News
by Kristin Palpini | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Newsletter, Scene Here
From six directions, cars attempt to drive through the intersection at Conz and Pleasant streets in Northampton. It’s 88 degrees and the dirt kicked up by heavy machinery sticks to sweat, giving everyone a dirty looking tan. The Route 5 entryway to Paradise City is...
by Chuck Shepherd | Sep 6, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
The recently concluded Olympics included a few of the more obscure athletic endeavors — such as dressage for horses and steeplechase for humans — but U.S. colleges compete in even less-heralded “sports,” such as wood chopping, rock climbing, fishing, and broomball....
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 30, 2016 | Articles, College Survival Guide, News, Newsletter
You’ve checked into your dorm and met your roommate, scoped out the campus and located the halls where you’ll have your first classes. It’s time to get off campus and explore this new place called the Pioneer Valley where you’ll likely be spending the next four years...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Food + Booze, Leisure, News, Newsletter, Wellness
A guide to summer cocktails from the garden It’s hard to imagine a better way to top off an afternoon in the garden than by settling into a lawn chair with a refreshing summer cocktail and admiring your work. Even better if you can actually harvest a few ingredients...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, News, Newsletter, Wellness
If you caught much of the Rio Olympics this summer, you may have noticed a blitz of sports beverage commercials featuring Olympic athletes like boxer Shakur Stevenson swilling fluorescent blue Powerade, or Usain Bolt and Serena Williams pushing Gatorade. Aside from a...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, College Survival Guide, News
In the Valley, where you can’t throw a hacky sack without hitting a campus, September means back to college. Keep scrolling down for infographs.The value of a college degree can be debated — among people who have earned them, more than 80 percent say it was a great...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, News, Scene Here
It’s human nature to want to see just how far an idea can be pushed. Take Slide the City for instance, the 1,000-foot slip-and-slide that transformed Appleton Street into a lazy river for the Celebrate Holyoke festival this past weekend. It’s easy to imagine...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, College Survival Guide, News, Newsletter
The University of Chicago may have sent one of the most bizarre and shady freshmen welcome letters I’ve ever seen, when they mailed the missives to the class of 2020 last week.The main thrust of the letter isn’t to welcome but to put freshmen on notice that the...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Avoid GMOs; go organic Farmers have increased their pesticide use on GMO crops three-fold compared to standard conventional use; that’s enough reason to avoid GMOs (“Vermont’s Short-Lived GMO Experiment” Aug. 11-17, 2016). Most GMOs (genetically modified organisms)...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
The phenomenal Japanese singer Hatsune Miku — 100 million YouTube hits — is coming off of a sold-out, 10-city North American concert tour with high-energy audiences — blocks-long lines to get in; raucous crowd participation; hefty souvenir sales — except that “she”...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 29, 2016 | Articles, Columns, News, Newsletter, Third Eye Roaming, Wellness
Mindfulness, or the practice of being completely aware of everything happening in the present moment, can serve as the path to a peaceful world. That person in your life attacking you? Perhaps it is because they are threatened by you. That man who sexually harasses...
by Amanda Drane | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Newsletter
It was so hot and humid inside Pearl Street Nightclub during a metal show earlier this month that the ceiling was beading up with condensation and raining sweat onto the crowd.The sweltering experience spurred nearly 200 people to voice outrage on social media, and...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Newsletter, Scene Here
The old familiar smell of hundreds of people’s body odors mingles with the dust kicking up under our feet and the marijuana smoke hanging low in the air to form that perfect outdoor concert aroma at Mountain Park in Holyoke Saturday.Turkuaz, each member head to toe in...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Featured, News, Newsletter, O Cannabis!
At a concert — years ago — I was dancing in the front row when the familiar aroma of bright piney buds wafted by. It didn’t take long to find the source; a friendly gorilla finger was passing down the line. A sweaty dude in the neon pink knit cap exhaled a big...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
India has supposedly outlawed the “baby-tossing” religious test popular among Hindus and Muslims in rural villages in Maharashtra and Karnataka states, but a July New York Times report suggested that parents were still allowing surrogates to drop their...
by Larry Parnass | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News, Newsletter
In the American legal system, we trust citizens on juries to decide matters of life and death. But before jurors exercise that power, they put in the time, sitting through testimony and debating the merits of a case. Few jurors complain. Justice demands they sift...
by From Our Readers | Aug 22, 2016 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
We’re Back, Iraq Recent headlines announcing more U.S. troops to Iraq made me feel like the character in Bill Murray’s movie Groundhog Day, and with good reason … The politicians in Washington have been duped into believing that more violence will solve the problem...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, News
Above a gray storefront on the corner of Sumner Avenue and Dickinson Street at the X in Springfield hangs a sign that reads, in leafy green letters, “Potco: Everything that goes in the POT…” Yes, “pot” is indeed written in all caps and followed by an ellipsis,...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Nerding Out, News
If you’ve ever done any birdwatching in the quaint pastoral landscapes of the Wilbraham-Monson area, you may have noticed a striking abundance of bright blue little thrushes with vibrant orange and white stomachs merrily chasing bugs and perching on nest boxes and...
by Kristin Palpini & Chris Lindahl | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, News, Newsletter
Jill Griffin, Western Mass’ top medical marijuana gatekeeper, is getting out of the game. On Aug. 1, Griffin posted an open letter to her patients and the Valley saying that she will no longer recommend medical marijuana to new or existing patients after Aug. 31. Her...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, Columns, News, Newsletter
Another summer, another superintendent for Amherst public schools. Since 2000, the school district has been under the guidance of five superintendents — six if you double count the husband-wife team that ran the schools for under a year. This isn’t normal, and it...
