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Pop-Up Foodie Paradise: A Night With the Hush and Proper, the area’s newest travelling dinner service
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...
Review: Beach House at Pearl Street in Northampton, August, 2015
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...
The Driving Toll: Smartphone use underlies spike in US fatal car crashes
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...
Grand Band Slam Top 4 Finalists Announced!
Cloud Control: A visit to the Enthusiast Smoke and Vape Shop in Greenfield
“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...
Taste-off! Brownie BRAWL, Valley brownies go head to head and the winner may surprise you
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...
Bong King to the Stars: Chris Hubbard’s success with blown glass pot pipes and bongs is out of this world
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...
The Promise of Pot: Medical marijuana patients have the green light, but uncertainty remains
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...
Madame Barfly: Hope and Olive in Greenfield serves drinks to your health
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...
Nightcrawler: Apple Jame pairs a picnic with high-caliber acts; MTrain tour permanents derailed
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...
Citizen Sanders: A day on the campaign trail with Team Bernie
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...
Working Harder for Less: Employee sacrifice may be a necessary evil in tight times, but how far will it go?
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,...
All About the Books: Readercon, the thinking fan’s sci-fi convention
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....
My Favorite Walk: Route 20’s Hidden Gem
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...From Our Readers
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...
Posted: Facebook comments in response to last week’s abortion story
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...
Review: Uncle Jerry’s Bands, A psychedelic Saturday at the Gathering of the Vibes
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...
Careers and Education: Making Your Own Second Chances
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...
Be Well At Work: De-zombify office life
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...
What Goes Here? In a time of dwindling support for public art, Brattleboro has $100K to spend
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...
The Uncanny Valley: Why are there ads on Springfield buses asking, ‘Do you know who murdered me’?
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....
Between the Lines: Why I Am Pro-Abortion And You Should Be Too
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...
Who Said It, Donald Trump or…?
13 Things You’ll Actually Want To Do With Kale
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...
VIDEO Concert, Goodbye, Kool Thing, Kim Gordon makes her exit
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...
The V-Spot: So, You Want to Sleep With a Lesbian
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...
Madame Barfly: Summertime and the Drinkin’s Easy
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...
PODCAST Taste-Off! Slice Showdown Part 3, pizza from the northern Valley
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...
Our crappy diets are speeding up climate change: Livestock responsible for 20 percent of all greenhouse gases
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...
Nightcrawler: A Leprechaun Looks Back, Lazer’s Rob “The Leprechaun” reflects on a decade at the mic
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....
The Beerhunter: The The Other ‘L’ Word, never fear, good light beer is here
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...
The Late Shift: New people, new venues, same old problems for Valley nightlife
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...
How to Selfie
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...
Gotta Dance: Settling for less than the dancing of my dreams in the Pioneer Valley
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...
Mister Morning Show: Lunch with 93.9 The River’s Monte Belmonte
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...
Race matters: Northampton Police Department checks data annually for racial bias, Here’s what the numbers – and people – have to say
My boyfriend, who is not white, returned home from a shift bartending down the street from our Northampton apartment. Still shaking, he explained he’d just been interrogated by two police officers during his walk home. They questioned where he had been and what he was...
Live Free or Dye! Get out and play, alternative summer sports for everyone – paintball
I ran for my life. It wasn’t fast enough. A paintball came whipping through the clearing as I crossed in a running crouch, shot by the enemy team from 20 yards away. I felt it explode against my thigh. It stung for a few seconds, like someone had whacked me hard with...
‘We are not a fearful people’: Members of Springfield’s black church communities wrestle with questions of gun violence and race in the wake of Charleston
A t the end of Bible study on Wednesday night, Steve Powell tells a joke. “This guy is talking to God,” he says. “God says that in his eyes, a million years is like a minute, and a million dollars is like a penny. So the man says: well then, God, give me a penny!”...
The Uncanny Valley: WTF, Are roadside signs offering to buy homes in ‘any condition’ a scam?
You’ve probably seen the signs — “Fast $$ for Houses,” “We Buy Ugly Homes” — tacked onto telephone poles or scrawled onto yard signs by the side of a main road. The advertising doesn’t inspire confidence. The hand-scrawled, occasionally misspelled signs scream scam....
For the Love of the Game: The senior softball players of Western Mass Relics
On a recent Thursday at the Ludlow Fish and Game Club, things were abuzz. The skies were repeatedly ripped through with the blare of engines as aircraft traveled the skies around Westover Air Force Base; gunfire crackled from the firing range nearby. Amid that din,...
Wellness by the stars: What your sign can tell you about how to eat, exercise, and chill
In the work-driven culture we live in, self-care is sometimes lost in the abyss of work, chores, sleep. To make matters more complicated, we all have ways of taking care of ourselves that are strikingly different from one another. Yoga, while good for all, can be...
Scene Here: On High Street, Holyoke
A thin man in a red basketball jersey and nylon shorts strides down Dwight Street in Holyoke, arms swinging, a smile on his face. His thick black hair is slicked back, and his ankles look like saplings sprouting from his foam slippers. He reaches the intersection with...
