Featured
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...
by Amanda Drane | Feb 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Wellness
“Get your spots ready for butterfly,” Barre and Pole owner Tekla Kostek tells her students during a pole tricks class last Wednesday. The eight women stand two-to-a-pole and watch as Kostek demonstrates. Kostek positions herself next to the pole. She bends her right...
by Amanda Drane | Feb 4, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Scene Here
Amanda drane photo
by Amanda Drane | Feb 4, 2015 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, Madame Barfly
We’ve all heard the rumors about the havoc cheap booze can wreak, but is that even true? Can you drink inexpensive alcohol all night without head-pounding, toilet-hugging consequences? The downside to drinking cheap alcohol is considerable: principal among the...
by Amanda Drane | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
The first snowflakes begin to fall Monday night. It’s my cue to head into the gusty blizzard, geared with elbow-high gloves and the coziest scarf I could find, in search of the city’s homeless. How are they faring, outside in this storm? I walk several frosty laps...
by James Heflin | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Stage
Photos by Jerrey Robers and James Heflin For a lot of people, it’s the stuff of anxiety dreams: a mic awaits on a stage. An expectant crowd is staring at you. You don’t have a script, even if you’ve done some homework — you just have to talk. That scenario is, says...
by Hunter Styles | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Between the Lines, Featured, Film, News, Stage
The show must go on, as they say — until it’s gone on long enough. On Jan. 14, the student-run Project Theatre group at Mount Holyoke College canceled its annual production of Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues, opting instead to write and produce a new show of...
by Hunter Styles | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Leisure, News, Scene Here
Wind whips across the ice on the Oxbow in Northampton. Under a bright, cold sun, shadowy figures stand against a stark panorama of frozen river, snow-decked mountains, and frosted gray sky. It’s 25 degrees. Viktor Biley, 17, is rubbing his bare hands together. It’s...
by Amanda
Drane | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured
Contact improvisation isn’t just dance without choreography, it’s life — a microcosm illuminating a way to be in the world. “Who you are as a person is who you are as an improviser,” says Nancy Stark Smith, part of the group that spawned the improvisational...
by James Heflin | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music
The range of New Jersey violinist Jason Kao Hwang’s composing and playing is remarkable. At one end of the spectrum, there are completely composed pieces of “new,” or contemporary classical, music. At the other, you’ll find his improvised ’70s and ’80s work with...
by Advocate staff | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured
Amherst Live is an every-so-often “live magazine show.” In it, host and executive director Oliver Broudy, an author and former Paris Review managing editor, presents a series of interviews, talks, and performances. The idea is to look more closely at the big ideas...
by Hunter Styles | Jan 21, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Man, that old website of ours was up for a while, and it wasn’t getting any prettier with time. It was like Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries before Julie Andrews showed up. You’d land on the site and be, like, meh. Thankfully our Web elves have been hard at work....
by James Heflin | Jan 21, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News
It’s the kind of story we will, inevitably, hear again. When any big development imposes a new footprint on an already-established area, people get displaced and property changes hands. Five Taylor Street, in Morgan Square, where Springfield nonprofit arts...
by Hunter Styles | Jan 21, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Scene Here
Remember that first wash of Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz? That’s what it’s like to step off the grayscale street and into Chef Wayne’s Big Mamou in Springfield. This little New Orleans-style restaurant is stranded on a run-down industrial block of Liberty Street,...
by Gary Carra | Jan 21, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Music, Nightcrawler
In the spirit of the performers they honor and emulate, the Berkshire-based Gypsy Lane burlesque troupe takes the show on the road this weekend. The campy cast of cabaret characters makes its debut at Norfolk, Conn.’s storied Infinity Music Hall & Bistro Jan. 22,...
by Amanda Drane | Jan 21, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
One hit from a Taser sends 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through the body. Oliver Rich, of Hatfield, sustained far more than that one night in 2010. Following a traffic stop in Greenfield, Rich was tased at least five times over the course of a few minutes. The...
by Hunter Styles | Jan 15, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Not much is known publicly about Charlie DiRosa. He’s 27 years old. He lives in Chicopee. He has a tattoo of the word TABOO across his throat in thick, rainbow-colored block letters. And no one but DiRosa knows what he was thinking on Dec. 21 when he posted “Put Wings...
by Hunter
Styles
Photos by
Carol Lollis | Jan 15, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Food + Booze, News, Taste-Off!
