Women’s history told through clothing: Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club to host ‘Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore’ author, April 9
By MADISON SCHOFIELD Staff Writer The Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club is celebrating its 100th birthday this spring, and will kick off its centennial speaker series with a talk on the history of women’s clothing with Northampton author Kiki Smith on April 9 at the...
Emily Nagoski has done the research: It’s ok to love your body
By Melissa Karen Sances For the Valley Advocate "Emily’s mission in life is to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies." This sentence mesmerized me. It’s an assured statement about a complicated topic: body image and sexuality, and it is the...
Mixtape: Reviews of 3 new releases and where to catch the bands play
By Jennifer Levesque For the Valley Advocate Hero and the Horror, “Old Ghosts” Western Mass’ Hero and the Horror recently released their first full length album, which was highly anticipated by the local music scene. The band had a handful of shows recently leading up...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Shelburne Falls is western Mass wine country
By Monte Belmonte For the Valley Advocate The Bridge of Flowers may be closed to tourists this year but I can think of another great reason to visit Shelburne Falls — bowling! But this is a wine column. So, I’ll start again. The Bridge of Flowers may be closed to...
Should weed be legal? A Socratic dialogue with a prohibitionist
By Robin Goldstein For the Valley Advocate As an economist studying the weed industry, I end up in a lot of policy discussions with people who do not believe that weed should be legal. Their points are often fair, well reasoned, thought-provoking, and deserve to be...
Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: Valley theater companies and audiences grow: Attracting new audiences has become an art in itself
By Jarice Hanson For the Valley Advocate In this next year, theater goers from Hartford to the Berkshires are going to have more entertainment choices than they’ve had in many years because attracting new audiences has become an art in itself. Older, more established...
You’re up next: Western Mass open mic scene heats up post-pandemic
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Not so long ago, there was a general lament sometimes heard among Valley musicians: “There aren’t enough places to play around here.” That might have been true for professional players who wanted to be paid — and maybe, despite the...
The local logophile, an erudite Easthamptonite: Veteran Merriam-Webster editor Peter Sokolowski is the public face of the country’s oldest dictionary
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer When Peter Sokolowski started work as an editor at Merriam-Webster 30 years ago, about 80 people worked at the venerable dictionary company in Springfield, including about 45 editors. But based on how quiet the offices were, it might have...
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,...
Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: Two world premiers explore family, place and identity
By Jarice Hanson For the Valley Advocate World premieres are challenging pieces of theater in every sense. For many theaters and theater companies, it’s safer to produce an “old chestnut”— a show that has a proven track record with audiences, or a show that is...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Aging wine is a lost art, even with us wine snobs
By Monte Belmonte For the Valley Advocate Aging wine is a lost art. It’s lost on me and I’m a self-described wine snob. I have exactly two bottles of wine in my “wine cellar.” It’s actually not a cellar at all. It’s a room off of my living room where I keep my tools...
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I Wrote This For You: Catching up with local favorites, The Big Sway
The Big Sway formed in the Valley in 2007 and have been in their current lineup consisting of Joe MacFadzen, Tim Zucco and Mike Grenier since 2013. Their genre-bending music is a shopping spree where there is something for everyone all in one spot. Combining punk,...
V-Spot: I Caught My BF on Grindr
He can’t explain why he was talking to other people, and swears up and down he is straight.
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Weege & the Wondertwins, Old Flame, Sodada, and Bad Bad Hats
In typical “W&W fashion,” the band is urging you to “SUIT UP!” in your finest suits and dress up for the show. Best suit of the night will receive a free merch bundle.
Raise Your Glass (Ceiling): Where are all the women brewers?
Two years ago, Kate Telman started making beer at her home in Easthampton. She planned to perfect a few brews, then shop her skills around to area breweries in the hope of getting a job. “I knew there weren’t really any job postings for what I wanted to do,” said...
Stagestruck: Through the Portal
Down a pebbled path flanked by tall grasses in an orchard hung with ripening fruit, we come to an archway fashioned of bent branches: The Portal. There, our Guides invite us to hang a slip of paper on which we’ve written something we wish to leave behind, after the cruel year we’ve just been through. (I write “Zoom.”)
