Seven Days, September 6, 2023

BY DEREK BROUWER & COLIN FLANDERS

COMPILED BY SASHA GOLDSTEIN & MATTHEW ROY

RENTALDISAGREEMENT

Short-term rental hosts are suing Burlington over an ordinance designed to crack down on their operation. e lawsuit, filed in August, argues that state law prohibits the city from regulating how long a dwelling unit can be rented. e suit also says the rules should not apply to those who had “pre-existing, lawful” businesses before the city adopted its ordinance.

e suit lists a dozen plaintiffs. e filing suggests that they collectively own close to 30 short-term rentals, mostly in the Old North End.

A victory in court would have implications for other Vermont communities that want to rein in short-term rentals. e state’s stock of these rentals has grown 13 percent in the past year, according to data from industry analyst group AirDNA. Some officials, including in Burlington, have argued that the units contribute to the housing crisis by taking away from the long-term rental supply.

Burlington has more than 200 short-term rentals listed on sites such as Airbnb and Vrbo. In summer 2022, the city council voted to regulate the market. Hosts can rent out their primary home, an apartment in the building where they live or an outbuilding on their lot — but they can only have one of these “whole-unit” rentals. ey also must live on-site, with few exceptions. Violations are punishable with a $100 ticket, a penalty that some say is too lax.

e city gave hosts until the end of May to come into compliance, but many haven’t. A Seven Days review of online listings in June found at least 20 units whose owners were flouting the ordinance. Several of them are plaintiffs in the new lawsuit.

e hosts argue that the city can’t legally regulate short-term rentals. Municipalities can regulate changes in the use of a building, according to the suit, but the rentals were — and remain — zoned for residential use.

“Regardless of rental length, person or persons ‘inhabit’ in the unit — they eat, sleep, watch TV, bathe, cook and rest there,” the suit says.

emoji that COLD SWEAT

Vermonter Judy Boyd was the first-place finisher at the North Pole Marathon last month. Brrrrreak out the trophy.

BY LAND AND LAKE

An armed robbery suspect fled Burlington police by car, bicycle, sailboat and foot. And, as of Tuesday, Eric Edson was still at large.

SHUTTE R BUGS

The towns of Pomfret and Woodstock will close roads to nonresidents near a farm that is popular with leaf peepers. Vermont’s version of paparazzi.

SWINE SONG

$36 million

That’s how much an E ciency Vermont program will distribute to flood-impacted people and businesses seeking to replace their appliances.

TOPFIVE

MOST POPULAR ITEMS ON SEVENDAYSVT.COM

1. “Inside Bread and Puppet eater as Founder Peter Schumann, 89, Contemplates His Final Act” by Chelsea Edgar. e troupe cannot continue as it presently exists without Schumann, the sun around which the theater revolves.

2. “Hosts Sue Burlington Over Short-Term Rental Rules” by Courtney Lamdin. Airbnb owners are fighting the city’s new law.

3. “North Avenue Pingala Temporarily Closes; Nourish Deli Focuses on Vegan Cheese; Changes at Misery Loves Co.” by Melissa Pasanen. Topping this food news, Pingala’s New North End location has been hard to staff.

4. “St. Johnsbury Residents Wanted to Create a Food Co-op — but a Dollar Store Stood in the Way” by Rachel Hellman. Locals have banded together to buy a vacant store for a new co-op.

5. “Strict Laws Govern Rental Security Deposits. What If a Landlord Ignores em?” by Derek Brouwer. Even after they sue in court and win, tenants can still have to battle to get deposits returned.

e hosts also argue that enforcing the ordinance would harm their financial stability. Most units are rented for several hundred dollars a night. One of the more expensive is on Lakeview Terrace, where a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home that overlooks Lake Champlain is going for nearly $2,000, including fees, for a two-night stay in late October.

Read Courtney Lamdin’s full story at sevendaysvt.com.

TRAILBLAZING TEACHER

During the school year, Middlebury resident Will Robinson teaches preschool at a Head Start program in Addison County.

In the summer, he hikes. A lot.

One year, Robinson — trail name Flash — summited all of New Hampshire’s 48 mountains that are above 4,000 feet. Another year, he bagged Colorado’s 58 peaks over 14,000 feet.

is summer, though, the 28-year-old man achieved his most ambitious physical challenge yet: Walking to and summiting the 115 mountains in the Northeast that are above 4,000 feet. As far as he knows, he’s the first person to turn the challenge into a longdistance hike.

O cials think a wild boar that was killed in Tunbridge had escaped from a nearby game preserve. Not something you want in your backyard.

Robinson’s journey, which started in the Catskill Mountains of New York and ended at Mount Katahdin in Maine, took 59 sometimes miserable, occasionally exhilarating, always exhausting days. He walked between mountain ranges, so his boots carried him along 220 miles of road connecting the Catskills and the Adirondacks, across the Crown Point Bridge, on to the Long Trail during July’s torrential rains, and through a raging, chest-deep river in Maine.  All told, he estimated the trek was more than 1,300 miles.

ough many through-hikers listen to music or podcasts while they walk, Robinson said he mostly just thinks or spaces out. On this summer’s adventure, he occasionally caught himself repeating nursery rhymes in his head.

@jaycatvt

Is this your moosehead? #btv

“ at’s the preschool teacher in me,” he said.  Hitting the trail around 6:15 each morning, Robinson averaged 20 to 30 miles per day, though on one occasion he managed 37. By the time night fell, he was always physically and mentally drained, he said: “All I wanted to do was lay down.”

e best part of the trip, he said, came during the two weeks he spent in Maine, where he met up with a crew of fellow hikers that became his “tramily,” or trail family.

Robinson said that one day, he’d like to walk across the country. For now, though, his teaching schedule won’t allow it.

Instead, he’s contemplating other potential monumental feats he can accomplish next summer vacation.

HOPPING FOR THE BEST.

publisher & editor-in-chief Paula Routly

deputy publisher Cathy Resmer

AssociAte publishers Don Eggert, Colby Roberts

NEWS & POLITICS

editor Matthew Roy

deputy editor Sasha Goldstein

consulting editors Ken Ellingwood, Candace Page

stAff writers Derek Brouwer, Colin Flanders, Rachel Hellman, Courtney Lamdin, Kevin McCallum, Alison Novak, Anne Wallace Allen

ARTS & CULTURE

coeditors Dan Bolles, Carolyn Fox

AssociAte editor Margot Harrison

Art editor Pamela Polston

Music editor Chris Farnsworth

cAlendAr writer Emily Hamilton

stAff writers Jordan Barry, Hannah Feuer, Mary Ann Lickteig, Melissa Pasanen, Ken Picard

proofreAders Carolyn Fox, Angela Simpson

AssistAnt proofreAders

Katherine Isaacs, Martie Majoros, Elizabeth M. Seyler

DIGITAL & VIDEO

digitAl production speciAlist Bryan Parmelee

senior MultiMediA producer Eva Sollberger

MultiMediA journAlist James Buck

DESIGN

creAtive director Don Eggert

Art director Rev. Diane Sullivan

production MAnAger John James

designers Jeff Baron, Kirsten Thompson

SALES & MARKETING

director of sAles Colby Roberts

senior Account executives

Robyn Birgisson, Michael Bradshaw

Account executives Michelle Brown, Logan Pintka

events & ticKeting MAnAger Katie Olson

legAls, lifelines And super reAder coordinAtor

Kaitlin Montgomery

ADMINISTRATION

business MAnAger Marcy Stabile

director of circulAtion & logistics Matt Weiner

circulAtion deputy Andy Watts

AssistAnt to the publishers Gillian English

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Jordan Adams, Justin Boland, Alex Brown, Annie Cutler, Chelsea Edgar, Erik Esckilsen, Steve Goldstein, Colleen Goodhue, Margaret Grayson, Amy Lilly, Rachel Mullis, Bryan Parmelee, Mark Saltveit, Jim Schley, Carolyn Shapiro, Casey Ryan Vock

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Luke Awtry, Daria Bishop, James Buck, Tim Newcomb, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur

FOUNDERS

Pamela Polston, Paula Routly

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‘MORE JOY! LESS OY!’

Thank you for your report on the status of the synagogue building in the Old North End [“Burlington Entrepreneur Buys Historic Old North End Synagogue,” August 21, online]. A number of attempts were made to purchase the synagogue and carry on its legacy for the Burlington Jewish population, but, sadly, they were unsuccessful. We are blessed that the new owner, Kitter Spater, will carry on with community spirit!

A slight correction: The building was in use before the pandemic! In 2016, Congregation Ruach haMaqom was formed there, bringing Jewish Renewal to the northern Vermont Jewish ecosystem. We used the Ahavath Gerim synagogue as our home until the pandemic shut everything down in 2020.

Also, Congregation Ahavath Gerim met once a month there for its Shabbas morning services.

While we are grieved that this historical building has been lost, we treasure the time when Ruach haMaqom was an active congregation there. We are now housed at the First Unitarian Universalist Society Meeting House at the top of Church Street and continue to serve all. Our motto is: More joy! Less oy!

Rabbi Jan Salzman BURLINGTON

Editor’s note: Our story correctly reported that the building had not been used for religious purposes since the pandemic hit.

HELP FOR ‘JEFFREY’

I was saddened while reading Anna Nasset’s chronicle of her decades-long nightmare of escaping her stalker [“Fight or Flight,” August 23]. Although I’m very happy she is free from “Jeffrey,” it is the outcome of his story that grips me. Nasset said, “All I ever really wanted was for him to get the help he needed.”

CORRECTION

Last week’s book review of Rick Winston’s Save Me a Seat! A Life With Movies , headlined “Roll Credits,” contained an inaccurate description of Columbia College. It is still an undergraduate college of Columbia University.

Jeffrey’s documented mental health diagnosis of schizophrenia did not lead to him getting the help he really needed. Instead, he was handed a 10-year prison sentence.

Our society does not consider mental illness in the same vein as physical illness. If you break an arm, we send you to the hospital. If your mind is broken, we send you to prison. We should do better.

Janet Paine MORRISVILLE

FIVE WORDS ON BREAD AND PUPPET

[Re “Circus of Life: Inside Bread and Puppet Theater as Founder Peter Schumann, 89, Contemplates His Final Act,” August 30]: Chelsea Edgar is the boss.

Scott Koeze SOUTH BURLINGTON

EGRESS STRATEGY

[Re “UVM Announces Plan to Build Housing for 540 Students,” August 14, online]: I do hope the University of Vermont intends to upgrade the emergency egress fire escapes it has removed from its second-story buildings for a pleasing campus look. Both UVM and Saint Michael’s College have ignored the necessary safety egresses in the event of a fire. Chief safety and compliance officer Mike Schirling has had more than enough stage training on emergency egress and fires to not ignore this safety issue.

UVM housing would be a newconstruction build, which would require second-story egress or scaffolding. Just

saying: Student safety is being overlooked for pleasant-looking campus buildings, and that’s just wrong.

Penny Gillander-Dame ST. ALBANS

ON LEASH

I, too, have converted to leash-walking my dog and am grateful for Rachel Mullis’ article [“Going to the Dogs: One Burlingtonian’s Journey to On-Leash Dog Ownership,” August 9]. I would add one more important reason to leash your dog: Some dog owners always leash their dog because their dog can be reactive to other dogs. Your dog may be very friendly, but if it bounds up to a reactive dog, chaos can ensue!

Paige Russell VERGENNES

MUSIC MAN

Just wanted to thank Chris Farnsworth for his write-up of Wicked Louder’s debut album [Review This, August 9]. Appreciate it very much. As for the confusing running order? It is called Frustrated Mess for a reason. Wage heavy peace.

Derek Lorrigan THETFORD CENTER

BLAME CHAMP

Despite the claims of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, there’s scant evidence that cyanobacteria pose a serious threat to human and/or canine health [“Beach Bummed: Floods and Hot Weather Have Spawned More Algae Blooms in Burlington Bay,” August 16].

I suspect Burlington’s actual reason for beach closures is part of an elaborate public manipulation campaign, aimed at concealing the existence of the Lake Champlain monster. Burlington’s beach closures are in response to Champ sightings, not phosphorous runoff or algal blooms. Rather than admit the truth, the City of Burlington and marine biologists at ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain manufacture fear of cyanobacteria as a means of deterring beachgoers (Champ’s preferred food source).

Will Seven Days report on the truth or continue to enable this cover-up alongside the rest of the mainstream media?

Aaron Lipman WINOOSKI

STATE OF ADDICTION

I recommend Seven Days’ comprehensive report by Colin Flanders on the state of addiction in Vermont [“Vermont’s Relapse: Efforts to Address Opioid Addiction Were Starting to Work. Then Potent New Street Drugs Arrived,” June 14]. It’s a heartbreaking picture of our current local opioid crisis!

The writer interviews many knowledgeable Vermonters working on this epidemic. Flanders reports that the epidemic is quickly escalating, with fentanyl and meth readily available, cheaper, more powerful and more addictive!

My Elmwood Avenue neighbors and I experienced the opioid epidemic faceto-face this summer, when the Burlington opioid marketplace moved to our neighborhood yards and sidewalks.

We already know combating an epidemic requires strong public support; honest, up-to-date information; effective prevention strategies; and easily accessible treatment!

We already have some addiction treatment infrastructure and experienced people in place. We just need more public support, more funding and staff, more

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Whimsical

NEWS+POLITICS 14

Sky High

Amid soaring construction costs, developers consider building modular homes

Prosecutor Turned Priest

Named State’s Attorney

Going Public

With fewer schools for students with special needs, two districts create their own programs

Burlington Rally Honors

Those Lost to Overdoses

STUCK IN VERMONT

Smooth Road Ahead?

Delayed for decades, the Champlain Parkway takes shape in Burlington’s South End

FEATURES 26

Fairy Tale

A secret New North End Garden delights anyone lucky enough to find it

ARTS+CULTURE 46

Let Them Read

Lieutenant governor goes on a “banned books tour”

Pilgrims’ Progressivism

eater review: e anksgiving Play, Dorset eatre Festival

Key Contribution

Capital City Concerts kicks off its season with a benefit for flood relief

Air Borne

Bruce Hasse’s mobile sculptures heighten Art Hop

‘Both Sides of the Mountain’

Bryan Fine Art Gallery opens in Stowe

FOOD+ DRINK 40 Capital Menu

A day of meals in Montpelier as the city’s restaurants rebuild

Fortitude and Fatigue

Checking in with Montpelier’s flooded restaurants on the path to recovery

Vermont’s only cat café, Kitty Korner Café in Barre, was severely damaged in the July flood. As the water rose, owner Alexis Dexter hammered a hole in the floor, diverting the water away

from 57 rescue cats — and flooding the building’s basement in the process. Eva Sollberger recently returned to Kitty Korner to see the renovation work in progress.

MAGNIFICENT

THURSDAY 7

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

Guitarist Bob Wagner leads an all-star band at “Hug Your Farmer: Hard Rain,” a concert at the Flynn in Burlington to benefit Vermonters affected by July’s flooding. Celebrating the music of Bob Dylan, the evening also features special guests, including Mike Gordon, Kat Wright, Josh Panda, and Dwight + Nicole, with all proceeds flowing to the Vermont Community Foundation’s VT Flood Response & Recovery Fund.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 70

ONGOING Dream Catcher

Carol MacDonald’s monoprints in “Emergence (Coming to Light)” at Burlington’s Frog Hollow Vermont Craft Gallery transport viewers to a dreamscape where the once-familiar world has become altered post-pandemic. Forms and images echo across multiple pieces, leaving the viewer with a sense of recognition and absence.

SEE GALLERY LISTING ON PAGE 57

WEDNESDAY 6

Proud Tradition

LGBTQ Jews and allies come together at Burlington’s Ohavi Zedek Synagogue for the second annual Vermont Pride Seder. Timed to Pride Week and unrelated to Passover, the gathering features songs and prayers — plus an unusual, emotional seder plate — to commemorate the liberation of LGBTQ people and celebrate their stories.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 68

WEDNESDAY 6

In the Loop

Israeli one-woman band Inbar Heyman stops by Junction Arts & Media in White River Junction with her collection of musical instruments and everyday household objects from around the world. In Inbar Heyman Gets Loopy, she combines their sounds — and mixes in electronic selections — through a looping station to make original music that is utterly one of a kind.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 68

SATURDAY 9

Place to Bee

Part farmers market, part craft fair and wholly buzzworthy, the Vermont Golden Honey Festival returns to the Golden Stage Inn in Proctorsville for a day that’s sure to be the bee’s knees. Visitors swarm for honey-apple pizza and honey gin; honeybased candles, soaps and salves; and bee-themed pottery, art and gifts. Budding apiarists can tap into knowledge from a dozen experienced beekeepers on-site. Give bees a chance!

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 72

SATURDAY 9

Happy Trails

Hardwick Trails marks two decades of free outdoor recreation at a 20th Anniversary Celebration for all ages. Join the fitness loop fun run/walk, take a naturalist-guided plant tour, build a forest fairy house, enjoy ice cream from the Street Treats truck, or just revel in the miles of hiking and biking paths that wind through the woodland.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 73

SATURDAY 9 & SUNDAY 10

Give em a Hand

ere are some strings attached when Sandglass eater hosts Puppets in Paradise, two days of puppetry, theater and music at Brattleboro’s Retreat Farm. New and returning performers, including Break-Fast Puppets, Jeghetto’s Entertainment and Samantha Sing, delight visitors at locations around the farm while local vendors offer food and drinks.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 72

COURTESY OF FROG HOLLOW VERMONT CRAFT GALLERY

“Dreamscape I” by Carol MacDonald

Bob Wagner

Fall Safety Tips

Finishing up digging projects before the snow flies?

Before you dig, you or your contractor must contact Dig Safe™ at 811 at least 48 hours prior to digging.

Before the work begins, Dig Safe will notify member utilities, who will then ensure the locations of buried facilities they own are clearly marked. Please insist that any work within 18 inches of the marked lines be done by hand.

How to Detect a Gas Leak

Smell: Natural gas is normally odorless. A distinctive, pungent odor, similar to rotten eggs, is added so that you will recognize it quickly.

Sight: You may see a white cloud, mist, fog, bubbles in standing water, or blowing dust. You may also see vegetation that appears to be dead or dying.

Sound: You may hear an unusual noise like a roaring, hissing, or whistling.

If you suspect a leak:

Move immediately to a safe location. Call VGS at 800-639-8081 or call 911 with the exact location. Do not smoke or operate electrical switches or appliances. These items may produce a spark that might result in a dangerous condition.

Do not assume someone else will report the condition.

Inside View

In December 2022, Je Hall landed in a St. Albans prison cell with Mbyayenge “Robbie” Mafuta. Both men were being held for property crimes, and each had previously been homeless in Burlington’s City Hall Park.

Their cohabitation at Northwest State Correctional Facility was short-lived. Within 48 hours, Hall, 55, was found unconscious in a pool of blood; he died three months later. Mafuta, 22, is charged with killing him.

Reporters Derek Brouwer and Colin Flanders wanted to know more about the events that led to this tragic, fatal encounter. They sought to tell the story of both men’s life trajectories up to that moment, a tale they knew would trace the contours of the city and state’s most intractable problems of homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse.

Seven Days editors approved the story approach as soon as Derek and Colin proposed it, in March. But the victim’s family members and the lawyer they’d hired weren’t persuaded. They chose not to speak with the reporters. Talking with the paper would neither bring back Hall nor strengthen their case in a potential civil lawsuit against the state.

Mafuta’s attorneys — both public defenders out of the Franklin County o ce — had a di erent view. Their client, an immigrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo diagnosed with schizophrenia, pleaded not guilty and plans to raise an insanity defense. At the urging of Derek and Colin, they agreed to make Mafuta available, but arranging an interview took months. When the reporters finally got the chance to speak to Mafuta by phone from the state prison in Springfield, where he’d been moved, he spoke candidly about his troubles. He also gave them permission to use his medical records in their investigation.

Thus, the narrative changed from a tale of two cellmates to a detailed account of Mafuta’s steep descent into mental illness. In this week’s cover story, Derek and Colin seek to understand how a charismatic young man, full of promise, went from playing on the football team at South Burlington High School to hearing voices, vandalizing cars and homes, and sleeping on the streets.

It pieces together documentation from medical

professionals and police and draws on interviews with Mafuta and the people who knew him, including inmates on the cellblock where the homicide happened.

Landing the story took persistence, patience and skill. And, of course, time — the most precious commodity in this business. Seven Days isn’t big enough to let two reporters work on one piece exclusively for as long as it takes. So, while Derek and Colin were making incremental progress on what turned out to be a six-month project, they kept covering everything else.

Colin wrote a longform story on how tainted drugs were changing the face of the opioid crisis in Vermont; both reporters covered July’s flood.

But they kept coming back to Mafuta’s story, which shows how, despite access to services, he found himself alone, alienated and falling apart in the place where he grew up. Unique as his circumstances may be, they reveal systemic problems in how we treat people with mental illness, including those who seek help. No one person or entity is to blame. There is plenty of gray mixed in with the black and white. But it’s a story that nonetheless deserves to be told. We think you’ll agree: This one was worth waiting for.

Paula Routly

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JOHN JAMES

Colin Flanders and Derek Brouwer

PARKWAY ACTUALLY BEING BUILT

Sky High

Amid soaring construction costs, developers consider building modular homes

BY ANNE WALLACE ALLEN • anne@sevendaysvt.com

Construction prices have spiked about 33 percent in Vermont since last year, driving up the price of new homes and remodeling projects — and squelching the development of middleincome housing.

It now costs about $500,000 to build a modest apartment or small home, compared to about $370,000 in 2022, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, an affordable housing organization that finances loans for lower- and middleincome Vermonters. The price of land, lending, labor and materials has been climbing steadily since 2019, but the pace of the increase accelerated in the past 12 months.

As a result, private developers are focusing on building high-end homes, where they can get a larger return on the

higher prices they’re paying for materials and labor. And a ordable housing developers are scaling back their projects to make them work financially.

While the legislature has allocated millions of dollars in recent years to relieve Vermont’s long-running housing shortage, housing agencies say the money is not building as many apartments as they had hoped.

“We’ve had this great infusion of federal and state money, but some of that is getting chewed up by this increase in costs,” said Kathy Beyer, senior vice president for real estate development at the a ordable housing developer Evernorth. “You might have been able to build a 100-unit [development] before; now you can only build 80.”

The squeeze has developers looking at another alternative: importing modular housing units from out-of-state factories.

Thom Lauzon, a real estate developer in Barre who owns dozens of properties, said he’s talking to a modular company in Québec about building an 80-unit apartment building. The move would save 5 to 10 percent in construction costs, he said, and quicken the building process.

“If we really want to change things over the next two or three years, we have to embrace the e ciency of modular,” Lauzon said. “If we can’t bring the contractors to the project, then we have to bring the project to the contractors.”

It’s been tough to build homes in Vermont for years, even decades. Simple geography limits the space that is available for new homes; land conservation, community opposition and environmental regulations can make building more dicult and more expensive.

Prosecutor Turned Priest Named State’s Attorney

BY KEVIN MCCALLUM kevin@sevendaysvt.com

Gov. Phil Scott has appointed veteran prosecutor — and now priest — Bram Kranichfeld as interim state’s attorney of Franklin County to succeed John Lavoie, who resigned last month in the face of an impeachment probe.

Kranichfeld spent time in the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office and in the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. He also served as a Burlington city councilor for three years and ran unsuccessfully, in 2011, to be the Democratic nominee for mayor.

In 2019, Kranichfeld left the AG’s Office to attend divinity school. He is now priest-in-charge at All Saints Episcopal Church in South Burlington and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Vergennes.

e man of the cloth will head an office that’s been in the spotlight ever since Lavoie was publicly accused of using crass and sexist language in the workplace.

“Bram has demonstrated his commitment to community, and his significant experience practicing law makes him a good fit to serve in this interim role,” Scott said in a statement.

Kranichfeld joined the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office as a deputy state’s attorney shortly after moving to Vermont in 2006.

In 2013, he took a job as executive director of the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, which coordinates the work of Vermont’s 28 county law enforcement offices.

Kranichfeld returned to the Chittenden County prosecutor’s office two years later. When his boss, T.J. Donovan, was elected AG in 2016, Kranichfeld hoped to succeed him. But Scott appointed Sarah George to complete Donovan’s term.

Kranichfeld, who is married with two children, acknowledged in 2019 that being passed over for the position was deeply disappointing and caused him to rethink his legal career.

In a statement this week about his appointment, Kranichfeld said he was “truly honored and humbled to be called to this important service.

“I look forward to beginning the hard work of starting the healing process and restoring confidence in this office,” he said. ➆

Bram Kranichfield

Dustin Hendy of Laurie’s Certified Construction

JAMES

Going Public

With fewer schools for students with special needs, two districts create their own programs

BY ALISON NOVAK • alison@sevendaysvt.com

Facing a shortage of spots in schools that serve students with special needs, two Chittenden County public school districts have launched their own in-house programs this year. Administrators say this approach will cost the same as — or less than — the districts currently spend and will provide other benefits for students who will be able to learn closer to home.

The Essex Westford School District has created the ARC Center — which stands for Academics, Relationships and Community — for students in grades three through eight who qualify for special education and require a high level of care. The South Burlington School District, meanwhile, has started a yet-to-be-named program that will provide one-on-one and small group instruction and counseling to about 10 middle and high school students.

Leaders in both districts said they had no choice but to start homegrown programs to ensure that special education students receive the services they are entitled to by law.

“Developing this program happens to be fiscally responsible and meets legal requirements,” South Burlington superintendent Violet Nichols wrote in an email to Seven Days. “But it’s also critical for supporting our values of equity, access and inclusion.”

Vermont’s therapeutic schools operate independently but are paid by public school districts to educate students who need intensive academic, emotional or behavioral care. Administrators across the state say openings in therapeutic programs have become increasingly scarce in recent years, while students’ needs have become more complex.

are small or serve only specific groups, such as students with autism.

When South Burlington learned of Centerpoint’s closure in late June, “we knew that we needed to develop a therapeutic alternative program to support our students,” superintendent Nichols said.

South Burlington’s new program will be familiar to the five students from the district who attended Centerpoint. The district is renting the school’s former counseling building on Airport Drive and has hired four of its former employees, including education director Katie Cunningham and clinical director John Grimm.

The program will serve South Burlington’s five students and five from other Chittenden County districts.

“Opening up spaces for neighboring schools was important to us,” superintendent Nichols said.

BACKTOSCHOOL

Moreover, in June, the state legislature put a moratorium on all new independent schools in an effort to curtail the flow of public dollars into private programs.

Existing placements are disappearing, as well. This summer, two Chittenden County therapeutic schools — Mosaic Learning Center and Centerpoint School — shut down, eliminating several dozen seats. The closures left just five therapeutic schools in the county, many of which

Getting a program up and running in eight weeks has been a heavy lift, according to Kristin Romick, the district’s special education director. But she said she’s looking forward to building on Centerpoint’s work.

Cunningham, who will serve as the new program’s director, said parents she’s talked to appreciate that their children will learn in a familiar place this year, with teachers they already know. Building relationships with students is key to therapeutic programs’ success, she noted.

In Essex Westford, the district has had difficulty finding staff for the new program, so it will begin with limited capacity, according to Erin Maguire, the district’s codirector of student support services. The district hopes eventually to serve 20 students with about 11 staff members, including classroom teachers, social workers, a curriculum specialist who can tailor lessons for each student, and behavior interventionists — staff who work with children to strengthen their social and behavioral skills.

The program will use a building between the district’s grades 3-5 school and middle school. That location will allow ARC students to attend classes such as music and physical education at the neighboring schools when appropriate. That flexibility isn’t possible when students are sent out of the district.

I THINK WE IN VERMONT … FEEL VERY STRONGLY THAT STUDENTS SHOULD BE EDUCATED AS CLOSE TO HOME AS POSSIBLE. STEPHANIE BETIT-HANCOCK

Burlington Rally Honors Those Lost to Overdoses

STORY & PHOTO BY HANNAH FEUER hfeuer@sevendaysvt.com

About 70 people gathered at Burlington’s City Hall Park last Thursday to memorialize loved ones lost to substance use and to advocate for policy changes in honor of International Opioid Overdose Awareness Day.

Team Sharing, a group of local parents who have lost children to overdoses, organized the event, which featured activists, politicians and speakers with personal connections to the opioid crisis.

Kim Blake, a leader of the group, opened the event by reading a poem written by her son Sean, who died of an overdose in 2017, at age 27. A friend found his body after he collapsed in the shower.

“I’d love it if there wasn’t judgment for parents who’ve lost kids to substance use,” Blake said. “If there was one big ask, that would be it.”

Forty-three pictures of smiling young adults who died after overdosing lined the lawn outside city hall. Attendees carried signs reading “No more drug war,” “Health crises need health solutions” and “Overdose prevention centers save lives.”

Burlington resident Nancy Towle came wearing a shirt with a picture of her late son’s face on top of a cloudy sky. Abby Sperry carried a framed photo that showed her with her daughter, Sasha Torrens-Sperry, a pianist who died of an overdose at age 29.

Opioid fatalities have steadily increased in recent years, with a record high of 239 in 2022 and 95 through May of this year, according to Vermont Department of Health data.

There are some glimmers of hope. The opioid-overdose reversal drug Narcan is now available over the counter in some pharmacies, no prescription needed. And at the Johnson Health Center last Thursday, officials unveiled the state’s first Narcan vending machine, which will provide access for free, 24-7.

Health Commissioner Mark Levine was there.

“We can all play a role in preventing overdose, from understanding risk factors … to knowing the signs and responding … to reducing stigma in our communities,” he said at the event, according to remarks provided by the department. ➆

July’s floods presented a stark reminder of how vulnerable Vermont’s river valleys are to devastating water damage. While state policy is geared to steer builders away from hillsides, planners are taking another look at the traditional emphasis on building in existing village centers, often by rivers. That would further narrow the options for developers.

Builders say much of the most recent construction price increase, nationally and in Vermont, is linked to high interest rates and accelerating pay increases for people who work in the trades. Compensation for carpenters, plumbers and others who are vital to home construction increased by 19 percent between 2018 and the end of 2022, according to Kate Stephenson, a cofounder of HELM Construction Solutions, a consulting firm based in Montpelier and Brattleboro. HELM surveyed 50 companies in New England to get its latest wage data.

“The builders that we work with, in general, are busier than they have ever been before and have work lined up far in advance,” said Stephenson, who works with builders around the country. “The folks I am working with are charging more, but their costs are going up.”

While the increase is bad news for people who need an affordable home,

Stephenson noted, it’s good news for unskilled workers who just a few years ago were getting $14 to $16 an hour on the jobsite. Construction companies are hiring unskilled workers at $18 to $20 now.

“It shows that these jobs in the trades are important and people can make a good living in them,” said Stephenson, who helps her clients find ways to add health insurance, paid time off and other benefits to positions that have traditionally lacked them. “I see this increase in compensation as really good.”

Many Vermont builders said they are starting skilled carpenters at around $25 an hour now, almost twice as much as they were paying 10 years ago. For the skilled workers who are most difficult to find, the pay has jumped to around $30 an hour, according to several builders.

Dixie O’Connor, a remodeler and builder who is president of the Vermont Builders & Remodelers Association, is paying her carpenters $31 an hour plus benefits.

“We have to tack on overhead,” O’Connor said. A few years ago, she would have charged a customer $50 an hour for the carpenter’s time; now she charges $60 to $90.

As a volunteer organization, Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity gets a lot

of its labor, even skilled labor, for free. But a duplex it’s building in Randolph is turning out to be the most expensive project the central Vermont group has ever built, said Zachariah Watson, the local organization’s executive director. The downtown site, between two existing homes, would typically be an easy place to build, but it requires costly water and sewer lines, as well as a new power pole. Watson said it’s difficult to find an uncomplicated building lot that meets the organization’s needs.

“Even the infill lots that are available are challenging right now,” Watson said. “All the easy lots have been bought up.”

Many of the factors driving up construction costs are national or global in scope. Vermont builders import fixtures, drywall and other materials from as far away as China. And interest rates play a key role in the cost of housing for buyers who need a mortgage. The prime lending rate, which hit a low of 3.5 percent in 2020, is now 8.5 percent.

“Refinancing homes or getting loans or whatever is so expensive that a lot of people are changing their minds about doing their projects at all right now,” said Laurie Goldsmith, who owns Laurie’s Certified Construction in Colchester.

Goldsmith said some clients have told her that they are waiting to build until prices go back down.

Sky High « P.14

JAMES news

BUCK

“But everyone has been saying that since COVID hit,” Goldsmith said. “And here we are, three years later, and barely anything has come down.”

Some Vermont developers note modular building gets around the labor shortage, too. Modular units are built in factories, often in states with lower salaries than in Vermont, and shipped in pieces to the site to be assembled.

The units are painted and finished in the factory, often down to the installation of towel racks in the bathrooms, saving those labor costs on the other end. Unlike mobile homes, which travel to the site completed and on their own chassis, modules can be assembled on-site into small or large homes, duplexes, hotels and apartment buildings.

factories, instead of on-site, will soon become much more common. He’s also in talks with a large modular home company in New York.

“They’re at a whole different scale from Vermod or the company we’re working with in Maine, and scale matters here,” Seelig said. “If you save 10 percent on a $400,000 build, that’s real money.”

Watson, the Habitat for Humanity director, is considering modular homes for a development of duplexes that his organization is planning in Montpelier. He’s working with a company called Bensonwood in New Hampshire.

“It’s going to look like all the other houses on the street, except it’s a duplex instead of single-family,” he said of one building.

An engineer and developer named Aron Shea is planning to build five four-unit townhomes on a former farm in Waitsfield using modulars. His would travel from a company called Signature Building Systems outside Scranton, Pa.

“There are tons of good options for modular all over the country,” Shea said. “Why would we ever build it on-site when we can have someone else build it in a controlled environment?”

Despite the high cost of materials and labor, builders are still busy; many reported that they’re booking jobs for late next year or early 2025. But for people who don’t have half a million to spend on a small home, the cost crisis means canceling planned moves, bunking with family or friends, turning down jobs because there’s nowhere to live nearby, or staying put in substandard housing.

The Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, a state affordable housing developer, has purchased some modular units as part of its wide-reaching real estate portfolio, which includes hundreds of units of multifamily housing and some single-family homes.

After 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene, VHCB helped create Vermod, a company in Wilder that makes energy-efficient modular homes, as a way of supplying high-quality, lower-cost homes. But at $200,000 to $400,000 per unit, even Vermod has become too expensive for VHCB’s affordable housing program, said Gus Seelig, the group’s executive director. Last year, VHCB started working with a company in Maine called Champion Homes that makes energy-efficient mobile and modular homes for about $30,000 less per unit than Vermod.

VHCB has never relied heavily on modular homes before, but Seelig expects that building homes in

Christine Bourque, who lives with her husband and two daughters on a farm in Grand Isle, turned to GoFundMe to help raise the $65,000 she needed to finish paying for a modular home that will get her family out of the 1981 mobile home they’ve occupied since they bought their land in 2004.

“Our roof is leaking, the windows are broken, the wind blows through our house, it is too small,” Bourque said in her plea, which hit its fundraising goal.

“Our modest, one-floor, 1400 sq ft home costs over $500k to build,” Bourque wrote. “Wait what? Yes, that’s true. Prices are soaring and the average small farmer can not afford it or anyone else.”

Someone clearly can afford it. Goldsmith said about 80 percent of the calls she gets for remodeling jobs are from people who have moved from out of state.

“They’re working from home,” she said, “and they’re the ones who have the money.” ➆

REFINANCING HOMES OR GETTING LOANS OR WHATEVER IS SO EXPENSIVE THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE CHANGING THEIR MINDS ABOUT DOING THEIR PROJECTS AT ALL RIGHT NOW. LAURIE

Smooth Road Ahead?

Delayed for decades, the Champlain Parkway takes shape in Burlington’s South End

STORY & PHOTO BY COURTNEY LAMDIN • courtney@sevendaysvt.com

Anyone who has been down Burlington’s Pine Street lately has seen the construction. Pedestrians are using a rocky path instead of the sidewalk that ran between Curtis Lumber and the Maltex Building. Drivers heading for Lakeside Avenue have been rerouted down Sears Lane. City Market shoppers have navigated a blasting zone to get their groceries.

The sights herald the arrival of the Champlain Parkway, a long-planned road that will connect the unfinished Interstate 189 interchange on Shelburne Road with downtown Burlington.

Designed in the 1960s as a four-lane highway, the parkway is being built as a two-lane, low-speed city street. And that rocky stretch? It will become a walk-andbike path that will run alongside much of the 2.8-mile project.

Mired in lawsuits and permitting battles for decades, the Champlain Parkway had become almost synonymous with “delay.” But against all odds, once construction started last summer, the project has proceeded smoothly. Work is ahead of schedule; the new route is expected to be finished in 2027, although some portions may open before then.

“Remarkable things are happening,” Burlington Public Works Director Chapin Spencer said — though sometimes he can’t believe that is the case.

“It still takes some getting used to,” said Spencer, who lives in the South End. “My neighborhood is fundamentally changing.”

The parkway was first envisioned to run parallel to Pine Street, where it would pass by the Barge Canal, a narrow waterway that was once used by ships carrying lumber. But the plan was nixed in the 1980s, when o cials discovered the land was polluted with toxic chemicals and that digging it up would be expensive and potentially dangerous.