by Naila Moreira | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News
Very little seems more like a frivolous waste of time than watching cute animal videos on Facebook.But the more I’ve watched them, the more I’ve thought there’s something important, something vital even, that we’re communicating through critter videos — a shift in...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Cooperative Behavioral Health Care Deserves a Shot The Valley Advocate’s excellent piece on cooperative businesses (“Surprise! It’s a co-op. Any business can be a worker-owned business,” Aug. 4-10, 2016) was just the sort of education and inspiration we need to stem...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
This morning I somehow ended up in the scant “positions” section of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign website on the “Pay for the Wall” page, hoping to settle in my mind once and for all exactly how The Donald...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, News, Scene Here
Rosco just #can’t. After a full week of being a good dog — messing outside, not messing in the house, and being generally adorable — here he is, out on a river, of all places, hanging with these kids. “I’m too old for this,” he mutters to himself, sipping on an iced...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
As Americans’ fascination with guns grows, so, too, does the market for protection against all those flying bullets. Texan John Adrain has introduced an upscale sofa whose cushions can stop up to a .44 Magnum fired at close range, and is now at work on...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 15, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird, Newsletter
The late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who dabbled in macabre collections, himself, might appreciate the work of acolyte Tina Gorjanc: She will grow McQueen’s skin from DNA off his hair in a lab, add back his tattoos, and from that make leather handbags...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
Vermont’s experiment with GMO labeling was brief, but memorable. In July, the single month that House Act 120 was in effect, consumers saw new signs popping up at grocery stores — just not the type many were envisioning. “We apologize that we can no longer offer this...
by Jennifer Levesque | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, News, Scene Here
Down an old country road, tucked into the mountains in Becket, rests the 200-year-old Dream Away Lodge. The romantic name suits the intimate atmosphere with dim lighting and couples in every nook. It’s a lot like entering a good friend’s living room with unique,...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, News
The research-based answer to this question is: yes, GMOs are no more or less safe to consume than traditionally grown foods. The FDA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies of Sciences, the World Health Organization, and the...
by Kristin Palpini, Hunter Styles, and Peter Vancini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
Co-ops and granola go together like seitan and soy sauce — but what if there is no granola?We love our local grocers, and we’re psyched that the food co-op movement is growing, but working cooperatives aren’t just for breakfast anymore. Almost any kind of business can...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
Julia is standing at one of the I-91 intersections in Holyoke after hitchhiking down from Vermont. On the back of her cardboard sign is a small, hand-written phone number.Some guy in a truck gave it to her, she says. He says he has a moving company and to give him a...
by Kristin Palpini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
An Advocate analysis of U.S. Census occupation data allowed us to pinpoint where like-minded career folk are congregating in the Valley. By comparing residents employed in each sector to the overall number of people working in each town, we found pockets of job...
by Chuck Shepherd | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
A conservation biologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales said in July that his team was headed to Botswana to paint eyeballs on cows’ rear ends. It’s a solution to the problem of farmers who are now forced to kill endangered lions to...
by Peter Vancini | Aug 1, 2016 | Articles, Arts, News, Scene Here
A crowd of several hundred people, made up largely of children, packed the lawn of the Springfield Museums Quadrangle on Tuesday morning in eager anticipation of a stump speech by the self-proclaimed “children’s candidate,” the latest to enter the presidential fray....
by Peter Vancini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Leisure, News
In the middle of an ordinary residential neighborhood in Holyoke lies a hidden Garden of Eden, where pollinating insects buzz from flower to flower and nearly everything is edible. Despite appearances, this place was no act of divine creation. The garden was born of...
by Sarah Crosby, Daily Hampshire Gazette | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, News
When staunch Bernie Sanders supporter Miles Chilson received Donald Trump’s “Empire” cologne as a joke from a Hartsbrook School classmate last year, he had no idea that gift would become the winning ticket to his national stage performance.Or that the Trump campaign...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Featured, News
In the Pioneer Valley, recycling feels like a given, but that’s a false sense of environmental do-gooding.There are multiple bins for your paper, plastics, and trash — and in some communities, for compost — in just about every public outdoor and indoor space. But...
by Chuck Shepherd | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced in May that it had collected $765,000 in loose change left behind in airport scanner trays during 2015 — an average haul for the agency of $2,100 a day. Los Angeles and Miami airports contributed $106,000 of...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
At 1 p.m. on a weekday in Chicopee earlier this month, a 15-year-old boy accompanied by two friends was allegedly banging so hard on the triple pane window of a stranger’s door that it broke the first of three layers of glass. The youth never made it through the door,...
by From Our Readers | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
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...
by Peter Vancini | Jul 25, 2016 | Articles, News, Newsletter, Scene Here
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...
by Peter Vancini, Kristin Palpini, Dave Eisenstadter | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, News
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
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...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Food + Booze, News, Scene Here
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 20, 2016 | Articles, Music, News, Newsletter, Uncategorized
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,...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
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,...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Jul 19, 2016 | Articles, Columns, Leisure, News, Newsletter, The V-Spot, Wellness
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...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 12, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, News, Stage
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...
by Kristin Palpini, Hunter Styles, and Peter Vancini | Jul 11, 2016 | Articles, Film, News
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...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 11, 2016 | Articles, News
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...
by Chuck Shepherd | Jul 11, 2016 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 11, 2016 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
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...
by From Our Readers | Jul 11, 2016 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
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...
by Kristin Palpini | Jul 11, 2016 | Articles, News, Scene Here
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,...
by Hunter Styles | Jul 5, 2016 | Articles, Arts, News
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...
by Erykah Carter | Jul 5, 2016 | Articles, News, Wellness
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...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jul 5, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, News, Stage
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,...
by Peter Vancini | Jul 5, 2016 | Articles, News
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...
