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Clueless Parent: Trying to Teach a 3-Year-Old About Justice
As I write this, it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I’ve just finished reading Dr. King’s 6,800-word “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” published in 1963 and written after being arrested for participating in one of his many nonviolent actions to further the cause of...
Cinemadope: Guy Ritchie returns to crime with The Gentlemen
There was a time, once, when British director Guy Ritchie was considered the across-the-pond reflection of Quentin Tarantino. The filmmaker who, four years after Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and six after Reservoir Dogs, started pumping out stylish if patchy tales...
Podcast: Pete Redington on guns in the Valley
Writer Pete Redington talks about his recent article about gun owners in the Valley and about how people on opposite sides of the gun issue rarely speak to one another. Listen here: You can hear more of the Valley Advocate’s podcasts...
The V-Spot: How do I have a good threesome?
Hey Yana, It’s looking like a threesome is on the (close) horizon for me and my partner. I feel extremely secure in the relationship. I absolutely trust him and he’s been nothing but supportive of me and my feelings when the subject of threesomes has come up in the...
Free Will Astrology: Find a fellow genius, Aries
ARIES (March 21-April 19): German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) declared that English writer Lord Byron (1788–1824) was the greatest genius of the 19th century. Here’s an interesting coincidence: Byron regarded Goethe as the greatest genius of the 19th...
Shannon Liss-Riordan drops out of Mass. Senate primary, leaving only Markey and Kennedy
In a statement Friday, Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer who made her reputation representing workers against large corporations like Uber and FedEx (and even her alma mater, Harvard), announced she would be dropping her candidacy for U.S. Senate. That leaves incumbent...
Rosie Porter and the Neon Moons on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Rosie Porter and the Neon Moons play classic country and honky-tonk with a sentimental croon. Check out the band’s performance on the Valley Advocate Sessions stage. Interview with Rosie Porter:
Letters to the Editor: Responses to ROE
Responses to ROE In response to “With majorities in both Houses, ROE Act could expand abortion rights in Mass,” published January 9 – 15. Mr. Fieldman’s article “With majorities in both Houses, ROE Act could expand abortion rights in Mass” is an excellent and...
Staff Picks: Saturns Return, Black Refractions, Mary Jane Jones, a dictionary talk for word nerds
Saturns Return: An Immersive Movement Experience // FRIDAY The Root Cellar in Greenfield is hosting an event titled “Saturns Return: An Immersive Movement Experience,” which, according to the Facebook event, includes a hero’s journey, dancing, live music, advice for...
Swimming in drag theater
An Amherst theater company named Queer & Now will be combining drag performances, lip syncing to contemporary pop music, as well as dance, theater, and mythology from around the world this weekend at Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield. Queer...
A Loaded Topic: Pioneer Valley firearms community is active, but often hidden
The Conway Sportsman’s Club lies at the dead end of a quarter mile dirt driveway, a small cabin of a building flanked by a panoramic wooded hillside containing several shooting ranges, whose ridgeline separates the South and Bear River watersheds. At a shaded table...
Editorial: Problem gambling data collection is coming too late
In a spectacular example of closing the door after the horse has already run off, the city of Springfield now has a new program to collect data on problem gambling, also known as compulsive gambling — nearly a year and a half after the MGM Springfield Casino has...
Bizarro Briefs: Immigration Policies Make Vultures Puke
Immigration policies make vultures puke It’s not clear if they’re making a statement about the Trump administration’s immigration policies. But whatever the reason, a large group of vultures has been getting the drop, so to speak, on a U.S. Customs and Border...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Trump’s Next Assassination may be the European Wine Market
I wake up very early every morning and one of the first things I do is check my phone for New York Times push notifications to make sure Donald Trump hasn’t destroyed the world. As of my writing this, he hasn’t. But not for lack of trying. I got a push notification...
Cinemadope: Child’s Work
Ask most Americans when slavery ended, and you’ll likely hear something about the Civil War and Abe Lincoln. Ask them about the rest of the world, and you may be met by a blank stare. But the truth is that it continues on in our modern era, and that many of us,...
Stagestruck on the Road: Witches in Berkeley
With all the talk of “witch hunts” flying around these days, it probably wasn’t quite a coincidence that two shows I saw recently in Berkeley, Calif., are on that very topic. Not the trumped-up political kind of witch hunt, though, but real ones born of historical...
