Columns
by Jennifer Levesque | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Music, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
A couple of weeks ago on The Still’s Instagram page they posted a beautiful picture of a mint julep. I’ve never had one, but always wanted to try the drink simply because that’s what they drank in The Great Gatsby. So, when I saw that The Greys were playing at The...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
I’m a bisexual woman and I’m the third wheel to a married bisexual male couple. We’ve been dating for about a year-and-a-half and so far things have been running pretty smoothly. We see each other two or three times a week for dates, group sex, and just regular...
by Advocate Staff | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The Pour Man
The rosé season is upon us, and a glass of Laurent Miquel’s Pere et Fils pale-pink wine is an excellent choice for welcoming warmer weather or enjoying while sitting on the porch and watching the sunset. Although Provence is France’s premier region for rosé, this dry,...
by Jack Brown | May 8, 2017 | Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film, News, Newsletter
For such a rich subject, films about art and the people that make it all too often feel either forced and flat or ridiculously over the top. Better, usually, to take the documentary route, and let the art speak for itself. That’s the course taken by directors Timothy...
by Will Meyer and Nellie Prior | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, News, Newsletter
You may know Amber Wolfe. She fronted the “speakeasy, post-apocalyptic band,” O You Villain, books shows at Amherst Coffee, and is a veteran of the Institute for Musical Arts, where she found “some of the foremothers of local music.” Despite strong roots here in the...
by Blaise Majkowski | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Blaise's Bad Movie Guide, Columns, Film, Music, Newsletter
I was saddened when I heard the news that Paul O’Neil, the founder of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, had died. It seems my favorite bands have either passed away (the Ramones, the Cramps), or are eligible for AARP but continue to stumble on. In addition to Sparks and...
by Naila Moreira | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News, Newsletter
The very schools we depend on to educate our children could be making them less smart. Drinking water in schools across Massachusetts, including here in the Pioneer Valley, has been found to contain lead significantly exceeding safety standards. Lead exposure,...
by Hunter Styles | May 8, 2017 | Columns, Featured, Newsletter, The Beerhunter
In beer, as in life, context matters. If you crash a friend’s wedding in basketball shorts, you may be riding that easygoing reputation of yours a little too far. Conversely, if you’re mowing your lawn on a hot day, and you decide to dress up your lunch break by...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Editor’s Note: This column addresses rape, childhood sexual abuse, PTSD, and sexual orientation as a symptom of trauma. I’m in my late teens and have identified as gay/queer for the last few years. I have dated/hooked up with a few non-binary folks and trans guys, but...
by Jennifer Levesque | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
The nostalgia of Pearl Street in Northampton always brings back so many MMM’s (magical music memories) from my past. The way the street light illuminates that bend in the road where the tour buses usually line up is always a happy trigger for me. We can hear the...
by Jack Brown | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
In the world of film, it is sometimes depressingly simple to point out why a given film is popular: perfectly groomed stars with gleaming teeth, things going boom, good over evil. I get it — we are, by and large, easy to please, and that’s okay. It’s just not that...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
I recently began a polyamorous relationship with my girlfriend. We dated previously, but things didn’t work out due to extenuating circumstances, but we remained friends. We’ve recently gotten back together with a different foundation to the relationship. She...
by Lena Wilson | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, News, Stream Queen
It’s nearly time to kick off Pride season with Noho Pride (see the Advocate’s Guide to Pride), where LGBT Valley citizens will be able to celebrate our identities and our history as we process down Main Street in a sea of rainbow. The parade, which will take...
by Warren Johnston | Apr 30, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Food + Booze, The Pour Man
Bread & Butter Chardonnay, 2015; Napa, California; $14.99 Bread & Butter Chardonnay is among the top-selling super premium wines in the country — and there’s a good reason for that. It’s a dry, white wine that is flavorful, well-crafted and sells for a...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Film, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Back in the day — way, way back — live radio drama was a staple of the airwaves. As script-toting actors gathered around microphones, their dialogue was peppered with live sound effects, backed by a live band and punctuated with live commercial breaks, often with a...