Intertwining Roots: Teens explore race relations through music and dance
Bernice Kwade lives in two worlds at the same time. “When I’m at home, it’s a totally different environment than when I go out,” she said. “My parents are trying to instill traditional African values in me, but we live in America now. I want to have a more liberal...
Scene Here: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow, Ashfield’s semicentennial beard contest
Stage lights shine down on a legion of beards. They sprout from Ashfield men young and old, tall and short. Some beards are just wiry tufts, some fluffy and soft like cumulus clouds, some as thick and full as a field of wheat primed for harvest. The beards are black,...
Breaking Dad, an occassional series of parenting bad-vice: The Cheeto Full Monty
So this, it turns out, was the Father’s Day I had Cheetos up my nose. Not in a funny way, but more a sort of philosophical reverie way, like that glazed look you get after you’ve had seven ice cream sandwiches and a heat stroke. This was the latest result of my...
Madame Bar Fly: Springfield’s Cheers, Serving up charm, good company, and cheap booze at the Ale House
The Ale House on Worthington Street in Springfield is surrounded by boarded-up buildings that loom ominously up over the small, cozy one that the bar occupies. But inside, the vibe is warm and welcoming. “It’s somewhere you can go in Springfield where you don’t have...
Dawn of the Dad: Fatherhood is being redefined by a new generation of hands-on dads
“I always knew that I wanted to be a dad,” Joey Mella tells me. “Then I got married and we had three children very quickly. Now I’m kind of maxed out.” The middle child, two-year-old Ati Mella-Reiss, pushes a miniature shopping cart across the wood floor of the...
Staying Home With Baby: Most dads-to-be qualify for 8 weeks of paternity leave, but can they afford to take it?
Soon-to-be parents Amy Mathers and Paul Kearney, of Limerick, Ireland, were in Florence recently visiting Mathers’ family. Mathers and Kearney are expecting their first child in September. The two said they talk about moving to the U.S. to raise a family, but Ireland...
Top 10 Best-Worst Dad Jokes
Dad jokes. The phrase probably just made you groan and roll your eyes a little. The dad joke is an overly familiar pun, cliche, gag, or prank that would sort of amuse a three-year-old. But somewhere along the journey to adulthood, when kids develop a sense of irony,...
Taste-Off! Local ice cream makers go head to head
Now that summer is almost here, we’re reaching for one of our favorite ice cream combos to get us through the work week: thick ribbons of fudge and belts of peanut butter cups in sweet vanilla ice cream. We’d call it Moose Tracks, except that name has been owned by...
Settle It on the Battle Field: 413 Rap Battle League pits lyrical artists against each other in epic throw-downs
At the Waterfront Tavern in Holyoke, a rap battle between Hoodie Cruger, who is black, and Petey Mitch, who is white, turns racist. “I got rap sheets to rival my rap sheets,” spits Petey. “For your life, somewhere someway, had to pay two cents a day. That’s not what I...
Nightcrawler: Kiddin’ Around and Getting Phishy
Noho’s And The Kids are more than allright. In fact, they’ve been called everything from “fearless and entertaining” to one of “Western Massachusetts’ indie scene’s brightest creative lights,” depending on whom you ask. The observations cited just happened to come...
The Arts: Nominations for the Advocate Grand Band Slam are Open
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Zoltan’s Cyborg Utopia: The Transhumanist Party presidential candidate wants us to live forever
Millions of augmented humans now walk among us. Their implants, tweaks, and enhancements aren’t always visible. But medical technology — which gave Americans cardiac pacemakers in the ’50s, and now artificial hearts — keeps pressing forward, and the human species...
WTF: Why does it say ‘Quota’ at the corner of Route 5 and Hampden Street in Holyoke?
For more than a decade, the island at the corner of Hampton Street and Route 5 in Holyoke has borne the word “Quota” — spelled out in flowers in the warm weather and black plastic edging in the cold. On my ride home from work down Route 5 south, I often wondered...
My Favorite Walk: Forest, barren, beautiful, life after The Tornado
My favorite walk is around my backyard. Although this may seem rather common, my yard is still new to me and very much an evolving space. Four years ago my backyard was a dense forest filled with pines, oaks, and poison ivy. The thick trees were covered with poison...
Keep on Food Truckin’: Mobile chefs keep pumping out the good eats — and charm — despite the wearying pace
As if the stationary restaurant business weren’t tumultuous enough with its high overhead costs, perishable products, and unpredictable customers, food truck owners kick it up a degree by taking it to the streets and exposing themselves — and their kitchens — to the...
Summer Arts Preview: The Best Up-coming Concerts, Shows, and Events of the Season
Summertime, and the livin’ is greatly enhanced by a calendar ripe with performances. In a Valley that comes alive with music, theater, and every other incarnation of the arts, it can be tough to know where to turn. We’ve compiled a short list of highlights from the...
Jump In: The Valley’s best swimmin’ spots
Those coastal dwellers don’t even know what they’re missing. Sure, they can boast miles of swimmable water, waves, seagulls — the whole summer package. But do they have rope swings? Waterfalls surrounded by sylvan beauty? How about mountain water clean enough to...E-Edition
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