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by Gina Beavers, Chris Goudreau | Jul 6, 2018 | Articles, Featured, Newsletter
Lay your hands off my moon dust, NASA A woman from Tennessee is proactively suing NASA to keep what she says is a vial of moon dust that astronaut Neil Armstrong gave to her has a gift. Apparently, Armstrong was a family friend who gave her a piece of the moon when...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jul 6, 2018 | Columns, Featured, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Writer’s note: this column discusses sexual assault and trauma. Hey Yana! I’ve been seeing/having sex with this guy for a little while now. I really (really really) like him and feel super comfortable with him and we’ve had super good conversations about boundaries...
by Gina Beavers | Jul 5, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Raven Books in Northampton is the quintessential New England used bookstore. Winding stacks of books create a delightful maze that loops in and out of corners. There doesn’t seem to be a square inch of wall that remains unoccupied, and tables of books, live plants,...
by Chris Goudreau | Jul 5, 2018 | Featured, Newsletter, Wellness
The goal of speech-language pathology is to give patients back the power of communication, which can be empowering not only for adults, but for children as well. “They’re incredibly empowered,” said Rick Carpenter, a Northampton-based speech-language pathologist who...
by From our Readers | Jul 4, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 4, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, The Beerhunter
Putting shake-ups behind them, two brewers plan for the future Massachusetts has more than 120 visitable breweries, 19 of which are in the Valley. That’s a lot of taprooms to keep a Beerhunter busy around Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties. Still, you can’t...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jul 3, 2018 | Columns, Featured, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Writer’s note: this column discusses sexual assault and trauma. Hey Yana! I’ve been seeing/having sex with this guy for a little while now. I really (really really) like him and feel super comfortable with him and we’ve had super good conversations about boundaries...
by Jack Brown | Jul 2, 2018 | Cinemadope, Columns, Featured
Growing up, I wasn’t often presented with images of strong women. You’d see the occasional Rosie the Riveter magnet here and there, but even then it seemed odd to me that it required sending most of the male population to an overseas war before a woman got a chance to...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 2, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter, Podcast
Dara Herman Zierlein made a choice to have an affect on the planet by eliminating plastic from her life. Even despite that decision, she sometimes does use plastic. But she holds onto it rather than throwing it away or recycling. She says that only about 9 percent of...
by Rob Brezsny | Jul 2, 2018 | Featured, Newsletter, Wellness
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Twentieth-century French novelist Marcel Proust described nineteenth-century novelist Gustave Flaubert as a trottoire roulant, or “rolling sidewalk”: plodding, toneless, droning. Meanwhile, critic Roger Shattuck compared Proust’s writing to...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 29, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
In the midst of the season of high school graduations, a group of dedicated students who had failed to get through high school the first time around earned recognition for passing their high school equivalency test, known as the HiSET, at the Springfield Technical...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 28, 2018 | Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
They say that elections have consequences. This is one of the terrible ones. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday, June 27, effective the end of July. With Donald Trump in the Oval Office, and control of the Senate in the hands...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 28, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
In an effort to combat families being torn apart through American immigration policy, activists with the Pioneer Valley activist network supporting undocumented immigrants called Sanctuary in the Streets came with their children to a small rally at the Immigration and...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 28, 2018 | Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter, The CDs You Gave Me
Northampton-based pop rock trio Colorway embodies the spirit of summer on its new nine-track record, “These Are The Days,” with inventive shredding guitar solos and catchy earworm melodies that for better or for worse promotes a simple message of peace, love, and...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 27, 2018 | Columns, Featured, Newsletter, O Cannabis!