The rerouted parkway will start at I-189 and run north on a new roadway from Home Avenue to Lakeside, then connect to Pine Street, which will

DEVELOPMENT

sidewalk on Sears Lane the night before school started at nearby Champlain Elementary School.

The construction has created some headaches. A worker cleaning tables at Feldman’s Bagels on Pine Street last week said she thought business was slower. Employees at the Cumberland Farms across the street said they were not allowed to speak to a reporter, but one got a word in: “It’s not not been a problem,” the clerk said.

There has been congestion, too, on alternate routes to downtown through the South End. The state has been working on Shelburne Road for weeks, and the city is in the midst of paving St. Paul Street.

But City Councilor Joan Shannon (D-South District), who hears from constituents when they’re upset, said it’s been relatively quiet on the southern front.

become the parkway route all the way to Main Street.

Some areas along the route are already unrecognizable. Where there was once a forested stretch between City Market and Sears Lane, the former site of a sprawling homeless encampment, there’s now a brand-new road with granite curbs and buried utility lines.

The Lakeside area is coming along, too. After weeks of detours and one-way tra c, Lakeside Avenue was topped with fresh asphalt late last week. Workers poured a

Spencer said that’s because city o cials tried to head o problems by meeting with business owners before construction began. Now that the project is under way, the city has hired an engineering and public relations firm to answer residents’ questions and is sending out a regular email newsletter.

This week, the challenge is accommodating the South End Art Hop, a weekend-long celebration of artists and makers centered on Pine Street that begins on Friday, September 8. The event draws

Champlain Parkway construction on Lakeside Avenue

hundreds of people, but not usually to a construction zone.

Christy Mitchell, executive director of the South End Arts + Business Association, which puts on the Art Hop, said she is confident the event and roadwork can coexist. For one, the city assured her that construction will stop early on Friday, before the Hop begins. The sidewalk may be torn up on the west side of Pine, but it’s still intact on the east side, where most of the shops, studios and food trucks will be located, Mitchell said. And Pine Street

MY NEIGHBORHOOD IS FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGING.

will be closed to traffic on Friday night, so pedestrians can “hop” around without using the sidewalks at all.

There will also be a shuttle for attendees, with parking available at each major stop: Burton Snowboards on Queen City Park Road, Switchback Brewing on Flynn Avenue, the Innovation Center on Lakeside and the Maltex Building on Pine.

The situation could have been much worse, Mitchell said: “They could have everything torn up and giant trucks everywhere. It’s not ideal, but ... I feel OK with it.”

So does Doreen Kraft, executive director of Burlington City Arts, whose headquarters are on Pine Street.

“Artists are really resilient and used to going with whatever challenges are put in front of them,” she said. “We’ll just work with what we have.”

Art Hop aside, Kraft said she thinks the parkway will be a “game changer” for the South End. People will feel safer walking and biking on a designated pathway, she said, and it will be easier to travel from one end of the city to another.

Not everyone shares her enthusiasm. The Pine Street Coalition, a group of activists who sued to stop the project, had raised concerns that the parkway will increase traffic in the already congested King/Maple neighborhood, the most racially diverse along the route.

To address the issue, activists had urged the city to first build what’s known as the Railyard Enterprise Project. It would connect Pine and Battery streets with a new road that cuts through several privately owned properties, including the Vermont Rail System lot. In the early

2000s, the city had proposed building the road as part of the parkway itself, but the feds dismissed the plan. It gained traction again when the parkway proposal ended up in court; a 2020 study estimated that the road could reduce traffic in the King/ Maple area by 59 percent.

City officials met the activists halfway, pledging to build the rail yard project at the same time that they’d connect the Champlain Parkway to the interstate. The city estimated this work would start in 2025.

But that endeavor is behind schedule. Like all major road projects that use federal funds, the rail yard project must get a federal permit that says it won’t damage the environment. The city had hoped to submit the environmental assessment late last year, but Spencer said it’s taken longer than expected because the project involves historic structures, railroad rights and the potential seizure of private property, also known as “eminent domain.”

City engineer Norm Baldwin said the city is “continuing to be aggressive” about the original project timeline. Could construction still coincide with the last leg of the parkway?

“I think it’s ambitious for 2025,” Baldwin said, “but I think it is possible.”

Coalition member Steve Goodkind, who was the city’s public works director when the rail yard road was first proposed, said that despite past disagreements, he believes officials see the benefit of building the rail yard project sooner rather than later.

“Our job now is to say, ‘Look, forget about fighting in court — you said you were gonna do this ... Do it,’” Goodkind said. “If you do, that’s a victory for everyone.”

Meantime, officials are focused on the parkway. On a tour last week, Spencer and Baldwin talked about the road like proud parents of a teenager they didn’t think would ever grow up. On one side of the new roadway, near City Market, was a retention pond to keep sediment from running into Lake Champlain; on the other were green spaces that could someday host pocket parks. If momentum continues, a section of the walk-bike path could be operational by late fall, they said.

As the tour wrapped up, Spencer and Baldwin headed north toward their offices on Pine Street. Spencer looked toward the city skyline.

“This is a new feature, too,” he said. “It’s an opening gateway vision of downtown that people have never had before.”

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Going Public « P.15

Essex Westford had been considering starting its own therapeutic program since 2017, according to Maguire. But it was the closures of Mosaic and Centerpoint, plus the moratorium on new independent schools, that prompted the district to act, she said.

The concept of therapeutic programs run by public schools is not a new one.

Until the late 1980s, the state had a number of publicly run regional programs for students with disabilities. They were eliminated as Vermont moved toward a model of educating as many students as possible in mainstream classrooms. The general-education setting didn’t work well for every student, though, and independent therapeutic schools cropped up to fill the need.

In the mid-1990s, now-retired special education administrator Jo-Anne Unruh helped to establish the Wilder School. It’s run by the Hartford School District and includes separate programs for children with autism and for those with behavioral issues. Students attend from nine supervisory unions in Vermont and New Hampshire.

For more than 10 years, the Windham Central Supervisory Union in southern Vermont has offered its HOME Program — Hands On Minds Engaged — for middle and high school students. Eight to 12 students spend time with generaleducation peers but also do their own community service work, take camping trips and complete hands-on projects such as boatbuilding.

Expanding on that success, Windham Central created another therapeutic program two years ago for K-5 students at one of its elementary schools.

Stephanie Betit-Hancock, the district’s director of student services, said the new program’s in-school location gives its students more chances to mingle with kids from other elementary classrooms. They can eat lunch with their general-ed peers, for example, and can participate in afterschool activities and sports.

“I think we in Vermont ... feel very strongly that students should be educated as close to home as possible,” Betit-Hancock said. “That maximizes their opportunities for everything.”

Some students still attend independent therapeutic schools, Betit-Hancock said, but the supervisory union has reduced special education costs by offering the services in-house, as well.

South Burlington and Essex Westford expect to cut costs, too. South Burlington spent about $1.7 million last school year sending students out of the

district, while Essex Westford spent $2.35 million. Costs add up quickly because tuition at independent therapeutic schools is expensive. Centerpoint charged as much as $76,000 per student, according to information provided by the Agency of Education. Mosaic’s rate was $82,000 per student. Several other programs charge upwards of $100,000 per student.

State rules require independent schools to charge tuition that reflects the actual cost of providing services. And therapeutic programs are expensive to run, given the high cost of the intensive services they provide, plus overhead that includes administrators’ salaries and building maintenance.

By comparison, average per-pupil spending in Vermont’s K-12 public schools is roughly $21,000.

Some public-school advocates say the Agency of Education lacks the capacity to provide oversight to ensure that independent schools are being fiscally

responsible and providing high-quality programs.

Rep. Rebecca Holcombe (D-Norwich), who is a former state secretary of education, is in that camp. While some independent therapeutic schools are excellent, Holcombe said, others are not, and “the public has no way to tell the difference.”

She thinks the state should find a way to provide therapeutic services to all Vermont students, rather than leaving each district on its own. New York State, for instance, provides shared educational programs and services to school districts, Holcombe noted.

“School districts could [create] unified unions at a regional or county level to serve students with extraordinary needs in a stable, transparent, supportive and collaborative way,” Holcombe said.

That work is already under way in some parts of the state.

Betit-Hancock, of Windham Central, said eight supervisory unions in her region recently began discussing ways of working

together on student programming, transportation and professional development.

“We’re recognizing that we may be literally five to 10 miles down the road from each other and doing the same thing,” Betit-Hancock said.

Maguire of Essex Westford said she’d like to see Chittenden County districts do something similar. “We owe ourselves a collaborative conversation,” she said.

Superintendents in places such as Colchester, Woodstock and Enosburg Falls — all of whom have struggled to find placements for some students — say schools alone cannot address the increasingly common mental health and behavioral issues among students.

“I think more and more schools are being expected to pick up all kinds of responsibilities,” said Sherry Sousa, superintendent of Mountain Views Supervisory Union in Woodstock. “We need other parts of our state government to take responsibility for some of the heavy lifting that has to happen.” ➆

From left: Kristin Romick, Katie Cunningham and Violet Nichols of the South Burlington School District

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honest and current information, more treatment options, more coordination, and fewer drugs!

How about a Burlington opioid epidemic point person to coordinate among the agencies, assess the status and needs, report to the public, research what other cities are doing, and work with our state legislators and congresspeople? Burlington recently hired a staff coordinator to focus on housing for the homeless.

The legislature already passed a safe injection site bill. Gov. Phil Scott vetoed it, perhaps based on the misconception that these sites would encourage people to use drugs.

Addicted Vermonters need our help now. Vulnerable young people need honest public information and support!

Steph Holdridge BURLINGTON

HAIR TRANSPLANT

I’m a new transplant to Vermont, and your All the Best local guide [August 2] is my go-to reference for most things — except finding a barber. My husband, who is white, easily perused the website for this year’s winner and finalists of best barbershop and found a great barber. However, as a Black person with type 4 hair (look it up), it’s frustrating that only one shop on your list appeared to specialize in cutting Black/African American hair.

No shade, but let’s keep it real — not everyone’s skilled at cutting beautiful curly, kinky tendrils and coils. Period. It is also not lost on me that Vermont’s whiter than the driven snow, with Black or African Americans making up just 1.5 percent of the population. Still, Black barbershops and Black beauty salons are more than local businesses; they are sociohistorical brick-and-mortar havens of gendered racial affirmation, cultural epicenters (think hip-hop, fashion trends and cultural expressions often used to condemn the Black community until they are conveniently commodified for wider consumption), and hubs for community organizing. It’s tough to believe there’s only one barbershop in the Green Mountain State.

I can’t help but wonder: Where can I get a fresh cut?

Lamont Bryant WINOOSKI

Editor’s note: Our annual Daysies competition is reader-powered. Enough people have to nominate a business in the first round of voting for it to

advance to the second round. It’s a numbers game, which disadvantages lesser-known businesses as well as those outside Chittenden County. Seven Days tallies and announces — but does not endorse — the winners. For a good type 4 haircut, we recommend the Shop in Burlington or Wise Rose Beauty in Winooski.

STATE U STRATEGY

[Re “Pass or Fail? Newly Branded Vermont State University Needs More Students — but Its Enrollment Is Declining,” August 16]: I’m looking for strengths to promote Vermont’s state colleges. The locales and historic specializations of each campus are strikingly attractive, so why homogenize?

In New York, I studied at SUNY Fredonia (known, like Lyndon, for its media production) and attended events at SUNY Purchase (known, like Johnson, for its arts) and SUNY Stony Brook (known for its strong theater program).

So why not, at least, give each VSU campus stunning portfolios and emphasize its local sights and resources? VSU at Lyndon, VSU at Randolph, VSU at Castleton and VSU at Johnson each deserve special notice, not dumbing down to some lowest common denominator.

Michael Cerulli Billingsley PLAINFIELD

READ THIS

[Re Kids VT: “Turning the Page: The Children’s Literacy Foundation Inspires Kids to Read, One Book at a Time,” August 22]: While volunteering as a mentor at Charlotte Central School, I worried that kids who live on “the other side” of the highway dividing our village did not get to the town library. Inspired by the wonderful work of the Children’s Literacy Foundation, I looked into starting a Little Free Library for kids outside the Charlotte Grange.

As part of his Eagle Scout project, Stuart Robinson designed and built a receptacle to reflect the Grange’s architecture. With the generous help of Friends of the Charlotte Senior Center and the Flying Pig Bookstore, we fill it with books that kids want to read.

Note to parents: There’s a mountain of evidence showing that the more children read for pleasure, the better they read, write and spell — and the larger their vocabularies.

Susan Ohanian CHARLOTTE

lifelines

OBITUARIES

Margaret  Atkins Reilly Gannaway

MARCH 3, 1967-

AUGUST 14, 2023

ESSEX JUNCTION, VT.

Margaret “Maggie” Atkins

Reilly Gannaway, loving mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend and ardent connoisseur of Swedish meatballs, moved forward from this life on August 14, 2023. After seven years of staying ahead of colon cancer, as it caught up, Maggie passed away peacefully at home with family and close friends sharing their love for her. In true Maggie fashion, with courage, grace and a bit of humor, she determined how and when she would begin this next journey.

Maggie was the first of three children born in Massachusetts to Bodil and Kenneth Atkins. Raised in Littleton, Maggie was nurtured by her family, their church and the tight-knit community, influences that helped shape the loving person she was.

After high school, Maggie left Littleton for the University of Vermont, where she fell in love with the university and Vermont. Making lifelong friends, Maggie continued at UVM to get a master’s degree in social work.

A leader in the field of children’s mental health, she influenced the lives of countless youths, families and colleagues throughout the state and beyond over the course of her 35-year career, working at the Northeastern Family Institute, the Department of Mental Health, Casey Family Services, Howard Center and Otter Creek Associates. Often starting her work as a case

OBITUARIES, VOWS, CELEBRATIONS

and their oncology team, Maggie and those who loved her were blessed with seven wonderful years after a terminal diagnosis. Surgeons Dr. Carlos Marroquin and Dr. Jesse Moore were also critical in keeping Maggie with us. ese individuals were more than just Maggie’s medical team; they were a source of hope and comfort, and we will be eternally grateful for their exceptional care and compassion. For the last few weeks of Maggie’s life, UVM Health Home & Hospice professionals Sandra and Ezra provided all that was necessary for her comfort at home as well as much-appreciated support for Maggie’s family.

Ted Wild

AUGUST 28, 1951DECEMBER 3, 2022 MAIDSTONE, VT.

Edward “Ted” Sargent Wild passed away unexpectedly but peacefully at the age of 71 on December 3, 2022, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his beloved wife, Janet; his children, Doug and Margaret (Jay); his grandchildren, Ada and Jack; his sister, Priscilla Diane (Karla); and his dog, Gracie.

manager and leaving as the director, Maggie worked tirelessly to improve the lives of others. Always an advocate for children, she never lost her sense of wonder and hope for a better world and committed herself to that purpose in every aspect of her life.

With all that she achieved in her career, Maggie would tell you that her greatest joy and accomplishment came when she and first husband Tom Reilly became parents to their daughter, Maya. It is not surprising that Maggie — an intelligent, compassionate and fiercely resilient woman,

inspired by her mother, Bodil — raised a daughter with these same qualities.

For 20 years, Jim Gannaway — friend, partner and husband in all that was Maggie’s life — never failed to be in awe of her strength, intelligence, beauty and humanity. He and all who were lucky enough to know Maggie will forever cherish the memory of her welcoming smile, sparkling eyes, infectious laugh and warm hugs.

Because of the extraordinary medical expertise and care of Dr. Steve Ades, nurse practitioner Janet Ely

Maggie’s treasured circle includes daughter Maya; husband Jim; mother Bodil; father Kenneth; sister Karen Atkins; niece Kirsten Atkins; brother Erik Atkins, his wife, Jessica, and their children, Samantha and Nick; Jim’s daughters, Kerry and her partner, Kevin, and their children, Kaia, Kinley and Kaleb; Amanda and her husband, Seamus, and their children, Colm and Eamon; Tess and her husband, Brian; and friends Maria Sylvester, her husband, Jake, and children Liam and Nolan (Maggie’s unofficial grandsons); Susanne Schmidt; and Eileen Babbitz, her husband, David, and their children, Zac and Hannah.

A celebration of Maggie’s life will take place at Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, 77 Sunset View Rd., South Hero, Vt., on Sunday, September 24, 1 p.m. As Maggie would want, all are welcome.

If donations are your tradition, it was Maggie’s wish that donations be made to Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, PO Box 459, South Hero, VT 05486.

Ted spent his childhood in Newfane, Vt., before moving with his parents and siblings to Long Island, N.Y. As an adult, Ted spent more than 17 years in Alaska, where he met his wife of 36 years, Janet.

Ted and Janet settled in St. Albans, Vt., where they raised their kids and spent many happy years as part of the community. e Wild family spent summers at their camp on Maidstone Lake in Vermont, where Ted could be found puttering and fixing everything around camp. He was great at painting, not so great at installing doors, but he always had a solution. He had many hobbies, including furniture refurbishment, gardening, hunting with his buddies and walking his dog, Gracie, on the lake road.

Ted was an air traffic controller, which took him and Janet to Prescott, Ariz., for many years before moving to Pioneer, Calif., in

IN MEMORIAM Robert Slayton

1947-2023

Please join us to celebrate the life of Robert Slayton on Saturday, September 23, 2 p.m., at Catalyst Church, 100 Raceway Rd., Jericho, VT.

retirement to be near their children and grandchildren. Ted and Janet always returned to Maidstone for the summers.

In later years, Ted never gave up when he had health issues related to a congenital heart condition and remained positive and committed to feeling better. His dedication and love for his family was unwavering. He will be remembered for his gentle nature, frankness, and unconditional love for his wife, kids, grandkids and network of friends across the country. His spirit will be remembered in the hearts of all of his loved ones.

Ted’s remains were laid to rest on July 6, 2023, in Newfane Cemetery in Newfane, Vt., beside his parents, Edward and Dorothy Wild, and many other Wild family ancestors. A wonderful memorial was held at the Wilds’ Maidstone camp on July 8, 2023, where Ted’s many friends and family gathered to share happy memories of him.

lifelines

Robert Schoen

AUGUST 27, 2023

ESSEX JUNCTION, VT.

Robert “Bob” Schoen of Essex Junction, Vt., passed away on August 27, 2023, at the age of 92, due to complications from pneumonia. Bob was born in Manhattan to Agnes and William Schoen and spent his childhood riding his bicycle through the streets of New York City, playing baseball and playing with his dog, Jack.

Bob attended many New York Yankees games with his father in the 1930s and once discovered that Babe Ruth was in the stands. Young Bob lined up for Babe Ruth’s autograph, but a large man stepped in front of him, cutting him off. Babe Ruth reached around that man to take the program from Bob, making a point of signing his first. Bob always treasured that memory and the lesson in integrity.

At age 16, he joined the U.S. Army National Guard, where he became trained as a medic because he “wasn’t afraid of blood.” He also received “Expert” for his shooting marksmanship. Bob’s advanced education began at City College in New York for his undergraduate degree. He took his first geology class at City, earning a grade of C-, which was the highest grade in the class. To his way of thinking, “ e best grade in the class deserved an A,” but more importantly, “Geology made sense.”

Bob moved to the University of Wyoming in Laramie for his postgraduate work. It was here that he met his wife of 66 years, Jean Rogers Schoen. Drafted

Anthony Lee

DECEMBER 18, 1991-

AUGUST 25, 2023

STOCKBRIDGE, VT.

Anthony T. Lee, 31, was taken from us suddenly on August 25, 2023, in South Burlington, Vt. Tony was born in Lebanon, N.H., and raised in Windsor, Vt., and Lyme, N.H., graduating from Rivendell Academy in 2010. For the past three years, he lived in Stockbridge, Vt., with his mom and stepfather and worked at UPS in Wilder, loading the trucks in the early

into the U.S. Army at the end of the Korean War, Bob spent the next two years in Okinawa, Japan. Once stateside, he and Jean wed and moved to a trailer in the Southwest “because you can see the geology in all of the exposed rock.” He studied the nation’s uranium mines in Moab, Utah. Using the veterans’ benefit of the G.I. Bill, Bob and Jean moved back east to Boston, Mass., to further his education. ey made a quick stop in Wisconsin for the birth of their first child. Bob received his PhD in geology from Harvard University.

Packing up the family car once again, Bob moved his growing young family, which now included another daughter and a kitten, to California, where he began his career as a geologist in the Water Resources Division for the U.S. Geological Survey. Soon another daughter and son joined the family, necessitating the purchase of his first home in Cupertino, Calif. Many camping trips to national and state parks throughout the American West allowed Bob to share his love of the natural world

morning hours. He loved his job and was totally invested in being a member of the Teamsters Local 597. e hours were also great; ending a shift by 9:30 a.m. gave him the rest of the day to do things he loved to do. You could find Anthony fishing, either alone at Kent Pond in Killington or elsewhere with friends Jack or Brian; off-road four-wheeling or snowmobiling; or tinkering on lawn equipment or vehicles of family and neighbors that needed repair. He loved turning a wrench!

with his four children. He welcomed the challenge of anything new and taught himself, his wife and children how to sail a small boat. Soon he bought a 26-footer, in which he took the family on long sailing trips on San Francisco Bay and down the Sacramento Delta.

In 1968 Bob was asked to present a paper at a worldwide geological symposium held in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Taking his wife on this summer trip, he was one of the few speakers able to give his speech before Soviet tanks rolled into town in an invasion of that country that lasted 23 years. It took several days to get the Americans and other foreigners bused safely out of the country, and it was a surreal experience for Bob and Jean to walk the streets with the Soviets’ loaded guns pointed at them at all times.

In 1972, with a new green station wagon, Bob yet again moved his family of six and the same cat, along with his big red sailboat trailing behind, across the country to northern Virginia. Here he continued his career with the USGS, bicycling to work

Anthony, despite his shyness, made friends easily and kept them, many from his school days. He found time to spend with them or just pick up the phone and reconnect for an hour with someone he hadn’t seen in a while. Tony was always there to lend a helping hand. At home he made time to help with tree removal, scraping and painting the house, or mowing the lawn. Several of his neighbors have had auto or garden equipment work done by him, or he’d spend an entire day here and there

each day, until his retirement. During those early years as a retiree, Bob reignited his passion for biking with family, taking his wife and children on many trails throughout the region, including a fiveday Vermont bike tour. He relished the pleasure of vegetable gardening and produced so much that he learned to can. He continued to sail his boat in the Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay and along the Intracoastal Waterway. After the beloved family pet of 17 years passed away, Bob welcomed other cats, including strays from the barn, into his lap.

With his children grown and the area becoming too congested, Bob and Jean left northern Virginia and moved to Middleton, Wisc., to enjoy that beautiful state and do some traveling and research the family genealogy, until their final move back east, to be near two of their children in Vermont.

Nothing made Bob happier than the discovery of a special rock specimen or fossil to add to his collection and to share this fascination with his grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. He enjoyed classical music and attending operas. He wrote technical papers, nonfiction and fiction; dabbled in drawing; acted in community theater; loved photography and developed his own pictures in a darkroom; taught community college courses in geology; volunteered as PTA president for his children’s elementary school; and sang baritone; and his sneezes could cause a tremor within the earth. Despite being frugal, Bob encouraged his children to

helping a coworker with tasks around their home. He would try to get to his grandfathers to snowblow or just sit in the living room chatting. He was generous with his time for his Oma before her passing last year and was there holding her hand when she took her last breath. He truly had the biggest, kindest heart and was dealt an unfair hand.

Tony is predeceased by his paternal grandmother, Sheila Dessert, of Lebanon, N.H.; his maternal grandparents, E. omas Arsenault

expand their minds by providing a piano and lessons, bicycles to stay healthy, and later, in Virginia, providing them the opportunity to learn responsibility with the family horse, Buck. Bob was ahead of his time in insisting that the TV programs his children watched included good female role models.

Bob refused to let the digital age pass him by, using a Kindle in his last years because the typeface could be enlarged easily. His favorite saying was to give everything “the old college try.” Known as Mr. Fixit, he had numerous how-to manuals lining his hand-built library shelves, mixed in with rock specimens, countless novels and nonfiction, periodicals, and maps and charts. He had an amazing memory and loved to tell stories. As a lifelong learner and a voracious reader, his favorite was Mark Twain: “Do the right thing. It will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”

In 2022, at the age of 91, Bob undertook a new learning adventure, beginning the daily routine of peritoneal dialysis. e mechanics of peritoneal dialysis fascinated him, always the scientist, and he took great pride in his mastery of the self-care regimen. e flexibility and control provided by this dialysis option was a game changer for him, and he was so grateful to Dr. Onuibo and special nurse Sandra of the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine Division of Nephrology Home Dialysis Program, for their encouragement, support and respect. As Dad said, “ ey let me be the boss.” He is one of

of Lebanon, N.H., and Carola Schrank of Stockbridge, Vt.; and his aunts Regina Arsenault of St. Johnsbury, Vt., and Heidi Arsenault of Windsor, Vt.

He is survived by his mother and her partner, Julie Maxfield and Joseph Havelka Jr., of Stockbridge, Vt.; his father and stepmother, Jeff and Cara Lee, of Kyle, Texas; his paternal grandfather, Henry Dessert, of Lebanon, N.H.; his half-sister, Abby Cosgrove, of Fabius, N.Y.; his stepsister, Deanna Gold, of Fayetteville, N.C.; his aunt and uncle

the oldest patients to have attempted this, and he was successful for more than a year.

Our father and grandfather was larger than life, and we will miss his words of wisdom. A special dark chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate ice cream, raw seafood, a rare prime rib steak, and an extra-dry martini to wash it all down with will always remind us of our dad.

Robert was preceded in death by his parents and his older sister, Helen Henning.

Surviving Robert to cherish his memory are his wife, Jean; four children: daughters Wendy Cowne (Stephen), Paula VanDeventer (William), and Roxana Schoen (Don Atriedes), and son Peter Schoen (Leslie Pelch); seven grandchildren: Aric Cowne, Justin Cowne, Alexander Kolankiewicz, Peter VanDeventer, Gretchen VanDeventer, Tristan VanDeventer and Willa Pelschoen; six greatgrandchildren; and numerous nieces-in-law and nephews-in-law.

Per his final wishes, a private family celebration will be held at a later date to inter his ashes at the Viroqua Cemetery, Viroqua, Wisc., under a “nice piece of gneiss.”

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in his memory to your local NPR radio station or local PBS television station, or your local Humane Society.

Arrangements are in the care of the Cremation Society of Chittenden County, a division of the Ready Home. To send online condolences, please visit cremationsocietycc.com.

Kathie and Robin Burrell of Canaan, N.H.; and so many loving cousins, nieces and nephews. He will be greatly missed.

A celebration of life will be held on Sunday, September 10, 10 a.m., at the Stockbridge Meeting House, 97 Maplewood Dr., Stockbridge, VT, with a reception to follow at the Clear River Tavern, 2640 Route 100, Pittsfield, VT. Bring your stories and memories and plan to share them with everyone.

Arrangements are by Day Funeral Home of Randolph, Vt.

William L. Harwood

MAY 18, 1946-AUGUST 23, 2023

SOUTH BURLINGTON, VT.

William L. Harwood, 77, of South Burlington, Vt., passed away peacefully on August 23, 2023, at the McClure Miller Respite House after a 16-month battle with cancer. Bill was born in Burlington Vt., on May 18, 1946, to Theodore Harwood and Laura Jean Lathrop. The family moved to Grand Forks, N.D., when he was a young boy. Bill completed his BA with honors in American history at the University of North Dakota in 1968. In 1970 the Journal of South Dakota History published his thesis on the Ku Klux Klan in Grand Forks. He then served three years in the U.S. Army as a military intelligence NCO and completed a year of Polish language training at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. He applied his knowledge of Polish to earn a doctorate in Polish and East European history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducting research at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He passed the foreign service exam

at the American embassy in Warsaw and worked with the U.S. Information Agency as a foreign service information officer doing press and cultural work in U.S. embassies in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Poland, Russia and Somalia.

While serving overseas, Bill was married to Marjorie Tomoe Yamamoto, a family nurse practitioner with the U.S. State Department, and they welcomed daughter Laura. The family returned to Washington when Marjorie fell ill, and she died in 1998. In 2001, Bill married Elaine Hubert, who had worked at the World Bank, and in 2007 they moved to Vermont, living first in Burlington and then in South Burlington.

Throughout his life Bill was devoted to music, both singing and playing the French horn. Starting in high school and continuing at overseas postings and in Washington and Vermont, he loved to perform in musicals, operas and Gilbert and Sullivan. He sang with the Burlington Choral Society, the Oriana/ Aurora Chamber Singers and the choir of the College Street Congregational Church, which he attended as a boy. He has served on the boards of his church and music groups and was president of the Burlington Rotary Club.

He studied creative writing and wrote his life story, particularly his life in the foreign service.

Bill lived a very full and productive life. Everyone who knew him will have their special memories, but three qualities stand out. First, he was devoted to family, including the group of 18 Harwood first cousins who stayed close throughout their lives, and to maintaining lifelong friendships with people from childhood in North Dakota to overseas postings to life in Washington and Vermont. Second, he never gave up his passion for learning, reading everything he could get his hands on. His library, music and CD collections never stopped growing. Third, he had a faith in God that sustained him to the end. Bill was a good man who will be much missed.

Bill is survived by his wife of 22 years, Elaine Hubert, his daughter, Laura Benise, son-inlaw Roni Benise, and grandchildren Bodhi and Isabella Benise, all of Ojai, Calif.; sister Judy Harwood of Manchester Center, Vt.; brother Ted Harwood of Duluth, Minn.; and niece, nephews and cousins.

A memorial service will be held at the College Street Congregational Church, 265 College St., Burlington, VT, on November 11, 2023, 1 p.m. The service will be in person as well as on Zoom. In lieu of flowers, donations in Bill’s memory may be made to College Street Church or a music group of your choosing. To send online condolences please visit readyfuneral.com.

William Jewell

SEPTEMBER 29, 1938SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

SEBASTIAN, FLA.

William “Bill” Michael Jewell passed away on September 4, 2023, in Sebastian, Fla. He was born on September 29, 1938, in Peekskill, N.Y., to William and Helen Jewell. He attended Westchester Community College and worked in the insurance field in New York City. He was drawn to Vermont through road trips in VW Beetles and by the beautiful simplicity of country life.

Bill moved to a small cape on Beartown Road in Underhill Center, Vt., in 1960 and worked hard to build a life for his family. He delivered tires to farmers throughout the countryside, working for Goodyear in Burlington for many years. He knew all the best spots for a hot dog, a slice of pie or a quick nap. He loved cooking and food, especially Vermont corn. The family grew a huge garden in the summer, and Bill continued to garden throughout his life. William and his first wife, Doris, entertained often and were well known in the Pleasant Valley.

Bill married Jean Howe in 2006. After many years of being snowbirds between Vermont and Florida, they settled in Sebastian, Fla. Bill continued to garden, and they enjoyed a simple life in paradise. They also enjoyed driving around in Jean’s classic

Ford Mustang convertible. They were both dedicated to their church, First Baptist Church Barefoot Bay, and were actively involved in the church community.

William was married to Doris Kufer Jewell from 1958 to 2000. They have three daughters and their families: Diane and John Bennink of Monkton, Vt.; Lori and Tom Delia of Charlotte, Vt.; and Christine Jewell and her late husband, William Knapp, of Waterbury, Conn. He was known as “Pop” to his grandchildren, Alessandro and Enzo Delia.

Bill is survived by Jean Howe Jewell, her sons and their families: Brett Howe and Claudia Weinmann of Washington, D.C., and their children, Simon and Juliet; and Scott and Gemma Howe of Princeton, N.J., and their son, Roman. Bill and Jean loved to spend time together with their grandchildren, and they traveled often to visit and have adventures together. Bill has a twin brother, Robert Jewell, who lives in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., with his wife, Mary. They have two children, Robert Jr. and Debbie Dickinson-Jewell, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. William is also predeceased by his brother John and nephew James.

A celebration of life memorial service will be held on Sunday, September 10, 4:00 p.m., at First Baptist Church Barefoot Bay in Sebastian, Fla. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to First Baptist Church Barefoot Bay.

From Room 37 to Cell 17

BY DEREK BROUWER & COLIN FLANDERS

He was bei ng hunted — he was certain of it. Bus passengers studied him from the corners of their eyes. Trucks kept circling the block. Strangers hovered close. He heard shouts and screams, spectral sounds usually shrugged off as urban din. But on this windy December night in 2020, the young man took them as clues that assassins were closing in.

He hid inside a downtown café and called Burlington police for help. Soon, nurses at the University of Vermont Medical Center were introduced to Mbyayenge Mafuta. Friends knew him by his nickname, Robbie, which he pronounced in an unusual way, ROW-bee, that sounded like the name of the six-inch Bowie knife he’d begun carrying for protection.

Clinicians sketched a profile of the new patient: 19 years old, Black, clean-shaven, no known psychiatric history. He was paranoid, and likely hallucinating. “I am being followed by a group of people unknown to me,” Mafuta told a nurse. She escorted him to Room 37, one of two in the emergency department outfitted with retractable metal screens used to shield medical equipment when patients lash out during a psychotic episode.

A specialist arrived two hours later and began asking questions. The first was easy: Where do you live?

ABOUT THIS STORY

Our reporting is based upon hundreds of pages of court documents, police reports and interviews with Mbyayenge “Robbie” Mafuta and people who know him.

“In my head,” Mafuta answered.

Over the next two years, Mafuta’s name and face would become familiar to doctors, police, correctional o cers and residents of a city increasingly anxious about the interlocking problems of mental illness, homelessness and crime. He would return to the hospital again and again and take to sleeping on downtown park benches. He would be tackled and tased during a publicized run-in with Burlington cops, stoking a policing debate that had been ignited by George Floyd’s murder. During a heated local election campaign, city ocials would deploy Mafuta as a symbol of decaying public safety.

Then, in a matter of seconds inside a St. Albans prison last December, Mafuta beat and gravely injured his cellmate. Mafuta stepped outside their cell that day, dazed and bloody, as prison o cers scrambled to save Je rey Hall, who subsequently died in a hospital. Last month, Mafuta appeared in a Franklin County courtroom to answer a charge of murder.

The bare facts of the attack seem to point to a dangerous and volatile defendant whose destructive impulses flared in prison. But interviews with Mafuta and people close to him, as well as a review of police records and hundreds of pages of medical charts, reveal a far more complicated chain of events.

also obtained Mafuta’s

Seven Days medical records from his courtappointed attorneys, with Mafuta’s permission.

This more disquieting account is the story of a young immigrant who endured childhood trauma but matured into a gifted and charismatic teen — only to sink into a quicksand of mental illness and homelessness from which an overtaxed, fragmented network of care was unable to rescue him. His descent o ers a telling glimpse into the inadequacies of a system that provides limited support during the early stages of psychiatric illness, forcing the machinery of criminal justice to respond when crises result.

If Mafuta’s murder case makes it to trial, his attorneys will seek to convince jurors that he was

A young man’s path through the mental health care system led to prison — and a fatal encounter

not guilty because he was insane when he attacked Hall, a finding no Vermont jury has delivered in living memory. Mafuta’s future could hinge on what a dozen people in law-and-order Franklin County imagine was going through his mind during a 30-second spasm of violence.

But the path to the events of Cell 17 travels first, two years earlier, through Room 37 in UVM’s emergency department, where a frightened teenager went to feel safe.

‘I HAD TO GROW UP REALLY FAST’

Mafuta was suspicious of the man taking notes. Mafuta had been sitting in the emergency department for more than two hours, exposed in his hospital gown, nervously spinning the identification bracelet around his wrist. His eyes checked the doorway. Even here, he did not know whom to trust.

neighborhood of mostly single-family houses.

Mafuta, outgoing and adventurous, wandered into the backyards of neighbors. He knocked on doors to ask for rides to school when he missed the bus. Some neighbors invited Mafuta into their homes to play Xbox with their kids. Others yelled at the Mafuta boys for playing with their family’s toys, telling police they thought the children might steal them.

Inside the family’s sparsely furnished apartment, Mafuta’s father, Ponda, expected obedience, Mafuta would later recall. Mafuta had chores by the time he was 8 years old, and when he didn’t do them, his father punished him harshly. When Ponda came home one afternoon to discover his son playing in the yard, Mafuta ran inside and pretended to sort the laundry, still dirty. The boy’s screams reached the downstairs neighbor, Patrick Graziano, who was accustomed to loud noises from above, but nothing like this.

“You can tell when a child is in fear,” he said.

His interlocutor worked with an allhours crisis service run by Chittenden County’s mental health provider, Howard Center. At first, Mafuta evaded the queries. But the therapist, an immigrant like him, specialized in working with young, traumatized adults, and with gentle questioning Mafuta began to reveal some details about his life.

Again and again, Mafuta had lost people close to him: his biological mother, who lived on another continent; a caseworker who died of cancer; a friend who drowned in Lake Champlain. Now he felt alone and unmoored in the place where he’d grown up. Explaining that to the stranger in Room 37 transported Mafuta to the furthest reaches of his memory, to those of the young child who departed the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the United States.

