News
Back Talk: Inspired by Erykah, Disgusted by Gerena
InspiredI am truly inspired by Erykah’s courage (“In Her Own Words: Incarcerated in a Greenfield men’s correctional facility, Erykah Carter documents her transition”). Even as painstaking as it must of been. The feelings of being scared, or accepted by not...
Scene Here: Tuesday Night Classics
The setting sun glints off a sea of chrome and glossy paint jobs — fiery reds, cool blues, and slick blacks. The sounds of classic rock ‘n’ roll echo through Stearns Square and the smell of fried food lingers. It’s Tuesday Cruise Night, an event put on by the...
Click It! Are Your Neighbors Voting? Find out in our interactive map
Western Mass has a reputation for being politically active, but at least in terms of voting, some communities are more engaged than others.An analysis of city and town voter turnout rates in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties for the 2012 presidential election...
Between the Lines: A Rebar River Runs Through It
More than 100 yards of industrial concrete waste along the Connecticut River along Route 47 in Hadley is going to be removed, thanks to an anonymous phone call.Earlier this month, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued an enforcement order against...
Scene Here: On Tap Festival at Berkshire East
Last Call, Franklin County This past Sunday’s inaugural Franklin County On Tap festival drew over 400 intrepid fans of craft beer, cider, and mead to Berkshire East Mountain Resort in Charlemont to sample brews from a dozen local operations, including the...
Flashback: Stearns Square Over Time
1881 — Chester W. Chapin, a railroad tycoon and congressman from Springfield, commissions renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create a bronze statue of his ancestor and early city settler, Deacon Samuel Chapin. Springfield builds a small park, Stearns Square,...
Down to Earth: Americans have no ‘right-to-roam,’ but we should
Last month, on a Sunday afternoon, I drove down to the Oxbow for an ultimate Frisbee pickup game. Clouds had been gathering all day and it began to rain as I drove, so when I arrived at the athletic fields, no one had turned up to play.I parked my car and decided...
News of the Weird: Fashion Challenges
Beautician Sarah Bryan, 28, of Wakefield, England, who garnered worldwide notoriety last year when she introduced a wearable dress made of 3,000 Skittles, returned this summer with a wearable skirt and bra made of donated human hair — a substantial amount of which,...
The V-Spot: Husband Seeking Female-Friendly Sex-ed
Hi Yana, My wife is interested in exploring her sexuality a little further — things she might be interested in trying, etc. — but is hoping to do so in a way that is female- and feminist-friendly. Do you have any suggestions for things she can do or read either...
‘Something about people lifting and throwing logs gets me all giggly and shouty’ Staff Picks for July 14-20, 2016
Split Shift/Fear Nuttin Band – Saturday Split Shift and Fear Nuttin Band are clebrating their 15th anniversaries this weekend. iRockRadio presents Rock Fest featuring the two bands, along with other locals: Sakara, Sever The Drama, NoSho, Neon Fauna, Sanity is...
Local YouTube Channels You Gotta See: Vulgar Chef, Favor 2 Betty, Richard D. Wolff, more
Among the billions of videos on YouTube, drowned out by commercials for real estate and cars, dwells awesome local content that is nearly impossible to find — unless you know where to look.What’s got 40 pages and some entertaining and/or enlightening channels to...
Is Sen. Elizabeth Warren a Sellout for Supporting Hillary Clinton? Your Thoughts
This election cycle is stirring up strong feelings left and right, but most of us confine our rants to social media and the comments sections of YouTube channels we love to hate-watch. That’s why we were surprised to find some political graffiti on Route 5 in...
News of the Weird: Blessings, Guaranteed
More and more churches — hundreds, according to a June Christianity Today report — offer hesitant parishioners a “money-back guarantee” if they tithe 10 percent, or more, of their income for 90 days, but then feel that God blesses them insufficiently in...
Between the Lines: Catching Up With Old Beefs, Part II
Some topics are too rich to write about just once — and this column seeks to tackle a lot of them. For all the people wondering, “What ever happened to …?” this week’s column — part two in a two-part series — is full of updates on issues I’ve written about in this...
Back Talk: Why not deport criminals? Mourning So Many
Why Not Deport Criminals?The following is in reference to the article, “Between the Lines: Report a Crime, Risk Deportation” June 9-15, 2016. Why is it a bad thing to deport people who are here illegally who have committed not one, but two crimes? I’m not versed...