by Jack Brown | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
While the idea of a “mockumentary” now seems almost old-hat, in 1984 director Rob Reiner gave birth to the zany medium. His ridiculously entertaining satire about life on the road with aging, British metal band Spinal Tap during their American comeback tour was mostly...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, The V-Spot, Wellness
Writer’s note: This column mentions depression and suicidality. When me and my BF first got together about a year and a half ago, we were having the best sex of our lives! Then I decided with the help of my therapist that I needed to be medicated due to suicidal...
by Will Meyer | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Newsletter
Editor’s note: Bella Ortia-Wren uses they/their pronouns. Bella Ortia-Wren, who goes by just “Bella” on stage, plays a blue Fender Mustang, a small-bodied guitar with single coil pickups, that sounds shimmery and crisp through a few hot-tempered distortion boxes....
by Jennifer Levesque | Apr 17, 2017 | Columns, Featured, Music, News, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
After a full day of sitting inside a dankly weed-scented office — we did a photo shoot of some nuggets for this 4/20 issue — my first thought walking into The Root Cellar in Greenfield for an experimental show is “damn this place smells good” … and familiar. I’m...
by Lena Wilson | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
It’s 4/20, and whether you consider today a national holiday or just a chance to gather some friends and smoke, you’ll probably end up watching something. Thankfully, now that it’s no longer the ’70s, stoners can open Netflix or YouTube and watch something unique and...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Over the past year, I’ve thought a lot about my sexuality. Recently, I came across the term “heteroflexible” and immediately, I felt like I identified with it more than any other sexual orientation I previously knew about. However, I continue to feel invalidated by my...
by Jack Brown | Apr 18, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Newsletter
TED talks — the bite-sized presentations given at the organization’s annual Technology, Education, and Design conference — have become an oddly popular cultural phenomenon. At once elitist and public-spirited (a standard conference membership will run you 10 grand,...
by Warren Johnston | Apr 17, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The Pour Man
In the world of wine, Domaine La Manarine is a relatively minor player — about 89 acres of vines, 60,000 bottles of wine a year — and that’s a good thing. Good, because the wines made there by owner Gilles Gasq are well-crafted and a great value, and they reflect the...
by Will Meyer | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Music
On the road with The Sun Parade From the streets of Nashville I called Lynne Bertrand, who manages the Northampton band The Sun Parade. There was a problem.I had stopped by the venue earlier and noticed the sign outside said they were going first. This wasn’t going to...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot
I started masturbating when I was in high school and there would be times where something would feel good, but then I would feel my muscles relax and suddenly my bed would be wet with pee — sometimes a lot of pee. It was like in certain positions I had no control over...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Food Booze and Beyond, The Beerhunter
Two worthwhile breweries off exit 9 The naturalist John Muir once observed that “when one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” I’m no bearded environmental philosopher, but I do like to kick back with a pint sometimes and...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Stage, Stagestruck
It seems that lately, every time I go to a play — or a movie, for that matter — it gets me thinking about Donald Trump. Ever since he and his goon squad have taken over in Washington, I’ve noticed that so much of what we see and create seems newly topical and timely....
by Jack Brown | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
Maine Course Like so many of my middle-aged compatriots, I seem to have adopted food as a new hobby. Not cooking, necessarily — quite a bit of this particular enterprise is taken up simply by watching other people cook, it turns out — but eating, at least. And what...
by Naila Moreira | Apr 10, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News, Newsletter
We tell stories to know who we are. Speaking our own stories, we rediscover ourselves. And by hearing and identifying with one another’s journeys, we discover and reach each other, too. My world — my story — is one of science. I birdwatch. I teach students how to...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Movies are not my beat, but I often go to the theater at the Amherst Cinema. The ongoing National Theatre Live series of big-screen, high-def broadcasts from the London stage is a staple of my playgoing schedule. This month and next, the cinema screens encores of five...
