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Festie Season is Here; For a good time, plan ahead
Like anyone who loves going to music festivals, I cannot tell you how many I’ve attended: 50, 75, 10 — After a while they all run together into a single hot, soggy time dancing under open skies marked by torrential downpours, mind-blowing sets, and epic antics. Make...
From Our Readers: Right On or Way Wrong? Two takes on ‘Stay Off the Damn Grass’
Right On or Way Wrong? Two takes on ‘Stay Off the Damn Grass’ Thank you, Kristin Palpini, for your article (“Stay Off the Damn Grass,” May 21-27, 2015) on the new, oppressive South Hadley law imposing rigid standards of lawn and garden care. This town has a knack for...
Cinemadope: ‘Love & Mercy’
We Americans have always seemed, to me, to be a nostalgic people. Maybe my thinking has something to do with the long line of Irish storytellers in my family — even today, the smallest of family events rarely passes without reference to the outlandish history of some...
Here Comes Everybody: Setting James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake to music
Early 20th-century Modernist literature, at its worst, is uninviting and impenetrable. Take the work of Ezra Pound — at one extreme is his beautiful and accessible imagist poem “In A Station of the Metro”: The apparition of these faces in the crowd; petals on a wet,...
Nightcrawler: Blocked In, Janet Monheit, Tom Keifer, and FAT join the 2015 Cityblock Series; Mason and friends peddle their musical wares
We knew that the powers that be were reverting back to the old name. Then we found out that they were getting a new logo. In fact, until recently, the only thing we didn’t know about Springfield’s Cityblock-turned-Bike Nite-back-to-Cityblock was who would be gracing...
The Uncanny Valley: Jumpin’ Black Flash, A Cape Cod boogeyman
Spring-Heeled Jack, in addition to being the best-named apparition since the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, was a frequent haunter of Victorian London and, eventually, other parts of Great Britain. He was known and feared for his habits of sudden attack via tearing with metal...
My Favorite Walk: An Occasional Pilgrimage to St. Thomas the Apostle Church in West Springfield
On occasion, to keep up my health, I take a walk. Nearby my home in West Springfield is a mile-long stretch of sidewalk with no hills, few cars, and even fewer people outside. The homes are densely packed, and I wonder about the people who live inside. Over time, I’ve...
Madame Barfly: In Bloom, Easthampton’s Coco serves up some simple heaven
The fact that Coco and the Cellar Bar’s best-selling cocktail is their ginger margarita is a testament to why people pack this place: simple delights. This tasty cocktail is exactly what you’d expect it to be. Spicy fresh ginger is added to the classic margarita trio...
Scene Here: Nightly Rounds at Tandem Bagel Co. in Easthampton
Melissa Haller rattles a wheeled rack across the concrete floor. It holds 15 pans with 24 raw bagels in each. The unbaked dough shines in the fluorescent light. The air in the kitchen is thick with a warm, herby smell, cut with the savory tang of onion and garlic....
The Authority: Massachusetts steps back from public housing oversight, leaving tenants at the mercy of a broken system
In a public housing complex specifically designed for the elderly and disabled, something as basic as a wheelchair ramp to the common community space should be part of the facility on day one. But it took the Agawam Housing Authority nearly seven years to install one...
Between the Lines: Advocate Grand Band Slam Is Back, now with more slam!
Back in the final year of the 1900s, I stood, guitar in hand, on the steps of Northampton’s old courthouse at the main intersection. The occasion was the (then new) Valley Advocate Grand Band Slam. My bandmates and I had won top honors in the...
Broken Rungs: Can poor youth in Western Mass climb the income ladder? It depends on where they live
T he American Dream is a fitful one these days, marked by rising income inequality and a decade of middling economic growth. But a national study published this month by the Equality of Opportunity Project at Harvard University suggests that children from poor...
The V-Spot: Tying to Get Kinky
Hi Yana, My girlfriend and I are in college and we’ve done some like really, really basic BDSM: blindfolding, a little handcuffs, and some bondage stuff, but nothing serious. Now we want to do some tying down. What would you suggest? — Tie-Guy Dear Tie-Guy, Like a bad...
Cinemadope: Screen Time, breakfast with Curtis
Nobody in their right mind would suggest that making a movie is easy. There are so many levels to moviemaking — the writing, the casting, the shooting and editing and sound and music and so on — that it’s a wonder any of them ever come off decently, never mind...