SceneHere: The Jam Must Go On!
The 30th Green River Festival at Greenfield Community College was awash in music, good vibes, and rain — big time. Day two of the three-day festival, Saturday, saw some severe downpours, but a little rain wasn’t enough to dampen people’s spirits. — Kristin Palpini,...
Review: “Up In Arms” — Brattleboro Museum offers an artful twist on the gun show
It was unfortunate, says director Danny Lichtenfeld, that the Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center’s postcard for the new exhibit “Up In Arms: Taking Stock of Guns” hit many local mailboxes the morning after the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. I...
In Her Own Words: Incarcerated in a Greenfield men’s correctional facility, she documents her transition
Editor’s Note: In October Erykah Carter will walk out of the Franklin County Jail and take her first free steps — ever. “To be able to say my name, my name is Erykah Carter, it means the world to me, it makes me feel right,” says Carter during our interview in...
Saturday’s Tribute to Daddy K (KJ Morris) @ Diva’s
This past Saturday at Diva’s Nightclub in Northampton, a tribute to KJ Morris was held. Under the name Daddy K, Morris was a dancer and drag performer at Diva’s and was a huge part of the LGBT community in the Valley. Drag queens and kings, close friends,...
Adventures in Troll Land: Can cyber-harassment laws keep pace with technology?
In our June 23 – 29, 2016 issue, the Advocate ran a piece called “Uncivil Discourse,” which was about the online backlash incurred by two local college students after they aggressively protested a panel discussion at UMass. The reader response surprised us and...
Third Eye Roaming: Twelve-Step Yoga, moving through addiction and its effects
While I was growing up, my dad was addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine. He still is, he’d say, although he’s been sober for more than six years. At times it wasn’t easy having a good relationship with my dad, but the thing that always got us through rough patches is...
Between the Lines: Catching Up With Old Beefs, gun control, Gerena, and higher-ed grifters
News writers are constantly looking for new topics, fresh angles, scoops, and shenanigans to expose — and once we’ve done that work, it’s on to the next new thing. Because there is always a new issue, catastrophe, trend, or serious question to analyze, journalists and...
News of the Weird: A Longtime Recurring Theme Peaks
In May, an apparently devout woman named Katy Vasquez of Winter Park, Florida, posted a sincerely written entry on Facebook — and told Huffington Post in an interview — that she had just seen a “sign from God,” a cross, as a smudge in her infant’s...
Back Talk: Mental for Basemental
Mental for Basemental I’ve been a reader of the Advocate for many years and I just wanted to say that I have really been appreciating Will Meyer’s Basemental column over the last several weeks. I’ve been to some of these basements and DIY venues...
Making it in Downtown Springfield: Pop-up makers’ space in the city
The lights are finally on in a small storefront on Worthington Street in downtown Springfield, just in time for the official June 8 kick-off gala for Make-It Springfield, the “pop-up makerspace” that’s aimed not just at refurbishing the empty storefront it moved into,...
Make Art Happen: Greenfield Gallery’s call to action
On a cool Friday night in early May, guests filled the Greenfield Gallery to celebrate the abstract paintings of Greenfield artist Joseph McCarthy. About 60 people came through to chat over wine and cheese, and the gallery sold several works. When Rachael Katz and...
Vodkamelons: Fact or Fiction?
The staff at the Valley Advocate have been to many picnics, parties, hootenannies, hoe downs, shindigs, and festivals, but only one of us has ever tasted the infamous vodkamelon.Amanda Drane, our Third Eye Roaming yogi, claims to have made a vodka infused melon with...
Poem: For Orlando/Pulse
These barbaric raids of aphotic-sick clouds tar by poison a horror with no boundary, appearing anywhere, pervasive as weather, assailing repeatedly without warning, leaving a vast pool of vulnerability and no shelter. 2 a.m. last call was happening everywhere.Again,...
Between the Lines: The GOP Problem, Mass Cash and Massacres
People say you can’t put a price on life, but Republicans certainly have. Ted Cruz (R-TX) thinks 100 human lives are worth about $159,800.Marco Rubio (R) doesn’t put as high a value on people, selling out the public for just $44,480. But at least...
#valleygram: You Wot, Mate?!
Strange creatures roam the wilds of the Valley’s Instagram feeds. That’s where we met George and Gracie, resident emus at the Starlight Llama solar-powered bed and breakfast in Northampton. “Modern dinos, these emus,” writes Boston resident Sonciary Honnoll...