Had they come as refugees? He wasn’t sure. He knew he was 5 when he’d said goodbye to his mother and boarded an airplane to Indiana with his father, younger brother and stepmother. He was in elementary school when the family later moved to a brick apartment building in Essex, wedged into a suburban

Graziano ran upstairs, pushed open the Mafutas’ door and found Ponda swinging a shoe at his son, who had curled defensively in a ball. Graziano pinned the man to the floor. The police took the father away in handcu s.

It was the first of two times Ponda would face criminal charges for hitting his eldest child. The charges in both cases were later dropped, in one instance because Ponda agreed to go to specialized counseling for refugees and survivors of torture. (The elder Mafuta did not respond to interview requests.)

His son, nevertheless, was taken into state custody. Mafuta recalled moving from “one white house to the next” until he landed at Allenbrook, a South Burlington group home for teens with behavioral challenges. He’d been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, and he saw a youth therapist.

Allenbrook had its own strictures. The home ran on a system tied to privileges. Residents gained points for doing their dishes, lost points for taking too long in the shower. Mafuta got in trouble for running

During a heated local election campaign, city officials would deploy Mafuta as a symbol of decaying public safety.

Mbyayenge “Robbie” Mafuta’s yearbook photo

From Room 37 to Cell 17 « P.27

away. More than once, he turned up at the playground of the Burlington apartment complex where his family had since moved.

He missed the African dishes his family cooked at home: fufu, pondu madesu. He missed his siblings. Even though Mafuta was scared of his father at times, he missed him, too.

“I had to grow up really fast,” he told a caseworker years later.

Most of Mafuta’s middle school peers in South Burlington had cellphones. He stole a teacher’s so he could have one, too.

In sports, he found an outlet. The group home connected him to a youth football team, the Dolphins, and coach Rene LaBerge showed him how to channel pentup aggression into something positive. “I used football as a way to express myself,” Mafuta later recalled.

By high school, he was a five-foot-10, 215-pound defensive standout and a frequent presence in opponents’ backfields, disrupting plays before they began. He was named all-state defensive lineman on the inaugural Burlington-South Burlington varsity football squad, the SeaWolves.

Once Mafuta learned to become a teammate, making friends came naturally. He brought dates to school dances and blew curfew to snack at Al’s French Frys. He started making rap music with friends, including North Ave Jax, who now plays sold-out shows.

Around that time, Anais Carpentier, a junior, was struggling to find her place after moving to Vermont with her family. Mafuta introduced her to his friends and brought her to hangouts. “I got you,” he told her. She’d drop him off at Allenbrook, and they’d lose track of time chatting in the parking lot.

“He’s the reason high school wasn’t that bad for me,” Carpentier said.

Mafuta’s senior classmates voted him as having the “most Wolfpack pride” — and roared when the high school principal called his name on graduation day in June 2019. His parents posed for photos alongside him in his cap and gown.

His time at Allenbrook was winding down. Mafuta hoped an athletics scholarship would propel him to college, maybe even Yale University. That didn’t pan out, nor could he afford prep school. So as friends embarked for college, Mafuta went instead to Kentucky, where his father had found new work, to try to live with his parents again.

They continued to clash. Just before the pandemic, he moved back to Vermont on his own.

ASSASSINS AND A TAPPED PHONE

The crisis therapist at the hospital in December 2020 wanted to know about those months between Mafuta’s return to Vermont and his current, paranoid state. Mafuta, though, was fixated on the previous week. He had been hearing noises inside a recent girlfriend’s home, Mafuta explained, but she told him he was imagining them. Then the mysterious troupe began stalking him.

“Writer doubts that this is the first episode,” the therapist noted. “It is more likely that he has not revealed it before.”

Mafuta had been under enormous stress. After returning to Burlington, he

stayed with a friend’s mother, who kicked him out because, she said, he kept smoking weed in the house. He bounced from couch to couch. The pandemic hit, and Mafuta began staying in state-sponsored motel rooms. He had no car, and the rooms had no kitchens.

Carpentier visited him in the run-down motels. But he became harder to find, and, at the end of summer 2020, she lost his trail.

A separate friend picked up Mafuta at Oakledge Park one evening. Taylor Chibuzo had only known Mafuta for a couple of years, but he had become her best friend. She’d look in awe at his journals, full of deft drawings and doodles. On this night, Mafuta seemed agitated. As she drove, he directed her to take abrupt turns because someone was following them. He

seemed convinced that her phone was tapped. That night, Chibuzo found him standing in her front yard, staring at nothing but the pitch black.

It was the first time Chibuzo had felt uncomfortable around her friend. His paranoia made her wonder about schizophrenia, a disease she knew little about.

It was months before clinicians would deliver such a diagnosis, though research on schizophrenia indicates that Mafuta’s age, migrant background and history of childhood abuse put him at a higher risk for developing the disease. But psychosis has many causes, and diagnosing an underlying condition takes time. A hospital psychiatrist who assessed Mafuta that December night wondered whether his symptoms might have been a result of

Mafuta playing for the South Burlington Dolphins as No. 77

heavy cannabis use. The specialist encouraged him to stay at the hospital until his condition improved.

Mafuta seemed amenable, telling them his assassins would leave his body in a ditch if he returned to the street. Still, just a few hours later, he changed his mind and walked out.

Over the next few days, Mafuta contacted Burlington police repeatedly to express fear that he was being followed. Then someone called 911 from Lakeview Cemetery to report what they believed might be a body. It was Mafuta, alive but face down in the snow next to the grave of his friend who had drowned in Lake Champlain several years earlier. Mafuta refused help but later showed up at the fire department asking for a ride to the emergency room. He left the hospital shortly after, only to return hours later, explaining that he hadn’t been in the “right headspace” earlier. He agreed to be admitted to the psychiatric unit.

That day, Mafuta took his first dose of an antipsychotic medication. Over the week that followed, doctors noted that his paranoia seemed to subside. On December 18, he told them that he’d stopped hearing from a joke-telling “imaginary friend” and assured them that he had thrown away the cellphone he believed was tapped. He asked to be discharged.

Doctors urged him to stay a few more days so they could discuss a treatment plan going forward. Mafuta said he would schedule follow-up appointments on his own and sleep at a friend’s house. The hospital ordered him a cab to help him get there.

‘SOMETHING MUST BE GOING ON’

Mafuta had reached a critical juncture. One or two psychotic episodes can cost someone a job, damage relationships and prompt encounters with the police. But intensive, ongoing care can, for some people, reverse that trajectory.

Vermont is the only state without an intervention program known as coordinated specialty care, which the federal government says is proven to work. It’s meant to prevent someone in the early stages of psychosis from spiraling toward deeper trouble. Some Vermont mental health workers, with state support, have pioneered a similar yet distinct treatment approach that marshals a team of therapists, family and friends to help a person address their needs. This more collaborative technique is not widely available, however, and most Vermonters do not receive such treatment. Mafuta wouldn’t, either.

In the weeks following his December discharge, he had no further contact with the hospital or Howard Center, according to his medical records. Instead, he tried to solve mounting problems on his own.

Mafuta went to Goodwill and asked to be hired back for a job he had abandoned weeks earlier. When the manager said no, according to a police report, he knocked over merchandise and was barred from the property. Mafuta told a South Burlington officer who responded to stay “six feet away.” The officer placed a written notice of trespass on the ground.

Soon after, in early January 2021, a Burlington police officer flagged down Mafuta on an Old North End sidewalk while investigating a report that someone resembling him had tried to break into a parked car. Mafuta walked past the officer,

The prosecutor said she asked the callers whether they knew anyone who could give Mafuta a place to live and watch over him. None came forward, so Mafuta spent nearly three months imprisoned while awaiting trial. “I don’t think our intention was ever to have him be in that long,” George said.

Incarceration had a “seriously adverse effect” on Mafuta because of his youthfulness and mental health issues, his public defenders argued in a bid for his release pending trial, which a judge granted in March. They hired a social worker to arrange for a hotel room, provide Mafuta with a cellphone and help him stay on top of his medication.

Meanwhile, a pair of psychiatrists evaluated Mafuta and determined that he was insane at the time of the January

TRUSTED VOICES

A second deal with prosecutors sent Mafuta to treatment court, a communitybased program for defendants with mental health conditions or drug addictions. It entailed drug tests, therapy and regular visits before a judge.

He was assigned a caseworker from Howard Center, the county mental health agency. His caseworker tallied Mafuta’s strengths: “good energy, trusting, motivated toward change, old soul.” For needs, she listed “affection, encouragement.” Mafuta said what he needed most was consistency. It had been 10 months and two prison stints since his initial hospital visit.

Treatment court offered structure and supervision. He sought out new work, joined a cooking class and showed up to mandated court hearings.

Still, Mafuta’s housing situation was precarious, and he strained to make sense of the waves of psychosis that doctors now suspected were symptoms of schizophrenia.

“I had to be my own father, which is where this voice in my head came from,” he told his caseworker. “It is my best friend. I trust this voice more than anything else in the world.”

MBYAYENGE “ROBBIE” MAFUTA

who grabbed his shoulder. He told the officer not to touch him. The exchange became heated and turned into a scuffle. Mafuta was eventually subdued by an electric shock. He was booked for assaulting the officer and released.

Three days later, he showed up at the house of a New North End family he didn’t know and demanded they let him inside because, he told them, his phone was dead, according to court records. After they shut the door, he broke into their garage and began smashing items. Police arrested him at gunpoint.

That prompted the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office to ask a judge to detain Mafuta while the cases played out in court. He was locked up for the first time in his life.

Soon, videos of his arrest-by-Taser received extensive news coverage in Burlington.

State’s Attorney Sarah George began fielding calls from acquaintances who’d known Mafuta through their work at South Burlington High School. His recent behavior didn’t add up, they told her; something must be going on. The calls surprised George: In her experience, people didn’t usually speak up for homeless Black men.

incidents. Prosecutors and his public defender began working out a deal to drop the charges in exchange for community treatment.

Then he was accused of another crime.

Mafuta had begun working in the kitchen at Olive Garden in South Burlington following his release but walked off during one of his shifts. When he learned days later that he no longer had a job, he hijacked a truck in the parking lot with one of its owners still inside and sped off toward a friend’s house. He stopped to let her out, then continued driving until police pulled him over.

This time, a court-ordered psychiatrist concluded that Mafuta had understood his actions and was mentally fit to stand trial for the carjacking charge. He spent another four months in prison, until October 2021.

By then, as word spread of his erratic behavior, many peers were writing him off, his friend Carpentier said. She tried to stick by him, but it was growing more difficult.

Phone conversations with Mafuta devolved into arguments. He cussed her out and accused her of plotting against him. “That had never happened before,” she said.

One of the only people outside the system still keeping tabs on Mafuta was a Burlington barber, Tony Clarke. Clarke had met Mafuta years earlier while working with his father at Magic Hat Brewing and had occasionally joined Ponda on visits to Allenbrook group home. After Mafuta returned to Vermont, he and Clarke grew close.

Mafuta was desperate to prove that he could make it on his own. In phone calls with his father, he betrayed little of his troubles. He put on a strong face whenever he spoke to Clarke, too.

Clarke saw through the façade. “I was telling his father, like, ‘Yo, shit is not good,’ and he couldn’t believe it,” Clarke said.

When Ponda found out his son was homeless, he flew to Burlington and paid a woman from their former church to put up Mafuta, Clarke said. The arrangement ended because, Mafuta said, he was caught smoking weed at that house, too. Mafuta’s struggles were stressful for Ponda, Clarke said, “because he wanted to help him but couldn’t.”

Early one morning, Clarke was taking out the trash from his Main Street barbershop, Kut Masterz, when he heard someone rapping to himself at a bus stop. He rounded the corner and saw Mafuta, who by then was spending nights at a shelter on Shelburne Road. Clarke invited him inside.

I’m hearing people talking to me. I’m seeing shadows walk across the streets.

From Room 37 to Cell 17 «

Clarke started swinging by the shelter in case Mafuta needed a ride. Mafuta became a frequent presence at the barbershop, where he could count on food, comfort, conversation and a crisp haircut — usually a flattop or a fade.

When Mafuta said odd things, such as declaring that the left side of his body “walked with death,” Clarke would tell him to “knock the bullshit off, man. I know you; this is not you.” He didn’t know what else to say.

Mafuta relied increasingly on doctors, yet the medication gave him tremors that got so bad in January 2022 that he went to the emergency room. A doctor suggested he stop taking the pills and visit his primary care physician in Colchester.

It’s unclear whether he ever followed up. But when Mafuta returned to the UVM Medical Center emergency department again in April 2022, he disclosed that he had not taken his medication in three months.

Mafuta now said the Ku Klux Klan was following him and that his medications were being used for mind control. He tried to “cast spells” on one clinician and told another he might need to harm her so that she would stop writing things down.

“Just kill me now!” he screamed.

He shook the stretcher in his room, slammed a stool on the floor, and ran down a hallway with security and staff in pursuit.

The doctors decided that his threatening words and behavior were grounds for emergency inpatient treatment, otherwise known as involuntary commitment.

He spent another night in an emergency room, waiting for a bed.

‘SWATH OF DESTRUCTION’

Mafuta ended up at the Brattleboro Retreat, a nonprofit psychiatric hospital two hours away.

“Get out,” he told the first nurse to enter his room.

He did not want to be in a hospital. His 21st birthday was coming up. He’d only gone to the emergency department in Burlington because he was looking for someplace to sleep, he told another nurse. Being homeless, he said, made his symptoms worse.

He struggled to explain the voices he heard in ways that doctors and nurses could understand — or he’d deny hearing anything. Like many people thought to have schizophrenia, he questioned his diagnosis. In time, Retreat staff persuaded Mafuta to try different antipsychotic medicines, which he said helped settle his mind. He

went to peer meetings and made snacks using recipe cards. He wrote poetry.

As his stay neared the one-month mark, Mafuta wanted to return to Burlington so he could take more cooking classes. His treatment team began making plans for his discharge in May 2022.

One of the providers noted that Mafuta might benefit from residential treatment upon release. They placed him in a shortterm crisis stabilization center, ASSIST, run by Howard Center.

During Mafuta’s fourth day at ASSIST, house staffers made him take a Breathalyzer test because they thought, incorrectly, that his drink contained alcohol. Mafuta lost control. He thrust his elbow through a wall, causing his arm to bleed, and smashed a window. Employees hid in their offices while the police came.

The manager said Mafuta had to leave. But, she told police, he was unsafe to be on his own. An officer drove him to the UVM Medical Center.

Later that night, the hospital discharged

him. Mafuta was back on the street — what would become his final, crushing stint. At a homeless shelter, he damaged property and was told to leave. He slept outdoors, usually on park benches, and lost track of his medications. His hallucinations became overwhelming, and he got more criminal citations and made more trips to the ER. “I just want to get my fucking medications so I can sleep,” he yelled during one visit, before punching a machine. He was given an injection of a powerful antipsychotic drug.

Nighttime could be terrifying. He sought out safety in City Hall Park, a popular homeless hangout, only to wake up to the patter of rain and realize that everyone else had left. Mafuta wandered empty downtown streets, panic mounting, wondering where the other homeless people had gone. “I’m hearing people talking to me,” he remembered later. “I’m seeing shadows walk across the streets.” He huddled near Wi-Fi hot spots so he could listen to music on his headphones until daybreak.

Feeling suicidal, he jumped in front of traffic on Shelburne Road. He had outbursts at the library and at a pharmacy. He was accused of smashing windows at churches and businesses and of stealing clothes, a phone.

Burlington residents, meanwhile, were losing patience with the sort of public displays of homelessness, disorder and property crime that Mafuta was coming to represent. Those concerns fueled the August 2022 primary battle for Chittenden County state’s attorney, in which George’s challenger, backed by the Burlington police union, pledged to clean up the streets by keeping more suspects behind bars.

Mafuta’s personal crisis crashed into the politics of public safety during the final 72 hours of the campaign. Police again found Mafuta jumping in front of traffic. The next day, he was removed from a daytime shelter after ripping the door handle from a car in the parking lot.

On the eve of the primary election, Mafuta smashed windows at the bus station downtown, court papers allege. Then, in the early morning hours, he walked to the South End home where one of his former foster families lived. He asked to stay there, but they declined. Mafuta launched rocks through a bedroom window. He went on to damage more than 30 other nearby homes, prosecutors allege.

Voters awoke on primary day to headlines dubbing the vandalism spree a “swath of destruction.” The phrase had been plucked straight from a press release sent out by then-acting Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad. The release noted that Mafuta had accumulated more than 100 “police involvements,” including one occasion in which he’d asked police to take him to jail so he could get his medication.

Mafuta with his lawyer Paul Groce

Mafuta being brought into court by Sheriff John Grismore

Mayor Miro Weinberger called on authorities to do more to “sustain the peace and safety that this community has long enjoyed.”

George, who won reelection, said the police chief spoke dismissively of Mafuta’s struggles during an administrative meeting a few days later. “Everybody has mental health issues these days,” George said she heard him say.

In an email to Seven Days, Murad said he didn’t recall his exact words. His point, he said, was that most people with mental illness don’t harm others, and those who

“Client will be better served by the correctional facility where he is currently held,” a note in his Howard Center file concluded.

The Department of Corrections deemed Mafuta to have “serious functional impairment,” a designation for prisoners with debilitating mental illness. Only 40 or so Vermont inmates meet the narrow criteria for the designation at any given time. Most are housed at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, which maintains more extensive medical resources, including a residential psychiatric unit.

do must be treated in ways that also preserve public safety. Absent effective treatment, prison is sometimes the only option, Murad wrote. For too long, he added, Mafuta “was able to repeatedly victimize others.”

STARING BLANKLY

The vandalism spree convinced Superior Court Judge John Pacht that efforts to help Mafuta in the community were not working.

He ordered Mafuta to be kept at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin until a psychiatrist could evaluate whether he needed a prolonged hospital stay. A few weeks later, a state psychiatrist found Mafuta fit to stand trial, and he was transferred to Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.

Mafuta was one of three inmates in St. Albans with the high-needs designation. He met periodically with social workers and a psychiatrist employed by the state’s private medical contractor at the time, VitalCore Health Strategies, to plan treatment.

He was assigned to a general-population unit with narrow cells and a shared bathroom. Fellow inmates said they soon noticed him acting strangely. He told them he could hear their thoughts. Some days he stared blankly at the wall.

Even so, Mafuta was unusually “genuine,” fellow inmate Daniel Mitchell said. The pair sometimes walked circles together around the unit. Mitchell learned that Mafuta didn’t have family members who visited or money to buy

He was like, “My voices keep telling me to hurt people … I keep telling them I don’t want to hurt anyone; I’m not a hurtful person.”

DANIEL MITCHELL

From Room 37 to Cell 17

items from the commissary. He sometimes asked to use other inmates’ tablet computers so he could listen to music.

As winter set in, Mafuta was struggling. He asked Mitchell for help getting a job in prison, but Mitchell said the correctional officers didn’t think Mafuta was reliable enough. He asked a psychiatrist for a higher dosage of his antipsychotic medication, but records show he was denied; his dosage had just been increased.

Some inmates worried. One spoke to a correctional officer, who told the inmate to put his concerns in writing, according to a court affidavit filed by a Vermont state trooper. The inmate wrote that the way Mafuta looked at him and others “has me thinking he’s going to hurt someone really bad.” But he never submitted the note.

On December 19, 2022, Mafuta’s public defender and a Chittenden County prosecutor told a judge that they were nearing a deal to close his pending cases, so long as they could find him a place to live — typically a condition for release.

Later that day, Mafuta began screaming and throwing things inside his cell. He was taken to the segregation unit and placed on suicide watch because he said he planned to kill himself.

Prison officials returned Mafuta to the main unit the following day at his request, despite his refusal to take some of his medications, medical records show. “He was able to process what happened last night and create a plan,” a VitalCore therapist wrote in an email to prison officials.

He was placed in Cell 17 — and assigned a new roommate.

A SCREAM FOR HELP

Jeff Hall, like Mafuta, had fallen into homelessness in the place where he grew up.

The 55-year-old had attended Burlington High School but did not graduate. He worked for a time stocking shelves at a grocery store but spent much of his adult life in trouble with the law.

His problems in recent years appeared to be intertwined with addiction. By last December, Hall was awaiting trial on several charges, including allegedly stealing a MacBook, $500 Gucci sunglasses and other items from a parked car. Police met the victim at City Hall Park, where she recovered some of her belongings from a cart Hall pushed around.

He had a mixed reputation in prison. One former cellmate recalled Hall fondly. The only frustration, the cellmate said,

was Hall’s insistence on watching every NASCAR race, even the monotonous qualifying laps. “Doesn’t make sense to watch the race if you’re not gonna watch the qualifier,” Hall would say. Others said they knew Hall for his sticky fingers. He once managed to swipe a cup of Red Bull from a correctional officer’s desk, Mitchell said, impressed. Hall’s family, through an attorney, declined interview requests.

Prison officials were unaware of any trouble between Mafuta and Hall, according to court records. Four inmates interviewed for this story said the same.

But inmates said they were alarmed by Mafuta’s state of mind following his brief time on suicide watch. As Mafuta walked with Mitchell on December 22, Mafuta’s distress was obvious. And for the first time, according to Mitchell, his comments suggested violence.

“He was like, ‘My voices keep telling me to hurt people … I keep telling them I don’t want to hurt anyone; I’m not a hurtful person,’” Mitchell recalled. “He kept trying to hold them back, basically.”

Mitchell gave Mafuta scoops of instant grounds so his friend could make coffee.

Officers soon came to the unit to perform the afternoon head count, during which inmates are told to wait in their unlocked cells. Hall walked back to the one he shared with Mafuta. Seconds later, a scream for help escaped from behind the steel door.

Officers scrambled to find the source. Officer David Lumbra headed first for Cell 12, where he had heard the cellmates were not getting along. But the cries were several cells away.

As Lumbra continued his search, Mafuta walked out of his cell, expressionless, his hands and pants covered in blood, and sat at a nearby table, according to court records and accounts of inmates. The officer looked in, saw Hall on the floor and radioed for backup.

Mafuta sat quietly until officers handcuffed him and hauled him away. He was strip-searched and placed in a cell outfitted with a security camera.

Matt Engels, a longtime prison supervisor and trained EMT, shined a penlight into Hall’s eyes. They were dilated and unresponsive, a sign of possible brain injury. An ambulance rushed Hall to the hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma. He would die within three months.

State troopers who investigated were escorted by prison staff to Cell 17, which had been cordoned off with evidence tape. They noted bloodstains on the floor and the edge of the metal bunk bed.

They also noticed a separate, lighter stain nearby — a cup of coffee spilled during the rush to aid Hall.

‘HE’S GONNA GET SMOKED’

In the days that followed the episode, Mafuta offered varying accounts that are hard to reconcile. He told a psychiatrist by phone that his voices hadn’t instructed him to harm anyone. Instead, he knew Hall had been making disrespectful comments and stealing things from other inmates, “so I decided to handle the situation because I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Where’s the kid I know, who always smiled and laughed?

ANAIS CARPENTIER

That conversation, a week after the attack, took place because corrections staff were concerned that Mafuta needed to be hospitalized; he was refusing his medication and had spent hours the previous day speaking to himself in a mirror. “I’m seeing shit and hearing shit all the time … You are using my words,” a security camera recorded him saying.

Two weeks later, a correctional officer overheard Mafuta speaking to inmates. They were laughing, and Mafuta didn’t seem to understand how seriously he’d injured Hall. “What? He’s still in the hospital? That’s crazy,” the officer heard Mafuta say. One of the inmates told investigators that Mafuta said he’d “spazzed out, came to and there was blood all over him.”

Mafuta and Anais Carpentier

Investigators have not offered evidence that Mafuta plotted the attack. No one claims to have seen what happened inside the cell. Mafuta declined to talk to the police, and his attorneys instructed him not to answer questions about the encounter during interviews with Seven Days

In August, the state charged Mafuta with second-degree murder. At his arraignment in St. Albans, Mafuta, who had grown a patchy beard and put on weight, looked older than his 22 years. Shackled and dressed in thin, red prison clothes, he sat quietly as his public defenders entered a not-guilty plea.

This was no longer in Burlington, where prosecutors in George’s office had worked with defense attorneys to find ways to limit Mafuta’s time behind bars. George had established a track record of choosing not to pursue murder charges when experts believed the defendant was insane.

Mafuta was flanked by two public officials who were continuing to enforce the law despite their own alleged misdeeds. To his left stood Sheriff John Grismore, whom voters elected even as he faces an assault charge for kicking a handcuffed detainee. To Mafuta’s right sat Franklin County state’s attorney John Lavoie, who at the time was facing impeachment proceedings before the Vermont legislature over his use of crass, racist and sexist language with his employees. Lavoie submitted his resignation hours after Mafuta’s arraignment. On Monday, Gov. Phil Scott appointed former state prosecutor Bram Kranichfeld as Lavoie’s interim replacement.

If Mafuta is found not guilty, or has the charges dismissed because of his mental health, the state will then face another, politically charged question: what to do with him next.

Meantime, other questions surround the case, including whether Mafuta should have returned to general population from mental health watch so soon. The Department of Corrections reviewed its own handling of the matter, including decisions made by its health care contractor, and found no missteps, according to Corrections Commissioner Nick Deml. “There’s really nothing in the record that would have led us to a different conclusion,” he said.

Independent investigations are standard whenever someone dies in prison. But none was performed in this case because Hall was no longer in state custody when he died months later. Department leaders could have commissioned an independent report anyway but didn’t.

Mitchell, Mafuta’s prison friend, wonders whether Mafuta should have been incarcerated at all, given his need for psychiatric care. Even Deml acknowledges that his agency is relied on a lot — perhaps too much — to care for sick people.

“I feel like he’s gonna get smoked and be in here even longer,” Mitchell said, “when he should have never been in here in the first place.”

Mafuta spoke to Seven Days for three hours over separate phone calls this summer. He frequently struggled to find his words but discussed his relationship with his father, his experiences at the hospital and the desperation he had experienced living on the street.

Asked what he needed during that time, he answered in the present tense, as if he were not sitting behind bars and could remain so for a long time to come.

“I need permanent housing, I need clothes, and I need a way of getting a job so I have money so I can pay for stuff,” he said from Southern State Correctional Facility, where he has been held for most of this year in a restrictive unit. “I don’t like waking up every day thinking I need to steal or I need to starve.”

Mafuta also seemed to acknowledge, in a way he hasn’t always, that if he were freed, he would not be able to rebuild his life alone.

“I just don’t see myself going anywhere,” he said, “if I have to do all this on my own.”

A question weighs on his two close friends, Carpentier and Chibuzo: Could I have done more?

Chibuzo now lives in West Virginia with her husband. She still thinks about Mafuta every day.

“I still would put everything on it that he’s not evil,” she said. “I just think, clearly, there’s something very, very wrong. And I think he’s been trying to tell people.”

Carpentier is starting her final semester of college, where she’s studying psychology and criminal justice. Her memories of visiting Mafuta in motel rooms inspired her senior thesis: a study of how children in state custody can be better supported into adulthood.

During their final days together in Burlington, Carpentier said, they would sit in her car and she would try, the best way she knew, to get him to open up.

“Where’s the kid I know, who always smiled and laughed?” she’d ask, encouragingly.

“Stuff happened, and it changed me,” he’d tell her.

“That’s pretty much all he would say.” ➆

1231 Haggett Road, Adamant, Vt.

G. Richard Ames in Beast Friends: A Talk in the Woods

Sept 7-10, 14-16

Thurs, Fri and Sat evening at 7:30 p.m. Sat and Sun matinee at 2 p.m.

All performances are FREE Come early and picnic before the show. Find us on Facebook !

Theater reservations or info: fsmac-quarryworks.org or 802-229-6978

FALL 2023 PROGRAMS

IN-PERSON

■ The Agrarian Vision of Wendell Berry

■ Extending Bloom Time for Pollinators

■ Beginning Yoga

■ Stone Mason: My Earthwork, Permanent Ephemeral

■ Interfaith and Perennial Wisdom

■ Shelburne Museum Exhibit: Pop-Up—Inflated Sculpture

■ Shelburne Museum Exhibit: Pet Friendly—The Art of Stephen Huneck

■ Get More Out of Your Doctor’s Visit! What Your Doctor Wishes You Knew

■ Raul Hilberg and Research on the Holocaust at the University of Vermont

■ Fleming Museum—Praxis: Recent Work by Studio Art Faculty at UVM

■ Resilience, Joy, and the Convergence of Science & Meditation

ONLINE

■ Beginning Yoga

■ Poetry of Two Centuries, from Romantic to Postmodern: Wordsworth, Hopkins, Eliot, Larkin

■ VSO Offstage: Spotlight on the Conductor

■ Biryani and Indo-Persian Clay Pot Cooking

■ New York Historical Society Virtual Tour: First Jewish Americans: Freedom & Culture in the New World

■ Art of the Tale: Mid-Century Short Stories

■ Brain & Memory Activation

■ Cryptocurrencies and the Future of Money

■ Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco

■ Deconstructing Soup

“ OLLI programs are a great way to meet interesting people and explore a variety of disciplines led by engaging, knowledgeable people. It’s a wonderful way to refresh the mind and spirit!”

— OLLI Member classes • travel lectures discussions • active learning

OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

Either

Fairy Tale

A secret New North End garden delights anyone lucky enough to find it

STORY & PHOTOS BY RACHEL MULLIS

For years, I’ve made excuses to walk past a house up the street from mine in Burlington’s New North End. It isn’t one you’d notice right away. The yard is hard to see from a car, hidden by low trees and shade plants and tall perennial flowers guarding the road verge.

But for sidewalk amblers, the discovery is part of the fun.

Depending on the time of year, the yard hosts any number of tiny ceramic, stone and plastic creatures: pastel rabbits, eggs and chicks; weathered turtles and gnomes; or a teddy bear picnic for 30. Real goldfish swim in a small, portable pond.

GARDENING

Fist-size cement snails festoon the soil. During the austere months of winter, life-size clay crows, painted black from talon to iris, perch in the snow. Their placement feels sober or comical, depending on my mood.

“The snails are sort of the stars this year,” the garden’s steward, Nancy Fitch, said. “Everybody gets a turn.”

But the fairies rule the day. Small and delicate, the ceramic painted ladies pour themselves tea and whisper to ladybugs. They lounge in birds’ nests, their whorls of wavy hair caught mid-gust, or hide under geraniums and confer with the frogs, legs tangled up in vines. They stay out the longest, Fitch said, “because people like them probably the best.”

“I have a soft spot for fairies,” she added. “I really do, and I don’t know why.”

If you are very lucky, you might catch Fitch in the yard. At 81, she is slender and spry, with close-cropped white hair and a matter-of-fact demeanor. She pulls a weed or a dead leaf or chats with a neighbor. And then she is gone.

But her presence in the garden remains, as its dreamer, its editor, its keeper. After all, she’s been at this for 40 years.

To find out how Fitch’s fairy garden began, I met up with her during a midAugust break in the rain. I learned that her yard began to veer away from convention in the mid-1980s, when her younger son needed a science project. Fitch had just read an article in Woman’s Day magazine called “Making a Home for Birds,” about how to certify your backyard as a wildlife habitat. She asked her son if

getting their Burlington backyard certified might fit the bill.

Her son took the idea and ran with it. The middle schooler contacted the National Wildlife Federation, the Audubon Society, the University of Vermont Extension, and the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. He dug a pond in their backyard. He made a drip bucket so that birds could bathe and shower. His thick report, meticulously researched and written in careful cursive, received an A+.

As the years passed, though, it was Fitch who kept the flowers watered and the birds fed. She traded with friends and neighbors for plants and garden materials, many of which are still in the yard today. In the backyard, under the oaks and pines and an arbor of weeping larch, the bird feeders and ponds multiplied.

Nancy Fitch’s secret garden

A LETTER EXPRESSES SIMPLE GRATITUDE FOR THE GARDEN’S EXISTENCE, YEAR AFTER YEAR.

Fairy Tale « P.36

Walking barefoot through the grass, Fitch pointed out orange double lilies given to her by her late mother-in-law, who lived to be 98; driftwood and stones from friends; and 30-year-old blue hydrangeas just past bloom.

These aren’t thick stands of prize blooms. Each flower is healthy and beautiful, but it shares its space with shade plants and fallen trees.

Fitch recalled the words of a flowerwatching friend who recently died. “She said, ‘Nancy, you really like little, ugly things much better than flowers,’” she said. “And I think she might have had a point. I like the mushrooms and the little things and stuff that comes in on the wind.”

Over the years, Fitch added figurines to her yard here and there. A ceramic frog, smiling from under a hosta. A toy lizard, sunning itself on a rock. A silent toad in the sedum. They move around, but their place is always carefully chosen, never overwhelming the natural scene around them. Instead, they draw your eye to focal points in the lovingly cared-for woodland garden.

The woods were the original inspiration for Fitch’s love of nature when she was growing up in upstate New York.

“When I was really little, my mother would take me into the woods and we would look for a wildflowers,” she said. “That was always my favorite thing.”

Fitch saves photos and notes that she receives from passersby who admire her garden. One card is from a parent who planned a “whimsical garden party” for “children aged 4-11” and hoped to stop by. A letter expresses simple gratitude for the garden’s existence, year after year. Others

Nancy Fitch’s secret garden

e UVM Medical Center is a community of caregivers and scientists united by a common goal: Your best health.

“A ending to our community’s mental health needs has never been more challenging, or more necessary. Donations have been a lifeline, and more are needed.”

Marlene Maron, PhD, Chief Psychologist, Psychological Services

have shown their thanks by donating figu rines to the collection.

Fitch showed me her first gift, a graying ceramic turtle with red stains beginning to bloom around the edges of its shell, from a young man and his 3-yearold daughter. “They said, ‘We think this turtle would like to live here, but then it likes to live with us,’” she recalled. “And it’s still out there. He lives here every summer.”

Fitch said she is very happy that people enjoy the yard and bring their chil dren. She meets a lot of people that way. But she insists there is no grand mystery behind its existence.

“It doesn’t have a great deep meaning for me, except that I enjoy it,” she said.

But anyone paying attention will find meaning in Fitch’s commitment to care and detail, season after season. More than just a fairy garden, the New North End oasis is a memory garden, a record of its maker’s life: wildflower hunting with a beloved mother, gardening with her sons, gifts from loved ones who have passed on. It’s a living demonstration of what it means to spend 60 years in one place and tend to that place like a family member, bringing joy to oneself and the community alike.

“It’s just my lifetime of interest,” Fitch

Leveling Up

Vermont’s Career Technical Education Centers O er Students Paths to Work, College and Beyond

College credit. Career certifications. Connections for future jobs and internships. These are just a few things that students in Vermont’s Career Technical Education programs can gain through more than 25 possible paths.

Keronie Jones, enrolled in the health sciences program at River Valley Technical Center, is providing care to real patients while she’s still in high school.

“The program will grant me the experience I need. The certifications that it gives me are very important skills that will get me accepted into better colleges,” she said.

Students at Vermont's CTE centers leave high school with highly sought-after industry certifications that will prepare them well for a range of careers and college health sciences majors. They can be certified as phlebotomists, licensed nursing assistants, dental assistants, medical assistants or emergency medical technicians.

Kaylie Selleck will graduate from high school this spring with a semester’s worth of college credits under their belt due to their work in the engineering program at Stafford Technical Center. Beyond the credits on paper, they will also have hands-on experience in engineering as they pursue their career.

“There’s so much creative freedom to be challenged here, which is exactly what you should have in your education: healthy challenges,” they said.

Both of these students are enrolled in CTE programs supported by the Vermont Agency of Education. There are 17 CTE centers throughout Vermont providing instruction for students interested in more

than 25 different paths, from dental care to building trades.

The different program choices provide a wide range of options that recognize that each young person is different, interim Secretary of Education Heather Bouchey said.

“Vermont’s CTE programs offer unique pathways to student success,” she said. “There is no one-size-fits-all educational path.” These classes set students up for success in whatever comes next, whether that’s a high-skill, high-wage career or a college education.

It wasn’t always that way, said Melissa Connor, director of Stafford Technical Center in Rutland. Connor began working in technical education in Vermont in 1993. Back then, she said, it was mostly geared toward students who didn’t want to attend college.

“That’s just not true anymore,” Connor said. “I see about a 50-50 split at our center between students planning on attending university and students planning to start their careers. It’s our philosophy here that they might not want to go to college now, but we always want to make sure our students are ready if they want to do more school later.”

In fact, 90 percent of students in CTE courses transition to either work or college immediately upon graduation. Often students graduate having already

earned a full semester’s worth of college credits.

“The college opportunities and certifications at Career Technical Education centers are a hidden gem in our community,” Connor added.

PREPARING FOR A CAREER

At a point when most incoming high school seniors start planning their next steps after graduation, Joaquin Martin already has his figured out.

As he begins his senior year at Hanover High School, Martin will be able to spend part of his day building houses with MJ Toon Construction in Lebanon, N.H., before heading back to the classroom in the afternoon. After he graduates, Martin will have the opportunity to start working with the company full time.

Martin started attending the Hartford Area Career & Technology Center in his junior year after speaking to one of his teachers.

“I like to keep busy and work with my hands. I love the feeling of putting something together and seeing the finished product right in front of me,” he explained.

His teacher said he might benefit from work-based learning, which would allow him to do exactly what he was describing.