Chris Hubbard has been crafting artisanal glass pipes for marijuana smokers with his Florence-based business Akame Glass for more than a decade and thinks the stigma against weed-related glassblowing is shifting, and his industry is starting to be legitimized by the...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 27, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
A partnership between grassroots activism group, the Pioneer Valley Project, and UFCW Local 1459, a union that represents workers with regional grocery chain Stop & Shop, yielded potential job opportunities for local Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricane...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jun 26, 2018 | Columns, Featured, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Hi Yana, I want to avoid having an emotional (or sexual) affair without ending a friendship. I have a friend who I really like, and am attracted to, but he’s married. I’ve known him for a couple of years, and we always hang out with his wife, who I...
by Monte Belmonte | Jun 26, 2018 | Columns, Featured, Food Booze and Beyond, Monte Belmonte Wines, Newsletter
Massachusetts is no Bordeaux. It’s no Napa. Perhaps with global warming, someday it will rival the great wine regions of the world, which is why I keep a tire fire burning in my backyard at all times. But given the limitations of our climate, are our burgeoning...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 26, 2018 | Featured, Music, Newsletter
Klezmer music is by its nature a joyous high energy form of music, but what do you get when you add in Mediterranean melodies, Romanian surf tunes, covers of cop show theme songs, and a funk groove? You get Boston-based band Klezperanto. They’re set to play...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 25, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter, Podcast
Eduardo Samaniego is an undocumented Hampshire College student turned immigrant rights activist at the Pioneer Valley Workers Center. Having arrived in Georgia at the age of 16, he graduated high school as student president, but was precluded from attending the...
by Jack Brown | Jun 25, 2018 | Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Newsletter
It’s finally getting into the full swing of summer here in the Valley — the asparagus festival has come and gone, the colleges have mostly emptied out, and keeping up with the yard work is beginning to turn downright Sisyphean. If you find yourself longing for a...
by Rob Brezsny | Jun 25, 2018 | Astrology, Featured, Newsletter
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Your best ideas and soundest decisions will materialize as if by magic while you’re lounging around doing nothing in a worry-free environment. So please make sure you have an abundance of relaxed slack and unhurried grace. Treat...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 22, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, who is running for his seventh term in office after serving in the position for more than two decades, is facing a challenge from Boston City Councilor and Democratic opponent Josh Zakim, pushed back on the notion that...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 22, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Review
The Forbes Library is a handsome structure abutting the Smith College Campus at 20 West St. in Northampton. It’s stately and grand and at one time it was known as “the castle on the hill.” The grounds are perfectly manicured and the circular drive allows for easy...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jun 22, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Newsletter, Review
For my last column, I wrote about The Stone Church in Vermont, a church renovated into a performance venue. What are the chances I happen to find another one of those without knowing it until I show up? Well, I did. Enter the 1794 Meetinghouse in the center of the...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 22, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
Congressman James McGovern, D-Worcester, and undocumented immigrant Lucio Perez, who is taking sanctuary at the First Congressional Church in Amherst, will make a joint call to end inhumane practices at the U.S.-Mexico border on Saturday. “President Trump’s...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 21, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
While the Legislature was debating raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour in a ‘grand bargain’ bill passed by the House and Senate on Wednesday, Haymarket Cafe owner Peter Simpson was increasing his lowest paid workers wages to $15.50....
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 20, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
The Massachusetts House has unveiled and quickly passed a long-awaited “grand bargain” bill aimed at keeping citizen petitions off the ballot this year, including measures supporting a $15 minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, and sales tax adjustments. Later...
by Gina Beavers and Isabel Darmon-Weiss | Jun 20, 2018 | Family Friendly, Featured, Food & Drink, Get Out!, Newsletter
Welcome to summer, the season for much needed respite from the tiresome routines of daily life. Planning an elaborate vacation, however, can be just as stressful as a day on the job. So why not slow your roll and keep it local? Staycations are all the rage and there’s...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 20, 2018 | Bizarro Briefs, Featured, News, Newsletter
Keep your eyes off the road A county coroner in Kentucky has been accused of working with at least two others — a retired police colonel and a current state police trooper — of illegally transporting a number of items. The most serious appeared to be $40,000 worth of...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 19, 2018 | Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
The state’s Supreme Judicial Court did an extreme disservice to voters this week, taking away the potential to vote on the popular “Fair Share Amendment,” which would have created a 4 percent tax on the wealthy and used the money for education and transportation...