Podcast: Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa on the ROE Act and expansion of abortion rights
A co-sponsor of the ROE Act, aimed at expanding abortion rights in Massachusetts, Northampton state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa talks about the legislation, what it does, and how likely it might be to pass during this session. Sabadosa was one of the people who spoke to...
V Spot: How Long Do I Stay in My Marriage?
Yana, I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that I don’t want to be in my marriage anymore. One reason is that I’m going through a period of intense awakening — I’m connecting more deeply to my emotions and my body while also healing from childhood trauma. Part of...
Free Will Astrology: Be tenacious like Balzac, Taurus
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Comedian John Cleese has an insight I hope you’ll consider. He says, “It’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent. It’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than to...
Steve Rodgers on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Steve Rodgers is a singer-songwriter who plays Americana and indie folk with a dash of rock ‘n’ roll. Check out his full Advocate Sessions performance in the video below. Interview with Steve Rodgers:
Letters to the Editor: Clarifications about ranked-choice voting
Clarifications about ranked-choice voting In response to “Ranked-Choice Voting gaining speed in Mass,” published December 19-25, 2019. Thanks for your recent article about ranked choice voting (RCV). It’ll be a very important topic in Massachusetts in 2020, so it’s...
Staff Picks: Bodies in Motion, Kalliope Jones, Sodada, Lunar Brew, Montague open mic
Bodies in Motion Festival 2020 in Northampton // THURSDAY-SUNDAY For the second January in a row, the Bodies in Motion Festival brings a wide range of dance performances, workshops, residencies, and other artistic events to Northampton’s Community Arts Center at 33...
Bizarro Briefs Podcast: Man bites dog … while naked and on meth
Valley Advocate editor Dave Eisenstadter and Hits 94.3 host Trumpy talk about the week’s weird news in a podcast version of the Valley Advocate’s Bizarro Briefs section. Hear about a man biting a dog while on meth, a new CVS-receipt-based scarf, and a mystery nonhuman...
The Beerhunter: 2020 Brew Years Resolutions
Across America, the craft beer scene is fizzing with activity. Food and drink options have expanded at taprooms, many of which are finding ways of attracting a daytime crowd by showcasing new skills like coffee roasting. Craft maltsters are starting to get the...
Valley Show Girl: Howl at Lunar Brew
The first full moon of the new decade — the Wolf Moon — will start to howl at approximately 2:21 p.m. on Friday, January 10. Just so happens it’s also my birthday, maybe you’ll hear me howling at her from a distance wearing a crystal crown to welcome my 36th year on...
With majorities in both Houses, ROE Act could expand abortion rights in Mass
As the constitutional right to an abortion is threatened in various states and in the country as a whole, the Massachusetts Legislature may soon consider an expansion of abortion rights in the state. Massachusetts lacks a program to financially support individuals who...
Cinemadope: A Developing Story — the invention of a camera for the masses
Like most everyone with kids these days, I tried my best to capture a bit of the holiday magic this season. Photos, videos, the occasional audio recording — moments to share with far flung family who wouldn’t get to see Christmas morning, and memories to share with my...
Bizarro Briefs: Man bites dog … while naked and high on meth
Man bites dog … while naked and high on meth A man in Florida is facing several charges after he allegedly punched a deputy and then bit the ear of a K-9. He did it while he was buck naked, too, and apparently high on meth. According to police in Columbia County,...
Editorial: ‘The Moment We All Feared’
“The moment we all feared is likely upon us. An unstable President in way over his head, panicking, with all his experienced advisers having quit, and only the sycophantic amateurs remaining. Assassinating foreign leaders, announcing plans to bomb civilians. A...
Local activists participate in coal blockade aimed at shutting down NH facility
In the early hours of Friday, January 3, a group of protesters — some from the Pioneer Valley — blocked a train carrying 10,000 tons of coal by erecting a three-tiered scaffold on tracks in the town of Harvard. They blocked the train for over nine hours after...
Stagestruck: Theater in Motion
You’d think things would slow down after the hectic holidays, but no. The Cratchits are still picking at the Christmas leftovers and the Sugar Plum Fairy has barely taken off her toe shoes, when January blows onstage full of New Year promise. This month I’m looking...