“These programs are a really good

fit for students who like to be moving around, seeing and doing,” Connor said.

Every day at the tech center, Martin starts in the construction trades shop. While there, he reads blueprints, works with different types of wood, and gets started on projects such as building cabinets or countertops.

Nancy Wiese, director at Windham Regional Career Center, said these courses teach more than the industryrecognized credentials.

“They teach what I call 'adulting skills’,” she explained. “Students learn problemsolving, safe risk-taking, and they form a team with the other kids in the class to work on projects. It really creates a sense of belonging, which I think a lot of kids that age struggle with, especially post-pandemic.”

Martin said that before working in the building trades, he felt unsure about his future. Now, he feels confident and excited about what’s next after high school.

“It really helped me set up what I wanted to do later in life and figure out what I wanted to do after high school,” Martin said. “When I figured that out, the program helped me network and make connections around the Upper Valley, which helped me find a job.”

READY FOR COLLEGE

While Emma Dana spent three years in engineering classes at River Valley Technical Center in Springfield, she’s not planning on pursuing that field after high school.

PRODUCED BY 7D BRAND STUDIO — PAID FOR BY VERMONT AGENCY OF EDUCATION COURTESY

Keronie Jones at River Valley Technical Center

“I discovered that I’m more interested in architecture,” she said. Dana starts at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh this fall. “But I fully believe that I wouldn’t have gotten into that program without everything I was able to do at RVTC.”

She spent part of her senior year in an independent study course that allowed her to build her architecture portfolio for college applications.

In Dana’s program, senior year is devoted to independent study. While Dana didn’t want to pursue engineering, she knew that she wanted to apply to study architecture in college. To do this, she would need to augment her learning with a portfolio to apply to her dream schools.

“I spent the first half of the year on my portfolio, and then in the second half I did a capstone project that involved learning an architecture modeling software,” she said. “My program gave me the opportunity to learn something I was going to need in college, which made me feel really prepared.”

For Dana, enrolling at River Valley Technical Center, even as a sophomore who was unsure about her future career, was a no-brainer. Her mother used to teach business classes there; her older brother also studied engineering, and she saw how much it helped him.

Through their CTE programs, both Dana and her brother competed in SkillsUSA, a national career technical student organization that hosts competitions statewide and nationally for CTE center students. Dana also graduated with 21 college credits, which she said could help her get a minor in civil engineering in college. Paths to earning college credits differ based on each center and program, but opportunities are built into the curriculum through partnerships with colleges in Vermont and around the country.

Dana’s instructor Chris Gray taught at Vermont Technical College before taking on his current high school CTE teaching role. Gray gives his students an experience that was comparable to what they’d find in a college classroom, Dana said. He also organized job shadows and made sure that students knew about opportunities for dual enrollment.

“We got real life experiences,” Dana said.

'BEYOND VALUABLE'

Declan Anderson recently finished building a house.

He did this over the course of the school year with three of his peers in construction technology at the Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center. As part of the curriculum in their second year, four students built a tiny house from the ground up. The center sold it to raise money for materials for future students.

“The experience really simulates

what it’s like to be on an actual jobsite,” Anderson said. “We did all the framing, the insulation, everything.” He said he was so enthusiastic about the project that he was often reluctant for the school day to end.

After graduating from Middlebury Union High School last spring, Anderson spent the summer working for Silver Maple Construction in New Haven. He’ll attend Vermont State University for construction management this fall, but he hopes to stay with Silver Maple part time while he’s in school and continue to work summers there.

He said he feels really prepared for college. “We learned every single aspect of construction, so I have a wide bank of knowledge for all kinds of projects. I have

all this hands-on experience, too, that I really feel like I’m going to benefit from. It was beyond valuable.”

Connor from Stafford Technical Center noted that the classes CTE students take are “pretty rigorous.” This is because they align with labor-market needs here in Vermont, she said, and they’re often changing to keep up with the needs of the workforce. But she said that when she brings parents and interested students on tours of Stafford Technical Center, she doesn’t need to do a lot of talking.

“When they see what’s happening, it’s very eye-opening. These students are doing incredible things,” she said.

Wiese from Windham Regional Career Center said the best thing for students

to do if they're curious about technical education is to take a tour of their regional CTE center. Students and parents can also reach out to their school counselor or attend an open house for their center in the fall. However, she said they’re always happy to give individual tours for those interested, whether there’s an open house planned or not. ■

PHOTOS: CALEB KENNA

ROBERT STRONG

My program gave me the opportunity to learn something I was going to need in college, which made me feel really prepared.

— EMMA DANA

Emma Dana and advanced manufacturing and engineering instructor Chris Gray at River Valley Technical Center in Springfield

Declan Anderson inside the tiny house he helped build at Silver Maple Construction in New Haven

food+drink

Our occasional series “Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner” recommends a day’s worth of meals in one Vermont city or town. Shortly after July flooding inundated downtown Montpelier, I spent a di erent kind of day walking from one wrecked restaurant to the next and talking with shell-shocked owners who were just beginning to grapple with the financial and psychological toll of rebuilding.

Capital Menu

is currently open. According to Hitesh Patel, owner of J. Morgan’s and the Capitol Plaza Hotel & Conference Center in which it operates, both of his State Street businesses are undergoing repairs, with reopening planned for November.

BREAKFASTLUNCH • DINNER

None of them was close to being able to serve a meal. It was hard to project when a visitor to the capital would again have the chance to sip steaming soup fragrant with basil at Pho Capital, grab a sub piled with house-roasted beef at Yellow Mustard Deli & Sandwich Shop, sit down for an elegant dinner at Oakes & Evelyn, or grab a beer at Three Penny Taproom.

With an immense amount of work

BY MELISSA PASANEN • pasanen@sevendaysvt.com

and community support, Montpelier’s downtown is gradually returning to life.

On August 24, I headed there to eat three meals and check in with a number of eateries that are still working toward reopening (see “Fortitude and Fatigue,” page 42).

Until I sat down to write, I didn’t realize that the most recent “Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner,” published on February 18, 2020, was, coincidentally, also in Montpelier.

(Make that a very occasional series.) And, yes, the story came out shortly before another seismic event that temporarily shuttered restaurants and had enduring industry-wide e ects.

The downtown dining venues featured in 2020 — J. Morgan’s Steakhouse, the Hippie Chickpea and Sarducci’s — all survived the pandemic. But only Sarducci’s escaped this summer’s flooding and

Vince Muraco, the Hippie Chickpea’s chef and co-owner with his wife, Vania, said the couple are at a crossroads. Their small Mediterranean restaurant at 41 Elm Street, which would have marked its fifth anniversary in September, was decimated.

“We cannot continue in that location,” Muraco said. “To build back in a flood zone and take on loans to pay for it — it just doesn’t make sense.”

The Muracos remain committed to Montpelier, where they live with their family, and “Cooking is all I know how to do,” Vince said. They are seeking another location in town. Whether they reopen the Hippie Chickpea there or start a new food business depends on how the space “speaks to us,” he added.

Katie Trautz, executive director of

A day of meals in Montpelier as the city’s restaurants rebuild

Noah Hodgdon with a Hotel California and a roast beef sub at Yellow Mustard Deli & Sandwich Shop

Montpelier Alive, estimates that about half of the capital’s roughly 50 food and drink establishments were directly a ected by the flood. All have su ered indirect e ects of the disaster: shuttered government buildings, retail shops and entertainment venues; streets intermittently closed for construction; piles of debris lingering on sidewalks.

Trautz, who has been working overtime to support Montpelier businesses, noted that the city has “always been proud of our culinary scene.” Home for 40 years to the New England Culinary Institute (which closed in late 2020), the smallest state capital by population has a history of punching above its gastronomic weight.

more excellent reasons to head back to Montpelier.

BRISKET FOR BREAKFAST

Café NOA, 8 Putnam St., 223-1130, screaminridgefarm.com/cafe-noa

The scent of caramelized onions swirled through the air around 9:30 a.m. as I bit into my house-smoked brisket, cheddar and kimchi breakfast sandwich on a freshly baked English mu n ($6.50) at Café NOA. It made for a one-two punch of sensory deliciousness.

Joe Buley and Lori Martin Buley opened the breakfast and lunch spot next to their soup production kitchen across the railroad tracks from Hunger

Peg & Ter’s in Shelburne to Take a Break; Former Co-Chef to Launch Pasta Business

After a year of working as co-chefs at PEG & TER’S, SCOTT COMO and DEREK ROBERT have decided to leave their positions at the end of September. JOHNNY HELZER, a co-owner of the Shelburne restaurant, posted on social media last week that Peg & Ter’s will close on October 1 for “an extended break … to explore future sta ng and plans for our space.”

Helzer opened the restaurant with his wife, TINA, in 2018 in the location occupied by Café Shelburne for a quarter century. They named it for Tina’s late parents, Peggy and Terry Thatcher, who loved to throw dinner parties.

restaurants,” Helzer said, but it’s a constant tug-of-war between o ering sta “a good living wage and not gouging the customer with a huge bill at the end of the night.” He said labor expenses are up 50 percent and food costs have increased, rendering already-slim margins even tighter.

Restaurants alone may not make a vibrant downtown, but they are a “focal point” for visitors and locals, Trautz said. Whether people come to shop, recreate or work, they go out to eat and drink. “It’s all knit together,” she said.

The Montpelier Alive team is coordinating a rescheduled third annual Taste of Montpelier event on October 7, part of a weekend-long city reopening celebration.

Some downtown storefronts will likely still be dark then, but every week brings good news. As I finished this article last Friday, the Duong family had just reopened Pho Capital o the corner of State Street and Governor Davis Avenue, and Main Street fixture Bear Pond Books was again ringing up customers. Besides my meal destinations for this story, those are two

Mountain Co-op at the end of February. As I ate breakfast, Joe Buley told me that the onion aroma came from the couple’s main business, which produces Joe’s Kitchen soups and stews for sale through Vermont retailers.

The breakfast sandwich is a perfect introduction to the café’s from-scratch, regionally sourced menu, which benefits from the buying power of the Buleys’ packaged products and catering operation. The tender, smoky, grass-fed brisket and the café’s pastrami both use the same cut from New Hampshire’s Robie Farm. New England- and New York-raised pork goes into the breakfast sausage and the thick-cut pork belly for the bánh mì.

Buley said he easily goes through 40

In a phone call, Johnny Helzer explained that since the pandemic, “it’s been a challenge to find and keep good folks.” Because the Helzers own the building at 5573 Shelburne Road, he said, “we have lots of flexibility to take a break and step back.”

The couple hope to reopen Peg & Ter’s, but Helzer said they may explore other food-and-beverage-related ideas for the space.

“The want is there for good

According to Helzer, Robert will move back to Massachusetts, from which he and Como moved in summer 2020. The co-chefs initially worked together for their former Boston boss, chef MATT JENNINGS, who was then vice president of culinary at HEALTHY LIVING. Jennings now owns RED BARN KITCHEN in Charlotte with his wife, KATE. Como will remain in Vermont. The New Jersey native has a “large amount of Italian blood,” he wrote in an email, and has been “the pasta guy” throughout his cooking career. He plans to take a break “from the hustle and bustle of restaurant life” to launch a line of pastas and do pasta dinner pop-ups with help from his partner, CHELSEA KAIGLE, who works for BONTÉ BAKERY in Montpelier.

Melissa Pasanen

Warren’s Paradise Provisions Opens Taproom

PARADISE PROVISIONS, a specialty grocery store at 2367 Sugarbush Access Road in Warren, added a taproom to its store last month with exclusive o erings developed in partnership with Vermontbased MOUNT HOLLY BEER and KIS KOMBUCHA

Customers can drink inside the taproom, separated from the grocery aisles by wooden half walls, or sit at picnic tables outside.

THE SMALLEST STATE CAPITAL BY POPULATION HAS A HISTORY OF PUNCHING ABOVE ITS GASTRONOMIC WEIGHT.

Peg & Ter’s

FILE: JAMES BUCK

Egg sandwich with brisket, cheddar and kimchi on a housebaked English muffin and a cider doughnut at Café NOA

Fortitude and Fatigue

Checking in with Montpelier’s flooded restaurants on the path to recovery

MELISSA

PASANEN • pasanen@sevendaysvt.com

Over the past eight weeks, the owners of Montpelier’s flooded restaurants have navigated a second storm of challenges: figuring out how to rebuild safely and better, applying for grants and loans, loading credit cards with debt, negotiating with landlords, struggling to find contractors, and often trading in their whisks and knives for hammers and trowels.

But they are determined — and, little by little, many are clawing their way back. During my August 24 eating excursion (see “Capital Menu,” page 40), I checked in with several still-closed restaurants, and later I followed up with a few by phone and email.

That Thursday, Niem Duong, chefowner of PHO CAPITAL , and two employees were refinishing chairs and painting the new lower walls of the restaurant’s second dining room a bright aqua. The floor in the main dining room had been replaced, and most of the new equipment had been delivered. Duong said she was very thankful for her landlord’s efficient building repairs, though she has still had to spend thousands of dollars.

The restaurant owner was determined to reopen before Labor Day weekend. “I want to open back up and make the money,” she said. As we talked, a delivery truck pulled up with her first food order since before the flood. “We’re going to start making shrimp egg rolls to go in the freezer,” Duong said. “I feel better now.”

On August 30, Duong’s son, Nghia, confirmed by text that the restaurant would open the following day.

Down State Street and around the corner at 108 Main Street, THREE PENNY TAPROOM is not close to reopening, said co-owner Kevin Kerner, standing in the bar and restaurant on August 24. His best hope is mid- to late October. The walls were still torn open and the floorboards buckled. The difficulty of getting the space dry enough to start mold prevention treatment had stymied progress on rebuilding, Kerner said. “The waiting’s just driving us nuts.”

Kerner and his business partner, Wes Hamilton, are not new to flood remediation. Shortly before the July flooding, they had completed a pricey first-floor expansion of their 14-year-old business, partly to reduce their use of the basement. But the disaster overwhelmed their precautionary measures.

Kerner and Hamilton are now looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair and equipment replacement costs on top of the expansion debt. Asked how they’ll fund it all, Kerner shrugged. Three Penny has been approved for a goodsize U.S. Small Business Administration economic injury disaster loan, “but that loan will cripple our children,” he said.

The worst part, Kerner said, is knowing that flooding will happen again. The partners have debated moving, but Kerner said they can’t imagine Three Penny anywhere else.

“We’re part of the community,” he said. “We’ve spent so much time and effort here to build our reputation. We are proud to employ up to 50 people.”

As of Labor Day weekend, Three Penny now serves burgers and beer on its outdoor parklet Thursdays through Saturdays, from noon to 6 p.m., weather permitting. “We have to do something to generate some sort of income,” Kerner said.

Chef-owner Niem Duong in the basement of Pho Capital

Chicken noodle pho at Pho Capital MELISSA PASANEN

At 83 Main Street, BOHEMIAN BAKERY ’s married co-owners, Annie Bakst and Robert Hunt, admitted they had serious conversations about whether to rebuild. But the outpouring of support — from

SIDEdishes

In developing brews for the taproom, store comanager PETER FUSTING said he tried to stay away from beers with “too many bells and whistles,” instead opting for simple, all-natural ingredients. Mount Holly Beer’s Wanderfuel Belgian IPA, for instance, is made with locally grown hops and infused with maple spruce tips. The brewery’s Paradise pale ale o ers hints of lemon verbena counterbalanced by honey made from the nectar

financial contributions to a customer who showed up with squeegee in hand and put in hours of cleaning — encouraged them. The couple aim to reopen their bakery and co ee shop by the end of September — a tentative target, Bakst cautioned.

“I miss the routine,” Hunt said. “I’ve got some good years left in me.”

HUGO’S BAR & GRILL owner Thomas Christopher Greene said he plans to move his restaurant from its 118 Main Street home to a new downtown location and reopen by the end of September with a slightly di erent concept. He is still finalizing the details.

OAKES & EVELYN chefowner Justin Dain reported that he

of Japanese knotweed — an invasive plant with a tart rhubarb flavor.

“The idea of selling beer at retail price while at the same time having options behind a bar, that was a new concept to me,” Fusting said. “You have to think outside the box if you want to make it.”

For a nonalcoholic option, try Wanderfuel kombucha on tap, made

and his kitchen team have been busy learning how to put up Sheetrock and install subflooring in the gutted space at 52 State Street. Dain said he is reorganizing the restaurant’s use of its basement and hopes the city can improve infrastructure to minimize future fl ooding risk. He aims to reopen by the third week of September, depending on equipment deliveries.

POSITIVE PIE co-owner Carlo Rovetto said he and his wife and co-owner, Melissa Whittaker, will rebuild. But after enduring the fourth flood at their 18-year-old restaurant, they are taking time to work with consultants and designers first. They plan to stop using the basement of 22

State Street and create a more flood-resilient structure.

The couple are among the few restaurant owners who own their space and had flood insurance. But the sum approved by their insurance company “will get us only about a third of the way whole,” Rovetto said.

Their reopening date will depend on financial and redesign considerations and contractor availability, he said: “I’m hoping by the holidays, by Christmas, but I’m prepared for the worst-case scenario. It could be spring.”

WILAIWAN’S KITCHEN co-owner Timothy Azarian said by email that he and his wife, Wilaiwan Phonjan-Azarian, plan to reopen their 34 State Street restaurant, but they do not know how long that will take.

“We are also flood talk-fatigued,” he wrote. “At this point, we just want to focus on rebuilding.” ➆

INFO

For an updated list of open Montpelier restaurants and other businesses, go to montpelieralive.com/flood2023bizopenings-.

with citra, Cascade and Centennial hops by KIS Kombucha.

Customers can also choose from a variety of ciders, California wines and canned beers. Can’t decide? Try samplers of any four draft beers at the taproom for $13.

“We want to o er options that people likely haven’t heard of,” Fusting said. “You don’t have to commit to an

unknown four-pack and then be stuck with three beers you don’t want.”

Food accompaniments so far have included peanut packs, finger sandwiches and fries. To expand customers’ choice of food, Fusting said the store will extend its deli’s hours to match the taproom’s.

Hannah Feuer

CONNECT

Follow us for the latest food gossip! On Instagram: Jordan Barry: @jordankbarry; Melissa Pasanen: @mpasanen.

WE’RE PART OF THE COMMUNITY. WE’VE SPENT SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT HERE TO BUILD OUR REPUTATION.

KEVIN KERNER

PHOTOS: MELISSA PASANEN

Paradise pale ale and Wanderfuel Belgian IPA

SERVING UP FOOD NEWS « P.41

Bohemian Bakery

Kevin Kerner at ree Penny Taproom

A sign in the window of Positive Pie

COURTESY OF VALERIE BIGELOW

dozen eggs a week from Barre’s Perfect Circle Farm. In addition to the English mu ns, the team bakes its own focaccia and is working on bulkie rolls. I also highly recommend the cider doughnuts ($1), for which Buley developed the dough, eschewing commonly used prepackaged mixes. The perfectly imperfect handshaped doughnuts are sweetened with equal amounts of maple syrup and sugar.

The Buleys moved to Montpelier more than two decades ago when Joe, a chef, left high-pressure restaurant work to teach at New England Culinary Institute. They launched the soup business in 2007. Eight years ago, when they were ready for a dedicated production facility, Buley said he checked flood zone maps before committing to the Putnam Street spot.

Nodding through the open door to a spot about 75 feet beyond the café’s deck, Buley said, “The water was literally two inches below the grass beyond the tracks.” The café and production kitchen are both on three-foot-tall concrete foundations. “The big word is ‘no basement,’” Buley said.

A downside is that the café is a little o the beaten track. Mapping apps have not quite figured out where it is, Buley said, so he puts out a sandwich board on Barre Street.

He feels a little guilty, he said, that the closure of other restaurants has prompted more people to seek out Café NOA. In a gesture of recompense, Buley has made his kitchens available on weekends for a nominal fee to Shannon Bates of the flooded downtown deli Enna, who uses the space for catering.

TWO-COURSE LUNCH

Arandas Mexican Cuisine, 108 State St., 223-6817, arandasmexicancuisine.com

Yellow Mustard Deli & Sandwich Shop, 28 State St., ymdeli.com

Before heading to lunch, I had a few minutes to check out the newest branch of Barre-based Arandas Mexican Cuisine, where I sampled a crispy chicken taco (three for $8.99) as an appetizer.

Lu Sola-Thomas and her husband, David Thomas, opened their Montpelier outpost 29 days before the flood. Located in a gas station convenience store on the corner of State and Taylor streets, Arandas serves scratch-made, takeout food from Sola-Thomas’ native Mexico, ranging from the crunchy, savory chicken tacos to hefty burritos filled with beans, cheese and a choice of meat filling (from $16.79).

When I arrived, the kitchen crew had just finished making a big pot of pork carnitas and moved on to sautéing onions, which was turning into a theme of my day.

Employee Luis Dominguez took out a tape measure to show me how high the floodwaters had come inside the store — about three feet. “It was a big mess,” Dominguez said, with a cleanup that lasted three weeks.

That was also exactly how long it took for Yellow Mustard to reopen, said owner Brian Lewis, who did much of the repair work himself with an eye to future flood resiliency. Two factors that helped him reopen quickly, he said, were that he doesn’t use the building’s basement and the deli’s tile floor survived the flood.

We chatted over a horseradish-mayoslathered roast beef sub ($11.50), swiftly and expertly stacked on a pillow-soft grinder roll. Although my go-to sub is a classic Italian, I ordered the roast beef at the suggestion of the very friendly sandwich maker, deli manager Noah Hodgdon, who volunteered that he is vegetarian. “But we make our own roast beef, so I like to recommend it,” he said.

Over the course of my half hour in the deli, I heard Hodgdon repeatedly joking with customers about how he was appropriately named to survive a flood of biblical proportions — and getting a kick out of it each time.

Hodgdon knows all the regulars and greets some with hugs. He came with the business when Lewis, who also owns the Filling Station in Middlesex and the Parkway Diner in South Burlington, bought it in late December 2022.

When Lewis purchased the deli, he switched to sourcing the rolls from a local commercial baker and roasting the beef in-house, which he believes makes for a more tender result. He added a toaster for toasted sandwich options, such as the Hotel California ($10.50), featuring roast turkey, bacon, Swiss and fresh guacamole. I’d lean toward ordering that one next time even if he hadn’t nearly named it Stairway to Heaven, a favorite song of my youth.

Since the deli reopened on July 31, business has gradually increased. But summer sales will be significantly lower than projected, Lewis said. Still, he’s more concerned about being forced to delay the opening of his new sit-down breakfast and lunch restaurant, Filibuster Café. It will occupy the 43 State Street space across the street from the deli that has been vacant since Asiana House closed several years ago.

Filibuster was due to open the week of the flood. “We were sta ed and everything, ready to go,” Lewis said. While the upstairs was unscathed, the basement — which houses the prep kitchen, restaurant bathrooms and dry storage — needs a complete overhaul.

Lewis hopes to open during foliage season, but he’s not counting on it.

MELISSA PASANEN

MELISSA PASANEN

A Hotel California at Yellow Mustard

Yellow Mustard owner Brian Lewis in the dining room of his Filibuster Café across the street

Arandas Mexican Cuisine

JEB

WALLACE-BRODEUR

J E B WALLACEBRODEUR

Roast beef sub at Yellow Mustard

GET IN MY BELLY

Woodbelly Pizza, 79 Barre St., 225-6568, I’ve driven past Woodbelly Pizza numerous times since late winter

2021, when the well-established mobile pizza provider set down roots on Barre Street near its commercial prep kitchen. It was fi nally time to stop and eat the pizza.

The casual order-at-the-counter spot exudes a warmth as cozy as its wood-fired oven. There are shelves full of board games, an old TV/VCR with videos and hand-drawn posters offering “free food to trans folx” every Monday. I wasn’t surprised when customers came in and hugged the guy behind the bar.

I soon learned they knew recently hired bar manager Matthew McCarthy from his former job at Hugo’s Bar & Grill, one of the currently shuttered city center restaurants (see “Fortitude and Fatigue,” page 42). Another former

Hugo’s employee, Derek Temple, was hanging at the bar. He said he’d joined the Woodbelly crew when “someone here checked in to see if I wanted work.”

Catering manager Hailey Cohn said Woodbelly escaped serious damage and was up and running within a week, although the restaurant and catering kitchen basements flooded and the company lost some equipment.

Woodbelly’s menu offers pizza and creemees, plus local beer, prosecco and Rookie’s Root Beer, all on tap. What more does one need?

The hand-mixed pizza dough is made with locally grown and milled wheat and a well-pedigreed Italian-born sourdough starter dating back a century, Cohn said. It yields an excellently chewy, tangy crust, which can be topped with creative meat or veggie combos or build-yourown options, featuring many ingredients from local farms. Slices are available.

I chose an 18-inch pie to go: half Ijaeda Potata and half Farm + Forage ($36). The two shared a base of white ricotta sauce and mozzarella. The first included thinly sliced potatoes, bacon, garlic, pickled red onion and cheddar; the second, roasted yellow tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach and a drizzle of balsamic. Both sides looked so good, I had no choice but to eat a slice of each before heading home.

I regret not getting a creemee for the road. Woodbelly sources its base from East Hardwick’s Kingdom Creamery of Vermont. Maple ($3) and a second house-created flavor ($4.50), such as sweet corn or caramel-tahini, are always on offer.

Starting with a maple-sweetened cider doughnut and ending with a maple creemee would have tied my day with a sweet Vermont bow. But that’s a good excuse to go back and do it all over again. ➆

Sadie Mikovitz slicing

a Farm + Forage pizza

Woodbelly Pizza

Matthew McCarthy (left) and Derek Temple at Woodbelly Pizza

Let Them Read

Lieutenant governor goes on a “banned books tour”

BY HANNAH FEUER • hfeuer@sevendaysvt.com

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman practices a straightforward approach to countering book bans across the country: Read from the books and talk about them.

“In this here place, we fl esh; fl esh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard,” Zuckerman read from Toni Morrison’s Beloved with a poetic cadence to an audience of about 30 gathered at Phoenix Books in Rutland on August 23. “Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it.”

nonprofit that champions the freedom of expression.

BACKTOSCHOOL

The Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 novel, based on the true story of a woman who escaped from slavery and killed her daughter to prevent her from becoming enslaved again, was banned in at least 11 schools during the 2021-22 academic year.

Zuckerman has been making the rounds of bookstores and libraries across Vermont since late June, hosting discussions and reading excerpts from Beloved and And Tango Makes Three — a children’s book by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson about two male penguins who create a family together. He said he hopes the “banned books tour,” which continues through mid-September, will send a message that the practice is not welcome, in Vermont or beyond.

No books have successfully been removed from Vermont schools in this latest wave of banning, but “it can happen anywhere,” Zuckerman said. The first half of the 2022-23 school year saw almost 1,500 instances of schools banning books across the country — a 28 percent increase over the previous six months, according to the Index of School Book Bans compiled by PEN America, a New York City-based

Given the media coverage that the bans have attracted, Zuckerman said one purpose of his tour is to ensure that the public conversation “is not only about the side saying we need to thwart access to information. The founding principles of our country are about information, the full breadth of information, the truth — whether we like the truth or we don’t like the truth.”

Abby Bennett came to the Rutland event with her daughter, a rising seventh grader who loves to read. Bennett said her daughter has enjoyed reading a number of frequently banned books, including A.S. King’s Attack of the Black Rectangles , Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games. “Everybody should be allowed to read whatever they want,” Bennett said.

Di erent guests join Zuckerman at each location to read their own selection of banned books. In Rutland, Mia Schultz, president of the Rutland Area Branch of the NAACP, read from Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. Rep. William Notte (D-Rutland) read from the graphic novel Drama by Raina Telgemeier, highlighting an excerpt in which one of the characters comes out as gay.

“[The book] contains images of two boys kissing, and for some

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman reading from Beloved by Toni Morrison

people, that is all that’s required for them to think no children should have access,” Notte said. Meanwhile, he added, “There are children who desperately need to see books like this and recognize themselves in it.”

Roughly a quarter of the books banned between July and December 2022 contain LGBTQ+ characters or themes, according to PEN America. Other banned books cover topics of race, sex, abortion, teen pregnancy, puberty, violence, abuse or death. Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah and South Carolina top PEN America’s list with the most book bans in the nation.

While Vermont isn’t on that list, Zuckerman noted that candidates for local school boards have run on a platform of keeping critical race theory out of curricula. (Critical race theory, which centers the idea that racism is systemic, is a graduatelevel academic framework and not a fixture of K-12 education.) There have also been instances of Vermont parents pressuring schools to remove books — such as a 2022 controversy in Canaan school libraries over three books with LGBTQ+ themes.

Bans in other states also affect Vermont authors. Hartland resident and young adult author Jo Knowles has had five of her books — Lessons From a Dead Girl, Jumping O Swings, See You at Harry’s, Pearl and Read Between the Lines — challenged in Florida, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Texas. Sometimes told only that her books contain “inappropriate material,” the author suspects that many of the attempted bans have to do with her inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters. Knowles will join Zuckerman at his September 13 stop at Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock.

“There’s this myth that, like, ‘Oh, your book is banned; you’re probably going to sell a ton of books now,’” Knowles said. “This is not the case … You’re asking librarians and teachers to take a really big risk now to get those books back into their schools and libraries, because they’re facing parents who are really hostile.”

Vermont has not escaped the culture wars. Zuckerman’s tour caught the attention of the conservative political organization VT Grassroots, which organized an August 17 event at the Elks Lodge in Barre where speakers discussed “the relevance

of critical race theory,” according to the organization’s website. Moms for Liberty, a self-described “parental rights” organization that campaigns against school curricula discussing race, gender and sexuality, cosponsored the event.

VT Grassroots leader Ellie Martin reached out to Moms for Liberty, a national organization that has no Vermont chapters. Zuckerman’s book tour is “promoting unbridled access to pornography and critical race theory material in our schools and building support to keep ‘radical’ parents desiring age-appropriate restrictions on educational material away from Vermont school boards,” Martin wrote on Facebook as part of a post promoting the Barre event. She did not respond to Seven Days’ requests for an interview.

“These groups come in; they’re very, very loud; and they pressure the school board members, [who] think, Wait a minute, this community is loudly opposed to this, when, in fact, the balance is often not that way,” Zuckerman said. “But [Moms for Liberty] partly came — and I apologize for this — because I’m doing these readings.”

Zuckerman said he welcomes conversations with those who disagree with him, such as supporters of book bans whom he encountered at his stops in Manchester and Brattleboro. He said he reminds concerned parents that many of the hot-button books in the news are simply options in the school library, not required class readings. He also asks them to imagine hypotheticals: What if the Bible were banned for its sex scenes? What if someone proposed banning all books that mention guns?

“[Parents] may not want their kids to have certain books, but they already have that right to communicate with their teacher or ... librarian about that,” Zuckerman said. “That doesn’t mean they have a right to keep that information from all families.” ➆

INFO

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman’s “banned books tour,” Wednesday, September 6, 6 p.m., at Phoenix Books in Essex; and Wednesday, September 13, 4 p.m., at Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock. ltgov.vermont. gov/banned-books

THERE ARE CHILDREN WHO DESPERATELY NEED TO SEE BOOKS LIKE THIS AND RECOGNIZE THEMSELVES IN IT.

REP. WILLIAM NOTTE

Pilgrims’ Progressivism

Theater review: The Thanksgiving Play, Dorset Theatre Festival

BY ALEX BROWN • alex@sevendaysvt.com

In Larissa FastHorse’s glorious satire, the play within the play keeps sticking out a turkey leg, collapsing under the cultural weight of a story that is now impossible to tell and then gobbling for our attention again. The Thanksgiving Play features four earnest, vain and tragically self-absorbed white people straining to create an elementary school pageant about the first Thanksgiving that includes, but never appropriates, a Native American perspective.

It’s not as simple as corn versus maize to these performative culture warriors. They struggle with everything, especially each other. The Dorset Theatre Festival’s production is a laugh machine, thanks to a very fine cast willing to bury themselves in their characters. Director Raz Golden lets the script’s broad humor explode in physical mayhem but also brings out the overwrought struggles with language that tie these sincere people up in knots.

The first laugh in a show like this is the trickiest, because the play is all about giving ourselves permission to see what’s funny in our brave new world of cultural sensitivity. FastHorse includes four scenes based on reallife Thanksgiving plays proudly posted online by actual teachers. In the first of these, pilgrims sing about “what the Indians gave to me” to the tune of “The 12 Days of Christmas.” Somewhere in America, kids have seen a skit telling them that “Native Americans learned about sharing” as the settlers went about taking their land.

The Thanksgiving story has been twisted for centuries, but our four characters are determined to do better. And that takes intensive self-scrutiny, as they catch themselves each time their good intentions meet ingrained

insensitivity. Yet somehow they descend into comic savagery at any opportunity.

Logan (Kate MacCluggage, wonderful) is a high school drama teacher determined to build the kids’ pageant out of nonhierarchical group improv while ensuring its legitimacy by hiring a professional actor who is Native American. Virtuous to a fault, Logan is doing battle on many fronts. As a vegan, she considers Thanksgiving a trauma in itself. After a spectacularly bad choice for

debut. He’s also eager to act and quick to ditch his source material for prop muskets and hatchets.

Arriving late, with a spangled coffee go-cup and a cellphone she won’t put down, is Alicia (Isabel Pask, serenely straight-faced). She’s the Los Angeles actor Logan has scraped up the funding to cast, and everyone clears space, literally and figuratively, for her to grace the production with Native wisdom. She’s also pretty hot.

Jaxton sprawls at Alicia’s feet to appreciate her chakras up close, while Caden yearns from afar. Logan expects Alicia to be her guiding star. Trouble is, Alicia isn’t Native American. She just plays the different ethnicities her head shots were designed to suggest. Logan’s dream of a sensitive depiction of colonialism faces yet another obstacle.

The humor leaps from zany bits reminiscent of the Marx Brothers to intricate wit, always fueled by characters who can’t perceive their flaws. With helter-skelter energy, the production layers the collective efforts to develop a play together with a meta level of commentary. The characters are truly lovable, despite their empty self-importance and strict conformity to standard gender roles. Running a sleek 90 minutes without intermission, The Thanksgiving Play is exhilarating and kept last Friday’s preview audience laughing nonstop.

Viewers never lose sight of the play-within-the-play structure because scenic designer Sasha Schwartz spans the stage with meticulously painted curtains that slide open to reveal … another set of slightly smaller meticulously painted curtains. The footlights repeat as well, shrinking as the curtains do and inviting us deep into a theatrical dollhouse nestled within a well-realized grade school classroom.

Lighting designer Krista Smith uncorks a wide range of moods, from the soporific fluorescents of a schoolroom to screwball effects expressing the characters’ wild flights of imagination. Costume designer April Hickman has a fine eye for current versions of expressing cool, or the lack of it, in the deep vocabulary of clothing.

The script supplies only rough descriptions of the bad educational Thanksgiving pieces, so Golden and projections designer Joey Moro are free to run riot. On film, Stocking plays both Natives and white men performing a medley of tunes anchored by “This Land Is Your Land.” For maximum cringe, Moro dissolves all of Stocking’s personae into one merged, narcissistic face. In another skit, an “outcry” on behalf of the Indigenous, the cast stands in black while projections pour over them as they give sanctimonious voice to nothing more than their own indignation.

the high school’s play (15-year-olds as alcoholics in The Iceman Cometh?), she can’t afford another misstep. And now she’s grappling with presenting history while adhering to the terms of a grant for “Native American Heritage Month Awareness Through Art.”

Lending support — and pouring on the wellness terminology and healing gestures to prove it — is Logan’s boyfriend, Jaxton (Stephen Stocking, hilarious). Aimless beyond a tendency to strike random yoga poses, Jaxton is an unemployed actor who burnishes his liberal sheen by frequently acknowledging his heteronormative privilege — an apology that always sounds like boasting.

Caden (Craig Wesley Divino, delightfully earnest) is a history teacher who has taken up Logan’s request for help with historical accuracy by collecting a numbing amount of material, then attempting his own playwriting

This stuff is hilarious, but a more important cultural sign may be that it took a playwright of the Sicangu Lakota Nation to locate it and entertain us with it. The play’s central joke is that sensitivity requires impossible contortions that eventually warp into a brand-new reason for erasing Native Americans from history.

FastHorse’s script is packed with inside jokes about theater, with good reason: Identity is performance. When Logan, feeling deceived that she’s cast a white woman, tells Alicia, “I hired you to be the Native American,” Alicia replies, “You hired me to be an actress.” And off the comedy flies, everyone playing a part. ➆

INFO

The Thanksgiving Play, by Larissa FastHorse, directed by Raz Golden, produced by Dorset Theatre Festival. Through September 10: Wednesday through Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; and Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m., at Dorset Playhouse. $51. dorsettheatrefestival.org

THE PLAY’S CENTRAL JOKE IS THAT SENSITIVITY REQUIRES IMPOSSIBLE CONTORTIONS.

Stephen Stocking, Kate MacCluggage, Craig Wesley Divino and Isabel Pask in The Thanksgiving Play

COURTESY OF JOEY MORO

- McFly, Mac11, GirlScoutCookies, Patron, King’s O.G., Gelato

- Black Mamba, Rainbow Zkittlez, Ice Cream Cake, Death Bubba, L.A. Confidential, Island Pink Kush, Pink Kush, Air Jordan OG

Capital City Concerts, the Montpelier chamber series that flutist Karen Kevra has curated for the past 24 years, cemented the lineup for its 2023-24 season before the July floods submerged the city. Pianist Je rey Chappell was slated to give the first concert as a soloist. When he saw the images from his home in San Jose, Calif., he was stunned.