O, Cannabis: A Heady Vacation, Traveling With Weed
It’s summer! The season in which most Americans seek to do some deep unwinding by hopping in the car, on a plane, or a ship and getting away from it all. There is one thing millions of people aren’t seeking to leave behind, though, and it’s also headily conducive to a...
Guest Column: We had our own Brock Turner situation in the Valley
We Had Our Own Brock Turner Situation in the ValleyThe sentencing of Brock Turner by California Judge Aaron Persky has sparked a national discussion of how we hold young drunk college men accountable for sexual assault. The general sentiment is that Persky was far...
News of the Weird: Getting Fannies in the Seats
The Bunyadi opened in London in June for a three-month run as the world’s newest nude-dining experience, and, since it only seats 42, it now has a reservation waiting list of 40,000. Besides the nakedness, the Bunyadi creates “true liberation,” said...
Scene Here: Abuzz About Drones
In a cozy courtyard in downtown Springfield, nestled among red brick buildings and gray concrete parking garages, a small white quadcopter suddenly whirs to life on a makeshift launch pad in small patch of grass. At the controls is 16-year-old Briyanna Henry, who’s...
100 Things We Love About Valley … politics, music, front yards, Springfield, activism, fashion, Amherst, et al
Oh, Valley, we’ve loved you for such a long time now; we just wanted to count the ways. In celebration of the Valley Advocate’s relaunch we’re holding a love-in, right here, in these pages, right now. But we don’t have a rosy, puppy love going on with you, Valley. Oh,...
Basemental: Straight to Video, bassist Sam Hadge’s wild concert footage
The magic of live music stems from the intimacy of being in the same room as the performer, but Sam Hadge’s talent is capturing that intimacy for the online world who couldn’t make it to the show.Since I started going to DIY shows with regularity about a year and a...
Uncivil Discourse: The Triggering at UMass is over, but the harassment it has unleashed rages on
On April 25, the UMass College Republicans hosted an event in Stockbridge Hall featuring several prominent pop-conservatives. The event, “The Triggering: Has Political Correctness Gone Too Far?,” was billed as a discussion of the perceived excesses by social justice...
Between the Lines: New Beginnings
When we set out to reinvigorate the Valley Advocate a little more than a year ago, we had some goals in mind. We wanted to bring our venerable newspaper back to its roots: alternative stories, for alternative people — and some mainstream folks who are still cool. We...
People Would Go With Olive Branches and They Would Meet Them with Bullets: A Westfield refugee’s story
From the comfort of a ranch-style home in Westfield, Zaid AlNassar says that the difference between his family’s situation in the strife-torn Middle East and their new life in the U.S. is “like the Earth and the sky.” The worries of those days seem a world away as his...
Back Talk: ‘As a firearm-owning gay man, I thank you!’
Guns ‘N’ Education “The Kirk Whatley Challenge: Before you write guns off, shoot one — safely” (June 16-22, 2016) by Hunter Styles attracted a lot of attention online. We posted the article to Facebook along with the question: Can you truly be anti-gun without first...
News of the Weird: App Nauseam
In May, the Norwegian Consumer Council staged a live, 32-hour TV broadcast marathon — a word-for-word reading of the “terms of service” for internet applications Instagram, Spotify and more than two dozen others, totaling 900 pages and 250,000 words of...
The Kirk Whatley Challenge: Before you write guns off, fire one, safely
Open-carry laws in Massachusetts allow Kirk Whatley to strap a gun holster to his hip, secure his favorite pistol there, and keep it visible on his walks around town. But he wouldn’t recommend it. For one thing, he says, there’s no good reason to let everyone know...
Guest Column: Boycott North Carolina, Springfield kids in the ’30s took a stand against the state’s record of discrimination. Will today’s?
This story of today starts in 1934. The American Legion Post 21 Championship baseball team has been invited to play in a national tournament in Gastonia, North Carolina. When the team gets off the train, the band stops playing. A bus pulls away from the curb. At the...
Brew Kids on the Block: A new Senate bill would allow beer sales at farmers markets
Have you ever wondered why Massachusetts farmers markets don’t allow the sale of beer, even though vendors are typically welcome to sell hard cider and wine? So have state lawmakers. Early last month, the Senate passed a sweeping agricultural bill...
