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Amanda
Drane | Oct 13, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Stage
Within seconds of meeting each other, tap and jazz dancer David Bovat and percussionist Jeff Hinrichs are moving and grooving. Hinrichs lays down a quick tempo on the djembe, which makes a deep, hollow sound, and Bovat’s tap shoes start click-clacking in double time....
by Hunter Styles | Oct 13, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Local Elections 2015, News
This year, the Advocate is covering the Valley’s mayoral races a little differently. We’ve asked each candidate the same four questions, which we hope will provoke thoughtful and illuminating answers — with a little editing for length and clarity. This week we quizzed...
by Hunter Styles | Oct 7, 2015 | Articles, Blogs, Featured, The Uncanny Valley, Uncategorized
by Hunter Styles Staff writer Amanda Drane has worked in the local food industry for 10 years, and she’s shared with us some truly great stories of her time in the kitchen, including a couple about the haunted room at Spoleto, an Italian restaurant in Northampton. One...
by Amanda Drane | Oct 6, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
As I write these words, on the other side of Conz Street, Western Mass residents are strolling into Northampton’s New England Treatment Access on opening day to purchase medical marijuana from the area’s first dispensary. Would that have seemed possible in 2007? As...
by Amanda Drane | Oct 6, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
Valley musician Mikey Sweet spent two weeks hitchhiking around the Northeast last month, holding a sign reading: “broke musician, need money to finish album.” After a storied 14 days’ worth of busking, gigging, and drawing attention to his Kickstarter campaign, Sweet...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 6, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Film
The Green Inferno Blumhouse Tilt/Universal Pictures In theaters nationwide Two Advocate staffers — horror movie buff Jen Levesque and total wimp Hunter Styles — saw the controversial horror flick The Green Inferno last weekend. The extremely gory film, directed by Eli...
by Emily Atkinson | Oct 6, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze
With the chill of fall finally beginning to bite, it’s the perfect time to indulge in something more substantial than summer fare. Pumpkin, squash, apple, maple syrup, and any number of other fall delights await at restaurants throughout the Valley. So, when you’ve...
by Kristin Palpini | Sep 29, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Film, Leisure, Music, News, Stage
What’s on tap for arts and culture over the next few months in the Pioneer Valley: Party Animals How do you describe The Surrealist Cabaret by the Royal Frog Ballet? You let the frogs do it. From the event’s website, The Surrealist Cabaret “is a walking...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Sep 29, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The V-Spot, Wellness
Hey Yana, My boyfriend and I think anal sex is super hot and are determined to be pros at it! We’ve played with fingers and anal toys and managed to have a pretty successful penile-anal penetration experience once, but it hurt so much that now I’m afraid to do it...
by Amanda Drane | Sep 29, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Wellness
Yoga isn’t for everyone, but that’s not a point the Pioneer Valley is ready to concede. Or at least, it seems that way judging by the varied yoga offerings here. Yoga and beer? Yes, please. Yoga and art? Why not. Yoga with death metal? Yes, that is a thing here. I’ve...
by Amanda Drane | Sep 29, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Wellness
Temperatures are dropping and soon frost will cover the sidewalks. Unless you’re a die-hard, it will soon be time to retire those roller blades, bikes, and running shoes for the season. Lest you become a cold-weather couch potato, here are some places to get you up...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 22, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News, Wellness
Mariette Poginy sighs, pivots in her porch chair, and looks across Norwood Street in Greenfield, where the banging of hammers and the whining of drills emanate from the former Lunt Silversmiths factory. If all goes according to plan, the vacant and overgrown building...
by From Our Readers | Sep 22, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
This is a new school-style portrait of my best friend Lani. We’ve been friends for 20 years now and are now 31-year-olds — that’s significant. Sadly, we live on opposite coasts now. She’s in San Fran and I’ve been between the Valley and Austin. I have two tattoos for...
by Amanda Drane | Sep 22, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
Kalliope Jones’ story about how the local band lost a music competition following a judge’s suggestion the all-female teen band be more “sultry,” was a familiar one to rocker June Millington. She recalls how one review of a gig called her band Fanny “excellent,” but...
