Newsletter
Editorial: Women’s Marches Gathering Steam for Blue Wave Elections
It is beyond fitting that on the first anniversary of Donald Trump being inaugurated president not only does the government shut down, but huge numbers of people take to the streets to protest against his policies. Women’s marches took place across the country,...
Review: Forgotten Girls: Lives In Peril
Walking into the genteel Von Auersperg Gallery, one is reminded that Western Massachusetts is truly a bastion for visual arts venues. One is also reminded of how many choose to host phlegmatic collections of New England landscapes rather than those that may court...
Bizarro Briefs: So I Divorced an Axe-Thrower
We’ve all seen the extravagant divorce celebrations: divorce cakes with decorations rivaling wedding centerpieces, “newly single” clubbing events that make bachelor and bachelorette parties look tame, and more. Now, you can throw axes as part of that celebration — so...
In Uncertain Political Climate, Democratic Challengers Hope to Unseat Popular Gov. Baker
By most accounts, Gov. Charlie Baker is popular with the people of Massachusetts despite being a Republican in a state that’s known to be one of the bluest in the country. Baker’s popularity has survived his mediocre environmental record and his bill mandating state...
Free Will Astrology: Watch the Price of Eggs, Virgo
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Anders Haugen competed for the U.S. as a ski jumper in the 1924 Winter Olympics. Although he was an accomplished athlete who had previously set a world record for distance, he won no medals at the games. But wait! Fifty years later, a sports...
Cinemadope: Alone/Together
One of the stranger aspects of moviegoing is that it is at once a grand communal act and an intensely private experience. We gather together in dark rooms as if in secret churches, and when the crowd is right it can feel as if we’ve all been through something together...
The V-Spot: Where’s My Bleepin’ Orgasm??
Dear Yana, I’ve been with my boyfriend for a couple years now. We’re just now starting to experiment in our sex life. I’ve known how to make myself vaginally orgasm for a few years now. And he knows what positions I need to do to make this happen. But it’s gotten to...
Jewish Day School in Northampton to Hold First ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ Saturday
The Lander-Grinspoon Academy, a K-6 Jewish day school in Northampton, is celebrating the Jewish ceremony of Havdallah with music and a Drag Queen Story Hour featuring local drag queen Jenayah De Rosario this Saturday on Jan. 20 from 6 to 8 p.m. “I hope that the...
Cinemadope: Different Strokes
Few artists have captured the public’s fancy like Vincent Van Gogh. His richly textured landscapes, interiors, and portraits, built up with a painterly impasto as inviting as a rich ganache, seem to grow in popularity with every passing year. And while the calendar...
Back Talk: Let’s Overturn Citizens United
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
Stagestruck: When 90 Minutes is Enough
Time was, going to the theater took up the whole evening, with built-in pee and bar breaks. That’s been changing recently, as more and more plays clock in at an intermissionless 90 minutes or so. Back in Shakespeare’s day, of course, the show went on all afternoon,...
Panhandlers Find Loophole in Holyoke Law
Matt LeBlanc stood near the Interstate 391 exit near High Street in Holyoke, holding a sign that read, “Homeless vet — hungry and cold” while heavy snowfall rained down in the frigid afternoon of Jan. 4. LeBlanc started panhandling at around 10:30 a.m. and by 1 p.m....
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy
It’s New Year’s Day. With no idea what to watch, I thought I’d go through one of my leaning towers of DVDs and see what I might come up with. Down at the musty bottom of one of the stacks, I found a trove of movies I’d never watched. My candidate for viewing: The...
O Cannabis: Time to Get Growing
Bay Staters are still waiting for finalized regulations for the commercial recreational marijuana industry in Massachusetts, but the regulations around adult recreational use for individuals were established in December 2016. After voters passed Question 4 on the 2016...
Bizarro Briefs: Do My Clams Look Small?
There was a seafood emergency at Crabby’s Seafood Shack in Stuart, Florida, in the southeastern region of the state. A 51-year-old Stuart resident, did what anybody would do when they have a gripe with their undersized and minute meal of clams — he called 911. The man...