Back Talk: What Killed the Monkey; Pride Month Massacre
What Killed the Monkey Facebook reactions to “Gross Negligence Alleged in Death of UMass Lab Monkey”William Robinson: Sounds like the incident didn’t have much to do with the nature of the research itself, but a veterinary mishap resulting from pure accident —...
Scene Here: Vigils for Orlando
On June 12, the day of the massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, people in the Valley held vigils to mourn the tragedy and to comfort each other. In Greenfield, people sang “We Shall Overcome” on the town common. In Northampton, they held a vigil...
Between the Lines: Nothing to See Here? Pharmaceutical prices skyrocket
Usually, when you buy something, you know the price before you step up to the register. Most of us have a pretty good bead on how much a gallon of milk is and who has the best prices on gas, but when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs, everyone’s standing before the...
News of the Weird: Who’s a Good Boy?
Life is good now for British men who “identify” as dogs and puppies, as evidenced by a BBC documentary, Secret Life of the Human Pups, showing men in body outfits — one a Lycra-suited Dalmatian, “Spot” — exhibiting “sexual”...
Big Rock, Little Valley: How Big is Too Big For Green River Fest?
Interstate 24 carries traffic through the heart of Manchester, Tennessee. But on June 21, 2002, the highway turned into a parking lot. The cause: Bonnaroo.In the 14 years since, the music and arts festival has streamlined the traffic plan with police and city...
Must Have More Chaos: Cultural Chaos in Easthampton
More Chaos, PleaseFlying trapeze artists, puppets, Hula hoop extraordinaires, buskers, artists, crafters, bands, authors, dancers, and performing artists are among the funky folk who will converge on Cottage Street in Easthampton this Saturday for Cultural Chaos. The...
GZA GZA GZA GZA!!!! Wednesday
Get SchooledThe GZA (minus the RZA, the Ol’ Dirty BZA, U-God, Chef, and the Ghostface Killah) is stopping by the Valley to hold a master class in lyrical flow Wednesday night at Pearl Street. Known as the “spiritual head” of the seminal Wu-Tang Clan, GZA/Genius is...
15 Group Band Photo Cliches and What They Really Mean
There’s only so many ways to take a group photo of a bunch of musicians — we know this because we see a lot of repetition in band publicity photos. How is it that creative and talented musicians across the planet keep coming up with the same band photo over and over...
‘How To Annoy Your Siblings’: See the Tiny Book Show
Like Real Books, But CuterShrink anything down small enough and, eventually, it will get ridiculously cute — including books. This week, The Tiny Book Show, a mobile museum of teeny-tiny books, will appear, for a short time, in Shelburne Falls and Greenfield. The...
Advocate Hitting Stands Late This Week
Due to a malfunction with the press, the Advocate was printed later than usual and will be delayed reaching news stands. Sorry for the inconvenience; the full June 9-15 2016 Advocate will be online Thursday morning. – Editor Kristin Palpini,...
This Weekend: Full Disclosure Festival with a secret history booth, uncertainty cube, +
Meet-Cute ArtFor this year’s Full Disclosure Festival — a weekend of public installation art, performance art, and art to be named — each participating artist was paired with a researcher and sent on a blind date. The point of the meeting was for the artist to get a...
Between the Lines: Report a Crime, Risk Deportation
Massachusetts State Troopers can now detain for 48 hours people suspected of being in the country illegally — allowing federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enough time to show up, arrest the person on federal charges, and begin deportation...
Is This 8-bit Drone Gypsy Jazz Trio For Me? Music Genres Defined
It’s okay to be stumped when your friend invites you out to see his favorite math rock funk band — tonight with a Zydeco guest washboard player! The variety of musicians in the Valley is immense, and so is the range of music they play. So, if you ever wondered whether...
Down to Earth: Saving Honey Bees, One Person at a Time
I’ve always had a thing for creepy crawlies. I was the kid who caught the wasp stuck in the classroom to let it out the window. And I still crouch to move a worm from the sidewalk into the grass. So, when a colleague of mine, Sara Eddy, started her first beehive, I...
Back Talk: What is Columbus Day Really?; Triple Beef
What is Columbus Day, really? Interesting article by Kristin Palpini (“Between the Lines: Columbus, Genocidal Slave-Traders Should Not Get Their Own Holidays” May 26-June 1, 2016). As a child growing up in the ’60s and ’70s I learned from my family and...E-Edition
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