Columns
Nightcrawler: Weather or Not
Could you be… won’t you be… my neighbor? It’s an indelible marriage of image and song performed daily by Fred Rogers on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood as he shed his business casual attire and slipped into his favorite sweater and sneaks. He was an...
Stagestruck: Read, Not Dead – Valley playwrights’ scripts come to life
For the six members of the Northampton Playwrights Lab whose plays are having staged readings this weekend and next, the performances represent the first public airings of new scripts and newly revised older work. Some are brand new, having received feedback and...
Stagestruck: A Voice of Gladness
If you’re like me, you studied William Cullen Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis” in high school English class, and haven’t given it or its 19th-century author a thought since then. Well, I paid the man and his work a return visit the other day at his hillside homestead,...
The V-Spot: My 2-Minute Orgasm
So, I was masturbating last night and set a timer. It took me under two minutes to orgasm. However, when someone else in involved, it takes forever or doesn’t happen at all. I can count the times it’s happened on two hands.Every time I masturbate it’s like...
Cinemadope: Transitions
When your life seems fairly well set in its ways, change can be hard. Actually, change can be terrifying. You might have a family that you love and a job that you look forward to, and something can still seem not right. Accepting that — in other words, accepting our...
LipBomb: Nice Pin; Patriotism is Action, Not Accessory
A new column by area students on the topics that matter to them most. Want in on this? Email editor Kristin Palpini at editor@valleyadvocate.com. A national flag is a symbol of a country’s history. In the United States, the 13 red and white stripes represent the...
Pour Man: Finally, A Sweet Wine That Delights
When someone suggested that I try MAN Family Wines’ Chenin Blanc, my first reaction was that I don’t like sweet wines. Although Chenin Blanc grapes are often used to make excellent sweet wines in France and elsewhere, I was assured I’d find this South African offering...
At Amherst Cinema: An actor dives into a reporter’s death
There’s a famous scene in Network, Sidney Lumet’s 1976 film about the state of the television industry, in which veteran newsman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), bitter about his impending dismissal in the face of declining ratings, announces to his audience that instead...
Basemental: Streaming music service Spotify is a bust for local artists
Spotty Results I learned some shocking things about Spotify recently. The average employee rakes in $166,000 a year, and the highest executive compensation has increased over 300 percent since 2014, reaching as much as $18.9 million. Despite that, Spotify has never...
The V-Spot: Consent, It’s Not Just for Students
Thankfully, consent is becoming a big topic on college campuses. However, most conversations about consent overfocus on the damaging outcomes of the failure to ask for consent rather than engaging students in learning the benefits of ongoing conversations about...
The Beerhunter: Worcester’s Downtown Breweries
Three Cheers for the Woo The local craft beer movement has taken off in every nook and cranny of Massachusetts, and Worcester is no exception. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, since the city is the second largest in New England, and it sits along pretty much...
Cinemadope: A Queen and Her Kings
A musician’s life is never easy. I’m not talking about those of us who pick up the guitar now and then, or even the many who, long after it becomes clear that they will likely not move beyond the coffee house or bar circuit, still pack up the Volvo to head out for a...
The V-Spot: Help! My Boyfriend Hates My Vagina
Hi Yana,I’m a straight 20-something lady and have been with my boyfriend for two years. We have a great sex life and we’re totally in love! He doesn’t seem to have much of an interest in my vagina — and my vagina, in my mind, is kinda the main thing...
Third Eye Roaming: Body on the Brain, Path to Peace Begins with Yoga at Pioneer Valley Shambalah
Mindfulness, or the practice of being completely aware of everything happening in the present moment, can serve as the path to a peaceful world. That person in your life attacking you? Perhaps it is because they are threatened by you. That man who sexually harasses...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: ‘Call Me Bwana’ crash-lands
Let’s take a trip in the Wayback Machine to the early 1960s. The British company Eon Productions has just been accorded the honor of producing a series of films based on the Ian Fleming James Bond novels, starting with Dr. No. But there’s a catch. The contract says...