The Beerhunter: Craft Beer Goals for 2018
Local brewers share their predictions and plans Cheers, America! According to the Brewers Association’s 2017 year-end report, there are now more than 6,000 breweries nationwide — an increase of 500 breweries from just six months ago. And here’s some even better news:...
Valley Show Girl: Guitars and Coffee
The smell of strong coffee warms me from the cold as I open the door to Iconica Social Club for the first time. From the outside, it looks like an odd brick building in the middle of a parking lot behind Haymarket in Northampton. But upon entering, you’re engulfed...
Puerto Rico Professionals in Limbo: Massachusetts Laws Create Roadblocks to Employment
When Hurricane Maria devastated her area of Isabela, Puerto Rico, 52-year-old Brenda Trujillo traveled to Holyoke in search of a more stable life and employment. Trujillo has been a nurse for nearly 30 years, but since arriving on November 3 she has not been able to...
Iron Horse Entertainment Group Marketing Director Jim Neill Leaves For DSP Shows
For more than a decade, Jim Neill has worked as the marketing director of the Iron Horse Entertainment Group (IHEG), promoting shows featuring local and national acts, acting as a spokesperson for the venue group, a media liaison, and one of the most prominent faces...
Getting on the Ballot: What we’ll be Voting on in 2018
From September to the end of November, Mickey Prout, 22, a student at Westfield State University, and other volunteers would set up tables in the dining commons to talk to other students about two statewide ballot initiatives: raising the minimum wage and...
Editorial: Taking Up Running to Slow Down
I’m in my mid-30s, and “getting fit” is something I think about more now. It took me a long time to come around on the idea of exercise for exercise sake — but it has become something that I actually enjoy (even if I don’t do it as often as I should). In middle...
Staff Picks: Stay inside with comic books, fusion jazz, democratic candidates for Governor, and yoga
Comic Book Craft Night with Beer // SUNDAY Oh my goodness, comic book crafting and beer?? Wake up your inner nerd from freezing cold weather-induced hibernation and get your craft on! Comics N’ More will provide all the materials needed to make some collages,...
Changing Lives While Living With Chronic Illness
Erica Verrillo of Whatley has written more than half a dozen books and launched a non-profit national organization, all while being partially bedridden for the past three decades. Verillo has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.), a chronic and fluctuating neurological...
Review: Decades of Philip B. Price of Winterpills
This past year Winterpills member and Northampton-based singer-songwriter Phillip B. Price remastered a dozen of his past solo albums recorded from 1988 to 2004, which had never seen the light of day. With a back catalogue of more than a hundred songs to choose from,...
The Top 9 Ways to Get Fit in Western Mass this Winter
The warmer fall was nice and December was capped off by a white Christmas. But now that we’re in the heart of winter, it might be a bit harder to get outside for your usual walks or bike rides. And meanwhile, one of your New Year’s resolutions was to get...
Cinemadope: Guiding Light
It’s tough to start a new year on a sad note, but it was only after the last Cinemadope’s deadline that I got the news that Duane Robinson had passed away. The driving force behind the revival of the Academy of Music in Northampton, and its enthusiastic and dedicated...
Cannabis Consultant Ezra Parzybok Talks Marijuana as Medicine in New Book
As its medical uses evolve and marijuana becomes legally available for recreation in Massachusetts, an area cannabis consultant is working to fill an information hole he thinks is undermining its use. “In our culture, marijuana is known for all the bad reasons because...
Halos & Horns: A look back at the good, the bad, and the dead of 2017
It’s Halos and Horns with a side of hashtags this year. While President Donald Trump was busy tweeting from the White House throughout 2017 (we gave him his own whole article), the rest of the world had their own Twitter responses, many of which inspired the...
Editorial: We’re Talking Horns upon Horns, Horns within Horns …
As we continue the Valley Advocate tradition of awarding halos to the good and horns to the bad in 2017, I reflect on the year’s ups and downs. It didn’t take long to realize that a lot of the “downs” had something in common – they originated with President (for now)...
V-Spot: How Do We Weather the Storm?