Selling Crafts — and Holyoke: Alchemy Artisan Fair seeks to bring the people back to downtown
Liz Stewart leans forward to point out a series of bracelets made from metal nuts, washers, and wires. “It’s mostly new and repurposed hardware,” she says. “The idea is to take ordinary items and put them into situations you wouldn’t expect to see them. People look at...
My Favorite Walk – We Want to Hear From You
A small stretch of land between Route 9 and I-91 might not sound like prime walking territory. But out here, you can disconnect. This is farmland — a quick and easy escape to Kansas from downtown Northampton’s Oz. At Sheldon Field, Old Ferry Road branches off from...
For Love and Holyoke, city’s first openly gay mayor gets engaged
For Alex Morse, 26 — Holyoke’s first openly gay mayor — Saturday, April 18 started out like many other Saturdays before it. He and his boyfriend, Edwin Cruz-Vargas, 25, went for a morning hike up Mount Tom. Once they reached the top, they paused for several minutes to...
The V-Spot: Sweet (Sex-Positive) Sixteen, Is it ever okay for a dad to buy his daughter a vibrator?
Dear Yana, My eldest daughter is now 16. I’ve had to cover the sex talk basics as her mother (we’re divorced) is FAR more conservative (and shall we say repressed) than I. How do I, as a father, steer my daughter towards a more sex-positive outlook when it’s clear she...
Slice Showdown Part 2: Which pizzeria makes the best slice in Springfield?
It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta bloat their bellies with massive amounts of pizza to find the best slice in the Valley. This week we bring you Part 2 of our Slice Showdown and we tasted Springfield pies. Limiting our pizza to slices only, we hit the streets. And...
Scene Here: Springfield Symphony Hall
It’s the final performance of the 2015 Springfield Symphony Orchestra season and the 71-year-old group has put together a timely show, The Rite of Spring with Spencer Myer on piano. Buses for retired living communities line the street outside. Inside Symphony Hall,...
Ungrounded: Beating Flying Phobia
On a recent Saturday, I stared out an airport window at an Airbus 330, emblazoned with green and the Aer Lingus shamrock. For the first time in a long time, I was staring at a plane I was about to get on. I did a lot of work to get there. Still, it was a moment of...Scene Here: Beyond the Division
Hampshire College’s commencement ceremony is a social justice rally. About 350 people pack the graduation tent on the campus commons. As president Jonathan Lash begins his speech, more guests arrive. They spill out into the lawn outside the tent. Few of the students...
Nightcrawler: Apple Jam festival pairs local notables with nationals
Just when you thought it was safe to put your wallet away, out trots another apple product. But with more than two dozen bands cranking out more than 32 hours of music Aug. 21-23, Gary Phelps’ Apple Jam Roots Music Festival is a relative bargain, with three-day...
Martian in the Mix at UMass: Long-time WMUA radio host comes crashing down to Earth
Max Shea had been a part of UMass Amherst radio station WMUA 91.1 starting in 1993 — when he was an undergraduate student at UMass — until April 21, when he was escorted from campus by UMass police, banned from returning, and his beloved show, Martian Gardens, was...
Best Of Winners’ Photo Booth
On Cinco de Mayo the Advocate threw a party at the Log Cabin in Holyoke for the first place winners of the 2015 Best Of the Valley Readers Poll competition. There was a photo booth there … things got silly, here’s the proof.
Reports of rape are increasing on college campuses — and that’s good news
There’s something strange happening on college campuses here and across the nation. Reports of rape and sexual assault are skyrocketing. In 2013 the University of Massachusetts Amherst — a campus of 28,635 students this year — reported 22 forcible sex offenses,...
Scene Here: Temple of the Mind
A cool breeze floods the mountainside, rustling the leaves and pine needles in the branches high above me. But as I walk up the path, I barely hear it. My brain is making too much noise of its own. My eyes are down, watching my sneakers crunching along the dirt trail,...
The Uncanny Valley: UFO sightings
On the evening of March 17, a driver in South Hadley reported seeing a strange triangular craft in the sky with lights on each of its three visible points. After following the craft for a couple of miles, the driver pulled into the Village Commons parking lot and...
Safe to Swim? When sanitation stations overflow, the CT River flushes the waste away
Summer is just around the bend and the Connecticut River — the region’s longest body of running water — remains largely unswimmable due to high levels of fecal bacteria in the water. The river has come a long way since its days nicknamed “America’s most beautiful...
Taste-Off!: Dueling Donuts, which shop makes the best donuts in the Valley?