by Amanda Drane | Sep 22, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
Delilah the basset hound may be blind, but that doesn’t stop her from hiking with her humans, lying about the house, and being just too darned cute. Her eyes, says owner Charlotte Cathro, 34, of Northampton, are both her most fetching feature and her downfall....
by Advocate Staff | Sep 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News
Tattooed people are often asked what they think their tattoos will look like once they get older and their skin begins to wrinkle and age. My response has always been, “Well, I will look like a colorful little old lady with a gray braid, of course.” Let’s face it, if...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 14, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Taste-Off!
Drum roll please … After four rounds of blind taste-tests of cheese slices from 27 pizzerias across the Valley — from Greenfield to Springfield — the Advocate staff is ready to announce the winner of our summer slice smackdown. Without knowledge of where the...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Sep 14, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The V-Spot, Wellness
Hi Yana! I’ve had a sexual concern for the longest time: I have trouble feeling orgasm during sex and masturbation. At first I thought it might be my partner not knowing my spots too well, but I realized I’ve never had any ejaculations by myself either. I’m worried...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 8, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
T housands of votes later, readers have whittled the best bands in the Valley down to four groups that will battle it out for a recording session at Rotary Records in West Springfield, $500 at Falcetti Music of Springfield, and gigs at Falcetti’s new performance space...
by Amanda Drane | Sep 8, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure
Will Betsy and Jimmy Tarr, owners of the Hatfield-based Bistro Bus, ever get their money back? Jimmy Tarr said he still hasn’t heard from Rob Craven, organizer of the never-realized inaugural Massachusetts Food Truck Festival, about getting back his $425 deposit. Tarr...
by Hunter Styles | Sep 8, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Stage
Pittsburgh playwright Tammy Ryan was picking up her daughter from kindergarten in 2007 when she noticed the mother standing next to her, dressed in military fatigues and combat boots. They had met the week before. Now, she was leaving for a nine-month deployment. “I...
by Kristin Palpini | Sep 8, 2015 | Articles, Blogs, Columns, Featured, News, The Uncanny Valley
Why is it that a cheeseburger costs $1.22 at Burger King, while a small order of fries costs $1.70? Isn’t beef supposed to be more expensive than potatoes? Thanks for writing in, anonymous reader, with your puzzling — and discomforting — question. To figure out why...
by Kristin Palpini | Sep 1, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Once we’ve all had our fill of cheese curds and smoked turkey legs, whipping around on rides, shopping for T-shirts, and visiting the butter statute, and The Big E packs up another season, a perennial question strikes many Western Mass residents: Who gets to keep all...
by Amanda Drane | Sep 1, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
Multi-tasking kills. This isn’t an excuse of the lazy — researchers are finding more and more that over-working yourself is a fast lane pass to the grave. According to a new study of 600,000 people in Australia, the U.S., and Europe — published August 19 in U.K....
by Amanda Drane
and Hunter Styles | Sep 1, 2015 | Articles, Careers & Education, Featured, News
So you’re in the Valley going to college and you haven’t found your fav spots yet. You haven’t found a mechanic or a hairdresser you trust. Some of you are new to the area, some of you are new to being out on your own, and some of you are both. That’s a hard boat to...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 25, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, News
The saloon doors swing open, and Emily Pichette steps into the small kitchen of the Foundry in Northampton. A wave of sound follows her from the dining room: murmuring, laughter, and clinking glasses. “Are we ready for the first course?” she asks. The staff turns to...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 25, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Beach House Aug. 19, 2015 at Pearl Street Nightclub, Northampton A sweat lodge triggers mystical experiences, or so they say. I haven’t tried it, but Pearl Street’s crowded and steamy concert by Beach House last Wednesday got me pretty close. My glasses fogged up upon...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 25, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Fatal traffic accidents are up 14 percent from 2014 in the U.S. — and that’s only counting the first six months of 2015. According to new data released by the National Safety Council, injuries from traffic accidents are also up 30 percent over the same time span —and...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 25, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
by Hunter Styles | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
“N o matter what you might do,” Ben Folds once sang, “there’s always someone out there cooler than you.” How true. Every week I scrap together a sense of my own hipness, and every week the world lobs a curveball that busts right through my armor. It happened this past...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, News, Taste-Off!