Schermerhorn’s Seafood Restaurant clam chowder, Holyoke Score: 4.5 Price: cup, $3.99; bowl, $4.99 The judges found this chowder deliciously creamy and well-balanced. Amanda: Everything a clam chowder should be. You could actually smell the clams. Kristin: The clams...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 15, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Yes, Springfield has had its share of hard times over the years. But haven’t we all? Look, we’re kind of sick of defending our fair city to people eager to cite high rates of unemployment, murder and poverty, but reluctant to actually get downtown and walk around. You...
by Jack Brown | Jan 15, 2015 | Articles, Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film, News
Any career that lasts long enough is sure to have its share of ups, downs, and surprises. Sometimes we come out on top, sometimes we fall flat on our face. Most of us, though, have the blessing of soaring or falling with a bit more privacy than the actors and...
by Kristin Palpini | Jan 15, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Editor’s Note: Quotables is an occasional feature showcasing some of the snappiest and interesting things Valley folks said in the press in the past week. “I don’t feel that a cartoonist should have to live in fear for what they do. The artists should have the right...
by Amanda Drane | Jan 7, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Northampton — Mary Finn, co-owner of the Optical Studio on Pleasant Street and the building that houses it, is not happy about plans to develop a large affordable housing complex that, if carried through, could dwarf her two-story building. The complex — a $20 million...
by Amanda Drane and Hunter Styles | Jan 7, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
At the Amherst train station, one of the last waves of home-bound college students stood scattered across the small platform, many for the last time. Amtrak’s Vermonter line has pulled out of Amherst for good, rerouted now through Greenfield, Northampton, and Holyoke....
by Advocate Staff | Jan 7, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
S c ulptor Marilyn Andrews began making and selling stoneware in 1976, but something changed when she started to work seriously with clay. “I like clay because working with a material that undergoes such radical changes, and working in three dimensions, helps me...
by Kristin Palpini | Jan 7, 2015 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
After 60-plus years pumping out energy and radioactive waste, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is in the process of decommissioning. Protesters have been advocating for the plant’s shutdown since before it opened in the ‘70s, citing the environmental threat...
by James Heflin | Jan 7, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Lost on the River (Electromagnetic Recordings/ Harvest Records) What could go wrong? Take a passel of unfinished Bob Dylan songs from the mid-’60s, pass ’em on, put T-Bone Burnett in charge of producing an album, and — best of all — let other folks sing them. Be...
by Amanda Drane
and Hunter Styles | Jan 1, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
You’re not just going to wake up one day with your dream job — at least that’s what moms have been saying since the very first teenager refused to get off the rock sofa and apply for jobs at the local tar pit. So, at the top of 2015, we take a moment to explore how...
by Pete Redington | Jan 1, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Eight Track (Strikezone Records) In 1975, guitarist Dave Stryker writes in the liner notes to his recent release Eight Track, he had a 1969 GMC van outfitted with an eight-track player that often required the assistance of a jammed-in matchbook to work. But good music...
by Amanda Drane and Hunter Styles Intro by James Heflin | Jan 1, 2015 | Articles, Featured, News
Every year, the same thing. Otherwise normal people get all bothered about what they hope to accomplish in the coming year. To them I say: give up. Or, if you must go on with this fancy charade, do it right. Don’t resolve to lose some weight. Don’t resolve to write in...