by Dave Eisenstadter and Chris Goudreau | Jun 19, 2018 | Featured, News, Newsletter
The long-awaited moment is nearly here: marijuana will be legal to sell in the state of Massachusetts as of July 1 — with a license. But a question that has arisen for many long-term users of marijuana is: what is going to happen to the unlicensed, illegal marijuana...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 19, 2018 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
I’m angry these days. I try to hide it as best I can, but the piling up of atrocities committed by the Trump administration is taking its toll, and I doubt I’m the only one concealing a bubbling rage as I go about my day. But the recently-implemented “zero tolerance”...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 18, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, Podcast, The Beerhunter
Advocate alumnus Hunter Styles, who still writes our Beerhunter column, and Sally Noble, co-founder of Western Mass Beer Week, tell us about the embarrassment of riches of beer we have in the Valley. Hear about Sally’s beer beginnings and the start of Western...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jun 18, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Hi Yana, I’m a dude in my mid-thirties struggling to recover from a sort of recent break-up (over a year ago). We were together for seven years. The last three of those years were spent in couples therapy and the last year of our relationship was spent trying to be...
by Rob Brezsny | Jun 18, 2018 | Articles, Astrology, Featured, Newsletter
ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you have cosmic permission to enjoy extra helpings of waffles, crepes, pancakes, and blintzes. Eating additional pastries and doughnuts is also encouraged. Why? Because it’s high time...
by Jack Brown | Jun 18, 2018 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Newsletter
Something I’ve come to love about Father’s Day weekend is my own dad’s profound disinterest in the world of the internet. He doesn’t give a fig for Facebook, has no email address, and if he were ever involved with something viral it would be cause for a trip to the...
by Will Meyer | Jun 15, 2018 | Articles, Basemental, Columns, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Wendy Eisenberg has made a name for herself in the amalgamated DIY, jazz, and improvisation scenes in New England and beyond. Coming via Rochester and then Boston, Eisenberg now lives in Amherst. Eisenberg has a variety of tactics in her artist’s toolbox. Among them...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 15, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
By the summer of 2019, Amherst will have a new mixed-use development of 130 low to moderate income apartments and eight to 10 new spaces for businesses at North Square in the community’s Mill District. A groundbreaking ceremony for the development took place with...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 14, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Some sad community and activism news — longtime political activist Rose “Arky” Markham passed away earlier this week. Sad in that she passed away, but among the things she has left behind are the results of a life well-spent, as can be seen in her...
by Isabel Darmon-Weiss | Jun 14, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
“I am consistently inspired by the youth activists in this community,” said Lindsay Sabadosa of Northampton in front of a room full of students, teachers, parents, and community members at the Northampton High School auditorium on June 13. Sabadosa, a candidate for...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 13, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
A theater story: For three years in the mid-’70s, Anthony Perkins starred in the long-running Broadway production of Equus, playing the psychiatrist Dr. Dysart (pause for Psycho jokes). Just before one matinee came an announcement: “Anthony Perkins will not be...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 13, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Tuesday afternoon at Union Station in Springfield, Gov. Charlie Baker announced increased rail connectivity in the city’s future. Going north and south, there will be a pilot program beginning in 2019 for passenger rail service that would run twice a day from...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 13, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Get Out With Staff Picks, Music, Newsletter, Stage
Pub sing at McNeill’s // Saturday, June 16 There isn’t enough singing in our pubs around here. But McNeill’s in Brattleboro is working to fix that. Led by Tony Barrand and Amanda Witman, the bar is open for sea shanties, work songs, pub songs, and all the rest. Open...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 13, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, Stagestruck
Time was, summer theater was pretty predictable. Two comedies, a drama and a whodunit was the standard lineup when I was in summer stock way back in the day. Even the major venues — of which the Williamstown and Berkshire Theater Festivals were the grande dames —...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 12, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, News, Newsletter, O Cannabis!