Hi Yana, My boyfriend of three years and I are both going through a really tough time. My parents are divorcing, he’s applying to schools, and plus our relationship has been long distance for the past two years. We’re both depressed, and I’ve been asking him to go to...
Behold! True Genre-Benders
Holyoke-based Behold! True Believers combines genres that you wouldn’t initially think would pair well together — pop punk, alternative rock, psychedelic pop, doo-wop, and experimental rock. This synthesis of influences works surprising well on the sextet’s recent...
Stagestruck: Gender Parity Still Elusive in Theater
In this time of long-overdue comeuppance for sexual harassment and assault, I approached my annual reckoning of gender equity in theater with fresh eyes. Nationwide, women continue to be devalued and underrepresented in almost all areas of theatrical creation, on and...
A Cannabis Cafe Could be Coming to Easthampton with New State Regulations
Last week I sat down with Karima Rizk for a cup of coffee in her kitchen in Easthampton to discuss her new business, Cafe Vert. The coffee was like many other homebrewed cups of coffee: it was rich, balanced, and welcoming on the brisk December morning. But unlike...
Valley Show Girl: Party Time! Excellent!
I don’t know about any of you, but 2017 kicked my ass. But, as always, one of the things that keeps me sane, is music. So let’s bid a farewell to this year with some kick ass shows that are sprinkled throughout the Valley. There is literally something for everyone,...
Cinemadope: Changing Focus
With the new year scratching at the door, it’s natural to take a reckoning of the one gone by. People tend to focus on the big changes — smoking, the gym, a reading list — but mixing up the smaller things can make a big difference too. Try getting your coffee at a...
The Valley Advocate’s Apocalypse Survival Guide
Let’s face it: We live in uncertain times. Seas are rising. The climate is changing. Nuclear-armed countries are escalating their rhetoric, with our own president making threats of nuclear strikes. Increased dependence on automation is making us ever more vulnerable...
‘There’s Only Two Kinds of Music: Good Music and Bad’
Joe Louis Walker has a voice out of classic soul and blues guitar chops that were inspired by some of the greats — B.B. King, Muddy Waters, the list goes on. Walker, a Blues Hall of Fame inductee, grew up in San Francisco playing blues before entering into the...
Back Talk: Men, Stop Harassing Women
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
Editorial: The Nuclear Option is Not an Option
North Korea’s steps toward accelerating its nuclear program and testing its missiles has been truly horrifying. So has President Donald Trump’s response, with threats to release “fire and fury” upon North Korea. Nuclear devastation is one of the gravest threats we...
V-Spot: How Do I Tell Dates I’m Heartless?
Dear Yana, I have a cold, dead heart. Well, not really but pretty much, yeah. I was married to my ex-wife for nearly a decade and the end of our relationship was really complicated. I feel almost certain that I don’t have the capacity to be in love or be in a...
Basemental: All I Want For Christmas is Lowered Expectations
I am the Grinch. People who know me know this — my mom better than anyone. I scoff at Christmas songs and “holiday cheer,” wanting nothing to do with a holiday that is closely aligned with capitalism, patriarchy, and bad parties. But nothing warms my Grinch heart like...
Cinemadope: Life Goes On
Speak of nuclear winter, and my thoughts go not to bleak, windswept plains. There are no undead hordes clawing at my clapboards, no marauding gangs out collecting rainwater. In my (admittedly hopeful) imagined ruins, we can all rely on the safety of one thing: the...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: Lassie, The Painted Hills
The holidays are almost upon us, so I decided to curl up with my dog Sasha and watch a 1951 festive Christmas movie. Titled The Painted Hills, this western tells the story of two gold prospectors on the verge of striking it rich. Except that one gets a tad greedy and...
Bearing the Burden of Controlling Birth
Emily Cooper, 23, is a graduate student at UMass Amherst who has taken oral contraceptives since she was 15 years old. In 2013, when a condom failed during a snowstorm, University Health Services (UHS) and the university bus system were both closed due to the weather....
Editorial: There Goes the Internet
Let me start by saying that I would avoid the internet if I could. It is creepy to think about huge corporations tracking each page I visit, and, potentially through my smartphone, actually physically tracking me wherever I go. Social media interactions are a far cry...
