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by Amanda Drane | Apr 21, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
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...
by Amanda Drane | Apr 21, 2015 | Articles, Astrology, Featured, Leisure, Living By The Stars, Wellness
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...
by James Heflin | Apr 21, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
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...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 14, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
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...
by Words and Pictures by Amanda Drane | Apr 14, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, MGM Springfield Casino coverage, News, Wellness
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...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 14, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
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...
by Patricia LeBoeuf | Apr 14, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Wellness
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...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 14, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, The Beerhunter
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Apr 8, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News, News of the Weird
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...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 7, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Free Sport, News, Wellness
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....
by Amanda Drane and Hunter Styles | Apr 8, 2015 | Articles, Featured, MGM Springfield Casino coverage, News
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...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 8, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure, News
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...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Apr 8, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The V-Spot, Wellness
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...
by Hunter Styles | Apr 8, 2015 | Articles, Featured, MGM Springfield Casino coverage, News
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...
by Amanda Drane
and Hunter Styles | Apr 1, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Blogs, Featured, Free Sport, Leisure, News, Wellness
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...
by Amanda Drane | Apr 1, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Madame Barfly
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....
by Amanda Drane | Apr 1, 2015 | Articles, Blogs, Featured, Free Sport, Leisure, News, Wellness
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....
by Hunter Styles | Apr 1, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News
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,”...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 1, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
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...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 24, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Leisure, The V-Spot, Wellness
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,...
by James Heflin | Mar 24, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, News, Taste-Off!
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...
by Amanda Drane | Mar 24, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
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....
by Hunter Styles | Mar 24, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, Music, News
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 24, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, News
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Mar 24, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News, News of the Weird
Even dangerous felons sometimes serve short sentences, but Benito Vasquez-Hernandez, 58 — guilty of nothing — has been locked up for nearly 900 days (as of early March) as a “material witness” in a Washington County, Oregon murder case. The prosecutor is convinced...
by Amanda Drane | Mar 24, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Leisure, News, Scene Here
I’m at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and there are more plastic cups whipping down High Street in the wind than there are people waiting for the parade to turn the corner. I’m beginning to think the parade has been delayed by the 30-plus mph wind gusts, when I spy some...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 18, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
It was on a year-long walk retracing the path of slavery between Africa and the United States that Teegrey Iannuzzi says she finally woke up. She was taking part in the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, a walk retracing the trans-Atlantic slave trade...
by Amanda Drane | Mar 18, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Deshanay Gonzalez, 21, of Holyoke, stands near Ingleside Mall’s Aeropostale, rocking her nine-month-old daughter, Rose, in her stroller. “There’s plenty of opportunity here,” she says. “It’s our time. It’s time for women to take over.” Rose senses her mother’s gusto...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 18, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
Urban legends travel through towns faster than an alligator in the sewer. They’re intriguing, they have a distinct air of truthiness to them, and they provoke strong reactions. Did you hear about Richard Gere “gerbiling?” Can’t remember who told me, but, like,...
by James Heflin | Mar 18, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure
Kelly Link’s stories are weird in the best possible sense of the word. They often take place in unusual settings that aren’t quite like consensus reality — a hotel hosting a superhero convention, a summer house inhabited by mysterious and possibly malevolent...
by Kristin Palpini | Mar 18, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Columns, Featured, News
Politicians skirting public record laws by conducting public business on private email accounts is becoming a scandal celebre. That Hillary Clinton kept a few private email accounts and used her own server may not seem like a big deal. But it is. Politicians’ emails...
by Hunter Styles | Mar 18, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, News, The Beerhunter
Up in Vermont there’s a glow-in-the-dark circus party at the end of the world. Neon streamers and Mardi Gras beads hang all over the place. Colorful string lights set the room aglow. Some visitors hunker down at the long bar counter, but others try on jester hats,...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 18, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Wellness
Dear V-Spot, I’m very different with different women, in respect to how long I last before ejaculating. Wildly different. With some people I go quick, with some I have complete control and could go for an hour or two, getting off whenever I feel like it. With some...
