Columns
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...
Valley Show Girl: Music That Got Me Through White Supremacy News
The white supremacy horror show that happened earlier this month in Charlottesville really got to me. That Sunday, I barely left my bed. I mainly watched stupid chick flicks to occupy my mind with less meaningful things. After dinner however, I took my 6-year old son...
Stagestruck: Angels & Obsessions at NT Live
If there is a genuine epic in American drama − its ideas as expansive as its scope − it is surely Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s two-part, eight-hour “gay fantasia on national themes.” And if there is a consummate example of cross-disciplinary provenance on the...
V-Spot: How Do I Make My Orgasms Come Back?
Dear Yana, I’m a single woman in my late twenties, with no relationships on the horizon. But that’s OK, because I have a super intense, cordless Hitachi that I’m in love with. Problem is, recently, whenever I have attempted to reach orgasm, it never comes. I get the...
Nightcrawler: Ringo’s son assumes throne for The Who
The Who certainly aren’t kids anymore, but the iconic British rockers proved more than alright as they absolutely tore through a 21-tune, hit-laden set before a capacity crowd at Mohegan Sun (mohegansun.com) late last month. Catalog spanning radio staples like “I...
Stagestruck: Two Women, Intimate dramas explore shifting connections
A pair of two-handers, playing through this month and just next weekend respectively, examine intimate, intricate relationships between women. Harbor Stage Company, one of the region’s most reliably stimulating summer theaters, premieres its adaption of a cinema...
Basemental: Nanny’s ‘Nowhere’ Reviewed
I first caught Nanny at the 13th Floor in Northampton this past March; one of my bands was sharing a bill with them. Earlier this summer, I saw them again and had that feeling I was starting to grasp the songs. It wasn’t long before I learned a debut EP was right...
Cinemadope: Actor-in-Chief, Reagan forever changed the role of US President (Spoiler! Not for the Better)
With the ongoing avalanche of reporting on Russia and that nation’s relationship with our current president, it feels almost quaint to look back on the days of the Reagan era. Certainly there was international intrigue then, but today, the jelly beans and faux...
Stagestruck: Ending on a Laugh
New Century Theatre is closing its summer season as it began — with “a full-out comedy,” as director Sam Rush puts it. This one is The 39 Steps, a jokey reconstruction of Alfred Hitchcock’s epic 1935 thriller. Or perhaps I should say deconstruction, since it’s...
Basemental: Nanny’s “Nowhere” Is Vulnerable Grunge Rock Not To Be Missed
I first caught Nanny at the 13th Floor in Northampton this past March; one of my bands was sharing a bill with them. Earlier this summer, I saw them again and had that feeling I was starting to grasp the songs. It wasn’t long before I learned a debut EP was right...
Cinemadope: How Reagan Forever Changed The Presidency
With the ongoing avalanche of reporting on Russia and that nation’s relationship with our current president, it feels almost quaint to look back on the days of the Reagan era. Certainly there was international intrigue then, but today, the jelly beans and faux...
Stream Queen: Movies And Shows The Critics Got Wrong
Since its inception in the late 19th century, film has evolved from a seemingly trivial medium into one of the most wide-reaching and popular industries. Film criticism has grown right along with it, as academic and journalistic reviewers endlessly argue over film’s...
Stagestruck: Old-Fashioned Fun
The Fitzpatrick Mainstage on the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Stockbridge campus is the site of what I’m told is the country’s oldest continuously operating summer theater. For 89 years the building, converted from a former casino in 1928 by Broadway star Eva Le...
Stagestruck: ‘This’ Drama as Sitcom Is ‘Too Snappy, Too Loud’
This is the title of the play now running at Barrington Stage Company (through August 27). But it might be more accurately called This and That. Melissa James Gibson’s script is a grab-bag of seriocomic situations, satirical barbs and personal anguish that harks back...
V-Spot: My Doc Won’t Give Me A Vasectomy!
Hi Yana, What can we do to build our case to hesitant doctors to perform vasectomies on young people (between 18-25 years old)? What would you recommend to someone interested in this procedure? I have been trying to get my GP (general practitioner) on board since my...
Stagestruck: A List Of Things To Live For in ‘Every Brilliant Thing’
Everyone needs something to live for. Some of us have a harder time finding it than others. Much harder. So … if you’re a young child and your mom has just tried to kill herself, what can you do about it? Well, you could give her a list of everything that makes the...
The Beerhunter: Roadtrip to The Hudson Valley
The thing to remember about summer in the Valley — aside from which SPF to use and which local farm stands sell the best corn — is that it will be over before you know it. Sure, the swimming holes don’t really warm up until September, and the cows at Cook Farm gamely...