Podcast: Chris Goudreau on Ranked-Choice Voting
Chris Goudreau recently wrote an Advocate cover story on the possibility that ranked-choice voting could be adopted in Massachusetts for the 2022 elections. He talks about both state and local efforts to pass the voting system. Listen here: You can hear more of the...
V-Spot: Is He Cheating By Watching Porn?
Note: In this column, we talk about gender-exotifying porn. Hi There, I have a major problem and don’t know how to proceed here. I’ve been married for 15 years and the last 10 have been sexless. To be clear, I’m the woman and he’s the man who chooses not to have sex....
Free Will Astrology: Adopt the social habits of John Cleese, Pisces
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When comedian John Cleese was 61, his mother died. She was 101. Cleese testifies, “Just towards the end, as she began to run out of energy, she did actually stop trying to tell me what to do most of the time.” I bet you’ll experience a...
Supporting the underserved: Spanish language dementia support group gets financial boost
Members of the Spanish-speaking group Cuidadores Unidos meet once a month to discuss the challenges of being caregivers to family members or friends with a dementia-related disease. At the Holyoke Senior Center, members of Cuidadores Unidos are able to share their...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Michael Quinlan — One Region at a Time
Northampton’s soon-to-be-sworn in Ward 1 Councilor also happens to be one of the biggest players in wine in Massachusetts, and I meet with him for lunch over wine at Northampton’s Filo’s Greek Taverna. It’s BYOB. He doesn’t let me pay. Ethics-schmethics. Michael...
Poetry: First Snow, Best Snow
First Snow, Best Snow By Connolly Ryan You remember the first time it snowed on your world? To your little body and giant eyes, the snowflakes looked like extraterrestrial Ferris-wheels and gyroscopic carousels spinning ever so slowly and quickly at the...
Bizarro Briefs Podcast: Be your own farm
Valley Advocate editor Dave Eisenstadter and Hits 94.3 host Trumpy talk about the week’s weird news in a podcast version of the Valley Advocate’s Bizarro Briefs section. Hear about being your own farm in a dystopian future, generous burglars, and the danger of...
Staff Picks: Ray Mason, Kate Lorenz & The Constellations, Livingston Taylor and Susan Warner, 2D Needle Felting
Ray Mason at Bread Euphoria // SATURDAY Kick off the New Year with one of the Valley’s best-seasoned singer-songwriters — Ray Mason — along with his iconic Silvertone guitar. Mason has been performing in the western Massachusetts music scene for decades and this...
Cinemadope: Holding a Grudge — Horror remakes, remade
Fans of the horror genre, and specifically the subset of films that have come out of Asia, will recall the mid-2000s as a heady time. With the success of the 2002 Gore Verbinski film The Ring — a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ring, in which watching a cursed...
Editorial: Another Year, Another Women’s March
If there’s one good thing the Trump presidency has brought us, it’s the annual Women’s March. Begun as a response to Trump defeating Hillary Clinton, the first woman to earn a major party nomination in the United States, the march attracted nearly half a million...
Turning music into philanthropy: Percussionist Tony Vacca talks about his work in West Africa
When he looks back on more than two decades of forging connections with musicians in Senegal, playing with them both there and in the United States, longtime Valley percussionist Tony Vacca laughs, shakes his head in wonder, and summarizes the situation like this:...
Bizarro Briefs: Become your own chia pet … TO SURVIVE
Become your own chia pet … TO SURVIVE Climate change is a scary concept and is driving people to extreme lifestyles, but it was left to a Californian landscape architect to offer us the self-sustaining vest — essentially a wearable farm that can be watered using...
Five Last-Minute Album Reviews for 2019
Music lovers in the Pioneer Valley were blessed by a plethora of great local music this year, whether that was the hauntingly beautiful folk rock of Philip B. Price’s new solo record “Bone Almanac” or what I named as one of the best local albums of the year —...
V-Spot: How do I stop avoiding my partners’ partners?
Hi Yana! I’ve been practicing polyamory for three years. Right now I have two serious partners. Both of them have sex with other people occasionally, but not with any regularity. My jealousy isn’t nonexistent, but it’s manageable. My big problem is that once my...