by Amanda Drane | Dec 24, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
As medical marijuana takes root across the nation, there’s been one major obstacle for the field to flourish: the federal government. That all changed last week when Congress passed legislation prohibiting the Drug Enforcement Agency from arresting and prosecuting...
by James Heflin | Dec 24, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
1850 — Marijuana is added to the U.S. Pharmacopeia. The Pharmacopeia was a public standards-setting authority for all types of medicines. According to the book’s authors, marijuana can be used to treat neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery,...
by Laurie Loisel | Dec 24, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
When state Sen. Stanley Rosenberg was named chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee in 1996, he said time would tell whether the job would be the pinnacle of his career or just a step on the ladder. If, as is widely expected, he is elected next month to be...
by James Heflin | Dec 24, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
This weekend, Wisconsin native-turned Valley local Jeffrey Foucault (pictured left) and his partner Kris Delmhorst (pictured right) co-headline a benefit concert for the Franklin Land Trust to support the non-profit organization’s fight against the proposed...
by Jack Brown | Dec 24, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
The musical has always been an important part of the filmmaking world. In the earlier days of film, when crowds were more likely to be familiar with singing stars of the stage, a flimsy story could be propped up with a handful of winning tunes. Think of the...
by Hunter Styles | Dec 18, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
Getting kids to eat their veggies ain’t easy. But it’s even harder when you’re serving soggy samples from a thawed-out block of greens. For the first four years of operations at the Western Mass Food Processing Center, that’s about as good as it got. The center...
by Amanda Drane | Dec 18, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
As Miranda LaPolice talks, she grips one of her creations — a tufty, ewok-like creature with an oversized green heart stitched to its front, glowing eyes, and a downturned mouth. Both her arms wrap around the critter and her hands make its little legs dance to the...
by Kristin Palpini • Photos by Jerrey Roberts | Dec 18, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
In the egg nog battle, which creamy, spiced, egg concoction reigns supreme? The Valley Advocate staff held a blind tasting last week of some of the area’s finest nogs and the results were shocking. Local and store-bought brands were sampled by Advocate editors Kristin...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 18, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
’Tis the season when theaters go into hibernation or pull out the Christmas shows. Two Western Mass. companies — Old Deerfield Productions and Berkshire Theatre Group — are staging A Christmas Carol this month, along with Hartford Stage’s annual edition. In Putney,...
by Jack Brown | Dec 18, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
As we close out another year on this great blue marble, I’m reminded of an annual event in the film world: the December doldrums. This is that week, which creeps in every year just before Christmas, when theaters seem to be holding their collective breath. People are...
by Amanda Drane | Dec 10, 2014 | Articles, Featured
Early in her career in the restaurant and bar industry, Felicia Lundquist’s boss said something to her that — unlike his earlier rude comments — she just couldn’t brush off. On that night, Lundquist and a few co-workers were wrapping up their shift. She went into the...
by Hunter Styles | Dec 10, 2014 | Articles, Featured, News
Aubretia “Windy” Edick wears her Walmart story. She often sports the distinctive blue vest worn by all store employees, and a large badge announces her name in capital letters. But layered on top of her standard ensemble are buttons and pins. One reads, “Stop...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 10, 2014 | Articles, Featured
Record labels’ raison d’etre used to be pretty clear: fund and promote records, and send bands on tour. In the MP3 era, the very concept of an album has gotten slippery, and some labels fill much different roles than the old model. Where many a newer effort has...
by Jack Brown | Dec 10, 2014 | Articles, Blogs, Cinemadope, Featured, Film
There are so many wonderful mysteries left in the world. In an era when so much can be laid bare with just a few keystrokes, it’s comforting, somehow, to know that there is much we don’t fully understand. Not just the odd bits here and there, but some fairly big...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 10, 2014 | Articles, Featured
H ome for the Holidays is more than the Theater Project’s annual holiday-season variety show. It represents a homecoming for area performers who have become a kind of family on the Majestic Theater stage over the years. An updated evocation of those sweater-clad...