by Terrence Smith | Mar 10, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure
Granby High School senior Dylan Bellerose browses the graphic novels section of the Holyoke Barnes and Noble. He’s wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a purple unicorn intensely focused on a tome, along with the bold words: “Read. You have to do it. It says so in...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 10, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
This year’s Blarney Blowout on March 7 attracted thousands of revelers to downtown Amherst and the UMass campus. This photo was taken during a concert at the Mullins Center where Kesha, Juicy J, and Ludacris performed. How many cell phones can you spot? Find the...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 10, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure
I had a friend in high school who refused to let Mother Nature be the boss of his wardrobe. Matt sported jean shorts into December, refused to wear anything sturdier on his feet than sneakers, and didn’t like how he looked in hats. Warmth is a state of mind, he would...
by Amanda Drane and Hunter Styles | Mar 10, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Leisure
Antonio Johnson From his black chukka boots to his triangle Levi’s hat, Antonio Johnson is the definition of suave. We ran into him at Savers in Springfield. Everything he’s wearing he bought second-hand, he says, except for the sweater vest. “This sweater I’ve had...
by Amanda Drane, Kristin Palpini, and Hunter Styles | Mar 3, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze, Madame Barfly, News, The Beerhunter
Everyone has a favorite dive bar; a place you can go in your old jeans and sweater, have a beer for under $3 and watch some “Wheel of Fortune” with townies looking to unwind. Dive bars — and we use the term lovingly — tend to be physically and metaphysically secluded....
by Amanda Drane | Mar 3, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure, Madame Barfly
Shots cut to the chase. Whether you need some quick courage for that karaoke performance or don’t want a drink that sloshes on your dancing shoes, shots are great when you want to get that buzz rolling in one fell shoot. So, why not make it delicious? When it comes to...
by Chuck Shepherd | Mar 3, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News, News of the Weird, Uncategorized
The Utah Court of Appeals ruled in February that Barbara Bagley has a legal right to sue herself for her own negligent driving that caused the death of her husband. Typically, in U.S. courts, a party cannot profit from its own negligence, but Bagley is the official...
by Pete Redington
Daily Hampshire Gazette | Mar 3, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Wellness
At a recent gathering in a second-story studio in downtown Northampton, Daniel Lombardo of Westhampton read a story about twin fetuses discussing life after birth. One thinks there will be life after delivery, related Lombardo, while the other isn’t so sure....
by James Heflin | Mar 3, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
I stood in the below-zero wind, my dog circling — quickly — to find the right spot. High above the blue glow of moon on snow, far Jupiter shone. It went crisply about its business of marching at barely perceptible speed, of turning its eye upon us. Someone trundled by...
by Amanda Drane | Feb 25, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
When Adam Cohen contributed $500 to Michael Bardsley’s mayoral campaign in Northampton, he said he wasn’t expecting anything in return. Neither was his wife, Jendi Reiter, when she donated $500 to the campaign, he says. Cohen, a blogger and leader of the North Street...
by Story and photos by Amanda Drane | Feb 25, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
Dear diary, Today white stuff started falling from the sky — again. Burying my stout, red body deep beneath the stuff, but at least it’s hiding the chipped paint LOLZ. Snow, is what the double-stems walking by call it as they roll it up in their cloth-covered spigots...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 25, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
As New England natives, we’d like to humbly challenge T. S. Elliot’s assertion that “April is the cruelest month.” It’s March. The month is a tease, punishing snow and winds one minute and green leaves coaxed by a soft breath of spring emerge in the next. March...
by Kristin Palpini | Feb 25, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Columns, Featured, Leisure, News, The V-Spot, Wellness
Since returning The V-Spot sex advice column to the pages of the Advocate earlier this month, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from our readers. Most are thrilled to have a sassy sexpert closing out the paper every week. Others question why a newspaper would dedicate so...