by Lena Wilson | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
In our world of studio filmmaking driven by franchises and sequels, creators looking to develop original ideas are often restricted to independent production. While indie filmmaking means working on a shoestring budget, it also often means the cast and crew are...
by Jennifer Levesque | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
A Woman Alive As I walked into Gateway City Arts in Holyoke for the first time, I came to a dead stop to admire the factory-style architecture. The ceilings are very high, with a huge industrial ceiling fan staring down. The large stage was lit up awaiting performers,...
by Jack Brown | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
One of my favorite discoveries from the last year was Documentary Now!, a wonderfully endearing mix of parody and love letter to the modern documentary genre. Originally created for the IFC channel — I first ran across it on Netflix, where you can still check out the...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
I have a few questions about monogamy. I guess, part of it stemming from a recent post I saw on your Instagram — @the_vspot — about “The Relationship Escalator,” polyamory, and monogamy. In my last partnership, my partner and I were very intentional about not falling...
by Warren Johnston | Apr 3, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Food Booze and Beyond, Newsletter, The Pour Man
Les Hauts de Lagarde, Rouge Bordeaux, France; 2015. $12.99This is a period of transition on many fronts. There still may be snow on the ground and temperatures in the teens, but the warm spring sun is a clear signal that it’s time to start trimming down, putting...
by Jack Brown | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter
Hurt Feelings A few weeks back I found myself with a rare night off — the kids asleep early, the house somehow clean, the bills already paid. I was scrolling through my various Netflix queues when a familiar title popped up: V for Vendetta, the Wachowskis’ 2005...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
WAM Theatre exists on two levels: to produce work that foregrounds women playwrights and performers, and to tangibly support, with a portion of ticket sales, organizations that work to better the lives of women and girls. Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her...
by Gary Carra | Mar 28, 2017 | Columns, Nightcrawler
Panic! at the Disco ushering in new era of arena rockers; Dio-alum laden Last In Line headline ‘Hump Day’ show in Holyoke It’s a frequent exchange between those who once swung Bics to-and-fro during power ballads and teased their hair so high they...
by Will Meyer | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Music, Newsletter
How a fictional psychdrone collective from Berlin took form in Greenfield In 2015, a real writer and real College of the Atlantic professor named Daniel Mahoney published a real book called Sunblind Almost Motorcrash. In it, he wrote fictional reviews of imaginary...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food Booze and Beyond, News, Newsletter, O Cannabis!
Now that marijuana is legal, the perception of the drug is changing. We’re on the road of cannabis no longer being thought of as some seedy contraband in a sandwich bag tossed through a car window to potheads, but a varied, quality — and dare I say, refined —...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 27, 2017 | Articles, Columns, News, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
My boyfriend and I have been together for two years and we’re best friends. Mutual respect exists in almost every way between us. Sometimes, however, the sex feels, well, sexist. First, he enjoys watching porn together, but I really don’t. However, he always tries to...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 21, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
The story goes that Samuel Beckett was walking through a London park with a friend on a glorious spring morning when his companion exclaimed, “Isn’t this just the kind of day that makes you glad to be alive?” To which Beckett replied, “Oh, I don’t think I’d go that...
by Jennifer Levesque | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
A couple weeks ago I picked up Echoes of the Dying Light by local metal titans, Disguise the Curse. “Holy shit, this is amazing,” I said to myself while drumming on my steering wheel with the music blasting through my car speakers. Produced by Chris Daniele at Yucky...
by Lena Wilson | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
Whether or not Western Mass has gotten the meteorological memo, we’ve officially sprung forward. That means it’s time to emerge from hibernation, put on our rubber gloves, and get ready for some spring cleaning. In my case, I’ve decided to dust off some groundbreaking...