Dueling Donut Podcast Homer Simpson said it best when he drooled out, “mmmm … donuts.” That pretty much says it all: fried, crispy, sugary-sweet, warm, melty cake. Or for short “mmmmmm.” For this Taste-Off! the Advocate staff searched around the Valley for the...
Madame Barfly: By the Light of the Night ‘True shine’ moonshine made right in our backyard
After getting laid off, 32-year printing press veteran Scott Santaniello decided to move into an industry that always seems to stand the test of time: booze, baby. Two years ago, Santaniello, a 51-year-old life-long resident of Springfield, got a distiller’s license,...
The Uncanny Valley: WTF? And Other Head-Scratchers, Road to Nowhere
“Curiouser and curiouser!” exclaimed Alice as she took her first steps into Wonderland. If she were making a trek through the Valley instead, we think she would say the same thing. Our little corner of the globe is chock full of odd people, secret places, and...
Scene Here: Spectacular, Spectacular
Lively organ music floated through the air, and I followed it in from the parking lot. Why, exactly, had I opted to spend Friday night at the circus? I wasn??t sure, other than the fact that I was drawn here to the Eastern States Expo in West Springfield by faint,...Past Control: Five weeks after groundbreaking, MGM Springfield is still grappling with historic preservation concerns
On March 24, cannons shot confetti over the heads of shovel-wielding politicians and corporate executives in a vacant lot in Springfield’s South End. Around them, hundreds had gathered to celebrate the official groundbreaking of the MGM Springfield casino, which is...
Can an Artist Survive in the Valley? Young local creatives reinvent their careers for changing times
Kamil Peters steps away from his metal shop to lead me on a walk through 17,000 square feet of new working space. He saunters from room to room in a cavernous old industrial mill building along the canal in Holyoke, pointing out the work spaces for artists: an oil...
Change on the Way: Northampton’s Pulaski Park has undergone a number of renovations, but for many, its always been ‘my spot’
In a Northampton park where Kira Coe and her friends spend a spring day in 2015, young men and their families met in 1775 before marching off to fight the British during the Revolutionary War. During much of the 1800s, the Main Street space held a livery office — a...
Living By The Stars: It’s Complicated: Midheavens, sun and moon signs
I understand that right now, fellow star-gazers, you may miss Rob Brezsny. When I was younger I’d run and grab copies of Metroland — the Hudson Valley’s version of the Advocate — just to read the latest from the astro guru. I don’t attempt to fill those shoes. I’m...
Between the Lines: The Georgia Varmint Dust-Up
It’s easy to see why the story made international news. It doesn’t get crazier than this cavalcade of questionable decisions, though the victim (expected to recover) probably disagrees. Recently, in Georgia, a man decided that a) he should shoot an armadillo which was...
Course Correction: Can Holyoke fix its underperforming schools before the state takes over?
Public education in Holyoke is a sticky issue, but most can agree on one point: improvement is overdue. Holyoke has the worst high school graduation rate in the state of Massachusetts. The city’s public school dropout rate is three times the state average. In the past...
Come again! How the corner store competes in a world of Amazon and Big-box
Trans World Food Market 50 Russell Street, Hadley Small Valley, big world Brothers David Tran, 22, and Sockha Son, 30, say the success of their market hinges on staffs’ ability to help customers find just what they’re looking for — even when customers don’t know...
Unfriend Me: a guide to getting unfriended, unfollowed, and flagged
Do you have too many Facebook friends? Tired of all those Twitter followers paying attention to you? Friends and family noticing what you have to say and share on social media is a big problem for many. We know there are lots of people looking to get rid of their...
Food Deserts in Springfield: How many buses would you take to buy groceries?
For many residents of Mason Square a full week’s grocery shopping — picking up fresh fruits and vegetables, stopping by the butcher, buying some fresh bread, eggs, or pasta — means taking two buses to get to the Big Y across the river in West Springfield and cramming...
The Beerhunter: You’ve Got to Try Sour Beers
Who’s up for a fresh glass of saccharomyces cerevisiae? I’ll take one! Though, personally, I like to mix this yeast variety with water, hops, and barley. Combine those four magic ingredients and you’ve got yourself a beer — tastier, and much easier to pronounce. But...
News of the Weird: Unarmed and Dangerous
An unarmed man, suspected of no crime, who three years ago was shot 16 times by police while lying in his bed, told a Seattle Times reporter in March that he bears no ill will for the cops who shot him. Said Dustin Theoharis, now 32, “Sometimes (police) make...