Local marijuana businesses — and federal legislators — are supporting bipartisan legislation that would leave marijuana regulation up to the states, a change from the blanket federal prohibition now in place. That’s a positive sign for Easthampton resident Karima...
by Monte Belmonte | Jun 12, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines, Newsletter
I am a proponent of Massachusetts becoming an open carry state. Not with guns. But with alcoholic beverages. Unless you happen to find yourself on the Buckland side of Shelburne Falls, where you are permitted to carry an open container of alcohol on the street, you...
by Jack Brown | Jun 12, 2018 | Articles, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Newsletter
Open a newspaper, turn on your television, scroll through your Facebook feed: it won’t be long before you’re face to face with the ongoing discussion of the state of immigration in America. To be sure, the current resident of the White House — whose policies have...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 11, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter, Wellness
When Lisa Zarcone was 11 or 12 years old, she came home to find her home a hot 90 degrees and her mother smoking on the sofa. She turned down the thermostat and her mother attacked her with a meat tenderizer, violently hitting her more than 20 times. She had bruises...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 11, 2018 | Articles, Featured, Newsletter, Podcast, Valley Show Girl
Jennifer Levesque brings the Valley’s music shows to life as the Advocate’s Valley Show Girl columnist. She’s also been designing the Advocate’s covers for more than 10 years. She tells us about her favorite Advocate issues and what’s...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 11, 2018 | Articles, Featured, Music, Newsletter
Over the course of his more than 40 year career folk and blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Chris Smither has released dozens of albums and hundreds of songs. He was a part of the Cambridge folk music scene in the 1960s where he first got his start and is also a...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jun 11, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, The V-Spot
Hi Yana, I was recently informed by someone that my boyfriend has been sexually texting another girl for several months, as well as had an active profile on dating site Plenty of Fish. When confronted, it took a few days but he did admit the truth to me. I am...
by Rob Brezsny | Jun 11, 2018 | Articles, Astrology, Featured, Newsletter
ARIES (March 21-April 19): My Aries acquaintance Tatiana decided to eliminate sugar from her diet. She drew up a plan to avoid it completely for 30 days, hoping to permanently break its hold over her. I was surprised to learn that she began the project by making a...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 8, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
In a statement released on Facebook on Friday morning, Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper wrote that the suspect arrested at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton after allegedly bringing two pellet guns onto the campus said he was there to pick up a friend...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 7, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter, O Cannabis!
In a show of bipartisan support for clarity around marijuana laws, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado held a joint press conference about a bill they are sponsoring to allow states to make their own decisions...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 6, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
A group of more than 30 activists affiliated with the Pioneer Valley Workers Center and Mass Jobs with Justice protested outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office at 1550 Main St. in Springfield on June 6 in response to children being separated...
by Meg Bantle | Jun 6, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
If you think that tiny house movement is just a passing fad for young people, think again. Lisa Kuneman, 53, of Brattleboro, said that tiny houses are definitely more than just a trend, and that many tiny house enthusiasts are retirement-aged. “Other options aren’t...
by Isabel Darmon-Weiss | Jun 6, 2018 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
Over 15 boxes of Pez candy and accessories were shipped to the Children’s Museum at Holyoke just weeks ago. Susan Kelley, executive director of the museum, mounted a third of them onto the wall in the middle of the bustling chaos. She said she is glad the museum can...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 5, 2018 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Newsletter
The five write-in candidates in the race to replace longtime state Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, of Amherst, are coming under scrutiny for their late entry into the race, with some calling their challenge to progressive Chelsea Kline — the only candidate to have her name on...
by Gina Beavers. Chris Goudreau. | Jun 5, 2018 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured, News, Newsletter
Taking a break from posting about the volcanic doom on Hawaii, The U.S. Geological Survey’s Twitter account fielded this question: “Is it safe to roast marshmallows over volcanic vents? Assuming you had a long enough stick, that is? Or would the resulting marshmallows...