Free Will Astrology: Work hard like Da Vinci, Libra
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “We are all hostages of the joy of which we deprive ourselves,’ wrote poet Odysseus Elytis. Isn’t that an astounding idea? That we refuse to allow ourselves to experience some of the bliss and pleasure we could easily have; and that we are...
Staff Picks: Moon Hooch, Enter the Haggis, and The Amidon, Murphy, & Tracy Families Concert
Moon Hooch at Hawks & Reed // FRIDAY Moon Hooch makes a big sound with just a few instruments. The band is made up of a drummer and two saxophonists, and when my friend described them to me a few years back, I thought, how much can you do with that arrangement?...
The Halos and Horns of 2019: Advocate staff says who’s been naughty and nice this year
It’s time again for the annual Advocate tradition of giving halos to the good and horns to the bad. The year 2019 closed out the decade with some highs, with local activists going down to the border and speaking out on climate issues, residents in Longmeadow saying no...
In Memoriam: Those who died in 2019
Frances Crowe At 100 years old before she passed away this year, Frances Crowe was already a legend in activism not just in the Pioneer Valley, but the world. She’d been arrested numerous times over the decades, putting her body on the line for causes such as working...
Bizarro Briefs Podcast: A burglar’s Christmas surprise, a bald eagle vs. an octopus, and the Valley’s best public bathrooms
Valley Advocate editor Dave Eisenstadter and Hits 94.3 host Trumpy talk about the week’s weird news in a podcast version of the Valley Advocate’s Bizarro Briefs section. Hear about a burglar’s Christmas surprise, a bald eagle vs. an octopus, and the...
Bizarro Briefs: In the Socks of Fox
In the Socks of Fox If you ever watch the Fox network and think — are these guys on something? — turns out some of them likely are. A reporter for Fox Business was busted last week at a Manhattan courthouse with a crack pipe in his sock. The man was ticketed and...
Clueless Parent: My years-long struggle, and solution, to my son’s bed wetting
“He’ll eventually grow out of it, you have to give it some time,” my son’s pediatrician told his father and me at his physical when he was maybe about 5 years old. When my son transitioned from diapers to pull-ups at bedtime, it seemed that we would never transition...
Valley Show Girl: Don’t Forget to Water Your Leafies
Editor’s note: Advocate Associate Editor Chris Goudreau is a member of Leafies. The opening track to debut album Off Off Off Broadway from The Leafies You Gave Me tells a tale of a man who tends to the elephants and their dirty business at the circus. It is spoken...
The V-Spot: How To Kiss With Consent
Hi Yana, Often when speaking of sexual comfort and consent, people focus on the stages of intimacy that involve contact with the areas of our bodies we normally keep clothed. Kissing and intimate touch are viewed more often as foreplay and I seldom encounter guides to...
Cinemadope: Adam Sandler gets serious
Back in the Blockbuster era of movie consumption it was hard not to think of movies in terms of genre first: walk into one of those big box shrines to moviemaking and you couldn’t take a step without first charting a course by the signs hanging from the ceiling....
Free Will Astrology: Mix and blend like Drake, Scorpio
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Denmark during World War II. In 1943, Hitler ordered all Danish Jews to be arrested — a first step in his plan to send them to concentration camps. But the Danish resistance movement leapt into action and...
Brown Bones on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
Brown Bones performs soulful and intimate urban folk with poignant lyrics and heartfelt melodies. Check out the group’s full performance in the video below. Interview with Brown Bones:
Letters to the Editor: Put the Ha back in Hanukah
Put the Ha back in Hanukah As the holiday season rolls around we have to brace ourselves for the seasonal secular humanist assault on one of our nation’s most sacred holidays. However you spell it, I’m talking about the “war” on Hanukah. Chanukah has turned into yet...
Staff Picks: The Frost Heaves and Hales, homelessness films, Parasite at Amherst Cinema, Winter Solstice Celebration
Books, music and a birthday at Federal St. Books // SATURDAY There are few better things to celebrate than the re-opening of a bookstore, and such a celebration comes to us this weekend when Federal St. Books has its grand reopening under the ownership of Hillary...E-Edition
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