by Hunter Styles | Feb 25, 2015 | Articles, Featured, MGM Springfield Casino coverage, News
I n the midst of plans to vacate a building recently purchased by MGM Springfield, Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe got some bad news: funding had fallen through for the relocation of the Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center . The 29-year-old minimum...
by Hunter Styles | Feb 18, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze, News
Coco & The Cellar Bar Easthampton The dish: Buttermilk Fried Chicken Simple is best Fried chicken may seem an odd fit for a gourmet menu, but Coco’s co-owners, cooks — and husband and wife — Roger Taylor and Unmi Abkin have embraced its simple pleasures....
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Feb 18, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Leisure, The V-Spot, Wellness
Dear V-Spot, My husband and I were married in May. We’ve been together for eight years. He’s leaving in April for a year-long residence out of state. I’d like to be able to have a “monogamous-ish” (thanks Dan Savage) type thing while he’s gone. How do I bring that up...
by Amanda
Drane | Feb 18, 2015 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Taste-Off!
The lines were drawn. On one side, #TeamChewy and on the other, #TeamCrunchy. The Advocate’s chocolate chip cookie Taste-off was about to commence. Who would have suspected the ubiquitous and beloved chocolate chip cookie would yield such feuding within our normally...
by Story and photos Amanda Drane | Feb 18, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze, News
Owner Tully McColgan and head chef John Peter Wentworth say they’ve spent so much time together getting their business — King Street Eats — off the ground, that they’ve come to look alike. “People think we’re brothers,” Wentworth jokes. The two have turned the former...
by Hunter Styles | Feb 18, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, The Beerhunter
In the warm, bright tasting room of Fort Hill Brewery in Easthampton, my friend took a sip from a sample glass and frowned. He took another and made the same face. “It’s a lager,” I said. “They’re all lagers here.” He looked surprised. Then he finished his drink and...
by Amanda Drane | Feb 18, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Scene Here, Wellness
Kevin Gutting Photo
by Hunter Styles and Amanda Drane | Feb 11, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Even as Northampton community leaders craft plans to invigorate downtown without the fee-charging district a judge declared “null and void” in November, resentments simmer and questions swirl about what killed the 5-year-old Business Improvement District. Amid the...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 11, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News
You call the WWII Club “The Deuce” You have male friends who wear clogs You know why the guy at Joe’s Pizza is wearing a sombrero You miss Pleasant Street Theater You’ve taken a side in the “Hamp” v. “Noho” debate You see a man in a dress on the street and...
by Jack Brown | Feb 11, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Film, News
For parents of school-age children, February break can be a trying time. Personal days at work have likely been put to use to cope with blizzards that never appeared, and the winter wind that creeps in during the middle of the month means that our energetic kids are...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 11, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, News, Scene Here
I have only one recurring nightmare. I find myself in prison. Charged with a crime I cannot discern, I’m locked away from family and friends by thick plastic walls. The clear walls are smeared with a thousand fingerprints obscuring my view of the sweet blue sky. Jack...
by Story and Photos by Pete Redington | Feb 11, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Leisure, News, Wellness
Stratton Mountain sits some 45 minutes north of Brattleboro. The drive up state Route 30 encapsulates much of what visitors and residents alike love about the Green Mountain state. The single lane road follows the meandering West River alongside the Green Mountain...
by Yana
Tallon-Hicks | Feb 4, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The V-Spot, Wellness
Editor’s Note: Back by popular demand, Yana Tallon-Hicks returns with The V-Spot, the Advocate’s weekly sex and relationship advice column. She received her undergrad in sexuality studies and sex education and worked as a sex educator/sales associate at various sex...
by Hunter Styles | Feb 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze, Leisure
If you’re seeking a sweetheart in advance of Valentine’s Day, it would seem logical that your best shot at finding love would be to go to the city with the highest concentration of singles. According to the U.S. Census, 78.46 percent of Springfield residents between...