@Work: The Musher, Hilltown Wilderness Adventures
Marla Brodsky’s boots crunch on the snowy path. In the dog yard behind her house, 18 pairs of ears perk up at the sound. As she approaches, her four litters of Alaskan Husky sled dogs start to stir. Some dogs lift their heads and howl. Some strain at their leashes....
Roll of the Dice: Businesses prepare to work with – or without – the MGM Springfield casino
Try as they might, MGM won’t be able to replicate downtown Northampton. Northampton mayor David Narkewicz says representatives of the MGM Springfield casino are attempting to recruit Northampton businesses to open up shop within the walls of their future gambling...
20 Ways to Tell You’re From Springfield
You have a cousin who is an aspiring rapper You know how to get down Sumner Avenue — at 3 p.m. — without ever driving on Sumner You’ve been to the Alumni Club once or a hundred times — there is no in-between You definitely have an opinion about Melvin Jones III and...
The V-Spot: Halp! I’m Totes Jelly
Dear Yana, My ex-boyfriend of five years cheated on me the whole time we were together. My low self-esteem let him convince me he still loved me despite the cheating. By the end we had opened our relationship to outside sexual partners, but it was mostly him going out...
Keeping Promises: Springfield has some big plans, but will they pan out?
On March 24, at a public presentation at CityStage, Springfield officials set the clock two years ahead. The talk, titled “Vision 2017: The Right Direction” and led by city Chief Development Officer Kevin Kennedy, took an audience of 300 people on a journey through a...
Get Out and Stay Out! 12 of the Pioneer Valley’s best outdoor spaces
Canalside Rail Trail, Turners Falls A handful of beautiful sights crop up along the four miles of this short, scenic bike path, which runs from Deerfield up into Montague along old railroad beds. But the short northern stretch where wooded areas gives way to the...
Madame Barfly: The Craft, The Green Room’s head mixologist stirs things up
A cocktail revolution that’s been percolating in major cities has finally made its way to Northampton in earnest: craft cocktails. A craft cocktail is exactly what it sounds like — a craft unto itself. It’s more than expensive alcoholic liquids poured into a glass....
Full Swing: Adult sports leagues soothe the soul and harden the body
His players say Winston Lee’s life revolved around baseball and softball. When he died in 2011, the players in his Spanish American Softball League were devastated. Hundreds of the inner-city players not only missed the man, but the community he’d built around him....
MAP Al Fresco! Outdoor Dining in the Pioneer Valley
Even back in January, customers at the Munich Haus restaurant in Chicopee were asking owner Patrick Gottschlicht when the biergarten would re-open. “I kept telling them it was too cold, that they’d have to wait. But they’ve really been putting the pressure on me,”...
Get Heard: Holyoke Students Get Courageous
In late March, a group of about 50 Holyoke high school students concerned their district may go into receivership — meaning it could soon be run by the state instead of local officials — got up in the middles of class and walked out of school in protest. For their...
The V-Spot: Aftercare Is Not a Grey Area
A housewife’s wet dream, Fifty Shades of Grey, hit the big screen this past month — and hit it hard. The popularity of the book series, and now movie, has caused quite the stir in the practicing BDSM (bondage, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism) community,...
Taste-Off! Slice Showdown, Part 1: Which Northampton by-the-slice pizza joint lays claim to the best?
Pizza — it’s as American as, well, burritos and frankenfurters. Determining what’s the best pizza is a heady, touchy business. And in an area where there’s a pizza joint every 50 feet or so, the stakes are high. For something that is, at its most elemental, just...
Tech-tracking: Why your technology is keeping tabs on you and how to stop it
Pandora has gotten a little too intuitive. Recently, I was running at the gym, earbuds in, Pandora streaming Kelly Clarkson’s upbeat “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” when the song was interrupted by an ad inviting me to become a certified personal trainer....
VIDEO Jailhouse Rock: What do a dozen Northampton inmates and a chorus of senior citizens have in common?
It’s mid-morning at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction. Eight inmates are gathered around an electric keyboard in the visiting room, laughing and talking quietly. Keyboard player Ken Maiuri hits middle C, and together they warm up with some scales. Up...
An Open Letter to Sandwich-makers: It’s time to ratify sandwich standards
Since the first time an Arab stuffed meat into a pita, the sandwich has been awesome. Sure, the Earl of Sandwich gave the lunchtime staple it’s name during a furious poker match, but the first recording of someone putting food between bread and eating it dates back to...E-Edition
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