by Amanda Drane | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, Newsletter, Third Eye Roaming, Wellness
Mary Kennedy of Northfield says she could barely move her neck before she began taking yoga with Pam Roberts at the YMCA in Greenfield about six years ago.Kennedy, a breast cancer survivor living with torticollis, a painfully twisted neck, says yoga has at times saved...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
I recently saw a guy friend masturbating with lotion instead of lube and was wondering if lube would be a better alternative for him. If so, could you explain why? — A Little Help for My Masturbating Friends One of my favorite conversations to strike up with my...
by Jack Brown | Mar 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film
The annual Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival returns Now in its twelfth year, the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival (PVJFF) has long been a wonderful part of the Valley’s plentiful film offerings. Carefully curated, the festival screens films big and small,...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 12, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
On the first page of Fiona Kyle’s dramaturgical notes for Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9, at Hartford Stage through March 19, is a photo of Margaret Thatcher. The next page features the less- recognizable face of Cecil Rhodes. He was the epitome of 19th-century British...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Talk about prejudice… Without knowing anything about the play, I walked into a rehearsal of Sweet, Sweet Spirit last week and made some snap judgments that turned out to be quite wrong. The play, which receives its regional premiere next weekend at the Academy of...
by Lena Wilson | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter, Stream Queen
There are a lot of zippy phrases floating around right now that blur the concept of journalistic integrity — “fake news,” “alternative facts,” “White House press secretary Sean Spicer” — but in the film world, objectivity and performance coalesce into a kind of...
by Will Meyer | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Pavement certainly planted some type of “slacker” flag in the 90s. Whether or not they were the original “slackers” — they weren’t — is irrelevant, but that label has often evoked that band. Today the same label, certainly a compelling angle for write-ups, is attached...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
I recently started dating somebody who ticks nearly all of the “right” boxes for me. This is the first time since breaking up with my sweetheart of over two years that I’ve felt this way, and it’s really exciting. There’s only one hiccup: He prefers...
by Jack Brown | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
Talk about the American Dream, and one of the first things that will likely come up is the idea of owning your own home. To be sure, having a house of one’s own brings with it a host of benefits — if you have kids, for instance, cleaning all those rooms every day...
by Warren Johnston | Mar 13, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Food + Booze, Food Booze and Beyond, Newsletter, The Pour Man
Lunetta Prosecco is one of the hottest sparkling wine brands on the American market, and there’s a good reasonta why — it’s well-made, inexpensive and widely available, an excellent wine to celebrate. It also is lower than many wines in alcohol, about 11.5 percent, so...
by Jennifer Levesque | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Valley Show Girl
I consider myself a musical schizophrenic. I can get into just about any genre you put in front of me — especially if it’s live. I may not be a musician, but music has been a passionate subject for me for as long as I can remember. One of the first local shows I went...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food Booze and Beyond, Newsletter, The Beerhunter
Local homebrewer Josh Britton scales up with a low-key launch On quiet winter days between reports of Valley craft beer happenings, your friendly neighborhood Beerhunter has been wandering a bit further afield. Over the past few months, I’ve written articles about my...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Some of those leaving the American Repertory Theater’s current production must be surprised and baffled, not to mention disappointed. On my way out of the Cambridge theater on opening night, I overheard a man asking, “Why did James Earl Jones have such a small part?”...
by Jack Brown | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Film, Newsletter
Over the last few months, it has become impossible to ignore the rising tides of xenophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry and hatred that have suddenly made America a much scarier place for so many of those who call it home. Of course, these prejudices aren’t...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 6, 2017 | Articles, Columns, The V-Spot, Wellness
I’m in a happy, long-distance monogam-ish relationship with the human of my dreams. Really; things are so good. This is my first time having an open relationship, and I think we talk through things really well and effectively. He has several partners — all of which...
by Jack Brown | Feb 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film, Newsletter
We Americans are a nostalgic bunch. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just that we are still such a young nation — there are Italian cafes that are older than our whole country — that we like to fool ourselves into thinking we have more history than we do. Or maybe, when...