“I’ve been playing on that series since its first year, so I just feel such a strong connection with the city, and I have a lot of very close, old friends there,” the pianist said by phone. “I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

Chappell suggested to Kevra that she donate his concert fee to flood relief, and soon the artistic director decided to donate all proceeds from the concert.

Finding a venue presented a challenge, because Capital City Concerts’ performance space, the 1865 Unitarian Church of Montpelier, was among the fl ooded sites and would take months to clean and restore. But the Barre Opera House was available and seats 650, almost three times as many as the church. Its new executive director, Kurt Thoma, o ered it for the same rental price.

“As horrible as this flood has been, the degree to which people have shown an incredible generosity of spirit has bowled me over,” Kevra said by phone from her home in Cornwall, which has also seen a sodden summer.

The benefit concert takes place on Friday, September 8. Tickets are “pay what you can,” and the proceeds will go to two organizations helping small businesses recover: Montpelier Strong Recovery Fund, a partnership of Montpelier Alive and the Montpelier Foundation; and the Vermont Main Street Flood Recovery Fund, set up by Barre’s Capstone Community Action. People who can’t make it to the concert are encouraged to donate directly to the organizations.

Chappell, 70, who quipped that “my mother played Chopin and my father played boogie-woogie,” taught at Goucher College in Baltimore for more than 40 years as a piano faculty member and the director of jazz studies. In Montpelier, he will play the program he planned before the flooding. Fortunately, it includes no French impressionists, he noted ruefully, given that compositions by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and others are often about water.

Instead, the concert opens with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Fantasy and

Contribution

Capital City Concerts kicks off its season with a benefit for flood relief

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Fugue in C Major. Chappell has been playing the piece since he was a 10-year-old growing up in St. Louis. The unrestricted form of the fantasy, he said, makes the piece “sound like Mozart just sat down in his o -hours and let his imagination run wild.”

He’ll also play Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109, a work that he studied at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Rudolf Serkin, a cofounder of the Marlboro Music Festival. Also a jazz-influenced composer, Chappell will perform his “Piano Trio” — a piece that is not, as its punning title might seem to suggest, for piano, violin and cello but for solo piano, softly played (the meaning of “piano”) in three parts.

Chappell’s program includes Frédéric Chopin’s Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante, and it concludes with one of Kevra’s favorite showstoppers, Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata in E-flat Minor.

Composed in 1949, the Barber piece is “perhaps the best modern piano sonata ever written, and no one plays it as well as Je ,” Kevra averred by phone. “This will be the third time we’ve done it in 24 years, and it brings the house down every time.”

Chappell and Kevra met in 2000 at a millennial concert organized by thenMontpelier pianist Michael Arnowitt, who assigned the pair Antonio Vivaldi’s “Goldfinch” concerto. When the two began playing together at Capital City Concerts, they rehearsed each piece in front of Kevra’s mentor — flutist Louis Moyse, another cofounder of Marlboro.

The homes of neither Kevra’s nor Chappell’s Montpelier friends were devastated by the floods, but Kevra, who lived in the Capital City for 23 years before moving to Cornwall, mourned the impact on the city’s commerce.

“So many businesses have been generous year after year with sponsorships and business listings in the program,” she said, citing in particular Capitol Copy, one of the series’ most stalwart supporters and the source of all its printed matter.

“They are not coming back,” Kevra said — sad news that owner Glenn Sturgis confirmed in an email to Seven Days ➆

INFO

Flood-Relief Benefit Concert with Jeffrey Chappell, Friday, September 8, 7:30 p.m., at the Barre Opera House. Pay what you can; $30 suggested donation. capitalcityconcerts.org, montpelierstrong.org, capstonevt.org

THE DEGREE TO WHICH PEOPLE HAVE SHOWN AN INCREDIBLE GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT HAS BOWLED ME OVER.

KAREN KEVRA

Jeffrey Chappell

Karen Kevra

FILE: CALEB KENNA

on screen

Landscape With Invisible Hand ★★★★

One of my favorite novels of the past several years is Landscape

With Invisible Hand. East Calais author M.T. Anderson, a past winner of the National Book Award, used this brief, brilliant tale of teens under alien occupation to satirize trickle-down economics, social media and Americans’ stubborn belief in their own exceptionalism. Cory Finley, director of the excellent Thoroughbreds and Bad Education, adapted the 2017 book into a film, which is now playing at Merrill’s Roxy Cinemas.

The deal

Earth has been invaded by a race of funnylooking aliens called the vuvv. But don’t worry! They don’t want to enslave us, just to extract our raw materials and reshape our domestic economy into a market for their technologically superior goods. If we learn their language and make nice with them, we might even be able to survive on a planet that has become one giant decaying Rust Belt.

Adam (Asante Blackk) is a teenage artist whose family is doing well under the new dispensation, comparatively speaking — they own a house. Drawn to new girl Chloe (Kylie Rogers), he invites her itinerant family to live in his basement with the permission of his bighearted single mom, Beth (Ti any Haddish).

To make money, Adam and Chloe live stream their budding courtship to an audience of the vuvv, who reproduce asexually and are enthralled by human mating customs. But Adam feels wrong about performing his first love for the cameras — even when his family’s financial survival could depend on it.

Will you like it?

A film can get a long way on a premise as rich as that of Landscape With Invisible Hand. This dystopia asks us to imagine how we would feel about having our own faith in the “invisible hand” of the marketplace turned against us. (Yes, Adam’s name evokes “father of capitalism” Adam Smith.) The vuvv confidently view humans as primitives and themselves as beneficent guides bringing us into the fold of civilization. They profess a cloying appreciation for every aspect of our culture, from family and romantic bonds to artistic expression — and proceed to transform that culture into

REVIEW

an impoverished husk of itself, a plastic souvenir of Earth.

The film’s bleak suburban setting is well realized, full of small comic touches. The vuvv, who live in giant, hovering complexes, decorate their homes with taxidermy and midcentury American styles in e orts to “go native.” The design of these aliens strikes a fine balance between ickiness and whimsy; one human character describes them as “gooey co ee tables.” Their crablike eye stalks might be cute — if only the voices that emanate from their mechanical translators didn’t convey a disturbing lack of empathy.

Anderson’s novel is told in a series of vignettes, each revolving around one of the artworks with which Adam chronicles his crumbling world. As Adam’s family approaches the brink of ruin, the author expertly blends pathos into his palette of broad satire. We laugh at the absurdity of the characters’ can-do entrepreneurial spirit when the intergalactic odds are stacked against them, but we also genuinely want them to triumph over their new economic overlords.

Besides visual cleverness, Finley’s adaptation brings strong performances to the table. Ultimately, though, it struggles a little to replicate the book’s tonal mix, falling more on the side of sentiment than of satire.

Without Adam’s narration as a central

thread, the story feels disjointed. The pace gradually bogs down rather than mounting in tandem with the family’s Dickensian decline. Finley has replaced much of the novel’s snappy, heightened dialogue with more earnest sentiments, and the blend doesn’t always gel.

Blackk makes Adam a believably introspective adolescent whose raw feelings contrast nicely with Chloe’s more practiced, social media-ready moods. But his moody character feels out of place in the archly constructed landscape of this dystopia, and one wishes he’d been given a few of book Adam’s smart-ass rejoinders.

A new subplot builds out Beth’s character, capitalizing on Haddish’s talent for hilariously incredulous reaction shots. But Beth doesn’t get to develop much beyond being feisty and indomitable on Adam’s behalf. Adam’s younger sister (Brooklynn MacKinzie) mostly moons around being sad, and a scene involving their dad doesn’t connect to anything else.

For all these reasons, Landscape With Invisible Hand doesn’t have quite as sharp a satirical edge as it needs. Still, its conclusion lands with force, sending an uncompromising message about the conundrum of human imagination under capitalism.

Call Anderson and Finley’s vision on the nose if you will. But if anything, the story packs a stronger punch today than it did

when the novel was published, as human artists struggle to contend with the superior “e ciency” of generative AI. When every part of our lives is reduced to units of economic productivity, Adam wonders, what do we have left worth living for?

MARGOT HARRISON

margot@sevendaysvt.com

IF YOU LIKE THIS, TRY...

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (2018; Prime Video, Freevee, rentable): Boots Riley uses surrealism to deliver an anticapitalist message in this absurdist comedy about a telemarketer trying to climb the corporate ladder. Also check out his new series “I’m a Virgo” (seven episodes, 2023; Prime Video).

SPONTANEOUS (2020; rentable): Anderson isn’t the only Vermont author whose satirical YA novel has been turned into a movie. is underrated dark comedy is based on Aaron Starmer’s novel about teens spontaneously combusting.

“BLACK MIRROR” (six seasons, 2011 to present; Netfl ix): e monetization of human experience via social media, satirized in Landscape With Invisible Hand, is also a recurrent target of the British sci-fi anthology series about online culture.

Kylie Rogers and Asante Blackk play teens falling in love for an audience of aliens in this surreal comedy based on M.T. Anderson’s novel.

NEW IN THEATERS

ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE: Two Mexican American teens find friendship in this adaptation of Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel, directed by Aitch Alberto. Kevin Alejandro and Eva Longoria star. (96 min, PG-13. Palace)

BOTTOMS: Superbad but make it sapphic? Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri play lovelorn high school friends who hatch a wild scheme to get close to their crushes in this comedy from Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby). (91 min, R. Roxy)

JAWAN: Atlee directed this Hindi action thriller about a man seeking justice, starring Shah Rukh Khan. (169 min, NR, Majestic)

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3: Twenty-one years after the original rom-com sleeper hit, Nia Vardalos (who also directed) and John Corbett return as a couple bringing their grown daughter to Greece for a family reunion. (91 min, PG-13. Essex, Majestic, Palace, Paramount, Roxy)

THE NUN II: Taissa Farmiga is back as a plucky nun chasing down a veil-wearing demon in this belated horror sequel within the cinematic universe of The Conjuring. Michael Chaves directed. (110 min, R. Essex, Majestic, Palace, Roxy, Sunset)

CURRENTLY PLAYING

BARBIEHHHH Margot Robbie plays the Mattel toy as she experiences her first-ever existential crisis. (114 min, PG-13. Bijou, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Paramount, Roxy, Star, Stowe, Sunset, Welden; reviewed 7/26)

BLUE BEETLEHHH An alien scarab transforms a teenager (Xolo Maridueña) into a superhero in this action adventure. (127 min, PG-13. Big Picture, Essex, Majestic, Welden)

THE EQUALIZER 3HHH Denzel Washington is back as the former government assassin in Antoine Fuqua’s action thriller. With Dakota Fanning. (109 min, R. Bijou, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Roxy, Star, Stowe, Sunset, Welden)

GOLDAHH1/2 Helen Mirren plays Golda Meir, former prime minister of Israel, in this drama about the Yom Kippur War. Guy Nattiv directed. (100 min, PG-13. Palace)

GRAN TURISMOHH1/2 A teen (Archie Madekwe) transfers his video game prowess to professional car racing in this fact-inspired action drama from Neill Blomkamp. (135 min, PG-13. Bijou, Majestic, Star, Stowe, Sunset, Welden)

THE HILLHH1/2 Rickey Hill (Colin Ford), a young baseball player with a disability, aims for the major leagues in this biographical sports drama directed by Jeff Celentano. (126 min, PG. Majestic, Playhouse)

LANDSCAPE WITH INVISIBLE HANDHHHH In this satire based on the novel by Vermont author M.T. Anderson, two teens survive under alien rule by selling aspects of what makes them human. (105 min, R. Roxy, ends Thu 7; reviewed 9/6)

MEG 2: THE TRENCHHH Jason Statham aids deepsea researchers as they battle various menaces. (116 min, PG-13. Bijou, Majestic, Sunset)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — DEAD RECKONING PART

ONEHHHH Tom Cruise returns as secret agent Ethan Hunt in the seventh installment of the action franchise. (163 min, PG-13. Palace)

NO HARD FEELINGSHHH A down-on-her-luck woman (Jennifer Lawrence) is hired by a 19-yearold’s parents to bring him out of his shell in this comedy. (103 min, R. Sunset)

OPPENHEIMERHHHHH Director Christopher Nolan tells the story of the man (Cillian Murphy) who played a key role in creating the atomic bomb. (180 min, R. Big Picture, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Roxy; reviewed 8/2)

RETRIBUTIONHH Liam Neeson plays a bank exec who gets a bomb threat while driving his kids to school, and you can guess the rest. (91 min, R. Star)

STRAYSHH1/2 Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx voice candid canines in this not-for-kids comedy. (93 min, R. Essex, Majestic, Palace, Sunset)

TALK TO MEHHH1/2 A group of friends uses an embalmed hand to conjure spirits in this horror thriller. (94 min, R. Sunset; reviewed 8/9)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT

MAYHEMHHH1/2 Cowriter Seth Rogen and directors Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears reboot the comic-based series. (99 min, PG. Essex, Majestic, Palace, Welden)

OLDER FILMS AND SPECIAL SCREENINGS

CHRISTINE 40TH ANNIVERSARY (Essex, Sun & Wed 13 only)

PERFECT BLUE 25TH ANNIVERSARY (Essex, Wed 6 & Thu & Sun)

THEY LIVE 35TH ANNIVERSARY (Essex, Wed 6 only)

OPEN THEATERS

The Capitol Showplace and Catamount Arts are currently closed until further notice. The Marquis Theater is closed with a reopening date of September 13. (* = upcoming schedule for theater was not available at press time)

*BIG PICTURE THEATER: 48 Carroll Rd., Waitsfield, 496-8994, bigpicturetheater.info

*BIJOU CINEPLEX 4: 107 Portland St., Morrisville, 888-3293, bijou4.com

*CAPITOL SHOWPLACE: 93 State St., Montpelier, 229-0343, fgbtheaters.com

*CATAMOUNT ARTS: 115 Eastern Ave., St. Johnsbury, 748-2600, catamountarts.org

ESSEX CINEMAS & T-REX THEATER: 21 Essex Way, Suite 300, Essex, 879-6543, essexcinemas.com

MAJESTIC 10: 190 Boxwood St., Williston, 878-2010, majestic10.com

*MARQUIS THEATER: 65 Main St., Middlebury, 388-4841, middleburymarquis.com

MERRILL’S ROXY CINEMAS: 222 College St., Burlington, 864-3456, merrilltheatres.net

PALACE 9 CINEMAS: 10 Fayette Dr., South Burlington, 864-5610, palace9.com

*PARAMOUNT TWIN CINEMA: 241 N. Main St., Barre, 479-9621, fgbtheaters.com

PLAYHOUSE MOVIE THEATRE: 11 S. Main St., Randolph, 728-4012, playhouseflicks.com

*SAVOY THEATER: 26 Main St., Montpelier, 229-0598, savoytheater.com

*STAR THEATRE: 17 Eastern Ave., St. Johnsbury, 748-9511, stjaytheatre.com

*STOWE CINEMA 3PLEX: 454 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-4678, stowecinema.com

SUNSET DRIVE-IN: 155 Porters Point Rd., Colchester, 862-1800, sunsetdrivein.com

*WELDEN THEATRE: 104 N. Main St., St. Albans, 527-7888, weldentheatre.com

Nia Vardalos and John Corbett in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

art

Air Borne PROFILE

Bruce Hasse took a circuitous route to becoming a sculptor. While earning a degree in industrial design at Pratt Institute in the late 1960s, he became an avid photographer. After a short stint working in New York City, he moved to Vermont and embarked on a series of seemingly diverse professions: jewelry maker (with his wife, Stephany Comen Hasse), carpenter, technician in a dental lab and then at IBM. But all these experiences honed his aptitude for working with his hands, and Hasse’s love of the outdoors led him to wood and other natural materials.

“In retrospect, they’re all related,” he said of his career choices. “But I feel like I’m living my best life. I plan to do this as long as I can.”

For Hasse, now 78, doing it also means showing it. For Burlington’s South End Art Hop, which begins on Friday, September 8, he’s exhibiting three mobile sculptures at the Media Factory on Flynn Avenue, where he has shown suspended works before. “It’s the best place for mobiles,” Hasse declared.

He began making wall-hung, stand-alone and mobile assemblages just five years ago. Though he doesn’t make art for a living, “it’s more than a hobby,” Hasse said. He’s exhibited his creations five times at Studio Place Arts in Barre — including, for a recent exhibit about invertebrates, a masterful wood and cattail jellyfish in a handmade vitrine titled “Acer saccharum Medusozoa.”

The wood, referenced in the name, is sugar maple, sourced from a tree toppled by a windstorm last year on the Hasses’ Charlotte property. It turned out to be a tree that keeps on giving — with the urging of Hasse’s chain saw.

The artist currently has six mixed-media mobiles hanging at the Charlotte Public Library, where high ceilings, ample light and gentle currents of air show them to best advantage. Hasse said he takes his mobiles apart and reassembles them repeatedly until he’s happy with how they balance. “I like the angles to be a little more complex,” he said.

In his home studio — a former one-car garage now filled with all manner of power and hand tools and scraps of wood — Hasse has crafted numerous sculptures from maple and other woods, along with the odd bit of hardware or found item. “I started with

Bruce Hasse’s mobile sculptures heighten Art Hop STORY & PHOTOS BY PAMELA POLSTON • ppolston@sevendaysvt.com

Mobile by Bruce Hasse

wood, then got into other materials, especially plastics,” he said.

Outdoors, his magpie-like observation zeroes in on shiny junk such as a hunk of chrome, a small makeup mirror, a reflector from a bicycle. Hardware stores — and his own house — yield useful items including packing strips, bright turquoise wire, egg cartons and cut-up milk jugs. Hasse has learned a variety of ways to connect object

A to object B. “Thank God for space-age adhesives,” he quipped. He also admits to “stealing” from his ceramicist wife’s cache of powdered dyes.

In the studio, Hasse is currently working on a six-foot-tall, longboat-shaped piece of white pine with a 24-inch disc of spalted maple at its center. He hasn’t decided yet on a vertical or horizontal orientation. Experimentation is the fun part. “I really enjoy the exploration of materials and processes,” Hasse said.

The Hasses bought their 1.2-acre property on Spear Street in 1974. At the time, the house was just 800 square feet, but the couple have since added to it considerably. The place is filled with art of all kinds — including Hasse’s atmospheric

black-and-white photographs — as well as shrine-like collections of pretty rocks and botanical components. In a window-lined sunroom, Hasse’s wood and mixed-media sculptures sit on every surface, leaving no perches at all for the two resident cats.

Though it’s impossible to look at mobiles and not think of American sculptor Alexander Calder, Hasse’s tabletop and wall-hung sculptures are uniquely his own. The assemblages generally showcase the handsome qualities of wood in contrast with metal, stone or plant-based elements. One voluptuous work, though, playfully references other artists at least in its title: “When Henry Met Francis.” That would be Henry Moore and Francis Bacon.

Hasse said he’s disappointed that his sculpture “Starhart” was not accepted into the Art Hop’s juried show this year. Consisting of a foot-long piece of spalted maple with a “spine” of agate and quartz chips and a round rock base, the piece has ancient-specimen vibes. Perhaps it will fit in a future themed show at Studio Place Arts.

Meantime, Hasse’s mobiles are commanding the airspace at the Media Factory. Art Hoppers, remember to look up.

See more work by Bruce Hasse on Instagram: @brucedhasse. The South End Art Hop is Friday, September 8, through Sunday, September 10. Find more info in the program guide in this issue and at seaba.com.

Ablaye Cissoko & Cyrille Brotto, 10/6

Rob Schwimmer, 10/20

Kaki King, 11/3

Shah, 9/22

I FEEL LIKE I’M LIVING MY BEST LIFE.

BRUCE HASSE

Mobile by Bruce Hasse

Bruce Hasse in his studio with a work in progress

NEW THIS WEEK

burlington

‘60 YEARS OF BREAD & PUPPET’: Puppets, prints and banners by Peter Schumann, founder of the puppet theater group based in Glover. Reception: Friday, September 8, 6-9 p.m. September 8-December 1. Info, hello@karmabirdhouse.com. Karma Bird House Gallery in Burlington.

CAROLYN BATES: “Street Murals of Burlington,” photographs from a new book by the local professional photographer. Reception, artist talk and book signing: Saturday, September 9, 4 p.m. September 9-October 31. Info, 862-5010. First Congregational Church in Burlington.

‘PRAXIS’: An exhibition of recent work by more than a dozen studio art faculty at UVM in an array of mediums. Reception: Wednesday, September 13, 5-7 p.m. September 12-December 8. Info, 656-0750. Fleming Museum of Art, University of Vermont, in Burlington.

barre/montpelier

ART AT THE KENT: ‘TRACES’: Nearly two dozen Vermont artists present works in wax, wood, paint, clay, fabric, metal and photographs in this annual exhibition. Opening celebration: Saturday, September 9, 3-5 p.m. September 8-October 8. Info, thekentmuseum@gmail.com. Kents’ Corner State Historic Site in Calais.

‘ROCK SOLID XXIII’: An annual exhibition that showcases stone sculptures and assemblages by area artists, as well as other work that depicts the qualities of stone. Main-floor gallery. KATE

ARSLAMBAKOVA: “Primordial,” paintings influenced by surrealism that bring the microscopic world into focus. Second-floor gallery. September 13-October 28. Info, 479-7069. Studio Place Arts in Barre.

stowe/smuggs

‘LAND & LIGHT & WATER & AIR’: The 16th annual group exhibition of landscape paintings featuring more than 90 regional artists. September

6-December 23. ‘NATURE’S ABSTRACTION’: A group exhibition of nature-inspired paintings that transcend traditional representation. Reception: Thursday, September 14, 4-7 p.m. September

6-November 5. Info, 644-5100. Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville.

mad river valley/waterbury

GREEN MOUNTAIN PHOTO SHOW: The 33rd annual exhibition of works by professional and amateur photographers, local and national. Reception: Sunday, September 10, 5-7 p.m. September

10-October 8. Info, 496-6682. Red Barn Galleries, Lareau Farm, in Waitsfield.

TRYSTAN BATES: “The Starling Symphony,” a five-part exhibition of abstract collage, sculpture, prints and mixed media that examines the ways in which we process, assimilate and store information. Reception: Friday, September 8, 5-9 p.m. September

8-November 17. Info, joseph@thephoenixvt.com. The Phoenix in Waterbury.

middlebury area

‘THE DECISIVE MOMENT’: A group photography exhibition, juried by Aline Smithson, on the theme of the singular moment when motion and composition come together to create a unified whole.

Reception: Friday, September 8, 3-7 p.m. September 7-27. Info, 388-4500. PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury.

PENNY BILLINGS AND HOLLY FRIESEN:

“Nature’s Inner Light,” paintings of the New England and Québec landscape.

Reception: Thursday, October 5, 5-6:30 p.m. September 9-November 15. Info, 989-7419. Edgewater Gallery at the Falls in Middlebury.

GALLERIES

‘Both Sides of the Mountain’

Bryan Fine Art Gallery opens in Stowe

BY PAMELA POLSTON • ppolston@sevendaysvt.com

Dozens of visitors mingled genially at the grand opening of Bryan Fine Art Gallery in Stowe on Saturday, welcomed with abundant food and drink, live music by guitarist George Petit, and, of course, very fine art. Sunshine streamed into the gallery, too, animating the bonhomie. For executive director Stephen Gothard and gallery manager Garrison French, the glorious weather was — just maybe — a good omen. Opening a new art gallery is not for the faint of heart.

Stowe has good reason to celebrate this one: Several other art venues have disappeared from the village in recent years, including Green Mountain Fine Art Gallery in 2019. Its former 1,300-square-foot quarters on South Main Street now belong to the Bryan.

The enterprise is an extension of the renowned Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville, which painter Alden Bryan (1913-2001) established in 1984 in honor of his wife and fellow artist, Mary Bryan (1906-1978). The board had not been looking for a second location, according to Gothard, but when the opportunity presented itself, “This happened pretty rapidly,” he said. After hearing that nearby Robert Paul Galleries was for sale, “We thought, Now’s the time for us to open a location in Stowe.”

The goal was not simply to restore an outlet for traditional artwork in the village. “The gallery in Jeffersonville was built as

a way to preserve and continue the legacy of artists coming to [paint in] northern Vermont for 100 years,” Gothard said. “But Jeffersonville is also a quiet community, especially during COVID. That was a deterrent to people coming to enjoy the gallery.”

In other words, tourist-heavy Stowe is a boost for the Bryan and the artists it represents. “Now we have a presence on both sides of the mountain,” Gothard said, referring to the snow-sports mecca of Mount Mansfield.

In addition to its permanent holdings of paintings by Alden and Mary Bryan, the Jeffersonville gallery presents predominantly plein air landscape paintings by more than 200 artists in rotating exhibitions throughout the year. The Stowe venue will feature essentially the same mix, at least for now.

“Whenever we switch over an exhibit [in Jeffersonville], we’ll bring a selection of those works to Stowe,” Gothard said. But he’s open to incorporating more contemporary and abstract work in time. “This is definitely going to be an evolution,” he mused.

Asked to speculate on what the founder would have thought about his gallery’s expansion, Gothard did not hesitate.

“Alden and Mary were definitely entrepreneurs — they had the farm; they brought pasteurized milk to the area; they had a restaurant [and] inn; they built a tennis association, which is now a community

center, in Jeffersonville,” he said.

“They also had a restaurant in Rockport [Mass.]. So, I think this extension is right in line with his thinking as a businessman, and to expand the artistic legacy.”

Indeed, the tagline on the Bryan’s website seems

to anticipate this very thing: “Building on one legacy, creating another.” ➆

INFO

Learn more about both Bryan galleries at bryangallery.org.

Bryan Fine Art Gallery in Stowe

Garrison French (left) and Stephen Gothard

PHOTOS: PAMELA POLSTON

rutland/killington

SCULPTFEST23: New works by 10 artists are sited along the new sculpture trail in this annual celebration of the medium. Reception: Saturday, September 9, 5-8 p.m., with refreshments and live music by the Plumb Bobs. September 9-October 22. Info, 438-2097. The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center in West Rutland.

brattleboro/okemo valley

VAUNE TRACHTMAN AND RACHEL PORTESI: An exhibition of images by the Vermont-based alternative-process photographers. Reception: Friday, September 22, 4:30-6:30 p.m. September 8-October 29. Info, 387-5566. Michael S. Currier Center, Putney School.

outside vermont

ELLIOTT KATZ, GAAL SHEPHERD & ROGER WELLS: Three solo exhibitions by the Vermont and New Hampshire artists. Reception: Friday, September 8, 5-7 p.m. September 8-October 6. Info, 603-448-3117. AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H.

ART EVENTS

31ST ANNUAL SOUTH END ART HOP: Burlington’s biggest art festival of the year includes dozens of open studios, demonstrations, a juried exhibit, Kids Hop activities (Saturday), food, live music and more. Print schedule and more info is inserted in the September 6 issue of Seven Days. Various Burlington locations, Friday, September 8, 5-10 p.m., Saturday, September 9, 10 a.m.-10 p.m., and Sunday, September 10, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Info, 859-9222.

ARTIST TALK: SARAH MALAKOFF: The Bostonbased photographer discusses her images of private spaces and signs copies of her new book, Personal History. Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, Friday, September 8, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 251-6051.

BTV MARKET: An outdoor market featuring wares by local artists, makers, bakers and more, accompanied by live music and lawn games.

Burlington City Hall Park, Saturday, September 9, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Info, 865-7166.

COLLAGE COLLECTIVE: Cut, paste and create with other collage enthusiasts either in studio or over Zoom. Open to all levels. Materials available at the studio. Expressive Arts Burlington, Monday, September 11, 6:30-9 p.m. Donations. Info, info@ expressiveartsburlington.com.

‘COMMUNITY PAINTING’: Sculptor Kevin Donegan invites the public to participate in painting his signbased work, “CARE,” during the South End Art Hop. new new art studio, Burlington, Friday, September 8, 6-10 p.m. Info, kevin2337@hotmail.com.

LECTURE: EDGAR DEGAS: Educator Sydelle Gansl discusses the 19th-century French impressionist painter. Chaffee Art Center, Rutland, Wednesday, September 13, 6-7:30 p.m. $10 donation. Info, 775-0356.

OPEN STUDIO: Draw, collage, paint, move, write and explore the expressive arts however you please during this drop-in period. Available in studio and via Zoom. Most materials are available in the studio. All are welcome; no art experience necessary. Expressive Arts Burlington, Thursday, September 7, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Donations. Info, info@ expressiveartsburlington.com.

‘PHILADANCO’: A reception for the Howard Center Arts Collective’s exhibition of artwork inspired by the Philadelphia Dance Company, which is dedicated to the preservation of predominantly African American traditions in dance. Flynndog Gallery, Burlington, Friday, September 8, 4:30-6 p.m. Info, artscollective@howardcenter.org.

TALK: LYMAN ORTON: The Vermont Country Store founder and art collector gives a slide presentation along with Anita Rafael, author of a book about his artwork, For the Love of Vermont. A reception follows. Weston Theater at Walker Farm, Thursday, September 7, 5 p.m. Free. Info, 924-8167.

TOUR OF STONE WALL PARK: Master dry-stone waller Jared Flynn, founder of the Stone Trust, leads a walking tour of notable stone walls and other structures in the park. Scott Farm, Dummerston, Sunday, September 10, 3 p.m. $10. Info, 257-0124.

VIRTUAL ARTIST TALK: HYUNSUK

ERICKSON: The BCA Center presents an interactive program with the sculptor, who discusses her current exhibition “Thingumabob Society.” Online, Thursday, September 7, 6-7 p.m. Free. Info, 865-7166.

VIRTUAL ARTIST TALK: KAYLA

MOHAMMADI: Vermont Studio Center presents a discussion of the Boston-based artist’s work, which creates abstract visual spaces with the use of overlapping marks and color. Register for Zoom link at vermontstudiocenter.org. Online, Friday, September 8, 7:30-8:30 p.m. Info, 635-2727.

ONGOING SHOWS

burlington

‘ABENAKI: FIRST PEOPLE EXHIBITION’: The council and members of Alnôbaiwi (in the Abenaki way) and the museum open a new exhibition featuring the Abenaki Year, the seasonal calendar of people who lived in the area for more than 8,000 years before Europeans arrived, as well as works by contemporary Abenaki artisans and a replica of a 19th-century Abenaki village. Through October 31. Info, 865-4556. Ethan Allen Homestead in Burlington.

‘ART AND THE MATTER OF PLACE’: A small exhibition of objects in the Wolcott Gallery that encourages critical thinking about place and why it matters. Reception: Wednesday, September 13, 5-7 p.m. Through December 8. Info, 656-0750. Fleming Museum of Art, University of Vermont, in Burlington.

ART AT THE HOSPITAL: Oil paintings by Louise Arnold and Jean Gerber and photographs by Mike Sipe (Main Street Connector, ACC 3); photographs on metal by Brian Drourr (McClure 4 ); acrylics and mixed-media painting by Linda Blackerby (Breast Care Center) and Colleen Murphy (EP2). Curated by Burlington City Arts. Through September 30. Info, 865-7296. University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

ASHLEY ROARK: “All the Things,” cyanotype collages that explore objects as symbols by the Burlington artist. Through September 30. Info, 338-7441. Thirty-odd in Burlington.

CAROL MACDONALD: “Emergence (Coming to Light),” new monotypes by the Vermont artist. Through September 28. Info, 863-6458. Frog Hollow Vermont Craft Gallery in Burlington.

‘OUTSTANDING: CONTEMPORARY SELF-TAUGHT

ART’: Drawings, paintings and 3D works by area artists Larry Bissonette, Denver Ferguson, June Gutman, Chip Haggerty, Liza Phillip, Pamela Smith, Thomas Stetson and Kalin Thomas. Through September 17. HYUNSUK ERICKSON: “Thingumabob Society,” multicolored, towering, playful sculptures that suggest sprouting seeds or family groupings. Through September 17. KATE LONGMAID: Contemporary portraiture, still life and landscape paintings in oil and acrylic gouache by the Vermont artist. Through December 17. Info, 865-7296. BCA Center in Burlington.

ROSA LEFF: “Blown Away,” familiar scenes of urban life in intricately cut paper. Through September 30. Info, 324-0014. Soapbox Arts in Burlington.

‘VERMONT PHOTOGRAPHERS CLUB’: A group exhibition of established and emerging local photographers, including Ali Kaukas, Abbey Meaker, Corey Hendrickson, Daniel Brooks, Daniel Cardon, Daniel Schechner, Nathanael Asaro, Shem Roose, Zack Pollakoff and more. Copresented with Bauschaus VT. Through September 7. Info, 233-2943. Safe and Sound Gallery in Burlington.

chittenden county

ART AT THE AIRPORT: Acrylic abstract paintings by Matt Larson and acrylic floral paintings by Sandra Berbeco, curated by Burlington City Arts. Through September 30. JULIA PURINTON: Abstract oil paintings inspired by nature; in the North Concourse. Through February 29. Info, 865-7296. Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport in South Burlington.

BIRDS OF VERMONT EXHIBIT: An exhibit showcasing the history of birds in art, as well as a display of the tools a wood carver uses to create lifelike birds. Through September 30. Info, 846-4140. South Burlington Public Library Art Wall.

‘BUILT FROM THE EARTH’: An exhibition of masterful Pueblo pottery from the Anthony and Teressa Perry Collection of Native American art. ‘OBJECT/S OF PLAY’: An interactive exploration of the creative processes of American toy designers Cas Holman and Karen Hewitt. ‘POP UP’: An exhibition of contemporary inflated sculptures inside and outside the museum featuring three artists and artist teams from the field of pneumatic sculpture: Claire Ashley, Pneuhaus and Tamar Ettun. (Outdoor sculptures not on view on days with excessive wind.) STEPHEN

HUNECK: “Pet Friendly,” an exhibition of hand-carved and painted furniture, sculptures, relief paintings, bronze sculptures and more by the late Vermont artist. Reception: Thursday, September 7, 5:30-7:30 p.m.; members only; preregistration required. Through October 22. Info, 985-3346. Shelburne Museum.

CHRISTINE MITCHELL ADAMS: “I Am Your Playground,” drawings that explore the shifting sense of self and identity as a parent/caregiver within the lens of play. Through September 30. Info, christinemitchelladams@gmail.com. MATT

LARSON & NANCY CHAPMAN: Nature-inspired abstract paintings. Curated by Burlington City Arts. Through October 17. Info, 865-7296. Pierson Library in Shelburne.

DEBBA PEARCE: “Ethereal Landscapes,” paintings in alcohol inks. Through September 30. Info, 660-4999. Art Works Frame Shop & Gallery in South Burlington.

JENNIFER ASHLINE: An installation of landscape, floral and figurative works. Through September 24. Info, 662-4877. Salt & Bubbles Wine Bar and Market in Essex Junction.

‘LET THE LIGHT IN’: New paintings by Vermont artists Liz Hawkes deNiord, Joy Huckins-Noss, Jill Madden and Julia Purinton, curated by Essex High School student Xandra Ford. Through October 19. Info, gallery@southburlingtonvt.gov. South Burlington Public Art Gallery.

‘SPARK: FUELING A LOVE OF BIRDS’: An exhibition of works by more than 60 artists and writers expressing avian admiration. Through October 31. Info, 434-2167. Birds of Vermont Museum in Huntington.

TOM WATERS: “Reaching New Heights,” Vermont landscape paintings. Through September 24. Info, 899-3211. Emile A. Gruppe Gallery in Jericho.

barre/montpelier

DELIA ROBINSON: “Gravitational Reprieve,” imaginative works by the Montpelier artist, painted in response to Vermont floods. Reception: Thursday, September 14, 4-6 p.m. Through October 6. Info, robinson.delia@gmail.com. Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin.

‘ELEMENTS OF SHELTER’: Original works in wood, metal and glass by Yestermorrow faculty members

Thea Alvin, Meg Reinhold, Nick Pattis, Anna Fluri, Sophia Mickelson and Johno Landsman, in conjunction with the Waitsfield design/build school. Through May 31, 2025. Info, 828-3291. Vermont Arts Council Sculpture Garden in Montpelier.

ELINOR RANDALL: “Deep Impressions,” a survey of the master printmaker’s work 1954 to 2013. Curated by NNEMoCA. Second-floor gallery and Quick Change

CALL TO ARTISTS

2023 PHOTOGRAPHY SHOOTOUT: “Texture” is the theme of this year’s exhibition, which will be October 11 to November 11. All capture and processing methods are welcome. Drop off your entry (one or two photos) on October 7 by 4 p.m. Prizes will be awarded. Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery, Waterbury. $20. Info, 244-7801.

ART TO GO LUGGAGE AUCTION: Seeking local artists to paint or collage nature-themed designs on Monos luggage, which will be auctioned October 14 to 27 to benefit Come Alive Outside’s outdoor gear library. Email arwen@comealiveoutside.com for time to pick up the luggage. Artists will receive a piece of luggage as thanks for their contribution. Merchants Row, Rutland. Through September 30. Info, 518-423-5337.

