Staff Picks

I did ketamine therapy … and here’s what happened: A one-time tripper takes a second psychedelic journey 50 years later

I did ketamine therapy … and here’s what happened: A one-time tripper takes a second psychedelic journey 50 years later

By Bob Flaherty For the Valley Advocate A gamechanger, they call it. A chance to face the challenges of your life head on. To free your mind, unencumbered by old negative patterns. Empowering your life. Re-setting your brain. Though it’s been around for decades,...
‘You don’t look like a doctor’: Documentary film looks at the biases and challenges Black women physicians face

‘You don’t look like a doctor’: Documentary film looks at the biases and challenges Black women physicians face

By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Dr. Khama Ennis had come a long way in her medical career. Until 2022, the Amherst resident had spent about two decades in emergency medicine, including a number of years as chief of emergency medicine at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in...
Take a day trip to a modernist paradise: The Frelinghuysen Morris Home & Studio in Lenox provides a splendid view of two groundbreaking artistic lives

Take a day trip to a modernist paradise: The Frelinghuysen Morris Home & Studio in Lenox provides a splendid view of two groundbreaking artistic lives

By DON STEWART For the Advocate A short drive from downtown Lenox, you travel past ornamental wrought iron gates and enter into the former Gilded Age estate of “Brookhurst.” You’re first greeted by a voluptuous two-and-a-half-ton reclining female figure sculpted by...
Time to swing: Jazz drummer and South Hadley native Joe Farnsworth returns to the Valley for a concert honoring his idol, Max Roach

Time to swing: Jazz drummer and South Hadley native Joe Farnsworth returns to the Valley for a concert honoring his idol, Max Roach

By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Joe Farnsworth was 10 or 11 when he got the chance to meet a drumming legend: Max Roach. It was at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 1979, where Roach taught. Farnsworth, who grew up in South Hadley, remembers how one of his...