The Pour Man: Grand Cru Challenge Accepted; Lucky Us
In the early 1970s when I was first widening my wine experience beyond the California jugs and the Portuguese roses, I discovered a French wine in a 2-liter plastic bottle. It cost about $1.50. It wasn’t very good. It had lots of strange residue in the bottom of the...
Nightcrawler: VIP, Yeah, You Know Me
He is certainly a scene fixture, clocking more than his share of road miles and hours packed in vans. But let’s face it: the guy’s named after a luxury vehicle, not to mention immensely talented. So why wouldn’t a talent buyer tap the Valley’s...
Cinemadope: These New Kid Flicks Aren’t Just For Kids
No Kidding One of the great myths of cinema is that kids movies are for kids. Sure, they might be a bit more brightly colored than most, or hit most of their punch lines a little more on the nose, but never forget that these films are made by grown-ups. Peel back that...
Basemental: Talking Rock and Net Neutrality with Candace Clement
We Buffer, We Suffer Candace Clement has been a been a member of the Northampton band Bunny’s A Swine for eight years. On songs like “Greetings from the Bottom,” her Strat intertwines with Emerson Stevens’ 3-string guitar contraption like a ball of twine, which gets...
The V-Spot: My Sexual ‘A’ is Not a Scarlet Letter
Dear Yana,I was recently discussing your column with some new friends I met through Pioneer Valley Aces, a local group of individuals who identify as aromantic and/or asexual. I wasn’t the only one of us who appreciated your witty way of reassuring those who...
Nightcrawler: Eric Gaffney Plays Free Saturday Show in Florence
Seba-(no)-dough Show Eric Gaffney says sayonara to summer with free Florence show Sebadoh co-founder Eric Gaffney rounds out the Acoustic Saturday Summer Series at JJ’s Tavern in Florence this Saturday, Aug. 27. “I recorded two full-length records in a six...
O, Cannabis! It Could be Worse, healthier ways to consume weed
At a concert — years ago — I was dancing in the front row when the familiar aroma of bright piney buds wafted by. It didn’t take long to find the source; a friendly gorilla finger was passing down the line. A sweaty dude in the neon pink knit cap exhaled a big...
Stagestruck: Last of the Summer Wine
The Valley’s summer theaters have folded their figurative tents, but looking west, the season isn’t quite over. Out toward the Berkshires, five troupes are still up and running through this weekend and beyond. Chester Theatre Company’s season closer is The...
Nightcrawler: Rock the Boot
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Thomas Delmer “Artimus” Pyle comes to the Valley this Saturday, Aug. 20. He’ll be performing with his Artimus Pyle Band and their “ultimate tribute to Ronnie Van Zandt’s Lynyrd Skynyrd” as part of the Rock The Boot Music Fest,...
Cinemadope: On the Road Again
Alien. Blade Runner. Black Hawk Down. The Martian. Over the decades, director Ridley Scott has built a career on making the kinds of films (often with a bit of a sci-fi bent) that combine quiet moments with explosive action. But for me, he will always be first...
Between the Lines: Amherst, We Need to Talk
Another summer, another superintendent for Amherst public schools. Since 2000, the school district has been under the guidance of five superintendents — six if you double count the husband-wife team that ran the schools for under a year. This isn’t normal, and it...
The Beerhunter: Get ‘Em Here — or Nowhere
Compass Pints Four hidden corners of the Valley’s craft beer map Some people have trouble leaving their work at the office. As the Beerhunter, I’ve never really had to contend with that. In fact, if my editor turned around in her swivel chair and saw me...
StageStruck: The Ones That Got Away
I don’t fish. To be frank, I don’t approve of fishing, especially “sport” fishing, since, like hunting, it’s not a sport in the accepted sense, that is, a contest between two equal adversaries playing by the same rules. I don’t understand the outsize thrill folks seem...
Down to Earth: Go Ahead, Watch That Cat Video, an animal bill of rights may depend on it
Very little seems more like a frivolous waste of time than watching cute animal videos on Facebook.But the more I’ve watched them, the more I’ve thought there’s something important, something vital even, that we’re communicating through critter videos — a shift in...