ARTIST DEVELOPMENT GRANTS & FLOOD

RELIEF FUNDING: The Vermont Arts Council offers grants that can fund activities to enhance mastery of a skill, or support an artist’s business or the creation of new work. Separate grants are available to artists who have been significantly and adversely affected by the recent flooding. The latter will be offered until funds are exhausted. Details at vermontartscouncil.org. Online. Through September 26. Info, 402-4602.

BTV WINTER MARKET: Burlington City

Arts invites artisans, makers and arty small businesses to apply as a vendor at the outdoor marketplace Fridays through Sundays, November 18 to December 23. Application at burlingtoncityarts.org. Deadline: September 18. Online. Info, 865-7166.

‘CELEBRATE!’: Seeking art and craft by SPA member-artists for upcoming exhibition on all three floors of the art center. Membership is $20 to $35.

Deadline: October 7. More info at studioplacearts. com. Studio Place Arts, Barre. $20-35. Info, submissions.studioplacearts@gmail.com.

‘CYCLES’: Inclusive Arts Vermont invites artists to submit work for an upcoming touring exhibition that interprets the theme in any way. Artists with disabilities are encouraged to apply. Apply at inclusiveartsvermont.org.

Deadline: September 22. Online. Info, exhibitions@ inclusiveartsvermont.org.

‘LOCAL COLOR’: Artistree seeks works in 2D (wall-mounted) and 3D mediums for an upcoming exhibit, by Vermont or New Hampshire residents 18 or older. Work previously exhibited at Artistree or created more than three years ago will not be accepted. Details at artistreevt.org.

Deadline: September 13. Online. $15 for up to three pieces. Info, 457-3500.

‘MY DOG AND THE WOLF’: Radiate Arts Space is sponsoring an unjuried art exhibit about the dog-wolf connection: about people and their dogs, humans’ role in the domestication of the wolf, and why and how it has resulted in such a variety of breeds. Workshops in October and November; celebration in December. Richmond Free Library. Through November 1. Info, mauie@gmavt.net.

THE PEOPLE’S ART SHOW: Montgomery Center for the Arts is seeking submissions to a non-juried, uncensored exhibition celebrating all forms of creativity, diversity and imagination. Submissions must be ready to hang. More info and registration at bit.ly/3Q7d1IM. Deadline: September

Gallery. Through October 18. Info, 479-7069. Studio Place Arts in Barre.

‘ENOUGH SAID? COUNTING MASS SHOOTINGS’: An installation that addresses rampant gun violence in the U.S., featuring artworks by Susan Calza,

17. Online. Free. Info, montgomerycenterarts@ gmail.com.

‘POETRY OF THE ORDINARY’: PhotoPlace Gallery invites submissions of photographs on the theme for an upcoming exhibition; juried by Sarah Suhoff. More info and application at photoplacegallery.com. Deadline: September 11. Online. $39 for the first five images, $6 each additional image. Info, 388-4500.

PUBLIC ART OPPORTUNITIES: Burlington City Arts has issued two requests for qualifications: Artists can apply to create new work for Burlington International Airport’s recently updated terminal and/or for the CityPlace Streetscape Project. Details and application at burlingtoncityarts.org. Deadline: September 22. Online. Info, 865-7166.

‘REFLECTIONS’: Edgewater Gallery on the Green in Middlebury is seeking submissions for an upcoming juried show for emerging artists. Guest jurors are John and Gillian Ross of Gallery Twist in Lexington, Mass. Deadline: October 20. More info at edgewatergallery.com. Online. $15 for three images. Info, 989-7419.

SEEKING GALLERY MEMBERS: Become a member of the Brandon Artists Guild and participate in group and solo exhibitions. Judging criteria include originality, impact, clarity, craftsmanship, consistency of style and quality, presentation and marketability. Apply at brandonartistsguild.org. Online. Through September 11. Free. Info, 247-4956.

SUNDOG POETRY BOOK AWARD: The annual award for a first or second book of poetry is now open for submissions from any Vermont-based poet. The winner’s manuscript will be published through Green Writers Press and receive a cash prize, 50 book copies and promotional support. This year’s final judge is Matthew Olzmann. Deadline: September 30. Details at sundogpoetry.org. Online. $25. Info, hello@sundogpoetry.org.

‘TREES FOR ALL SEASONS’: Artists are invited to submit one or two theme-based works in any medium including photography for an upcoming exhibit at the Jericho Town Hall. Must be able to be hung on a gallery hanger system. Details at jerichovt.org. Deadline: October 6. Online. Info, catherine.mcmains@gmail.com.

VENDING OPPORTUNITY FOR MAKERS & CRAFTSPEOPLE: We’re looking for artists, makers and craftspeople that would like to set up a booth during our 10-year anniversary celebration September 16 and 17. Contact Laz at lazarus@ stonecorral.com for details, and include name/ business name, medium, Instagram/website/ portfolio link, and days of interest. Stone Corral, Richmond. Through September 11. Free. Info, lazarus@stonecorral.com.

‘WHO ARE WE? PIECES OF THE IDENTITY PUZZLE’: November is a time for reflection and introspection. The gallery is seeking artwork depicting your take on identity, whether personal or as a people. All mediums accepted. Deliver work on or before Wednesday, November 8. Register at melmelts@ yahoo.com. The Satellite Gallery, Lyndonville. $20. Info, 229-8317.

painterly colored drawings of domestic scenes; and “Rock Paper Scissor,” stream-of-consciousness graphite drawings of daily life, respectively. Through September 15. Info, hexumgallery@gmail.com. Hexum Gallery in Montpelier.

‘INSIDE OUT: INCARCERATION’: A traveling exhibition of artworks by imprisoned artists that explore the intersections of trauma, addiction, incarceration and reentry. A collaboration of Artists in the WV Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Goddard College’s Reentry Advocates program. Through September 22. Info, 262-6035. T.W. Wood Gallery in Montpelier.

MARJORIE KRAMER: Portrait and landscape paintings by the gallery member. Through October 1. Info, marjkramer@gmail.com. The Front in Montpelier.

PATTY MERIAM: “The Longest Branch,” oil paintings that explore trees and human connections by the Barre-based artist and conservator. Through September 14. Info, 229-6206. North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier.

PREYA HOLLAND: Nature and landscape photography inspired by the beauty of Vermont and New England. Through September 30. Info, 479-0896. Espresso Bueno in Barre.

TRACEY HAMBLETON: “Barre Painted Fresh,” oil paintings of the city’s landmark buildings, granite quarries and hillside houses. Through October 15. Info, 249-3897. Vermont Granite Museum in Barre.

stowe/smuggs

JOE CHIRCHIRILLO: Recent sculptures by the southern Vermont-based artist and curator of the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show. Through September 20. Info, 635-2727. Red Mill Gallery, Vermont Studio Center, in Johnson.

LEGACY COLLECTION: A showcase exhibition of paintings by gallery regulars as well as some newcomers. Through December 23. Info, 644-5100. Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville.

‘A PLACE OF MEMORY’: An exhibition that questions public representation and how cultures and countries define their past through monuments, memorials and sculptural objects, featuring indoor and outdoor artwork by Woody De Othello, Nicholas Galanin, Vanessa German, Deborah Kass and Nyugen E. Smith. Through October 21. Info, 253-8358. The Current in Stowe.

SAMANTHA M. ECKERT: “The Color of the Sky Is Pink,” new sculpture and installation. Closing reception and artist’s talk: Thursday, September 28, 3 p.m. Through September 28. Info, 635-1469. Julian Scott Memorial Gallery, Vermont State University-Johnson.

SCOTT LENHARDT: An exhibition of graphic designs for Burton Snowboards created since 1994 by the Vermont native. Through October 31. Info, 253-9911. Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum in Stowe. ‘TINY FIREWORKS’: Small works on canvas, panel, paper and wood by 14 Vermont-based and affiliated female-identifying artists: Athena Petra Tasiopoulos, Andrea Pearlman, Abigail Synnestvedt, Marjorie Kramer, Tamara Malkin Stuart, Lynne Reed, Louise Von Weiss, Annie Pearlman, Kathy Stark, Marie LePré Grabon, Lois Eby, Wiley Garcia, Mollie Douthit and Arista Alanis. Through September 16. Info, 646-5191781. Minema Gallery in Johnson.

VERMONT WATERCOLOR SOCIETY: Paintings by 20 watercolor artists. Through September 30. Info, 760-7396. Visions of Vermont in Jeffersonville.

mad river valley/waterbury

Samantha M. Eckert and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Through November 30. Info, 224-6827. Susan Calza Gallery in Montpelier.

ERICKSON DÍAZ-CORTÉS AND FIONA MCTEIGUE: Two solo exhibitions: “By Myself With You,” featuring

DENIS VERSWEYVELD: “Still Life,” sculpture, paintings and drawings by the Vermont artist. Through September 30. Info, 244-7801. Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery in Waterbury.

BURLINGTON SHOWS « P.57

ART SHOWS

‘THE MAD CONTEMPORARY’: An exhibition of cartoon artworks by more than a dozen Vermont artists. Through October 1. Info, 496-6682. Mad River Valley Arts Gallery in Waitsfield.

BANNERS ON BRIDGE STREET: Colorful doublesided banners painted with repurposed house paint by nine local artists decorate the street. Through October 15. Info, 496-3639. Waitsfield Village Bridge.

middlebury area

BONNIE BAIRD: “Weathering,” a solo exhibit of land- and skyscape paintings by the Vermont artist and farmer. Through September 15. Info, 877-2173. Northern Daughters in Vergennes.

‘FINDING HOPE WITHIN’: Subtitled “Healing & Transformation Through the Making of Art Within the Carceral System,” an exhibition of artwork created by prisoners. Curated by A Revolutionary Press in partnership with Vermont Works for Women and others. Through October 14. Info, 877-3406. Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh.

MARGARET GERDING: “Capturing the Moments,” new paintings featuring coastal scenes and rural Vermont. Through September 26. Info, 989-7419. Edgewater Gallery on the Green in Middlebury.

‘STELLAR STITCHING: 19TH CENTURY VERMONT

SAMPLERS’: An exhibition of needlework samplers made by young girls in the 19th-century that depict alphabets, numerals and decorative elements. Through January 13. ‘VARIETY

SEW: A SAMPLING OF TEXTILE TOOLS AND DEVICES’: Sewing machines, spinning wheels and myriad sewing paraphernalia from the permanent collection. Through September 30. Info, 388-2117. Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury.

STEVEN & KYLE QUERREY: “The Aegean,” photographs taken on the islands of Hydra and Poros, Greece, by the local artists. Through September 14. Info, info@littleseed.coffee. Little Seed Coffee Roasters in Middlebury.

‘TOSSED’: Nearly 20 works that make use of found, discarded or repurposed materials, curated by museum exhibition designer Ken Pohlman. Through December 10. Info, 443-5007. Middlebury College Museum of Art.

rutland/killington

‘ART IN THE GARDEN, COLOR ME HAPPY’: Gardenthemed artworks by gallery members, with a featured wall of garden and floral art by Arlene O’Connor. Through September 22. Info, 775-0356. Chaffee Art Center in Rutland.

‘THE ART OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS’: An exhibition of sculpture, photography, painting, fabric art and illustration by Kerry Fulani, John Lehet, Amy Mosher, Judith Reilly and Ashley Wolff, respectively, as well as works by Vermont lighting design company Hubbardton Forge. Through October 8. Info, 468-2711. Stone Valley Arts in Poultney.

‘BROOM ART’: The inaugural exhibition in the new gallery features paintings and sculpture made with brooms by artists Warren Kimble, Sandy Mayo and Fran Bull. Through October 31. Info, 558-0874. Conant Square Gallery in Brandon.

NEW MEMBERS EXHIBITION: Fused-glass work by Garrett Sadler, wood crafts by Guy Rossi, landscape paintings by Brian Hewitt, pastel paintings of animals and nature by Lynn Austin, and sculpture and realist paintings by Liza Myers. Through October 31. Info, 247-4956. Brandon Artists Guild.

champlain islands/ northwest

‘HEARTFELT VESSELS FOR PEACE: A SHOW OF CLAY’: Unique pieces by artisans from Across the Grain Pottery Studio in South Hero. Includes silent auction to benefit UNICEF and the

CHAMPLAIN ISLANDS/NORTHWEST SHOWS » P.60

Vermont Community Foundation’s Flood Response and Recovery Fund. Through September 15. Info, 734-7448. Grand Isle Art Works.

TINA & TODD LOGAN: Acrylic paintings and 3D works, respectively, by the married artists. Through October 1. Info, 308-4230. Off the Rails at One Federal in St. Albans.

upper valley

ALINA PEREZ & AREL LISETTE: “Living Proof,” charcoal and pastel drawings that address the oscillation of health and illness, pain and resurrection. Through September 30. Info, 347-264-4808. Kishka Gallery & Library in White River Junction.

KUMARI PATRICIA YOUNCE: Landscape paintings in a sensory relationship with place and people. Artist talk: Friday, September 29, 6 p.m. Through October 28. Info, 738-0166. Jai Studios Gallery and Gifts in Windsor.

‘SANCTUARY’: A group exhibition of prints that address the theme by 15 studio members and friends. Through October 20. Info, 295-5901. Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction.

SUSAN SMEREKA: “Family,” collaged prints by the Burlington artist. Through September 30. Info, 603-443-3017. Scavenger Gallery in White River Junction.

‘VERMONT FEMALE FARMERS’: Forty-five photographs by Plymouth-based JuanCarlos González that focus on the impactful contributions that women farmers are making to the state’s culture, identity and economy. Through October 31. Info, 457-2355.

Carriage Barn Visitor Center, Marsh-BillingsRockefeller National Historic Park, in Woodstock.

WILLIAM B. HOYT: “Moments Noticed,” landscape paintings in oil by the Vermont artist. Through September 23. Info, 457-3500. Artistree Community Arts Center Theatre & Gallery in South Pomfret.

northeast kingdom

ANN YOUNG: Figurative paintings by the Vermont artist. Through September 30. Info, oliveylin1@gmail. com. 3rd Floor Gallery in Hardwick.

ANNE TAYLOR DAVIS: “Wonderland,” paintings and drawings, old and very new. Through September 24. Info, 533-2000. Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro.

‘BEES ON PEAS & OTHER OBSERVATIONS IN THE GARDEN’: A group exhibition of artworks featuring all things garden-related. Through September 9. Info, 334-1966. MAC Center for the Arts Gallery in Newport.

ISA OEHRY: “Looking Out,” paintings of animals. Through September 27. Info, 525-3366. Parker Pie in West Glover.

MICHAEL ROOSEVELT: “A Life in Print,” fine-art prints, linocuts and engravings. Through September 30.

Info, 748-0158. Northeast Kingdom Artisans Guild Backroom Gallery in St. Johnsbury.

PHILIP HERBISON: “Water in Motion” and “Assemblages,” photographs of large bodies of water, and wood sculptures using the scraps of other works, respectively. Through December 31. Info, 748-2600. Catamount Arts Fried Family Gallery DTWN in St. Johnsbury.

TODD DEPERNO: “Beef Quirky,” graphically stylized paintings depicting the obvious. Through September 6. Info, 229-8317. The Satellite Gallery in Lyndonville.

‘WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND’: An exhibition of objects that explores the practical, spiritual and ecstatic human relationship to wheels and what they enable. Through May 31. Info, 626-4409. The Museum of Everyday Life in Glover.

brattleboro/okemo valley

‘GLASSTASTIC’: Glass creatures dreamed up by children in grades K-6, brought to 3D life by glass artists, and situated in a habitat designed by Cynthia Parker-Houghton. ‘PRIDE 1983’: Photographs, artifacts and audio recordings that explore the origins and legacy of Burlington’s first Pride celebration. A production of the Pride Center of Vermont and Vermont Folklife, curated by Margaret Tamulonis.

ALEX EGAN: “Drawing Room,” a series of paintings that make up an imaginary house. ANINA MAJOR: “I Land Therefore I Am,” ceramic sculptures and other objects that explore self and place, belonging and identity, by the Bahamas-born artist. AURORA

ROBSON: “Human Nature Walk,” an immersive site-specific installation inspired by the natural forms of the Connecticut River and fashioned from plastic debris intercepted from the waste stream. Visitors are invited to contribute clean plastic bottle caps in designated sections of the installation.

HANNAH MORRIS: “Movable Objects,” narrative multimedia paintings in the gallery’s front windows.

LELA JAACKS: Outdoor abstract sculptures by the Vermont artist. ROBERLEY BELL: “Where Things Set,” an installation of distinct but related sculptures and drawings. Through October 9. Info, 257-0124. Brattleboro Museum & Art Center.

ANDY WARHOL: “Small Is Beautiful,” 100 of the artist’s smaller-format paintings, from the Hall collection. RON GORCHOV: A 50-year survey of the American abstract artist’s work, featuring shaped canvases from the 1970s to large-scale paintings in his last years. SUSAN ROTHENBERG: Nearly 30 figurative, gestural paintings by the late American artist from throughout her career. Weekends only; reservation required. Through November 26. Info, info@hallartfoundation.org. Hall Art Foundation in Reading.

FRAN BULL: “The Art Life,” paintings, prints and sculpture by the Vermont artist. Through October 15. Info, 251-8290. Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts in Brattleboro.

KIM GRALL & KATHLEEN ZIMMERMAN: “One Artist Bound to Earth,” mixed-media encaustics on paper, birch bark and gourds; and “Solo Spotlight,” serigraph and intaglio prints, respectively. Through October

14. LEN EMERY: An exhibition of aerial, journalistic and fine art photography by the latest member of the gallery’s Working Artist Program. Through September 29. Info, 289-0104. Canal Street Art Gallery in Bellows Falls.

PHOTOGRAPHY: FOUR PERSPECTIVES: An exhibition of images in different styles and subject matter by Al Karevy, Davida Carta, Joshua Farr and Vaune Trachtman, members of the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro. Through November 12. Info, 451-0053. Next Stage Arts Project in Putney.

manchester/bennington

‘THE RED DRESS’: A touring project, conceived by British artist Kirstie Macleod, that provides an artistic platform for women around the world, many of whom are vulnerable and live in poverty, to tell their personal stories through embroidery.

BARBARA ISHIKURA & SAM FIELDS: “Frippery, Finery, Frills: Works in Conversation,” an exhibition of paintings and mixed-media sculptures, respectively, that explore intimacy in women’s lives. Through September 24. Info, 362-1405. Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester.

‘A HISTORY OF BENNINGTON’: An exhibition of artifacts that invites viewers to examine how history informs and affects our lives. Through December 31.

‘FOR THE LOVE OF VERMONT: THE LYMAN ORTON COLLECTION’: More than 200 pieces of art, primarily from the 1920s to 1960, acquired by the founder of the Vermont Country Store. Simultaneously exhibited at the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester. Through November 5. Info, 447-1571. Bennington Museum.

‘FOR THE LOVE OF VERMONT: THE LYMAN ORTON COLLECTION’: More than 200 works of art that capture Vermont’s unique character, people, traditions and landscape prior to the 1970s from the collection of the Vermont Country Store proprietor. Also displayed at Bennington Museum. Through November 5. Info, 362-1405. Yester House Galleries, Southern Vermont Arts Center, in Manchester.

NORTH BENNINGTON OUTDOOR SCULPTURE SHOW: An outdoor exhibition featuring 77 sculptures by 59 artists, curated by Joe Chirchirillo. Through November 12. Info, nbossvt@gmail.com. Various Bennington locations.

randolph/royalton

ASTRO DAN DAN: “Manufactured Phonies,” a show of prints and paintings by the Hanover, N.H.-based artist, aka Daniel Matthews. Through September 30. Info, 889-9404. Tunbridge Public Library.

CAROLYN EGELI & CHRIS WILSON: Landscape oil paintings and figurative sculptures, respectively.

Want to memorialize a loved one?

Through November 5. Info, 728-9878. Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph.

LINDA BLACKERBY & BETTE ANN LIBBY: Abstract paintings and mixed-media mosaic works, respectively. Through October 1. Info, 279-5048. ART, etc. in Randolph.

MARK ROSALBO: “The Bad Thing,” recent paintings by the local artist. Through October 1. Info, markrosalbo@gmail.com. The People’s Gallery in Randolph.

‘NO PLACE LIKE HERE: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM VERMONT, PAST AND PRESENT’: Vermont photographs, 1978-98 by Peter Moriarty, main gallery; and Farm Security Administration photographs of Vermont 1936-43, center gallery. Through October 29. Info, 767-9670. BigTown Gallery in Rochester.

TANYA LIBBY: Detailed paintings from nature. Through October 14. Info, 889-3525. The Tunbridge General Store Gallery.

outside vermont

‘PORTABLE UNIVERSE: THOUGHT AND SPLENDOUR OF INDIGENOUS COLOMBIA’: Nearly 400 artworks, including jewelry, masks, effigies, textiles and more, dating from about 1500 BC to the present. Through October 1. ‘THE POP OF LIFE!’: An exhibition of 70 iconic pop-art works from the museum’s collection. Through March 24. DEMPSEY BOB: “Wolves,” a retrospective of totem poles, sculptures and masks by the Canadian master carver. Through September 10. Info, 514-285-2000. Montréal Museum of Fine Arts.

‘HOMECOMING: DOMESTICITY AND KINSHIP IN GLOBAL AFRICAN ART’: More than 75 works drawn from the museum’s collection of African and African diaspora art that emphasize the role of women artists and feminine aesthetics. Through May 25. KENT MONKMAN: “The Great Mystery,” four new paintings by the Cree artist along with five works in the museum’s collection that inspired them, by Hannes Beckmann, T.C. Cannon, Cyrus Edwin Dallin, Mark Rothko and Fritz Scholder. Through December 9. Info, 603-646-2808. Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H.

LINDA ROESCH: “A Lifetime of Unfinished Discovery,” paintings in ink and watercolor by the local artist. Through September 23. Info, 603-448-3117. AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H.

ROBERT BURCHESS: “Through a Glass Darkly: Faces and Figures,” drawings by the Vermont artist. Through September 30. Info, robertburchess@gmail. com. Howe Library in Hanover, N.H. ➆

CHAMPLAIN ISLANDS/NORTHWEST SHOWS « P.59

representing contemporary emerging and established artists

Get Ready to Jam!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER

Vermont Tech Jam is an annual career and tech expo that showcases some of Vermont’s most innovative companies. The popular event attracts hundreds of job seekers, career changers, tech professionals, college students, enthusiasts and anyone eager to learn from and connect with Vermont companies.

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION Lab-grown meat in Vermont?

Vermont loves its farms and its farmers. Will it also embrace meat that’s been grown in a lab? The USDA recently approved the production and sale of “cell-cultivated chicken.” What kinds of challenges and opportunities does no-slaughter meat present? Dr. Rachael Floreani and Irfan Tahir, two Vermont-based pioneers in the rapidly evolving field of cellular agriculture, explore those questions in a keynote conversation, moderated by Seven Days’ deputy publisher Cathy Resmer.

HAIL, HAIL, ROCK AND ROLL

their debut, Get Out the Lotion, which was recorded in 2010 in a garage in Gainesville, Fla., at former guitarist NEIL DUNCAN’s house.

“This record is a culmination of a lot of things, really,” Weiner said. One was “Tough Cookies,” the quarantine-era broadcast series in which he appeared at home on his piano, putting together what he dubbed a “soul music variety show.”

“Doing ‘Tough Cookies’ was such a big deal for me,” he said. “Not only because it was a way to keep interacting with fans, but it made me do something I hadn’t had time to do in years: practice.”

The constant cycle of touring with Low Cut Connie gave Weiner precious little time to play his piano when he wasn’t onstage. On “Tough Cookies,” he ran through a wide swath of covers, from PRINCE’s “Little Red Corvette” to “The Message” by GRANDMASTER FLASH AND THE FURIOUS FIVE.

“It was so cool to learn from those songs and see how other people write music. I learned a lot about writing,” Weiner said. “And, yeah, it probably informed how I wrote on Art Dealers. But I don’t really think too much about my songwriting. I just do it. It’s like your sex life: It’s not to be discussed too freely.”

Low Cut Connie’s Adam Weiner on His Band’s New Album and Documentary

As a music journalist, I get a little worn out quoting touring bands on how they feel about coming to Vermont. To be fair, it’s the nature of the promotion game. But it gets tiresome listening to musicians (often disingenuously) say how much they enjoy their little stopover gig between New York and Montréal. So it’s refreshing to encounter an artist who really does have a special place in their heart for the Green Mountains.

“Burlington? Man, let me tell you something … I fucking love that town,” ADAM WEINER told me by phone. The front person for Philadelphia rock and roll outfit LOW CUT CONNIE didn’t try to hide his admiration as he talked about his band’s upcoming show on Saturday, September 9, at the Higher Ground Ballroom in South Burlington. “It’s one of my absolute favorite places to play in the world.”

Weiner has the receipts to back up the claim. Between Waking Windows appearances, shows at the late, great ArtsRiot and playing Grand Point

North in 2017, he’s brought the various iterations of his band to Vermont time and again.

I first caught Weiner and company about a decade ago when they played at the Monkey House in Winooski. It was as electric and invigorating a rock show as I’ve ever seen, in a club or an arena.

Low Cut Connie play the classic breed of rock and roll with a hint of indie sleaze — think

JERRY LEE LEWIS meets the STROKES

The often-revolving lineup essentially serves as a vehicle for Weiner’s songs.

Live, Weiner takes the band to another level, pounding his piano with violent, sexual energy as he leaps atop it to engage the crowd, all flopping hair and wildly waving limbs, like a televangelist on coke. That Monkey show stuck with me and many other Vermont fans. I was surprised to discover, however, that it wasn’t actually Low Cut Connie’s first in-state appearance.

“We played the Monkey over 10 years ago to maybe six people,” Weiner recalled

BY

with a laugh. “I might be exaggerating the numbers, to be honest.”

Fortunately, he stuck with it, and the band quickly became a local favorite.

Low Cut Connie’s Higher Ground show will feel like a home-away-from-home gig — one to which they won’t show up empty handed. Their new album, Art Dealers, drops the day before the show.

The band’s last studio e ort, 2020’s Private Lives, was a double album recorded over months at multiple studios. By contrast, Art Dealers sees the group return to its DIY roots.

“Doing [Private Lives] that way made a huge mess for three years,” Weiner said. “And then I had to figure out what the hell to do with it. So when it came time to cut Art Dealers, I thought, Shit, I know how to do this. I’ve got a great band, some good songs. Let’s knock this out in a week.”

True to his word, Weiner and his band recorded the basic tracks for the record in three days. It’s the quickest, dirtiest record Low Cut Connie have made since

It’s a big year for Weiner and Low Cut Connie. He has codirected a documentary, also called Art Dealers, that chronicles a run of the band’s shows in 2022 at New York City’s Sony Hall and Blue Note, intercut with footage covering Low Cut Connie’s entire history. A testament to the band’s devotion to live rock and roll, the film will premiere at the Richmond International Film Festival in Virginia on September 30, followed by screenings closer to Weiner’s home base in Philadelphia and Asbury Park, N.J.

“We’ve been around for over 12 years now,” Weiner said. “It’s been like running at 80 miles per hour and never stopping, even during the pandemic. I don’t really do the reflection thing too much. I’m always on to the next thing. But I’m really, really proud of this film.”

As for the new record, Weiner couldn’t think of a better town in which to celebrate its release than Burlington.

“There are plenty of audiences full of people who want to look cool,” he said. “But some people are more interested in feeling good than worrying about looking cool, and Burlington is like that. I feel like, when I come to town, I can get everybody to loosen up and feel good. That’s what I do — that’s my job.”

Cheers to Weiner and Low Cut Connie for making Vermonters feel good, even all those years ago when there were only six of us in the Monkey.

I FEEL LIKE, WHEN I COME TO TOWN, I CAN GET EVERYBODY TO LOOSEN UP AND FEEL GOOD. THAT'S WHAT I DO — THAT'S MY JOB.

ADAM WEINER

Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie at ArtsRiot in 2017

On the Beat

Vermonters are still picking up the pieces after July’s catastrophic flooding. The state’s musical community has been heavily involved in relief e orts and fundraising, from PHISH’s pair of sold-out benefit shows last month at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, which raised $3.5 million; to the “Hug Your Farmer: Hard Rain” all-star event going down at the Flynn Main Stage in Burlington on Thursday, September 7.

A slew of smaller fundraisers continue to happen, too, including one this weekend on the Statehouse lawn in Montpelier.

The Central Vermont Flood Relief Benefit Concert kicks o on Saturday, September 9, at 3 p.m. Headlined by self-described “psychotropical” jazz act GUAGUA, indie soul duo DWIGHT + NICOLE, blues guitarist DAVE KELLER, and Burlington jazz stalwarts the RAY VEGA QUINTET, the fest raises money for the Montpelier Strong Recovery Fund and the Barre Community Relief Fund. Attendees can get fare from food trucks and hear talks from members of the governor’s o ce on the challenges facing flood-a ected areas and ways to help. For tickets and more information, visit sevendaystickets.com.

The following week, on Sunday, September 17, the University of Vermont Recital Hall in Burlington welcomes “A

Listening In

(Spotify mix of local jams)

studios, homes and equipment needed to maintain their livelihood.

“One reason Vermont thrives is because of the value its citizens place in the arts and the great artists who live here,” UVM School of the Arts director KELLEY HELMSTUTLER DI DIO wrote in a press release. With the concert, she continued, “We’re not just showcasing the incredible talents of our local artists, but we’re also fostering a sense of unity and resilience that defines our creative community.” For more information, visit vermontartscouncil.org.

New singles from Vermont artists! Montpelier singer-songwriter JIM GALLAGHER recently dropped “In a Downward Spiral” on his YouTube page. The ponderous indie rock slow jam and the other six tunes on the page make up a sort of uno cial EP for Gallagher, who describes himself as a “shy, behind-closeddoors composer/writer/singer/recorder.”

1. "Love Wave" by Tom Pearo, Michael Crain

SALE EXTENDED THROUGH 9/14

2. "___ (Line)" by Cam Gilmour

3. "Right Before the Last Waves Took Vestris" by Greg Freeman

2638 Ethan Allen Hwy New Haven, VT 05472 802-453-5382 •

Hours: Mon-Sat 8-5 Sun 8-4 greenhavengardensandnursery.com

4. "Sitting Waiting Watching" by Robber Robber

5. "Family Man" by THUS LOVE

Joyful Noise,” hosted by the VERMONT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and featuring performances by cellist ZOË KEATING, jazz act BIRDCODE, and composers MATT LAROCCA and TOM TONER, among many others. All proceeds from the event go to the Vermont Arts Council’s flood relief grants, which serve as a lifeline for Vermont artists, many of whom lost

Eye on the Scene

Last week’s live music highlights from photographer Luke Awtry BIRDSONG MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL, MIDDLETOWN SPRINGS, SEPTEMBER 1: is was my second year attending BirdSong, an off-grid music fest held in Middletown Springs. anks to the thoughtfulness of founder CAMERON GILMOUR, BirdSong has become responsibly and sustainably larger in each of its four years, yet there remains an innocence to it. It’s safe, supportive and inclusive, as exemplified by each artist showcased. What took me most by surprise was the solo set by Brooklyn-based artist MEI SEMONES. Semones seamlessly blends the fretboard agility of a seasoned jazz guitarist with the grungy angst of a ’90s riot grrrl and the sweetness of an indie pop darling. e music is dynamic, effortlessly switching between genres and interspersed with solo jazz guitar sections that require high levels of dexterity and precision. She even writes lyrics and sings bilingually in English and Japanese. Arigato to Semones, BirdSong and all those involved for a wonderful weekend.

Continuing her recent flurry of activity, Burlington-based rapper OMEGA JADE is back with a new single. “Won’t Back Down feat. SINNN” is the latest song the poet and MC has dropped in the past three months, following “Make a Sound” and “Defend Ya Self.” Produced by local heavyweight NASTEE, the track follows the classic hip-hop, boom-bap style that Jade has made her calling card. Check it out at omegajade.bandcamp.com. ➆

On the Air

Where to tune in to Vermont music this week:

“WAVE CAVE RADIO SHOW,” Wednesday, September 6, 2 p.m., on 105.9 the Radiator: DJS FLYWLKER and GINGERVITUS spin the best of local and nonlocal hip-hop.

“ROCKET SHOP RADIO HOUR,” Wednesday, September 6, 8 p.m., on 105.9 the Radiator: Host TOM PROCTOR plays selections of local music.

“THE SOUNDS OF BURLINGTON,” ursday, September 7, 9 p.m., at wbkm.org: Host TIM LEWIS plays local and nonlocal hip-hop.

“CULTURAL BUNKER,” Friday, September 8, 7 p.m., on 90.1 WRUV: Host MELO GRANT plays local and nonlocal hip-hop.

“ACOUSTIC HARMONY,” Saturday, September 9, 4 p.m., on 91.1 WGDR: Host MARK MICHAELIS plays folk and Americana music with an emphasis on Vermont artists.

“LOCAL MUSIC SPOTLIGHT,” Sunday, September 10, 6:45 p.m., on 104.7 WNCS the Point: e station plays new music from Vermont artists.

“ALL THE TRADITIONS,” Sunday, September 10, 7 p.m., on Vermont Public: Host ROBERT RESNIK plays an assortment of folk music with a focus on Vermont artists.

6. "Country Blues - live 9C, NYC 2002" by Neil Cleary

12V-greenhaven090623.indd 1 9/5/23 4:38 PM

7. "Cold" by Asah Mack, Zesty

1. “LOVE WAVE” by Tom Pearo, Michael Crain

2. “___ (LINE)” by Cam Gilmour

3. “RIGHT BEFORE THE LAST WAVES TOOK VESTRIS” by Greg Freeman

4. “SITTING WAITING WATCHING” by Robber Robber

5. “FAMILY MAN” by THUS LOVE

6. “COUNTRY BLUES - LIVE AT 9C, NYC 2002” by Neil Cleary

7. “COLD” by Asah Mack, Zesty Scan to listen sevendaysvt. com/playlist

CLUB DATES

live music

WED.6

Bluegrass & BBQ (bluegrass) at Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Brunch, Milk St, Rangus (punk) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 8 p.m. $10/$20.

Collin Craig & Friends (blues) at American Flatbread Burlington Hearth, 5:30 p.m. Free.

Doom Service, Warped Floors, the Path, Vallory Falls (punk) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. $10/$15.

Eagle Mountain Brass Quintet (jazz) at Blue Paddle Bistro, South Hero, 5:30 p.m. Free.

Jazz Jam Sessions with Randal Pierce (jazz) at the 126, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

Jazz Night with Ray Vega (jazz) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

Lazy Bird (jam) at Red Square, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

Live Jazz (jazz) at Leunig’s Bistro & Café, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Luis Betancourt (singer-songwriter) at Two Heroes Brewery Public House, South Hero, 6 p.m. Free.

Ryan Sweezey (singer-songwriter) at 14th Star Brewing, St. Albans, 6 p.m. Free.

Saint Silva, Matthew Delligatti (electronic, country) at the Phoenix, Waterbury, 7 p.m. $10.

Wednesday Night Dead (Grateful Dead covers) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. $5.

Willverine (electronic) at the Wallflower Collective, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. Free.

THU.7

AliT (singer-songwriter) at the Tap Room at Switchback Brewing, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

Austin Lucas, Rangus, RVR (singer-songwriter) at Monkey House, Winooski, 7:45 p.m. $10/$15.

Bettenroo (folk) at Black Flannel Brewing & Distilling, Essex, 6 p.m. Free.

Duke Aeroplane & the Inflatable Gator Band (R&B) at Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

Grace Palmer and Socializing for Introverts (rock) at Red Square, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

Jazz with Alex Stewart and Friends (jazz) at the 126, Burlington, 8:30 p.m.

Mama Tried (folk) at Blue Paddle Bistro, South Hero, 5:30 p.m. Free. Nobby Reed Project (R&B, swing) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 6 p.m. Free.

Ramon Chicharron (folk) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 8 p.m. $10/$12.

Scott Tournet (rock) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7 p.m. $18/$23.

Stop Light Observations (indie pop) at Club Metronome, Burlington, 7 p.m. $10/$20.

Tom Gershwin (jazz) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Globe Rock

Burlington expat and University of Vermont alum Avi Salloway is no prodigal son. A cofounder of former local folk darlings Avi & Celia — which morphed into the rock band Hey Mama after the duo moved to Boston in 2008 — Salloway always has something new to show o whenever he returns to his old stomping grounds. This time it’s a new LP titled Trying to Get Free with his art-rock project BILLY WYLDER. The record is full of Talking Heads-meets-Tuareg music vibes that Salloway gleaned from his time playing with Nigerian guitar phenom Bombino. The band celebrates the album with a release show on Saturday, September 9, at Zenbarn in Waterbury Center; Burlington singer-songwriter MARCIE HERNANDEZ opens. Or catch Billy Wylder on Friday, September 8, at a South End Art Hop block party at RIVEN Studio in Burlington, also featuring MAL MAÏZ, SOUL PORPOISE and RAMON CHICHARRON

Troy Millette (folk) at American Flatbread Stowe, 6 p.m. Free.

Warm Water Quintet, Xen Miles (jazz) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 9 p.m. $8/$10.

Wonderkid (rock) at Red Square, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

FRI.8

Armanodillo, Neato, Flint & Steale (indie rock) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. $10/$15.