Column: Eversource Screws Mass Consumers
With a little help from its friends, the “regulators” at the Department of Public Utilities It is perhaps understandable that one of the most important Massachusetts news stories of the year was buried in the avalanche of reports coming out of Washington last week....
The Royal Frog Ballet: A Gathering of Grace
Celebrating 10 years of performance theater, The Royal Frog Ballet trades the wild outdoors for the pristine white walls of A.P.E. Gallery in downtown Northampton this month. Their retrospective, HINDSIGHT/FORESIGHT, is a thoughtful and vivid collection of paintings,...
Cinemadope: Beuys Club
Even among artists, Joseph Beuys has often flown under the radar, someone known more for his enduring impact than his individual works. During my days in art school, Beuys was a name dropped conspicuously into conversations by those who wanted to make sure you knew...
The V-Spot: Help! I’m Too F*&%$ng Nice
Hi Yana, So, I was recently dumped. Woo! During “the conversation,” my now-ex told me a lot of confusing reasons as to why he thought we should break up, but the one that I can’t stop thinking about: “You’re too nice.” He said that he didn’t know how to be in a...
VALLEY SHOW GIRL: ‘Short Stay’ Here For Long Haul
About a month ago, Valley musician Nate Martel came into the Advocate office to drop off his debut solo album “Short Stay.” Being a fan of his role in rock group, Outer Stylie, I was pumped to get the CD into my car as soon as I left work. And that I did. Recorded at...
The Beerhunter: Schwarzbier, that German-style black lager, returns!
Now that the colder months have blown in, bar managers across the Valley are pulling IPAs, pale ales, and pilsners from their tap handles to make room for some thicker, darker brews like stouts, porters, and barrel-aged specials. Seasonal variety is all well and good,...
The Advocate Guide to Winter in Western Mass
We know our winters in Western Massachusetts. As the last of the color fades from the leaves, the realization sets in that it’s going to be a while before the warm and colorful days of spring. But winter doesn’t have to be all about darkness and cold. Winter is a time...
Editorial: Take Northampton’s Pledge for Human Dignity
During now-President Donald Trump’s hateful and divisive campaign, Northampton’s Human Rights Commission noted anecdotally how even in this Western Massachusetts community, there seemed to be an increase in racism, sexism, and anti-semitism, spurred on by Trump’s...
Fat Bradley EP: A Funk Rock Voyage
Northampton-based funk sextet Fat Bradley’s new self-titled five-song extended play (EP) recording is an acid jazz fusion of instrumental kaleidoscopic funky rock that grooves along with frantic energy and a sense of reckless abandon that’s downright entertaining....
Wellness: The Importance of Exercise at Every Age
On a blustery and cold November morning last week, people inside the Northampton Senior Center were keeping warm in a group exercise class and in the fitness room. Stan Plaza and his wife, Darlene Plaza, try to come to the Fitness Center a few times a week to use the...
Bizarro Briefs: Quench Your Thirst With Celery
Celery isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about a flavor of soft drink, but surprisingly it was one of the first. In 1869, Dr. Brown (Is that you, Doc?!) founded the Cel-Ray soda company. The good doctor made tonics intended to alleviate bowel and...
Valley Advocate Winter 2018 Arts Preview
Winter 2018 in the Pioneer Valley is bursting at the seams with interesting cultural and artistic events. Whether that’s checking out the latest art exhibit at MASSMoca or seeing a performance by world renowned musicians. This is just a snippet of what’s taking...
V-Spot: For the Love of the Uncut
Hi Yana, I’m with a guy with an uncircumcised penis for the first time in my 16 years of being sexually active. I love how he looks, and it feels great when we can have sex. But, after three years, we haven’t been able to get into a good rhythm, sex-wise. I’m not...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Navigating the Holiday Winefield
Holiday get-togethers are like a minefield of bad wines. A winefield, if you will. You are casually exchanging theories about The Last Jedi with your nephew when a well-intentioned relative hands you a glass of “red” because they know you like “red wine.” What on...E-Edition
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