Ah, the classic American brownie — it’s the chocolate chip cookie for chocolate lovers. Everybody has a brownie story. Whether your Grandma made the best, you ate that funny smelling one and couldn’t speak for a while, or you had the munchies and ate a whole tray of...
by James Heflin | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
A singular event in Bingen, Washington marked Chris Hubbard’s transformation from glassblowing hobbyist to professional: “On Aug. 3, 2005, a SWAT team kicked in my door. They thought the studio was a meth lab,” Hubbard says. He had his medical marijuana card, and was...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
For cancer patient Valerie, marijuana makes the difference between walking and not walking. “I’ve totally outlived my expiration date,” she says, laughing. Valerie, 61 — a long time Western Mass resident who asked to be identified only by her first name — has fought...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Madame Barfly
Jim Zaccara says his bar is an appletini-free zone. Zaccara, 45, grew up working in restaurants, and bartending was always his forte. When he began making his own style of cocktail at his first full-bar restaurant — Hope and Olive in Greenfield — eight years ago, he...
by Gary Carra | Aug 19, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Nightcrawler
The Apple Jam Roots Music Festival stems from what was once little more than a backyard picnic on a family property. On the back of the sonic spread that accompanied the annual Russell-based shindig, however, Apple has blossomed into a coveted festival stop for many a...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
After a long Sunday spent following Bernie Sanders on the campaign trial, I made a bet with my editor: 20 bucks says that man never kisses a baby on camera this election season. She took the bet, but I’m going to win. Why? For the same reason Sanders is not going to...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Eleanor Cresson, a mental health and substance abuse clinician who recently went on strike from nonprofit Clinical Support Options, has worked in the field of mental health for more than 20 years and has two masters’ degrees. Despite her experience and qualifications,...
by James Heflin | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
When I was a budding science fiction fan, I stepped into a con — a science fiction convention — for the first time. I was into SF, you know, for the books. The convention, it soon became clear, was about the spectacle of science fiction as delivered via other media....
by Jennifer Levesque | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Along scenic Route 20 in Chester, is the Chester-Blandford State Forest. On a 95-degree summer afternoon, the natural shade from the tall trees kept us cool as we walked the mile up to the Sanderson Brook Falls. Walking along the path, we only saw a few small groups...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 12, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
Editor loves murder of unborn children Kristin Palpini is a proud pro-abort who says that killing the unborn is a “medically necessary procedure” that should be “acceptable” (“Why I Am Pro-Abortion,” July 30-Aug. 5, 2015). Of course, she’s lying. According to...
by From Our Readers | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
Soon after we posted a link to Editor Kristin Palpini’s article “Why I Am Pro-Abortion And You Should Be Too,” to Facebook, the comments came pouring in. Here’s what readers had to say about the staunchly pro-choice Between the Lines that ran in the July 30, 2015...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Uncle Jerry’s Bands A psychedelic Saturday at the Gathering of the Vibes Fun fact: Bridgeport, Connecticut is the only city in America where Hula-Hoops cause more accidents than cars do. At least, that’s how it is once a year, at the sprawling fiesta in Seaside Park...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Careers & Education, Featured, News
Somewhere between climate change, the recession, and an ever-burgeoning Internet universe, the professional landscape changed a lot over the past decade. Naturally, we the worker bees can only scramble to keep up. Hit by the Great Recession, some baby boomers are...
by Hunter Styles | Aug 4, 2015 | Articles, Careers & Education, Featured, News, Wellness
When a zombie plague hits London in the movie Shaun of the Dead, several scenes pass before the protagonist realizes that his trudging, moaning white-collar cohorts have transformed. If you’ve ever wandered through the office like the resident undead, you should...
by Story and Photos
Hunter Styles | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News
The past five years were rough on Brattleboro. In the summer of 2011, tragedy struck the town several times: Tropical Storm Irene caused extensive flood damage, a five-alarm fire destroyed much of Main Street’s historic Brooks House building, and the Brattleboro Food...
by Amanda Drane | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Blogs, Featured, News, The Uncanny Valley
Buses are big and so are the advertisements they often host — that’s no surprise. What is jolting, however, is when the typical music or beverage ad is replaced with a giant placard offering a $50,000 reward for information regarding an unsolved murder from 2013....