The V-Spot: Women (and Men), Do Your Kegels
Hi Yana,I’m a young undergraduate student and yet I’ve been having issues with bladder control. I’ve been wanting to explore doing more Kegels and have heard of these kegel balls you can get. Do you know anything about that? I want to get a good brand/the right...
The V-Spot: New Pornographer Interested in Sex Ed
Hi Yana! I saw your TEDx talk in Vienna and was copiously taking notes. The content was an eye-opener for me. I had never thought that both of our basic information sources about sex [school-sanctioned sex education and online pornography] are running their very own...
StageStruck: Lifted by Song
So often, music makes all the difference. It not only has those famous savage-breast-soothing charms, it can turn a so-so script into a winner. Take Unexpected Joy, playing through August 20th at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT). This world-premiere musical...
Basemental: New Music from MalYMarco, Dirt Devil, ShowHorses, and Carinae
One of the pitfalls of writing a bi-monthly column is the fact that I can barely scratch the surface of all of the cool stuff that’s happening around the Pioneer Valley. There is so much! This week’s column will serve as an informal catch-up on some new(ish) releases....
Stagestruck: Cabin Fever
It’s such a pleasure to see a play in which language is as important as plot – a play whose dialogue doesn’t simply move the story forward but enriches it. Sister Play, at Chester Theatre Company, is such a gem – an absorbing, what’s-really-going-on narrative powered...
Sisters and Soldiers: New Films This Week
A quiet world, invaded Sometimes it seems like we have always been at war. Whether on a small scale or a world stage, we as a species seem never to tire of hurting each other, and of finding inventive new ways to do it. But perhaps even more depressing than that...
Amherst Cinema Turns Cloak and Dagger
In Vienna Once Quick, name this film: stylish, black and white, set overseas in or around the Second World War, but not about the ground fight in Europe.If you guessed Casablanca, you’re in good company. Michael Curtiz’s 1942 romantic drama, pairing Bogart and Bergman...
Stage Struck: The Blast of War
“Theater is so subjective!” said my friend as we left the Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare & Company. She was in tears, but I was relatively unmoved. Ugly Lies the Bone, by Lindsey Ferrentino, takes an unflinching look at a searingly dramatic subject that’s too...
StageStruck: Sins of the Mothers – and Nannies
The Valley’s oldest and newest professional summer theaters end their seasons this week with two very different plays. New Century Theatre closes its 26th season with Jar the Floor, a multigenerational family drama that furthers the company’s reputation for putting...
StageStruck: Aphra; or, Behn
Aphra Behn was probably the first Englishwoman to write professionally, that is, to make her living from writing. She’s best known as a playwright, though only recently rediscovered by audiences. While she wasn’t, as Shakespeare & Company’s website has it, “the...
Nightcrawler: It’s Been Awhile
Five years ago, homegrown rocker and country boy Aaron Lewis was teed off about the impending consolidation of his children’s school. True to form, he swiftly rose above the rhetoric to form his own nonprofit, the It Takes A Community Foundation, and reopened...
The V-Spot: Genderqueer, Breaking Binary
Hello Yana!I’ve had a lot of difficulty telling partners that I’m genderqueer and that I use they/them pronouns. It definitely comes into play as soon as sex gets involved. Maybe part of what I’m asking is how can I and my partners break traditional gender norms in...
The Pour Man: Rock Star Wine From France
The Perrins, who own Chateau de Beaucastel in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, are the rock stars of southern France’s winemaking world. At least they are to me. Not only does the family make award-winning, top-shelf wines in the $100 to $500 a bottle range, but they also make a...
StageStruck: Peerless Pirates
Two contradictory things are going on at Pittsfield’s Barrington Stage Company. On the mainstage, the fearsome title characters in The Pirates of Penzance never kill anyone because they can’t bear to harm an orphan and all the captives they seize claim to be orphans....
StageStruck: Not Just Child’s Play
One thing these two very different children’s theaters share is respect for their audience. They don’t talk down to the kids sitting before them, they don’t ludicrously overact or get synthetically hyperactive in order to whip up some energy. The scripts are witty,...