Valley Show Girl: A Jam Session in the Forest With Staind Singer Aaron Lewis
Staind. Remember them? I think at one point in our late-’90s lives we were all blasting “Tormented” or “Dysfunction” and relating to the ultra-sensitive alternative rock that was birthed right here in the Valley. Well, times have changed, and people change. Aaron...
One Good Tern Deserves Another; Saving The Birds One Nest At A Time
One favorable consequence of always carrying binoculars in plain view is that they help create an international citizenry of nature lovers. I’ve just returned from a trip to England visiting family. There, we camped in the chilly, Scotland-like region of northeast...
Pour Man: This Fair Trade Wine Might Be The Cheapest Thing At Your Co-op
Riojana; Rosé, 2016; La Rioja, Argentina, $6.99 Not only is Riojana rosé a very good wine that sells for an incredibly low price, but it is also a wine that you can feel good about drinking. Riojana wines are produced by La Riojana, a certified Fairtrade cooperative...
Stagestruck: Chekhov in Middle School – WTF…
What is it with all the Chekhov parodies? Just this summer Silverthorne Theater Company gave us Stupid Fucking Bird, Aaron Posner’s metatheatrical riff on The Seagull. There’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Christopher Durang’s Uncle Vanya mashup. And last year...
V-Spot: A Question From The Mono-Poly Guy
Hi Yana, I always thought of myself as a monogamous person who sometimes dabbled with non-monogamy, but lately I’ve really been struggling to determine just what my “relationship paradigm” is. It started when I was in a non-mono relationship that transitioned to a...
Cinemadope: It Takes Two To Go Down In A Bloody Shootout
For as long as stories have been told, they have been told about pairs: Odysseus and Penelope, Arthur and Merlin, Bugs and Elmer. It’s a rare tale that doesn’t focus, in some way, on that essential human desire to connect. It can bring us to ecstasy or despair —...
Cinemadope: Summer Cinema Slam in Brattleboro
Summer Cinema Slam 2017 is taking place at the New England Youth Theater in Brattleboro this Saturday night. Featuring an all-Vermont slate of films and artists — the bill includes four shorts and one hour-long feature, with musical act Hungrytown providing ambiance...
Stagestruck: This Weekend Features ‘Slowgirl’ and ‘Doctor Doolitte’
Two small-scale productions playing in the area this weekend have one thing in common. They both take place in the jungle. Apart from that, they couldn’t be more different. Slowgirl traces a tentative, emotionally fraught encounter between a motormouth teenager and...
Stagestruck: History as a Living Weapon at Double Edge
A highlight of my summer theater season is always the magical change of pace afforded by Double Edge Theatre’s annual indoor/outdoor performance. This year, that peripatetic spectacle offers its own change of pace. Where previous seasons have given us captivating...
The V-Spot: How Do I End a Perfectly Fine Relationship?
How does one respectfully remove themselves from a relationship that in fact does not have any huge problems? I’m with a righteous man who checks a lot of boxes but doesn’t get me excited. I enjoy his company, we have a great time and do a lot of cultural things. The...
The Pour Man: The Sheep Eat The Grape Skins So You Don’t Have To
Don’t let the price of this wine put you off. It’s a bit expensive for my purse too, but it frequently goes on sale for much less, and it is an excellent and well-balanced New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc that won’t drown you with overpowering grapefruit flavors or aromas...
Stagestruck: Animal Behavior – An Albee Prequel in Stockbridge
At the beginning of At Home at the Zoo, Ann appears from the kitchen and says to her husband Peter, “We have to talk.” Then they talk for an hour, and by the time Peter leaves their apartment to have a quiet read in Central Park, we know a lot more about him than we...
Stagestruck: Hitting the Nail – New Century’s heroic truths
I’ll get right to the point: Hold These Truths, at New Century Theatre, is possibly the most important play of the summer, with certainly one of the season’s most exhilarating performances. It’s not only searingly suggestive of our current national crisis, but is a...
Stagestruck: Gladrags and Ragtime at Shakespeare & Company
Intimate Apparel is all about fabrics. The silky fabrics draping the figures of elegant Gilded Age matrons and the coarser fabrics worn by their servants, delineating both economic and social standing. The deceptively comfortable fabrics covering the women’s corsets,...
Stagestruck: Taking Steps to Hilarity at Barrington Stage
The classic sex farce is set in a large room with about half a dozen doors, in and out of which pop guilty lovers, jealous spouses and other staples of the genre, and behind which most of the shenanigans real and suspected take place. Alan Ayckbourne’s classic Taking...