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News, Wellness
I am pro-abortion in the same way I am pro-triple bypass surgery and chemotherapy. In general, I am “pro” any helpful, legal medical procedure. Being pro-abortion is different than being pro-angioplasty, though, and that’s because, ostensibly, there is a second human...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 28, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
by Advocate Staff | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Wellness
By Advocate Staff Like an itchy sweater your auntie knitted, you can’t just throw kale out, you have to do something with it. Lord knows eating it is out of the question, so here are some suggestions for how to get the most out of that claw-like green: 1. Hang a sprig...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
Goodbye, Kool Thing Standing inches away from me moaning her iconic voice into the mic for soundcheck stood Kim Gordon. The longtime Northampton resident is bidding farewell to the Pioneer Valley, and she picked the perfect place to say goodbye. On top of the historic...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Leisure, The V-Spot, Wellness
The first time I slept with a girl it was awkward as hell. Sure, I had dabbled in the giggling French kisses of curious high school sleepovers, but never did I go to a girl’s room with the intention of having lesbian sex with her. But this is what I did one tipsy...
by Amanda Drane | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Madame Barfly
For every season there is a drink. Just as beer nuts ditch cold-weather porters and quads to settle their summertime cravings for IPAs and light brews, cocktail sippers also change their choice of beverage with the heat. Fruity, delicious cocktails enjoyed on the...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Taste-Off!
It’s round three in our all-Valley pizza slice smackdown. This month we tasted pies from the northern half of the Valley, grabbing slices of cheese from Amherst House of Pizza, Sibie’s, and Sub and Pizza, all of Amherst; Antonio’s and Papa George’s, both of...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Wellness
E veryone has counted calories at some point. Some of us tally them religiously. I only think of them when I’m staring at the side of a cereal box at two in the morning. But given the state of our warming world — rising sea levels, falling bee populations, and all...
by Gary Carra | Jul 22, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Nightcrawler
In an industry in more upheaval than the Athens Stock Exchange, Rob “The Leprechaun” Allen’s aluminum anniversary at Lazer 99.3 FM would probably be more accurately accounted for utilizing dog-year calculations. The Crawler recently checked in with the veteran jock....
by Hunter Styles | Jul 8, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, The Beerhunter
Thinking about “light beer” brings up distasteful, albeit fun, memories. Long nights in college spent pouring cans of Keystone into red plastic cups; fly-fishing with grouchy uncle Roy, paddling around with a cooler full of Molson; going to that barbecue last summer...
by Hunter
Styles | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, Music, News
How do a city’s business owners create a nightlife that is not only lively, but built to last? The short answer: by dreaming big. Running an entertainment venue takes daily stamina and quick thinking, of course. But it also requires a deeper, grander feeling to fuel...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
There’s a right way and a wrong way to selfie, people. Selfies can either be a silly, fun way to document a moment or the epitome of narcissism. So, please, selfie posters, consider your audience and: 1. Do turn your face towards the light. 2. Do pass the camera to...
by Amanda Drane | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
I just wanna dance. The itch comes in the form of a restlessness you’d think I could scratch with a good run, but I’ve tried and it doesn’t quite work. The need to dance comes from the soul as much as from the body. It’s like a primordial drive to shake and sway to...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
Julia Child said it best: people who love to eat are always the best people. That’s the springboard for our new occasional series @lunch, in which we sit down for a quick and candid midday meal with interesting locals, ready to chew the fat. For our inaugural lunch we...