Bob Gagnon (jazz) at Bleu Northeast Kitchen, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

CombustOmatics (rock) at Whammy Bar, Calais, 7 p.m. Free.

Dave Mitchell’s Blues Revue (blues) at Red Square, Burlington, 2 p.m. Free. Dead Winter Carpenters (Americana) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 8 p.m. $10/$15.

Everyone Orchestra (jam) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 8 p.m. $22.

George Nostrand (folk) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 6 p.m. Free.

Justin Levinson (singer-songwriter) at Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

King Me (covers) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 5 p.m. Free.

Lawson’s Finest Liquids Birthday Bash (bluegrass) at Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Waitsfield, 5 p.m. Free.

Mal Maïz ArtHop Block Party (rock, soul, folk, pop) at RIVEN Studio, Burlington, 5 p.m. Free.

Metal Night with Last Pages, Short Change, Reverse the Grin (metal) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

Point Taken (jazz) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

Ray’s Used Cars (Americana) at Arrowhead Lodge, Milton, 7 p.m. Free. Red River North (country, Americana) at Red Square, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Rushmore (folk) at Jericho Café & Tavern, 7 p.m. Free.

Ryan Sweezey (pop) at 1st Republic Brewing, Essex, 6 p.m. Free.

e Steppes (psych rock) at Lost Nation Brewing, Morrisville, 9 p.m. $10.

Sticks & Stones (covers) at the Old Post, South Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

Taylor Ashton, Cricket Blue (folk) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7 p.m. $15/$18.

Tom Bisson (singer-songwriter) at Stone’s row Pizza, Richmond, 6 p.m. Free.

Waves of Adrenaline (folk) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 7 p.m. $10.

SAT.9

AliT (pop) at Bleu Northeast Kitchen, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Billy Wylder, Marcie Hernandez (indie rock, folk) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. $12/$15.

Diamond Special (rock) at Gusto’s, Barre, 9 p.m. Free.

e Dimmer Triplets (blues, folk) at Jericho Café & Tavern, 7 p.m. Free.

e Dirty Looks (covers) at 14th Star Brewing, St. Albans, 6 p.m. Free.

Donna under (covers) at the Den at Harry’s Hardware, Cabot, 7 p.m. Free. Dupont & Deluca (folk) at Wild Hart Distillery and Tasting Room, Shelburne, noon. Free.

Everyone Orchestra (jam) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 8 p.m. $22.

Forged From the Ashes (metal) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

JerBorn (acoustic) at 1st Republic Brewing, Essex, 6 p.m. Free.

Jeremy Harple (singer-songwriter) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 6 p.m. Free.

Last Kid Picked (covers) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 9 p.m. Free.

Left Eye Jump (blues) at Red Square, Burlington, 2 p.m. Free.

Low Cut Connie, Fantastic Cat (rock) at Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 8 p.m. $25/$29.

Mal Maïz ArtHop Block Party (rock, soul, folk, pop) at RIVEN Studio, Burlington, 5 p.m. Free.

FRI.8 & SAT.9 // BILLY WYLDER [INDIE]

MENDICA, to be isaac., Tyler Serrani, Pleasant Boys, Flywlkr (electronic) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. $10/$15.

Pile, Life in Vacuum, Phantom Suns (indie rock) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7 p.m. $16/$18.

Raised by Hippies (folk) at Red Square, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Ryan Sweezey (pop) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 5 p.m. Free.

Sarah Bell (singer-songwriter) at Whammy Bar, Calais, 7 p.m. Free.

Sunbeam (folk) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 7 p.m. $10/$15.

Thea Wren Band (pop, soul) at Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

WAREWARE (African fusion) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 7 p.m. Free.

SUN.10

Corner Junction (bluegrass) at 14th Star Brewing, St. Albans, 3 p.m. Free.

Erin Cassels-Brown (singer-songwriter) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 1 p.m. Free.

Ondara, Katacombs (indie rock) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $25/$30.

Ryan Sweezey (pop) at Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Waitsfield, 3 p.m. Free.

Sunday Brunch Tunes (singersongwriter) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 10 a.m.

MON.11

Speedy Ortiz, Washer, Rebeca Ryskalzyk (indie rock) at Monkey House, Winooski, 8 p.m. $16/$18.

TUE.12

Big Easy Tuesdays with Back Porch Revival (jazz) at the 126, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

Bluegrass Jam (bluegrass) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 7 p.m. Free.

Forest Station (bluegrass) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $5/$10.

Honky Tonk Tuesday with John Abair, John Freeburn Band (country) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 9 p.m. $10.

Justin LaPoint (singer-songwriter) at Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Waitsfield, 5 p.m. Free.

Southern Culture on the Skids, the Get Down (rock) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7 p.m. $20/$25.

Superchunk, Cable Ties (indie rock) at Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $25/$29.

WED.13

Bettenroo Duo (folk) at Blue Paddle Bistro, South Hero, 5:30 p.m. Free.

Bluegrass & BBQ (bluegrass) at Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Hannah Frances, Vega, Vehicle (singer-songwriter) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. $10/$12.

The Human Rights, Soulstice, Satta Sound (reggae) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7 p.m. $12/$15.

Jazz Jam Sessions with Randal Pierce (jazz) at the 126, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

Jazz Night with Ray Vega (jazz) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

Lazy Bird (jam) at Red Square, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

Live Jazz (jazz) at Leunig’s Bistro & Café, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Natalie Cressman and Ian Faquini (folk) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 7 p.m. $15/$25.

The Rustics (folk) at American Flatbread Burlington Hearth, 5:30 p.m. Free.

Ryan Hanson (acoustic) at 14th Star Brewing, St. Albans, 6 p.m. Free.

Wednesday Night Dead (Grateful Dead covers) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. $5.

Willverine (electronic) at the Wallflower Collective, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. Free.

djs

WED.6

DJ CRE8 (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 11:30 p.m. Free.

THU.7

DJ Chaston (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

DJ Two Sev (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 11 p.m. Free.

Mi Yard Reggae Night with DJ Big Dog (reggae and dancehall) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 9:30 p.m. Free.

Vinyl Night with Ken (DJ) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 6 p.m. Free.

FRI.8

Art Hop at Switchback with DJ Love

Doctor (DJ) at Switchback Brewing, Burlington, 5 p.m.

Battle of the Decades with DJs Svpply and JFier (DJ) at Club Metronome, Burlington, 10 p.m. $5.

DJ 2Rivers (DJ) at Gusto’s, Barre, 9 p.m. Free.

DJ Craig Mitchell (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

DJ Kata (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

DJ Taka (DJ) at Light Club Lamp Shop, Burlington, 11 p.m. $10/$15.

SAT.9

Blanchface (DJ) at Manhattan Pizza & Pub, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

Bristol (DJ) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. Free.

DJ A-Ra$ (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, midnight. Free.

DJ Raul (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

DJ Taka (DJ) at Light Club Lamp Shop, Burlington, 11 p.m. $10/$15.

Matt Payne (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

Molly Mood (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

SUN.10

Burly Bears Presents: Pride Island (Pride Day) at Red Square, Burlington, 4 p.m. Free.

JP Black (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 11 p.m. Free.

MON.11

Memery (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

TUE.12

Local Dork (DJ) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

WED.13

DJ CRE8 (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 11:30 p.m. Free.

open mics & jams

WED.6

Irish Sessions (Celtic, open mic) at Light Club Lamp Shop, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

Open Mic (open mic) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

Open Mic with Danny Lang (open mic) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 7 p.m. Free.

THU.7

Open Mic with Artie (open mic) at Whammy Bar, Calais, 7 p.m. Free.

MON.11

Open Mic (open mic) at Stone Corral, Richmond, 7 p.m. Free.

Open Mic Night (open mic) at Despacito, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

WED.13

Irish Sessions (Celtic, open mic) at Light Club Lamp Shop, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

Open Mic (open mic) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

Open Mic with Danny Lang (open mic) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 7 p.m. Free.

comedy

WED.6

David Cross, Sean Patton (comedy) at Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 7 p.m. $40/$43.

Roar! Showcase (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. $5. Standup Comedy Open Mic (comedy open mic) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 8:30 p.m.

THU.7

Ben Bailey, Stephen Donovan (comedy) at Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 8 p.m. $35/$40.

Comedy Wolf: Open Mic (comedy) at Radio Bean, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Pride Week: Drama Queen (drag) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 8:45 p.m. $15.

FRI.8

The International Sustainable Comedy Music & Variety Showcase (comedy) at the Underground, Randolph, 7:30 p.m. $14. Info, 431-6267. Raanan Hershberg (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. $25.

SAT.9

Raanan Hershberg (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. $25.

MON.11

Comedy Open Mic (comedy open mic) at the 126, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

WED.13

On the Spot: Spontaneous Standup (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Standup Comedy Open Mic (comedy open mic) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 8:30 p.m.

trivia, karaoke, etc.

WED.6

4Qs Trivia Night (trivia) at Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, 6 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at Stone Corral, Richmond, 7 p.m. Free.

Venetian Trivia Night (trivia) at Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

THU.7

Karaoke Night (karaoke) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. Free.

Karaoke Night (karaoke) at Gusto’s, Barre, 8 p.m. Free.

Pride Week: Musical Theater SingAlong (karaoke) at Happy Place Café, Burlington, 5:30 p.m. Free.

Trivia (trivia) at Highland Lodge, Greensboro, 7 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at 1st Republic Brewing, Essex, 6 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at McGillicuddy’s Five Corners, Essex Junction, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Trivia Thursday (trivia) at Spanked Puppy Pub, Colchester, 7 p.m. Free.

FRI.8

Karoke with DJ Big T (karaoke) at McKee’s Pub & Grill, Winooski, 9 p.m. Free.

Pride Ball (drag) at Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $20/$25.

SAT.9

Rabble-Rouser Trivia Night! (trivia) at Rabble-Rouser Chocolate & Craft, Montpelier, 7 p.m. $5.

SUN.10

Sunday Funday (games) at 1st Republic Brewing, Essex, noon. Free.

Venetian Karaoke (karaoke) at Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

MON.11

Trivia Monday with Top Hat Entertainment (trivia) at McKee’s Pub & Grill, Winooski, 7-9 p.m. Free.

Trivia with Craig Mitchell (trivia) at Monkey House, Winooski, 7 p.m. Free.

TUE.12

Karaoke hosted by Motorcade (karaoke) at Manhattan Pizza & Pub, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

Taproom Trivia (trivia) at 14th Star Brewing, St. Albans, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at the Depot, St. Albans, 7 p.m. Free.

Trivia Tuesday (trivia) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 7 p.m. Free.

Tuesday Trivia (trivia) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

WED.13

4Qs Trivia Night (trivia) at Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, 6 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at Stone Corral, Richmond, 7 p.m. Free.

Venetian Trivia Night (trivia) at Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free. ➆

REVIEW this music+nightlife

Speedy Ortiz, Rabbit Rabbit

(CARPARK RECORDS, CD, DIGITAL, VINYL)

Halfway through a verse on “Cry Cry Cry,” the fifth track on the new Speedy Ortiz album, Rabbit Rabbit, singer-songwriter and guitarist Sadie Dupuis drops the kind of lyric that can stop you dead in your tracks.

“I know my way ’round the stats on pain,” Dupuis sings in a deceptive, almost cloyingly sweet tone, “but I never stop and feel it. / Cut my hand, make a blood pact, / Then when I bite my tongue I’ll mean it.”

A shift from emotional circumspection to opening the floodgates is a running theme on Rabbit Rabbit Dupuis, who has garnered praise for her band’s punk-meets-indie-pop sound and her detailed, confessional lyrics, has never been a closed book. Yet Speedy Ortiz reach new levels of complexity on their fourth record.

The Philadelphia-via-Northampton, Mass., outfit, which formed in 2011 as a backing band for Dupuis’ solo songs,

has perfected the art of making the sophisticated sound simple. Speedy Ortiz songs shift in time, feature strange key changes and cleverly dynamic rhythmic pushes, and generally eschew all the tried-and-true tropes of indie guitar rock. Yet, for all the advanced tools on display, the band also pumps out the anthems.

“You SO2” is chockfull of weirdness and hairpin-turn tempo changes, and it’s simultaneously ready to be blasted out of a speeding car with the windows down. “Scabs” picks up that energy and runs with it, sounding like the wet dream of ’80s college radio rock meeting the alt-rock of the “120 Minutes” era.

“Who do you wanna prove you’re a big dog to?” Dupuis wonders on the chorus. “You turn the screw, but you’re using the wrong size tool.”

Standing up to power abusers is a central thread in Dupuis’ writing on Rabbit Rabbit. In a recent interview with New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, Dupuis revealed that she was abused by a member of her family when she was young.

Burial Woods, Pink Forest

(SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL)

Last winter, Burlington’s Nathan Nowak-Meunier, aka Burial Woods, sought a seasonal depression cure in the world of modular synth — a potential rabbit hole, given that modular synths are endlessly variable and customizable. Struck by inspiration once their setup was locked in, the artist embarked on their new EP, Pink Forest, which they wrote, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered.

Queer and nonbinary, NowakMeunier explores their evolving identity on the EP’s six tracks, delving into themes of dysphoria, self-reflection and resilience.

Pink Forest’s frosty, hard-edged industrial synth-pop and goth-tronica recall Twitch-era Ministry, Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration and the Pretty Hate Machine days of Nine Inch Nails. The EP is dark, moody, razorsharp, full of angst and served on a bed of dry ice.

The singer-songwriter, who has painted covers for many of the band’s records and written two books of poetry, handles emotions ranging from confusion to love to anger with a mixture of artistic mystery and documentary-style reality. As the record reaches its coda, the raging rock monster “Ghostwriter,” Dupuis is ready to throw it all on a pyre and light the fire.

“How to grow up?” she sings. “Lately I don’t really push much / I’m tired of anger / How to move on? / Even comets are staying in one spot.”

Opener “Superimposer” is a frigid, mid-tempo banger with a driving, almost maddening slew of slashing beats and buzzes. In a syrupy baritone, Nowak-Meunier utters phrases such as “angles of time,” “beyond the veil” and “entropy rises inside” like they’re part of a ritual or incantation.

Lopsided beats and synth drones converge on subsequent slow burn “Gestation,” while follow-up “Melancholia” transitions from featherlight synth-pop to a pressurized maelstrom.

The fourth track, “Ascalapha Odorata,” stands out as the collection’s primary anthem. Its title, the scientific name for the black witch moth, references the classic 1991 film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, in which mentally ill serial killer and latent trans woman Bu alo Bill places the moth’s pupae in the mouths of his victims.

When the film came out, queer and trans people were furious at yet another on-screen depiction of

It’s the summation of a 13-track emotional wringer of an album that bristles with energy, intention and urgency. The album’s title comes from the old farming practice of saying “rabbit rabbit” at the beginning of the month for luck. Rabbit Rabbit is a good luck totem, therapy session and late-summer banger, all in one record.

Rabbit Rabbit is available on all major streaming platforms. Speedy Ortiz swing through Winooski on Monday, September 11, for a show at the Monkey House.

CHRIS FARNSWORTH

queerness as monstrousness. Thirty-odd years later, queer folks are still othered, as Nowak-Meunier notes by bellowing, “They can’t help but back away, / With fear in their eyes.”

The artist becomes the black witch, soaring against a slate-colored sky in search of “something we may never find.” The song’s trudging bass and palpitating beats conflict with its smooth, melodic synth lead and a vocal melody tinged with hope.

“Symmetry” and “Beautiful Mourning” close the EP with contrast. “Symmetry” is full of fury and paranoia, while the final cut sends the listener out on a dreamy note, if a somewhat bleak one (“Embrace nothingness and see / Our last breath is true beauty”).

As Burial Woods, Nowak-Meunier emerges as a powerful queer voice and master manipulator of sound. Though their pain is prevalent on Pink Forest, joy also reverberates through the trees.

Pink Forest is available at burialwoods.bandcamp. com and on all major streaming platforms. Burial Woods performs on Saturday, September 9, at Community of Sound in Burlington.

JORDAN ADAMS

Speedy Ortiz

SEPTEMBER 6-13, 2023

WED.6 activism

LEADERSHIP AWARD

CEREMONY: Ann Braden, the founder of GunSense Vermont, is celebrated with a presentation. Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, 6 p.m. $50. Info, 227-7213.

business

QUEEN CITY BUSINESS

NETWORKING

INTERNATIONAL GROUP: Savvy businesspeople make crucial contacts at a weekly chapter meeting. Burlington City Arts, 11:15 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 829-5066.

community

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

DESK: VETERANS OUTREACH

PROGRAM: Representatives post up in the main reading room to answer questions and provide resources. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 2-4 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

crafts

YARN CRAFTERS GROUP: A drop-in meetup welcomes knitters, crocheters, spinners, weavers and beyond. BYO snacks and drinks. Must Love Yarn, Shelburne, 5-7 p.m. Free. Info, 448-3780.

dance

WESTIE WEDNESDAYS

DANCE: Swing dancers lift and spin at a weekly social dance. North Star Community Hall, Burlington, 8-9 p.m. $5 suggested donation. Info, 802westiecollective@gmail. com.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: Sparkling graphics and vibrant interviews take viewers on a journey alongside NASA astronauts as they prepare for stranger-than-sciencefiction space travel. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 10:30 a.m., 12:30, 2:30 & 4:30 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $14.50-18; admission free for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: Stunning footage takes viewers on a mind-bending journey into phenomena that are too slow, too fast or too small to be seen by the naked eye. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, noon, 2 & 4 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $14.50-18; admission free for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: Viewers are plunged into the magical vistas of the continent’s deserts, jungles and savannahs. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 11 a.m., 1 & 3 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $14.50-18; admission free for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: Sandhill cranes, yellow warblers and mallard ducks make their lives along rivers, lakes and wetlands. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 11:30 a.m., 1:30 & 3:30 p.m. $3-5 plus regular

LIST YOUR UPCOMING EVENT HERE FOR FREE!

All submissions must be received by Thursday at noon for consideration in the following Wednesday’s newspaper. Find our convenient form and guidelines at sevendaysvt.com/postevent

Listings and spotlights are written by Gillian English Emily Hamilton and Angela Simpson Seven Days edits for space and style. Depending on cost and other factors, classes and workshops may be listed in either the calendar or the classes section. Class organizers may be asked to purchase a class listing.

Learn more about highlighted listings in the Magnificent 7 on page 11.

admission, $14.50-18; admission free for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

games

MAH-JONGG OPEN PLAY: Weekly sessions of an age-old game promote critical thinking and friendly competition. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 12:30-3:30 p.m. Free. Info, 362-2607.

health & fitness

CHAIR YOGA: Waterbury Public Library instructor Diana Whitney leads at-home participants in gentle stretches supported by seats. 10 a.m. Free. Info, 244-7036. SEATED & STANDING YOGA: Beginners are welcome to grow their strength and flexibility at this supportive class. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 9-10 a.m. Free. Info, 549-4574.

language

BEGINNER IRISH LANGUAGE

CLASS: Celtic-curious students learn to speak an Ghaeilge in a supportive group. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, noon-1 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

ELL CLASSES: ENGLISH FOR BEGINNERS & INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS: Learners of all abilities practice written and spoken English with trained instructors. Presented by Fletcher Free Library. 6:30-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, bshatara@burlingtonvt.gov.

SPANISH

CONVERSATION: Fluent and beginner speakers brush up on their español with a discussion led by a Spanish teacher. Presented by Dorothy Alling Memorial Library. 5-6

EVENTS

Find visual art exhibits and events in the Art section and at sevendaysvt.com/art.

film

See what’s playing at theaters in the On Screen section.

music + nightlife

Find club dates at local venues in the Music + Nightlife section online at sevendaysvt.com/music.

= ONLINE EVENT

p.m. Free; preregister. Info, programs@damlvt.org.

lgbtq

LGBTQ PRIDE SEDER: LGBTQ+ Jews and allies gather for an evening of readings and community. Ages 13 and up recommended. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, Burlington, 7:30-8:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 864-0218.

MENTAL WELLNESS PROVIDER

PANEL & MIXER: Local doctors and therapists team up for a discussion of mental health care in the LGBTQ community. Virtual option available. Pride Center of Vermont, Burlington, 4:30-6 p.m. Free. Info, kell@pridecentervt.org.

PIZZA PARTY: PACK (the queer men and men-aligned affinity group formerly known as GLAM) hosts a cheesy Pride Week shindig. American Flatbread Burlington Hearth, 6-8 p.m. Free. Info, jacob@pridecentervt.org.

montréal

‘AURA’: An immersive light show and soundscape highlight the rich history and stunning architecture of the Québec church. NotreDame Basilica of Montréal, 6 & 8 p.m. $18-32; free for kids 5 and under. Info, 866-842-2925.

music

CANTRIP: Pipes, fiddle, guitar and three-part harmonies combine traditional Scottish music with modern influences for a footstomping sound. Catamount ArtPort, St. Johnsbury, 7 p.m. $25. Info, 748-2600.

INBAR HEYMAN GETS LOOPY: A one-woman band from Israel performs original music with instruments and household objects from around the world. Junction Arts & Media, White River Junction, 7-9 p.m. Free. Info, 295-6688.

OLD STAGE SUMMER SERIES: BRETT DENNEN: Folk tunes meet pop songs when this Californiabased musician takes the stage. Essex Experience, 6-10 p.m. $30. Info, 876-7152.

WINOOSKI WEDNESDAYS: TIGER STRIKE: The trio rocks the rotary in the final outdoor concert of the summer series. Listeners enjoy free cotton candy and balloon animals. Rotary Park, Winooski, 5-8 p.m. Free. Info, info@downtown winooski.org.

ZACH NUGENT UNCORKED: The sought-after guitarist plays a weekly loft show featuring live music, storytelling and special guests. Shelburne Vineyard, 6-8:45 p.m. Free. Info, 985-8222.

politics

VERMONT INTERFAITH ACTION STATEWIDE CONVENTION: Leaders of different faiths assemble to discuss political issues from a viewpoint of justice and compassion. Our Lady of the Angels, Randolph, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 651-8889.

seminars

THE MATTER OF MONEY: A financial counselor

shares expertise about spending plans, loans, debt and savings in a virtual class hosted by Montpelier’s Kellogg-Hubbard Library. 6:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

sports

GREEN MOUNTAIN TABLE

TENNIS CLUB: Ping-Pong players swing their paddles in singles and doubles matches. Rutland Area Christian School, 7-9 p.m. Free for first two sessions; $30 annual membership. Info, 247-5913.

talks

THOMAS ESTILL: The Vermont Tree Steward Award recipient relates the history of the American chestnut tree, from the early-20th-century blight that nearly wiped it out to recent research into its reintroduction. Rutland Free Library, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 773-1860.

theater

‘THE THANKSGIVING PLAY’: An elementary schoolteacher gamely tries to produce a pageant about the first Thanksgiving that makes everyone happy in this satirical production. Dorset Playhouse, 2 & 7:30 p.m. $53. Info, 867-2223.

‘HAMLET’: Shakespeare in the Woods presents the Bard’s timeless tale of revenge in this lavish and diverse outdoor performance. Hunter Park, Manchester Center, 7:30 p.m. $12-20. Info, shakespeareinthewoodsvt@ gmail.com.

words

BANNED BOOKS TOUR: Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman hosts a reading featuring stories that have faced conservative backlash across the country. Phoenix Books, Essex, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 828-2226.

KATHY ELKIND: The author shares life lessons from her memoir, To Walk It Is to See It: 1 Couple, 98 Days, 1400 Miles on Europe’s GR5. Norwich Bookstore, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 649-1114.

THU.7 crafts

KNIT FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR: All ages and abilities are invited to knit or crochet hats and scarves for the South Burlington Food Shelf. Materials are provided. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 2-5 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

KNITTING GROUP: Knitters of all experience levels get together to spin yarns. Latham Library, Thetford, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 785-4361. etc.

NIGHT OWL CLUB: Astronomers and space exploration experts discuss the latest in extraterrestrial news with curious attendees. Presented by Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium. 7 p.m. Free. Info, 748-2372.

PIZZA BY THE POND: A woodfired oven warms pies made of local ingredients while local musicians regale diners. Blueberry Hill Inn, Goshen, 5-8 p.m. $22-35; free for kids 5 and under; preregister; limited space. Info, 247-6735.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

GRANITE LECTURE & FILM

SERIES: 1960S SUMMER

OUTINGS: The Barre Granite Association goes on a summer outing in the 1960s in a film about its history. Vermont Granite Museum, Barre, 6-7 p.m. Free. Info, 249-3897.

‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: See WED.6.

MOVIE NIGHTS AT THE FRAME:

‘ALIEN’: Sigourney Weaver stars in the 1979 sci-fi horror classic about a starship’s close encounter with a terrifying extraterrestrial. Food and drink available for purchase. BYO blankets or lawn chairs. Moran Frame, Burlington, 6-11 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.6.

food & drink

ADVENTURE DINNER: SUNSET

SUNFLOWER DINNER: Diners feast on summer’s final harvest after a tour of flower gardens. Snaps and Sunflowers, Cambridge, 5:30-8:30 p.m. $165. Info, 248-224-7539.

AFTERNOON TEA & TEA

ETIQUETTE TALK: Refined guests enjoy a full English afternoon tea — complete with warm scones and clotted cream — while learning about the tradition’s history. Governor’s House in Hyde Park, 3 p.m. $45; preregister. Info, 888-6888.

ARE YOU THIRSTY, NEIGHBOR?:

A special discount cocktail menu sparks conversations and connections over cribbage and cards. Wild Hart Distillery and Tasting Room, Shelburne, 3-8 p.m. Free. Info, info@wildhartdistillery.com.

BARK & BREW: Humans chat over local food and beer while their pups play in the fenced yard. Proceeds benefit animal shelter programs. Humane Society of Chittenden County, South Burlington, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $20. Info, 862-0135.

VERGENNES FARMERS MARKET: Local foods and crafts, live music, and hot eats spice up Thursday afternoons. Vergennes City Park, 3-6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 233-9180. games

THE CHECK MATES: Chess players of all ages face off at this intergenerational weekly meetup. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 549-4574.

DUPLICATE BRIDGE: A lively group plays a classic, tricky game with an extra wrinkle. Waterbury

FAMI LY FU N

Check out these family-friendly events for parents, caregivers and kids of all ages.

• Plan ahead at sevendaysvt.com/family-fun

• Post your event at sevendaysvt.com/postevent.

WED.6 burlington

BABYTIME: Librarians bring out books, rhymes and songs specially selected for young ones. Pre-walkers and younger. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

IMAGINATION STATION: Giant Jenga, Hula-Hoops and jump ropes entertain shoppers of all ages in between stops. Church Street Marketplace, Burlington, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 863-1648.

STEAM SPACE: Kids explore science, technology, engineering, art and math activities. Ages 5 through 11. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 5-6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

STORIES WITH SHANNON: Ages 2 to 5 gather in the library’s youth section for story time, songs and fun. No preregistration needed. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

chittenden county

BABY TIME: Parents and caregivers bond with their pre-walking babes during this gentle playtime. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30-11 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

mad river valley/ waterbury

QUEER READS: LGBTQIA+ and allied youth get together each month to read and discuss ideas around gender, sexuality and identity. Waterbury Public Library, 6-7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 244-7036.

TEEN HANGOUT: Middle and high schoolers make friends at a no-pressure meetup. Waterbury Public Library, 3-6 p.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

manchester/ bennington

MCL FILM CLUB: Teen auteurs learn how to bring stories to life on camera. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 3:30-5 p.m. Free. Info, 362-2607.

NEW MOMS’ GROUP: Local doula Kimberleigh Weiss-Lewitt facilitates a community-building weekly meetup for mothers who are new to parenting or the area. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 9-10 a.m. Free. Info, 549-4574.

THU.7

burlington

IMAGINATION STATION: See WED.6.

chittenden county

‘PLAYING FIELDS’: e Flynn presents an outdoor welcome-back multimedia party for students, families and neighbors,

Horse Play

Burlington’s Flynn throws a back-to-school bash unlike any other at Playing Fields, a must-see multimedia project staged outdoors at six local schools. Students, families, teachers, staff and neighbors celebrate the end of summer — and the central role of schools in the community — with Proud Horses, a gasp-inducing show from French performance group Compagnie des Quidams. Skilled puppeteers conjure illuminated, inflatable 12-foot-tall horses that march, dance and interact with audience members in a largerthan-life spectacle of music and theater.

PLAYING FIELDS

ursday, September 7, at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg; Friday, September 8, at Winooski Middle and High School; Saturday, September 9, at Lyman C. Hunt Middle School in Burlington; Tuesday, September 12, at Danville School; and Wednesday, September 13, at Vergennes Union High School. 6:30 p.m. See website for additional date. Free; preregister. Info, 863-5966, flynnvt.org.

manchester/ bennington

NOTORIOUS RPG: Kids 10 through 14 create characters and play a collaborative adventure game similar to Dungeons & Dragons. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 1-2 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 362-2607.

STEAM SATURDAY: Little ones have fun with foundational science and art. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 11 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 362-2607.

SUN.10 burlington

D&D WITH DUNGEON MASTER

ANDREW: Warlocks and warriors battle dastardly foes in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Ages 9 and up. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, noon-4 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 863-3403.

DAD GUILD: Fathers (and parents of all genders) and their kids ages 5 and under drop in for playtime and connection. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 3:30-5 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

GENDER CREATIVE KIDS: Trans and gender-nonconforming kiddos under 13 enjoy fun, supportive group activities while their parents and caregivers chat. Outright Vermont, Burlington, 2-4 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 865-9677.

SENSORY-FRIENDLY SUNDAY: Folks of all ages with sensory processing differences have the museum to themselves, with adjusted lights and sounds and trusty sensory backpacks. ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 9-10 a.m. Free; preregister. Info, kvonderlinn@echovermont.org.

featuring live music, theater and illuminated 12-foot-tall dancing horses. See calendar spotlight. Champlain Valley Union High School, Hinesburg, 6:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 863-5966.

KIDS BOOK CLUB: Kids in kindergarten through grade 2 and their parents read, share and explore the book of the month, provided by the library. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 4-5 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 846-4140, nliuzzi@southburlingtonvt.gov.

MUSIC AND MOVEMENT WITH MISS

EMMA: e star of “Music for Sprouts” and “Mr. Chris and Friends” leads little ones 5 and younger in singing, scarf play and movement. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 10:30-11:15 a.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

PRESCHOOL MUSIC WITH LINDA

BASSICK: e singer and storyteller extraordinaire guides kids in indoor music and movement. Birth through age 5. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30-11 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

PRESCHOOL PLAYTIME: Pre-K patrons play and socialize after music time. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

stowe/smuggs

WEE ONES PLAY TIME: Caregivers bring kiddos 3 and younger to a new sensory learning experience each week. Morristown Centennial Library, Morrisville, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 888-3853.

mad river valley/ waterbury

PRESCHOOL PLAY & READ: Outdoor activities, stories and songs engage 3- and

4-year-olds. Waterbury Public Library, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

FRI.8 chittenden county

‘PLAYING FIELDS’: See THU.7, Winooski Middle/High School.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS OPEN PLAY: New and returning players are welcome at this role-playing session, recommended for grades 5 and up. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 6-8 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

LEGO BUILDERS: Each week, children ages 8 and older build, explore, create and participate in challenges. Children ages 6 to 8 are welcome with an adult. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 3-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

upper valley

STORY TIME: Preschoolers take part in tales, tunes and playtime. Latham Library, etford, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 785-4361.

manchester/ bennington

YOUNG ADULT DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Teens battle beasts with swords and spell books. Drop-in and recurring players are welcome. Ages 12 through 16. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 2-4 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 549-4574.

SAT.9 burlington

‘PLAYING FIELDS’: See THU.7, Lyman C. Hunt Middle School.

AIKIDO AND THE WAY OF HARMONY: Young folks discover the dynamic, flowing martial art. Aikido of Champlain Valley, Burlington, 9:45-10:45 a.m. Free. Info, 951-8900.

FACE PAINTING AND CARICATURES:

Little Artsy Faces and Marc Hughes Illustrations paint faces in more ways than one at the corner of Bank and Church streets. Church Street Marketplace, Burlington, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 863-1648.

chittenden county

CRAFT & LISTEN: Crafty kids paint a pine cone ornament while listening to a podcast about trees. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

FRENCH STORY TIME: Kids of all ages listen and learn to native speaker Romain Feuillette raconte une histoire. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:15-10:45 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

stowe/smuggs

MUSICAL STORY TIME: Song, dance and other tuneful activities supplement picture books for kids 2 through 5. Morristown Centennial Library, Morrisville, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 888-3853.

stowe/smuggs

MODERN TIMES THEATER PRESENTS:

‘THE BAFFO BOX SHOW’: Beautiful images and music provide the backdrop for classic hand-puppetry, ventriloquism and standup comedy. Gihon Valley Hall, Hyde Park, 2 p.m. $10-25. Info, gihonvalleyhall@ gmail.com.

MON.11 burlington

IMAGINATION STATION: See WED.6.

TUE.12 chittenden county

PLAYGROUP & FAMILY SUPPORT:

Families with children under age 5 play and connect with others in the community. Winooski Memorial Library, 10:3011:30 a.m. Free. Info, 655-6424.

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME: Little ones enjoy a cozy session of reading, rhyming and singing. Birth through age 5. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:3011 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

barre/montpelier

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME: See THU.7.

mad river valley/ waterbury

HOMESCHOOL COMPUTER CLUB: Home students learn everything from basic

COURTESY OF HENRY

MOREIGNE

Public Library, 12:30-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 244-7223.

health & fitness

SIMPLIFIED TAI CHI FOR

SENIORS: Eighteen easy poses help with stress reduction, fall prevention and ease of movement. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 3:15-4 p.m. Donations. Info, 362-2607.

TAI CHI THURSDAYS: Experienced instructor Rich Marantz teaches the first section of the Yang-style tai chi sequence. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 645-1960.

lgbtq

POP-UP HAPPY HOUR: Locals connect over drinks at a speakeasy-style bar. Hosted by OUT in the 802. Lincolns, Burlington, 5:30-7 p.m. Free. Info, 860-7812.

montréal

‘AURA’: See WED.6.

music

BARNARTS FEAST & FIELD

MUSIC SERIES: THE NEW OLD

VERMONTERS: Farm-fresh foods and fiddle tunes are on the menu at a pastoral party. 5:30 p.m. $525. Info, music@barnarts.org.

HUG YOUR FARMER ALL-STAR

BENEFIT CONCERT: Bob Wagner’s Hug Your Farmer Band celebrates the music of Bob Dylan in a star-studded concert with all proceeds benefiting the Vermont Community Foundation’s floodrelief fund. Flynn Main Stage, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $35-55. Info, 863-5966.

THROWDOWN THURSDAYS: Sugarbush hosts a weekly summer shindig featuring live tunes, doubles cornhole tournaments and disc golf competitions. Lincoln Peak Vineyard, New Haven, 5-8 p.m. Free. Info, 552-4007.

FOMO?

Find even more local events in this newspaper and online: art

Find visual art exhibits and events in the Art section and at sevendaysvt.com/art.

film

See what’s playing at theaters in the On Screen section.

music + nightlife

Find club dates at local venues in the Music + Nightlife section online at sevendaysvt.com/ music.

Learn more about highlighted listings in the Magnificent 7 on page 11.

= ONLINE EVENT

THURSDAYS BY THE LAKE: ALL NIGHT BOOGIE BAND: The blues-rock ensemble captivates audience members as the sun sets over the lake. Union Station, Burlington, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Free; cash bar. Info, 540-3018.

politics

THOUGHT CLUB: Artists and activists convene to engage with Burlington’s rich tradition of radical thought and envision its future. Democracy Creative, Burlington, 6-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, tevan@democracycreative.com.

seminars

ESSENTIALS OF CAMERA

OPERATION: New photographers learn the basics of getting the perfect shot. RETN & VCAM Media Factory, Burlington, 6-8 p.m. Free; $25 suggested donation. Info, gin@mediafactory.org.

tech

TECH AND TEXTILES: Crafters work on their knitting or crocheting while discussing questions such as how to set up a new tablet or what cryptocurrency even is. George Peabody Library, Post Mills, 1-5 p.m. Free. Info, 333-9724.

theater

‘THE THANKSGIVING PLAY’: See WED.6, 7:30 p.m.

‘BEAST FRIENDS: A TALK IN THE WOODS’: G. Richard Ames’ oneman show explores creatures in fields and forests. QuarryWorks Theater, Adamant, 7:30-9:45 p.m. Free. Info, 229-6978.

‘THE TEMPEST’: Shakespeare in the Woods takes on the Bard’s

food & drink

MOOS & BREWS & COCKTAILS

TOO!: Beer, beverages and baby cows make for a blissful summer evening. Billings Farm & Museum, Woodstock, 5-7:30 p.m. $20-25. Info, 457-2355.

RICHMOND FARMERS MARKET: Vendors present a diverse selection of locally produced foods and crafts as picnickers enjoy music from a different local band each week. Richmond Town Park, 3-6:30 p.m. Free. Info, rfmmanager@ gmail.com.

health & fitness

AIKIDO AND THE POWER OF HARMONY: Adults and teens learn smooth moves for relaxation and increasing core power and resiliency. Comfortable clothing recommended. Aikido of Champlain Valley, Burlington, 6-7:15 p.m. Free. Info, 951-8900.

lgbtq

LGBTQ+ COMPOSER CONCERT: The Vermont Symphony Orchestra string quartet celebrates the music, stories and contributions of LGBTQ composers. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 6-7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 864-5741.