StageStruck: Lost in the Woods
In the Subscriber Enrichment Packet for the Berkshire Theatre Group’s world-premiere production of The Stone Witch, playing in Stockbridge through August 20, director Steve Zuckerman says of the playwright, Shem Bitterman, “He writes instinctively, and it just pours...
The V-Spot: Three-Way Nookie Rookie Needs Advice
Hey, Yana, I’m a queer lady in my mid-20s and I’ve been with my boyfriend for about four years now. We’ve got an awesome hot and freaky sex life and we’re on the brink of our very first threesome with another girl. We’re both really excited that this is happening, but...
Basemental Music Review: The Lentils
Mental for Lentils The first time I heard The Lentils was live in my basement in Hadley two years ago. I was completely blown away not only by the wacky and wiry guitar solos, but by the pop melodies buried beneath layers of sand. It was as if strange debris – or...
StageStruck: Old Becomes New
Two theater pieces transmute their originals What happens when you take someone else’s work and change it, adapt it, and mold it into something of your own? I’m not talking about plagiarism, but homage – giving new form or context to an admired original. Two new/old...
Cinemadope: Music! Intrigue! Nuts! Documentary film screenings this week
In this political season, there has been a lot of talk about the meaning — good and bad — of dynasties in our national discourse. The truth is that, for a country that prides itself on its history of flipping the bird to royalty all those years ago, we sure do love to...
StageStruck: Waiting for Life to Resume
Two plays at Valley theaters, both running through Saturday, share a common source – the ongoing Middle East catastrophe – and a similar circumstance: two Americans caught up in it, one unwillingly, the other almost compulsively. Both plays are receiving strong...
Stagestruck: Jacob’s Pillow — Tapping into the Essence of Dance
If dance is “the hidden language of the soul,” as Martha Graham put it, tap is its least bashful dialect. For the past few years Jacob’s Pillow, the country’s premier modern dance festival, has featured tap dancing in its eclectic roster of summertime performances....
Down to Earth: Americans have no ‘right-to-roam,’ but we should
Last month, on a Sunday afternoon, I drove down to the Oxbow for an ultimate Frisbee pickup game. Clouds had been gathering all day and it began to rain as I drove, so when I arrived at the athletic fields, no one had turned up to play.I parked my car and decided...
The V-Spot: Husband Seeking Female-Friendly Sex-ed
Hi Yana, My wife is interested in exploring her sexuality a little further — things she might be interested in trying, etc. — but is hoping to do so in a way that is female- and feminist-friendly. Do you have any suggestions for things she can do or read either...
The Pour Man: Graduate to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
Nobilo, Sauvignon Blanc, 2015; Marlborough, New Zealand; $13.99 During the last couple of decades, some of the world’s top wine critics have declared that the best Sauvignon Blanc comes from New Zealand, and I would agree with them.However, I also realize, as with...
Stagestruck: Shaking Up Shakespeare
Shakespeare & Company doesn’t only do Shakespeare. This season, only three out of nine productions are by the company’s namesake, though several others play with Shakespearean themes, from a contemporary reflection on war to a political farce that resonates...
Cinemadope: Fallout
Conspiracy Theories “Challenger” will forever be one of those words whose meaning — or at least its history — is immediately known to anyone old enough to have lived through the 1986 space shuttle disaster. That tragic moment, witnessed live by so many American...
Nightcrawler: Root Effect
Musician and artist Wendell Rheinheimer, the owner of Moonlight Designs screenprinting in Easthampton, has been doing a little moonlighting of his own in recent months. The fruits of a new collaborative effort with his partner, organic vegetable farmer Shana Totino,...
Cinemadope: Prince’s Purple Reign
We all have a tendency, as we get on in years, to remember our better days and let the not-so-great times wash away in the river of time. It’s human, and while you might roll your eyes at your great-aunt launching into that same story about sneaking into a Beatles...
StageStruck: Cat and Tat
Here’s one thing the two very different Tennessee Williams plays now running in the Berkshires have in common: The sets have no walls. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, on the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Stockbridge mainstage, four white-and-pastel pillars frame the sparsely...E-Edition
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