Stagestruck: Dancing on the Edge at Jacob’s Pillow With Akash Odedra
The two mainstage programs at Jacob’s Pillow dance festival last week offered intriguing contrasts in modern dance envelope-pushing. And perhaps surprisingly, it was the simpler, solo show that delivered more variety and excitement. Aakash Odedra is an Englishman of...
StreamQueen: Indie Films Coming Off the Festival Circuit You’ve Gotta See
Though digital media has forever changed the face of filmmaking, there’s still one key way independent filmmakers can premiere their work: by entering it into the festival circuit. Each year many films, spanning all lengths and genres, debut to those lucky minority...
O, Cannabis: Getting Into The Weeds On Massachusetts’ Pot Bill
We’re no Nevada, but last week Massachusetts took two rippin’ steps toward weed legalization and protection in the state. First the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a business cannot fire an employee for being a medical marijuana patient — a decision...
Cinemadope: That Time the MoMA Refused to Return Nazi-Stolen Art
My first exposure to Egon Schiele came via Deane G. Keller, an artist and professor whose figure drawing classes remain one of my most lasting memories of art school. We had been working on some hand studies when he suggested I might enjoy the Austrian artist’s work,...
V-Spot: Your Campfire Sex Life
I love reading all of your stuff. I was wondering if you had any advice on getting back into a sexual relationship. My partner and I have been together for over four years and our sex has fizzled out a bit. I think now we feel really nervous about it and don’t know...
Valley Show Girl: Soundtracking Life with Eddie Japan
Ahead of their show at the Iron Horse, I plug my purple Skull Candies into my ears, and click play on the intro track to Eddie Japan’s Golden Age. The sound of static pulls me in, reminding me of vinyl, so I pretend I’m listening on a record player, not my computer at...
Stagestruck: Opposites Attract in Silverthorne’s Gentle Comedy
Chapatti, now playing at Silverthorne Theater Company, is one of the sweetest comedies about grief, loneliness and suicide I’ve ever seen. The title is unfortunate, even confusing, since Christian O’Reilly’s play takes place in Dublin, not Delhi, and the name has...
O Cannabis: Getting Into The Weeds Of Massachusetts’ Pot Bill
We’re no Nevada, but last week Massachusetts took two rippin’ steps toward weed legalization and protection in the state. First the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a business cannot fire an employee for being a medical marijuana patient — a decision...
Stagestruck: Misfit Millennials – “Speech & Debate” at Barrington Stage
Reid Thompson’s setting for Speech & Debate, now receiving a near-perfect production at Barrington Stage Company, is a high school classroom. Maps and historical posters line the walls and headshots of famous Americans form a frieze above a pair of whiteboards –...
Basemental: Young Musicians Deserve Pay, Too
I’ve played in about a half dozen bands over the past seven years here in the Valley. I’ve played on the steps of my beloved Goodwin Memorial Library in Hadley (for free) and I’ve played The Calvin (for $250); I’ve played countless basements (including “The...
Cinemadope: ‘Wanna-Bes Need Not Apply,’ Documentary on Madonna’s Back-up Voguers
“Wimps and Wanna-Be’s need not apply!” That was the tagline of a print ad announcing an open audition for “FIERCE Male Dancers” who wanted to earn a spot on Madonna’s controversial, ground-breaking Blond Ambition Tour in 1990. It would have been a dream job for any...
Stagestruck: Bare Bard at Shakespeare & Co., Cymbeline Reviewed
Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare’s “romances,” those late works in which comedy blends with tragedy and the endings are neither strewn with corpses nor aclang with wedding bells, but suffused with poignancy and forgiveness. The Tempest is the most popular...
Stagestruck: Wizard of Arrrrrs — PaintBox Theatre
“Oh dear, the Wicked Witch is coming!” cried the Mayor of Munchkin City. “In that case,” responded Good Witch Glinda, “I’ve got to go.” “But why?” asked Dorothy, who was just starting to get used to not being in Kansas anymore. “Because she and I can’t be onstage at...
Stream Queen: Video Soundtrack Of Your Summer
When Queen released their music video for “Bohemian Rhapsody” back in the ‘70s, it’s doubtful they thought the medium would ever become as quintessential as it has today. In this millennium of viral content and streaming video, music videos have become an artist’s...
V-Spot: He’s Afraid to Cuddle
Hi Yana, My partner and I have different sex drives. I could have sex four to six times a week, while he feels more comfortable with about two. In the beginning, we had a lot of sex and I was ecstatic thinking that our sex drives were more matched. Now, not so much. I...E-Edition
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