missing the Warm and Fuzzies?
At the Headfort School in Kells, Ireland, two of the school’s most popular teachers are getting ready to retire. The husband and wife team have been educating and inspiring children for almost half a century, and their example — and what the possibility of their...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Don’t Blame the Cat
Bordeaux: It’s the wine capital of the world. Even Thomas Jefferson, while keeping busy hypocritically impeding people’s lives and liberties, pursued wine happiness there. When most people think of Bordeaux, they think, “Dude, how the hell am I supposed to pronounce...
Basemental: The Ups and Downs of Touring
I used to think touring was excessive, stupid, and generally felt existentially conflicted about it. Why should I leave the house and use fossil fuels to do anything that’s trivial? Why should we impose our music on these seemingly nice people when there’s so much...
Hidden Figures in the Silent Sky
When Robert Freedman tells people about Silent Sky, the play he directs this weekend at the Shea Theater, they often think he’s talking about Hidden Figures, the recent movie about black women mathematicians who worked as “computers” for NASA in the 1960s. But, he...
The Beerhunter: The Imperial Strikes Back
Earlier this year, I reached into a friend’s beer fridge to grab something light and refreshing before heading outdoors for a hike (as far as I understand the rules, writing this column gives me free access to everyone’s beer). That afternoon’s chatter distracted me,...
Stream Queen: All Breasts Are the Best
Some documentaries exist to tackle big-picture issues, while others hone in on life’s finer details. The Breast Archives, by local director Meagan Murphy, attempts both tasks at once, as the film delves into the world of feminist body politics vis-a-vis the breasts....
Cinemadope: Musical Bandits Plan Their Escape Tour
When September hits, the kids head back to school — and for film fans, that can be a great thing. One of the many film events that are hosted on area campuses is The German Film Series, presented by the Amherst College department of German on irregular Thursdays in...
Down to Earth: The Science Is Clear on Climate Change
During the summer 12 years ago, I interned at Science News, a national magazine that reports on science for the public. As a young and inexperienced writer, part of my reporting included visiting the offices of my more experienced colleagues to ask them what good...
Northampton’s ‘Beefcake’ Scandal
Fifty-seven years ago this month, agents of the Anti-Smut Unit of the Massachusetts State Police raided the Northampton apartment of Smith College literature professor Newton Arvin and discovered copies of “beefcake” magazines he had collected and shared with friends....
The V-Spot: IPAs Run My Sex Life
Editor’s Note: This column refers to sexual trauma responses. Hi Yana, My girlfriend and I have been together for four months, but lately I’ve been noticing we’ve only been having sex when we’re drinking. Nothing to put consent into question for either of us, of...
New Column: Monte Belmonte Wines
You are reading a wine column that was written by a non-expert: a rank novice who has never worked in the wine industry, or the restaurant industry; who has never been to France (outside of Charles de Gaulle) or to California (outside of L.A.); and who, frankly, has...
Third Eye Roaming: So Over THE Yoga Body
Google yoga images and you’ll find a sea of thin, white women who look as if the road rises to greet them. Their bodies are ideologically perfect. Their yoga attire and accessories are meticulous. They are serene and smiling. Gee — if they’re so perfect, then do they...
Valley Show Girl: Watching Punk Docs at Home
Sometimes you wanna make it out to a show, but let’s face it life happens. Maybe you’re sick, or you can’t find a babysitter, or that snowstorm that’s fast approaching cancels everything and you are stuck inside. Have no fear! Documentaries galore are here! If you’re...
The V-Spot: Too Many Orgasms and Leg Cramps
I have a little bit of a problem that most people wouldn’t consider a problem, so there aren’t a lot of resources for me. I am extremely orgasmic. Now, of course, I’m grateful for this and all, but it’s to the point that I usually come like 10-plus times during...
Cinemadope: CAAAAAN’T Miss this one
For all its ham-fistedness, the world of Star Trek has done an impressive job of putting important issues in front of its audience over the years. And while the first series was set sometime in the 2200s, it all began, in our world, during the late 1960s — and Star...
Basemental: DIY All-Stars: Experimental Audio Damage & Research Control Groop
I kept hearing that Ian (Thee Arcadians) and Androo (ex-Spirit Ghost, Nancy Drool) would disappear into different basements and jam on one chord for hours at a time. The roommates tolerated it (within reason), the neighbors were never “chill” to begin with. But that...
Cinemadope: Whose Streets? Life in Ferguson after fatal shooting of unarmed, black teen by white officer
One of the more disturbing things about cinema is the establishment of who is a hero and who is a villain. Most often this looks like a white man taking down a non-white man. The specifics may change with the era — from the villain being African-American to South...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: ‘Horror Express’
Allll aboard! Welcome to the Trans-Siberian express. I hope your journey is a pleasant one. Try not to be bothered by the marauding yeti in the baggage department. A bit of background may be in order so you can properly appreciate your trip. Spanish director Eugenio...
Craving Cool Independent Films/TV Online? Check Out Seed & Spark
In this ever-expanding world of streaming platforms, it can be difficult to look outside the Big Three: Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Viewers mainly feel constrained to these options because of their connections with major networks, their buying power for big-name...
O Cannabis! : Puff Or Pass? Best and Worst Rolling Papers for Your Weed
Rolling papers and Rodney Dangerfield have long had a lot in common: they didn’t get no respect. But as marijuana’s cultural cachet has risen, so too have the quality and variety of smoking equipment. The humble rolling paper has been elevated to prestige level with...
The V-Spot: My BF Won’t Go Down on Me
Hi Yana, My boyfriend refuses to go down on me. As a bisexual woman who has been in long term relationships with women, it’s something I miss. I bring it up and he gets defensive about it. I’m always down to give the blow jobs and don’t believe in not doing so just...
Cinemadope: Human Smuggling Just to Get By
Shelburne Falls Pothole Pictures continues its summer movie series with something frosty: a screening of Frozen River. This 2008 film, written and directed by Courtney Hunt, was the hit of the festival circuit when it debuted, winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance...E-Edition
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