Yip, Yip, Hooray

Every dog has its day, so mark your calendar for Wag the Waterfront, a new fest from Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront for beloved canines and their humans. Wellbehaved pups on leashes can walk the vendor market or take a yoga class, then cut loose off-leash at “yappy hour” (with proof of rabies vaccination) and a doggy ball pit. Two-legged attendees meet experienced local pet sitters, dog walkers and in-home boarders at the Mutt Mingle and visit food trucks and a Switchback Brewing bar. Your good boy is sure to leave dog-tired.

WAG THE WATERFRONT

Saturday, September 9, 1-4 p.m., at the Waterfront Dog Park in Burlington. Free. Info, 864-0123, enjoyburlington.com.

tale of love, sorcery and revenge, set on a remote island. Hunter Park, Manchester Center, 7:30 p.m. $12-20; preregister. Info, shakespeareinthewoodsvt@ gmail.com.

words

KATHY ELKIND: See THU.6, the Gallery at Mad River Valley Arts, Waitsfield, 5-7 p.m. Info, 496-6682.

MARILYN WEBB NEAGLEY: The former president of Shelburne Farms launches her fourth book, Attic of Dreams, a memoir that explores family dysfunction with humor and forgiveness. Shelburne Town Hall, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 985-3528.

NIKHIL GOYAL: The sociologist discusses his newest book, Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty, with awardwinning author Bill McKibben. Norwich Bookstore, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 649-1114.

RABBIT&WOLF POETRY

READING: Local poets Kiev Rattee

and Ralph Culver share their work. The Front, Montpelier, 6:30-8 p.m. Free. Info, robynjoy76@gmail.com.

FRI.8

crafts

FIBER ARTS FRIDAY: Knitters, crocheters, weavers and felters chat over their projects at this weekly meetup. Waterbury Public Library, noon-2 p.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

SCRAPBOOKING GROUP: Cutters and pasters make new friends at a weekly club. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 10 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 549-4574.

dance

BARN DANCE: Locals stomp their feet at this joyful shindig featuring contra, line and square dancing to live tunes. Bread & Butter Farm, Shelburne, 6-9 p.m. $10. Info, 985-9200.

‘WANTING’: Dancers collaborate on a performance of movement and music. Star Mountain Amphitheater, Sharon, 5:30-7 p.m. $20. Info, 765-4454.

etc.

JANE AUSTEN WEEKEND: ‘EMMA’: A leisurely weekend of literaryinspired diversions includes dessert, tea, a Regency-style dinner party, Sunday brunch, a quiz and talks. Governor’s House in Hyde Park, 8 p.m. $17-46; $495-565 for weekend stays. Info, 888-6888.

PIZZA BY THE POND: See THU.7.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: See WED.6.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.6.

OUT IN BRADFORD: LGBTQ folks and allies make new friends at a casual, tea-fueled hangout. Vittles House of Brews, Bradford, 5-9 p.m. Free. Info, connect@vittlesespresso. com.

montréal

‘AURA’: See WED.6.

music

AUDRA MCDONALD: The Tony, Emmy and Grammy Awardwinning singer and actor mesmerizes audience members with her legendary soprano voice and commanding stage presence. Flynn Main Stage, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $49-99. Info, 863-5966.

CAPITAL CITY CONCERTS: FLOODRELIEF BENEFIT: Pianist Jeffrey Chappell performs classical works from greats such as Mozart and Beethoven. Barre Opera House, 7:30-9:30 p.m. $5-100. Info, contact.capitalcityconcerts@ gmail.com.

outdoors

FOOD AND ART FRIDAYS: SOUND

BATH: Musician Tony Bednar facilitates a meditative experience while Fat Dragon Farm serves wood-fired pizza. Sable Project, Stockbridge, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, bex@thesableproject.org.

theater

‘ROBERT FROST: THIS VERSE

BUSINESS’: Middlebury Acting Company presents Emmy Award winner Gordon Clapp in a oneman play highlighting the poet’s words, wit and opinions. Town Hall Theater, Middlebury, 7:30 p.m. $17-37. Info, 382-9222.

‘THE THANKSGIVING PLAY’: See WED.6, 7:30 p.m.

‘BEAST FRIENDS: A TALK IN THE WOODS’: See THU.7. ‘HAMLET’: See WED.6.

words

FRIENDS OF THE RUTLAND FREE

LIBRARY BOOK SALE: A broad selection of used, rare and antique books goes on sale to benefit the library. Rutland Free Library, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Info, 773-1860.

JOE CITRO: The acclaimed Vermont author shares personal stories from his autobiography. Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium, St. Johnsbury, 5:30 p.m. Free; donations suggested. Info, 748-2372.

SAT.9

bazaars

LET’S MAKE A DEAL SALE:

Shoppers peruse a variety of donated household wares, games and crafts. Duxbury Historical Society, South Duxbury, 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Free. Info, 202-361-0249.

crafts

VERMONT GOLDEN HONEY

FESTIVAL: Beekeepers, crafters, artists and food vendors showcase honey-related products. Goodman’s American Pie bakes honey-apple pizza in an on-site “beehive” oven pizza truck. Golden Stage Inn, Proctorsville, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Info, 226-7744.

dance

SWING DANCE: All-star DJs back a night of dancing with big-band bops. Bring clean shoes. Champlain Club, Burlington, beginners’ lesson, 7:30 p.m.; 8 p.m. $5. Info, 864-8382.

‘WANTING’: See FRI.8.

etc.

40TH ANNUAL CHAMBER

CALCUTTA: Hopefuls enter for a chance at cash prizes while enjoying dinner and a silent auction. Farr’s Field, Waterbury, 4:30 p.m. $125. Info, 229-5711.

FREE STUDENT SATURDAY: College students peruse the museum’s collections for free once a week all month long. Student ID required. Shelburne Museum, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. Info, 985-3346.

JANE AUSTEN WEEKEND: ‘EMMA’: See FRI.8, 2, 6 & 7 p.m.

fairs & festivals

‘PUPPETS IN PARADISE’: Sandglass Theater presents a two-day celebration of puppetry and theater arts set against the stunning backdrop of southern Vermont. Retreat Farm, Brattleboro, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. $8-24; free for children under 3. Info, 387-4051.

HARVEST FAIR: Families make merry at an annual frolic featuring food, crafts, live tunes, a flower show and kids’ activities. Sponsored by White River Valley Players. Rochester Park, 10 a.m.-4

games

CHESS CLUB: Players of all ages and abilities face off and learn new strategies. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

ST. PETER’S CEMETERY COMMITTEE BINGO: Players vie for cash prizes at this weekly event to support cemetery improvements. St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Vergennes, 5-9 p.m. $510. Info, 877-2367.

health & fitness

AMERICAN RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: Healthy donors part with life-sustaining pints. The Double E Lounge at Essex Experience, 9 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4200.

language

FRENCH CONVERSATION FOR

ALL: Native French speaker Romain Feuillette guides an informal discussion group. All ages and abilities welcome. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Free; preregister; limited space. Info, 878-4918.

lgbtq

p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 767-3025.

MOONLIGHT BODY, MIND, SPIRIT EXPO: Vendors, readers, healers, speakers and workshops nurture attendees. Milton Grange, 9 a.m.4 p.m. $5. Info, 893-9966.

WAG THE WATERFRONT: Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront celebrates all things canine, with “yappy hour” in the dog park (proof of rabies vaccination required), dog ball pits, agility demos, dog-related vendors, and plenty of food trucks and live music for the humans. See calendar spotlight. Waterfront Park, Burlington, 1-4 p.m. Free. Info, 864-0123.

FOMO?

Find even more local events in this newspaper and online:

art

Find visual art exhibits and events in the Art section and at sevendaysvt.com/art.

film

See what’s playing at theaters in the On Screen section.

music + nightlife

Find club dates at local venues in the Music + Nightlife section online at sevendaysvt.com/ music.

Learn more about highlighted listings in the Magnificent 7 on page 11.

= ONLINE EVENT

Hot Fusion

Diverse musical styles harmoniously combine when the Balla Kouyaté & Mike Block Band stop by Cooper Field in Putney for a concert in the Next Stage Arts Project’s Bandwagon Summer Series. Longtime collaborators Kouyaté, a West African balafon player and singer, and Block, an American cellist and composer, synthesize their individual musical heritages to create a unique, world-class sound. Their six-piece ensemble plays instruments as varied as djembe, calabash, electric guitar and sintir.

BALLA KOUYATÉ & MIKE BLOCK BAND

Saturday, September 9, 5 p.m., at Cooper Field in Putney. $20-25; free for children under 12. Info, 451-0053, nextstagearts.org.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL FILM

SERIES: ‘BLACK ORPHEUS’: The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice comes to life in this Academy Award-winning 1959 film. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 3-5 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

‘THE FRESHMAN’: Harold Lloyd plays a first-year student who dreams of being a football hero in a 1925 silent film that became a blockbuster hit. Jeff Rapsis soundtracks the screening with live music. Brandon Town Hall, 7 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 247-5420.

‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: See WED.6.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.6.

food & drink

BURLINGTON FARMERS MARKET: Dozens of stands overflow with seasonal produce, flowers, artisanal wares and prepared foods. 345 Pine St., Burlington, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 560-5904.

CAPITAL CITY FARMERS MARKET: Meats and cheeses join farm-fresh produce, baked goods, locally made arts and crafts, and live music. Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, montpelierfarmersmarket@gmail. com.

CHAMPLAIN VALLEY DINNER

TRAIN: Travelers savor a threecourse meal and scenic landscape views during a three-hour trip in a kitchen car. Ages 5 and up. Union Station, Burlington, 5-8 p.m. $99-148.50; preregister. Info, 800-707-3530.

JANE AUSTEN TEA: Regency revelers jam out at a Victorian-style tea party complete with scones, clotted cream, finger sandwiches and tea cakes, while learning about the teatime traditions of Austen’s era. Governor’s House in Hyde Park, 2:30-5 p.m. $35; preregister. Info, 888-6888.

LAWSON’S FINEST LIQUIDS

15TH ANNIVERSARY BIRTHDAY

BASH: Beer enthusiasts gather to celebrate the brewery’s birthday with food trucks, live music and tours. Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Waitsfield, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Free. Info, 496-4677

NORTHWEST FARMERS MARKET: Locavores stock up on produce, preserves, baked goods, and arts and crafts from over 50 vendors. Taylor Park, St. Albans, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 242-2729.

SHOP WITH A CHEF: In a tour hosted by Vermont Fresh Network, the restaurant team from Kraemer & Kin shares insider tips on what to look for at the Champlain Islands Farmers Market. St. Joseph’s Church, Grand Isle, 9:45-10:45 a.m. $10; preregistration required. Info, 434-2000.

ST. JOHNSBURY FARMERS

MARKET: Growers and crafters gather weekly at booths centered on local eats. Pearl St. & Eastern Ave., St. Johnsbury, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, cfmamanager@gmail. com.

QUEER CAUSEWAY BIKE RIDE: LGBTQ cyclists of all ages take over the bike path for Pride weekend. Leddy Park, Burlington, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, kell@ pridecentervt.org.

WINOOSKI PRIDE: The Onion City throws a family-friendly shindig celebrating LGBTQ rights and culture with music, karaoke, drag bingo and plenty of food options. Rotary Park, Winooski, 4:30-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, info@downtown winooski.org.

montréal

‘AURA’: See WED.6, 7 & 9 p.m.

music

BANDWAGON SUMMER SERIES: BALLA KOUYATÉ & MIKE

BLOCK BAND: The West African singer and balafon player and the Grammy Award-winning American singer and cellist, respectively, team up in a six-piece band that fuses multiple musical styles. See calendar spotlight. Cooper Field, Putney, 5 p.m. $2025; free for kids under 12. Info, 451-0053, info@nextstagearts. org.

CENTRAL VERMONT FLOOD

RELIEF BENEFIT CONCERT: Guagua, the Ray Vega Quintet, Dwight + Nicole and the Dave Keller Band perform to raise money for small businesses. Vermont Statehouse lawn, Montpelier, 3-7 p.m. $35. Info, 498-8618.

PATTI CASEY AND COLIN

MCCAFFREY: The internationally acclaimed singer-songwriters are joined by singer, guitarist and fiddler Geordie Lynd. BYO lawn chair or blanket. Meeting House on the Green, East Fairfield, 5-7 p.m. $10; free for children under 12. Info, 827-6626.

BTV MARKET MUSIC: THAYA

ZALEWSKI QUARTET: A group of jazz musicians draws from Black, Afro and Indigenous

sounds. Burlington City Hall Park, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free. Info, 865-7166.

outdoors

AGE OUTDOORS!: A day of lawn games, a scavenger hunt and a relay race raises awareness of healthy aging and funds for Central Vermont Council on Aging. Vermont State UniversityJohnson, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. $40. Info, 476-2662.

CHARITY MOTORCYCLE RIDE: Motorcyclists meet up for a leisurely ride along Vermont’s back roads in support of Suicide Awareness Month. Wilkins Harley Davidson, Barre, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, gymstz111@gmail.com.

HARDWICK TRAILS 20TH

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION: The free community trails system

celebrates its legacy with open trails, a fitness course, poetry and story walks, fairy house building, and adaptive sports advice. Hazen Union School, Hardwick, 9 a.m.noon. Free. Info, hardwicktrails@ gmail.com.

PRACTICAL BOTANY FOR GARDENERS: Gardener Anne Miller introduces basic plant botany to help with seed saving. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 10-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

seminars

PUTTING YOUR GARDEN TO

BED: Master gardener Justin Fox shares tips for overwintering your garden beds. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 2-3:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

sports

18TH ANNUAL KELLY BRUSH

RIDE: Bikers hit the trails for a 32-mile gravel ride. Middlebury College, 7 a.m.-5 p.m. $60-125. Info, 846-5298.

CHARLOTTE COVERED BRIDGE

5K/10K & HALF MARATHON: Runners make their way through beautiful scenery, beginning and ending at Shelburne Beach. Shelburne Beach, 8-11:30 a.m. $30-55. Info, rayne@racevermont. com.

LAKE CHAMPLAIN CHALLENGE

RACE: Rowing crews and other human-powered vessels compete on a three-mile course. Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. $25. Info, 475-2022.

talks

‘VERMONT, 1800 AND FROZE TO DEATH; THE COLD YEAR OF 1816’: Howard Coffin discusses the year without summer and how Vermonters coped. Brick Meeting House, Westford, 1:30-3 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 878-8890.

theater

‘ROBERT FROST: THIS VERSE BUSINESS’: See FRI.8, 2 p.m.

‘THE THANKSGIVING PLAY’: See WED.6.

‘BEAST FRIENDS: A TALK IN THE WOODS’: See THU.7, 2-4:15 & 7:30-9:45 p.m.

‘THE TEMPEST’: See THU.7.

words

CAROLYN BATES: The Burlington photographer launches her new

book, Street Murals of Burlington an homage to public art in the Queen City. First Congregational Church, Burlington, 4 p.m. Free. Info, 238-4213.

FRIENDS OF THE RUTLAND FREE

LIBRARY BOOK SALE: See FRI.8, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

JOAN HUTTON LANDIS READING

SERIES: HELEN WHYBROW AND BEN COSGROVE: The writer and composer, respectively, weave together readings and music before pizza is served in the garden. BigTown Gallery, Rochester, 5 p.m. $25. Info, 767-9670.

THE POETRY EXPERIENCE: Rajnii Eddins hosts a local writing and sharing circle. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 1 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

CHRIS LINCOLN: The author of The Funny Moon, a humorous novel about the challenges of

marriage and self-discovery, signs books. Norwich Bookstore, 2 p.m. Free. Info, 649-1114.

SUN.10 activism

INSPIRING ACTION: A REVOLUTION RALLY: An antibullying organization leads a rally to promote inclusivity. Bandstand Park, Lyndonville, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, revolutionnekvt@ gmail.com.

cannabis

VERMONTIJUANA: Visitors to the farm take tours, jam to live music and dine from a menu of brunch specialties. Irasburg Common, 10 a.m. $25-30. Info, 424-7642. SUN.10 » P.74

crafts

YARN CRAFTERS GROUP: See WED.6, 1-3 p.m. etc.

JANE AUSTEN WEEKEND: ‘EMMA’: See FRI.8, 11:30 a.m.

fairs & festivals

‘PUPPETS IN PARADISE’: See SAT.9.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘THE FARM BOY’: Local filmmaker George Woodard’s wartime epic features his son Henry playing the titular character, who leaves his new bride to fight in World War II. Vergennes Opera House, 2 p.m. $10. Info, 877-6737.

‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: See

WED.6.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN

WORLD 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.6.

food & drink

FOOD FOR TALK:

TRANSYLVANIAN CUISINE: Paul Kovi presents his cookbook and recipes of native Transylvanian cuisine. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 3-5 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, bshatara@burlingtonvt. gov.

STOWE FARMERS MARKET: An appetizing assortment of fresh veggies, meats, milk, berries, herbs, beverages and crafts tempts shoppers. 2043 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Free. Info, stowefarmersmarket@gmail. com.

WINOOSKI FARMERS MARKET: Families shop for fresh produce, honey, meats, coffee and prepared foods from more seasonal vendors at an outdoor marketplace. Winooski Falls Way, 10 a.m.2 p.m. Free. Info, 655-6410.

health & fitness

KARUNA COMMUNITY

MEDITATION: A YEAR TO LIVE

(FULLY): Participants practice keeping joy, generosity and gratitude at the forefront of their minds. Jenna’s House, Johnson, 10-11:15 a.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, mollyzapp@live.com.

lgbtq

PRIDE VERMONT FESTIVAL & PARADE: Queer and trans folks paint the town red for Pride Vermont’s ruby anniversary, with a procession starting at the bottom of Church Street and ending in a joyful bash at Waterfront Park. Downtown Burlington, noon-5 p.m. Free. Info, 860-7812.

montréal

PIKNIC ÉLECTRONIK MONTRÉAL: A weekly throwdown pairs topquality electronic music with a breathtaking view of Montréal from Île Saint-Hélène, aka St. Helen’s Island. Parc JeanDrapeau, Montréal, 4-10 p.m. $22-47; preregister. Info, info@ piknicelectronik.com.

music

CANTRIP: Edinburgh-based musicians create an energetic sound with border pipes, fiddle and guitar. Richmond Congregational Church, 4-6 p.m. $17.50-25. Info, 8024344563.

SOUNDS OF THE SEASON SERIES: OUR HARMONIOUS HOOK & HASTINGS: Organ player Vaughn Watson plays classic works by greats such as Bach and Schumann. First Congregational Church, St. Albans, 3-4 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 524-4555.

outdoors

COMMUNITY SCIENCE FOR THE PINE STREET BARGE CANAL: Amateur ecologists practice identifying local species on this guided jaunt. Dress for wet conditions, sun protection and insect avoidance. 2-4 p.m. Free. Info, 339-364-1609.

ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION FOR THE PINE STREET BARGE CANAL: Nature lovers remove non-native species to boost a local ecosystem in need. BYO work gloves and dress for sun protection and insect avoidance. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 339-364-1609.

GMC HIKE: MOUNT BELVIDERE: Hikers follow the Long Trail north for a spectacular view on this moderate-level hike. Le Belvedere, Newport, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 318-8104.

GMC HIKE: MOUNT MANSFIELD: Start from the Butler Lodge and hike up the trail to the top. Preregistration required. Mount

Mansfield, Stowe, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Free. Info, 413-884-5932.

PHINEAS GAGE WALK & TALK: A three-quarter-mile walk to the site begins at the Cavendish Historical Society Museum. Cavendish Historical Society Museum, 2 p.m. Free. Info, 226-7807.

theater

‘ROBERT FROST: THIS VERSE

BUSINESS’: See FRI.8, 2 p.m.

‘THE THANKSGIVING PLAY’: See WED.6, 2 p.m.

‘BEAST FRIENDS: A TALK IN THE WOODS’: See THU.7, 2-4:15 p.m. ‘HAMLET’: See WED.6.

MON.11 community

MEN’S COMMUNITY EVOLUTION

CIRCLE: Men gather to discuss unhealthy expectations of masculinity. Plainfield location provided upon registration. 5:30-8:30 p.m. Donations; preregister. Info, 923-6352.

crafts

KNIT WITS: Fiber-working friends get together to make progress on their quilts, knitwear and needlework. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 3-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 362-2607.

WATERCOLOR PAINTING:

Instructor Pauline Nolte leads experienced painters and new dabblers in four weekly sessions. All supplies provided. Waterbury Public Library, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free, space is limited; preregister. Info, 244-7036.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: See WED.6.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN

WORLD 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.6.

health & fitness

ADVANCED TAI CHI: Experienced movers build strength, improve balance and reduce stress. Holley Hall, Bristol, 11 a.m.-noon. Free;

northeast kingdom

‘PLAYING FIELDS’: See THU.7, Danville School.

manchester/ bennington

tech techniques to graphic design in this monthly class. Waterbury Public Library, 11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

WED.13

burlington

STORY TIME: Youth librarian Carrie leads little tykes in stories and songs centered on a new theme every week. Birth through age 5. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 362-2607.

donations accepted. Info, jerry@ skyrivertaichi.com.

LAUGHTER YOGA: Spontaneous, joyful movement and breath promote physical and emotional health. Pathways Vermont, Burlington, 2-3 p.m. Free. Info, chrisn@pathwaysvermont.org.

LONG-FORM SUN 73: Beginners and experienced practitioners learn how tai chi can help with arthritis, mental clarity and range of motion. Holley Hall, Bristol, 11 a.m.-noon. Free; donations accepted. Info, wirlselizabeth@ gmail.com.

YANG 24: This simplified tai chi method is perfect for beginners looking to build strength and balance. Congregational Church of Middlebury, 3:30-5:30 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, wirlselizabeth@gmail.com.

language

ENGLISH CONVERSATION CIRCLE: Locals learning English as a second language gather in the Digital Lab to build vocabulary and make friends. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, noon-1 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

montréal

‘AURA’: See WED.6.

FOMO?

Find even more local events in this newspaper and online: art

Find visual art exhibits and events in the Art section and at sevendaysvt.com/art.

film

See what’s playing at theaters in the On Screen section.

music + nightlife

Find club dates at local venues in the Music + Nightlife section online at sevendaysvt.com/ music.

Learn more about highlighted listings in the Magnificent 7 on page 11.

= ONLINE EVENT

theater

BREAD AND PUPPET: UNDER THE

STARS: The Glover troupe takes the show on the road to stage The Heart of the Matter Circus outdoors. BYO lawn chair. Pittsford Village Farm, 6 p.m. $20; free for kids 12 and under. Info, 775-0903.

words

ADDISON COUNTY WRITERS

COMPANY: Poets, playwrights, novelists and memoirists of every experience level meet weekly for an MFA-style workshop. Swift House Inn, Middlebury, 6-8 p.m. Free. Info, jay@zigzaglitmag.org.

TUE.12 community

CURRENT EVENTS

DISCUSSION GROUP: Brownell Library holds a virtual roundtable for neighbors to pause and reflect on the news cycle. 10-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 878-6955.

dance

MORRIS & MORE: Dancers of all abilities learn how to step, clog and even sword fight their way through medieval folk dances of all kinds. Revels North, Lebanon, N.H., 6 p.m. Pay what you can. Info, 603-558-7894.

SWING DANCING: Local Lindy hoppers and jitterbuggers convene at Vermont Swings’ weekly boogie-down. Bring clean shoes. Champlain Club, Burlington, beginner lessons, 6:30 p.m.; 7:30-9 p.m. $5. Info, 864-8382.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: See WED.6.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: See WED.6.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.6.

food & drink

NORTHFIELD FARMERS MARKET: A gathering place for local farmers, producers and artisans offers fresh produce, crafts and locally prepared foods. Depot Square,

to display in the library. Children under 8 must bring a caregiver. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 2:30-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

Northfield, 3-6 p.m. Free. Info, 485-8586.

OLD NORTH END FARMERS MARKET: Fresh local produce, bread, honey and prepared food bring good vibes to the Queen City’s melting pot. Dewey Park, Burlington, 3-6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 355-3910.

health & fitness

THE 8 BROCADES: Librarian Judi Byron leads students in the ancient Chinese practice of Ba Duan Jin qigong. Waterbury Public Library, 10 a.m. Free; preregister. Info, judi@waterburypubliclibrary. com.

TAI CHI TUESDAY: Patrons get an easy, informal introduction to this ancient movement practice that supports balance and strength. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 9-10:15 a.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 362-2607.

language

ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: Instructor Andrea Thulin helps non-native speakers build their vocabulary and conversation skills. Manchester Community Library, Manchester Center, 5:307 p.m. Free. Info, 549-4574.

PAUSE-CAFÉ FRENCH

CONVERSATION: Francophones and French-language learners meet pour parler la belle langue Burlington Bay Market & Café, 5-7 p.m. Free. Info, 343-5493.

SOCIAL HOUR: The Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region hosts a rendez-vous over Zoom. 5:30-6:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, ellen.sholk@gmail.com.

montréal

‘AURA’: See WED.6.

music

CHAMPLAIN CONSORT: Six musicians perform Renaissance and Elizabethan music on period instruments, including recorder, viola da gamba and sackbuts. Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Burlington, noon. Free; donations accepted. Info, 864-0471.

COMMUNITY SINGERS: A weekly choral meetup welcomes all singers to raise their voices along to traditional (and

leave their creations on display in the library all month long. Ages 6 through 8. Waterbury Public Library, 3-4 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 244-7036.

BABYTIME: See WED.6.

IMAGINATION STATION: See WED.6.

STEAM SPACE: See WED.6.

STORIES WITH SHANNON: See WED.6.

chittenden county

LEGO FUN: Budding architects and engineers use their imaginations to build creations with the classic blocks

barre/montpelier

CHESS CLUB: See WED.6.

mad river valley/ waterbury

LEGO CHALLENGE CLUB: Kids engage in a fun-filled hour of building, then

manchester/ bennington

MCL FILM CLUB: See WED.6.

NEW MOMS’ GROUP: See WED.6.

middlebury

area

‘PLAYING FIELDS’: See THU.7, Vergennes Union High School. K

not-so-traditional) songs. Revels North, Lebanon, N.H., 7:30 p.m. Pay what you can. Info, 603-558-7894.

tech

AFTERNOON TECH HELP: Experts answer questions about phones, laptops, e-readers and more in one-on-one sessions. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 1-4 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 846-4140.

CHATGPT FOR YOU & ME: Retired engineer and software developer Dick Mills offers an introduction to ChatGPT and AI. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 6-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

words

BURLINGTON

LITERATURE GROUP:

ORHAN PAMUK: Readers analyze the Nobel Prize-winning author’s novel My Name Is Red over five weeks. 6:30-8 p.m. Free. Info, info@nereadersandwriters.com.

AN EVENING WITH FOUR WAY

BOOKS: Five acclaimed writers across genres virtually discuss their work. Norwich Bookstore, 7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 649-1114.

THE MOTH STORYSLAM: Local tellers of tales recount true stories in an open mic format. Film House, Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $17.50; preregister. Info, susanne@ themoth.org.

POETRY GROUP: A supportive verse-writing workshop welcomes those who would like feedback on their work or who are just happy to listen. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 11 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 846-4140.

WED.13 activism

WHITE WOMEN ACCOUNTABILITY CIRCLE: White women discuss how to constructively engage in social justice. Plainfield location provided upon registration. 5:30 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 318-5527.

business

QUEEN CITY BUSINESS NETWORKING INTERNATIONAL GROUP: See WED.6.

community

ANNUAL CELEBRATION: THE HOME WE SHARE: The Vermont Land Trust shares information about different aspects of their work. Fable Farm, Barnard, 4:30-7 p.m. $30 suggested donation. Info, 377-2725.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS DESK:

AGEWELL: Seniors stop by the main reading room to ask questions and learn about programs available to them. Fletcher Free

Library, Burlington, 2-4 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

CURRENT EVENTS: Neighbors have an informal discussion about what’s in the news.

Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 878-4918.

crafts

GREEN MOUNTAIN CHAPTER OF THE EMBROIDERERS’ GUILD OF AMERICA: Anyone with an interest in the needle arts is welcome to bring a project to this monthly meeting. Holy Family Parish Hall, Essex Junction, 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, gmc.vt.ega@gmail. com.

YARN CRAFTERS GROUP: See WED.6.

dance

WESTIE WEDNESDAYS DANCE: See WED.6.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section. ‘JOURNEY TO SPACE 3D’: See WED.6.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.6.

NXT ROCKUMENTARY FILM SERIES: ‘GIMME SHELTER’: This landmark 1970 documentary looks at how the Rolling Stones’ music paralleled the end of the counterculture movement. Next Stage Arts Project, Putney, 7 p.m. $10 suggested donation. Info, 451-0053.

‘WILD AFRICA 3D’: See WED.6. ‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.6.

games

BOARD GAME NIGHT: Lovers of tabletop fun play classic games and new designer offerings. Waterbury Public Library, 6-8 p.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

MAH-JONGG OPEN PLAY: See WED.6.

health & fitness

CHAIR YOGA: See WED.6.

SEATED & STANDING YOGA: See WED.6.

language

BEGINNER IRISH LANGUAGE CLASS: See WED.6.

ELL CLASSES: ENGLISH FOR BEGINNERS & INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS: See WED.6.

montréal

‘AURA’: See WED.6.

music

JAZZ CAFE SERIES: NEW KANON

JAZZ TRIO WITH DAVID PATE: The in-demand saxophonist joins the trio for a night of original and classic tunes. BYOB. Stone Valley Arts, Poultney, 7 p.m. $10 suggested donation. Info, 325-2603.

ZACH NUGENT UNCORKED: See WED.6.

seminars

MENTOR TRAINING FOR JUSTICEINVOLVED WOMEN: Volunteers receive training to help trauma-affected women. Mercy Connections, Burlington, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 846-7164, jnelson@mercyconnections.org.

sports

GREEN MOUNTAIN TABLE

TENNIS CLUB: See WED.6.

talks

HUBIE NORTON: A presenter relates the history of the 1805 Schoolhouse, the oldest building in Essex. Essex Memorial Hall, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 479-8500.

RENÉ PELLERIN: The community advocate recounts stories from his personal experiences as a deaf-blind person living with Usher syndrome. Ilsley Public Library, Middlebury, 1 p.m. Free. Info, 262-2626.

NICOLE PHELPS: A UVM history professor gives a virtual talk titled “When Typewriters Roamed the Earth: Power, Empathy and the U.S. Consular Service.” 4:30-6 p.m. Free. Info, 656-1297.

tech

CHATGPT FOR YOU AND ME: See TUE.12, 1-2:30 p.m.

RECORDING AUDIO: Attendees learn about how to capture the best possible sound. RETN & VCAM Media Factory, Burlington, 1-3 p.m. Free; $25 suggested donation. Info, gin@mediafactory.org.

WIRED WEDNESDAYS: IPHONE

BASICS: New iPhone users discover the essential functions of their phones. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403. words

BANNED BOOKS TOUR: See WED.6. Norman Williams Public Library, Woodstock, 4 p.m.

CHRISTINE WOODSIDE: An author writes about her experience as an avid outdoorswoman in her latest release, Going Over the Mountain. Norwich Bookstore, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 649-1114.

LIFE STORIES WE LOVE

TO TELL: Prompts from group leader Maryellen Crangle inspire true tales, told either off the cuff or read from prewritten scripts. Presented by Dorothy Alling Memorial Library. 2-3:30 p.m. Free; preregister; limited space. Info, 878-4918.

THE BOOK OF FORM & EMPTINESS’: The Fletcher Free Library presents a virtual discussion of a literary fiction novel. 6:30-8 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403. ➆

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When the article loads, scroll down past the first photo and find the prompt to “Hear this article read aloud.”

Press play! You can pause at any time, skip ahead, rewind and change the speaking speed to suit your needs.

Movie Review: ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ 8 MINS.

Thrill Ride: Vermont Drummer

Urian Hackney Is on a Wild Ride Through the Rock World 29 MINS.

Happy Days: Burlington High School Class of 1953 Holds ‘Final’

Reunion 13 MINS.

Movie Review: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ 8 MINS.

Talking to the Hand Is a Bad Idea in the Gritty Australian Horror Flick ‘Talk to Me’ 8 MINS.

This Stud Has Just One Job, and He’s the GOAT 8 MINS. A Seven Days Canine Staffer Samples New Offerings from Vermont Dog Bakeries 10 MINS.

Dam

WHILE YOU WORK ON THE ROAD

classes

THE FOLLOWING CLASS LISTINGS ARE PAID ADVERTISEMENTS. ANNOUNCE YOUR CLASS FOR AS LITTLE AS $16.75/WEEK (INCLUDES SIX PHOTOS AND UNLIMITED DESCRIPTION ONLINE). SUBMIT YOUR CLASS AD AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTCLASS.

agriculture

CUT FLOWER GARDENING & ARRANGING: Join us for a twopart class on cut flower gardening and arranging. e first half of the class will be a talk and Q&A about cut flower gardening, while the second half will be a hands-on lesson in floral arranging. Bring your own vase. We will provide the flowers. Sun., Sep. 10, 10:30 a.m. Cost: $35. Location: Horsford Gardens & Nursery, 2111 Greenbush Rd., Charlotte. Info: 802-425-2811, sevendaystickets. com.

art

FIGURE DRAWING NIGHT!:

Please join us for an evening of figure drawing at Soapbox Arts in the Soda Plant, hosted by Ana Koehler of Devotion. A live nude model will be in short and long poses. Bring your own drawing supplies. Please, no wet supplies such as inks or paints. All drawing levels welcome. Ages 18-plus only. Mon., Sep. 11, 6 p.m. Cost: $20. Location: Soapbox Arts, Soda Plant, 266 Pine St., Ste. 119, Burlington. Info: 617-290-5405, sevendaystickets.com.

business

HOW THEY BUILT IT: Burlington entrepreneurs on how they’ve built their businesses. Join us as we welcome some of Burlington’s most beloved business owners to share how they started and how they built their businesses to what they are today. is week we’re highlighting the founders of Foam Brewers and Taunik! Wed., Sep. 20, 6 p.m. Cost: $15. Location: Foam Brewers, Burlington. Info: info@localmaverickus.com, sevendaystickets.com.

OPEN HOUSE FOR LOCAL

BUSINESS: Come to share your business with a few dozen other professionals. We’d love to learn about the work you’re doing. You’ll have a chance to meet with professionals in the area, introduce your business, and collect some valuable contacts. Bring your business cards and be ready to network. u., Sep. 7, 8:30 a.m. Location: Connect Church, 127 Webster Rd., Shelburne. Info: 802-999-8672, shelburne.bni@outlook.com, sevendaystickets.com.

THE RETIREMENT DILEMMA: Come hear local experts on the complex topic of retirement financing. Turning retirement savings into a retirement lifestyle is a skill,

and it’s easy enough to learn. Walk away with a deeper understanding of what you can do to secure your retirement plans and guarantee your needs are met!

Tue., Sep. 12, 6 p.m. Location: e Board Room, South Burlington Public Library, 180 Market St., S. Burlington. Info: erik@ckfinancialresources.com, sevendaystickets.com.

culinary

FOCACCIA ART WORKSHOP: In this workshop, you will tackle making focaccia bread dough and decorate it your own way with various herbs, veggies and cheeses. You’ll go home with an eight-inch-square pan of focaccia art and the recipe to make it again on your own at home. u., Sep. 14, 6 p.m. Cost: $45. Location: Red Poppy Cakery, 1 Elm St., Waterbury Village. Info: 203-400-0700, sevendaystickets. com.

SWEET & SAVORY TARTS WITH MOLLY STEVENS: Ideal for savory snacking, light meals, potlucks and desserts, homemade tarts make a delicious and versatile addition to any cook’s repertoire. In this class, cookbook author Molly Stevens will show you how to make sweet and savory tart doughs, and then we’ll shape them and fill them to create various savory and sweet creations. Sat., Nov. 4, 4 p.m.

Cost: $70. Location: Richmond Community Kitchen, 13 Jolina Ct, Richmond. Info: 802-434-3445, sevendaystickets.com.

language

ADULT LIVE SPANISH

E-CLASSES: Join us for adult Spanish classes this fall, using Zoom online videoconferencing. is is our 17th year! Learn from a native speaker via small group classes or individual instruction, from beginning to advanced. You’ll always be participating and speaking. Classes fill up fast. See our website or contact us for details. Group classes begin week of Sep. 11; private instruction any time. Info: 802-585-1025, spanishparavos@gmail.com, spanishwaterburycenter. com.

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE

FALL CLASSES: Join us for online and in-person adult French classes this fall. Our 11-week session starts on Sep. 18 and offers classes for participants at all levels. Please go to our website to read about all of our offerings or contact Micheline for more information.

Location: Alliance Française, online and in-person. Info: education@aflcr.org, aflcr.org.

JAPANESE LANGUAGE CLASSES:

e Japan America Society of Vermont will offer 10 weekly interactive, online Japanese language classes at various levels in fall 2023, starting in October. Please join us for an introduction to speaking, listening, reading and writing Japanese, with emphasis on the conversational patterns used in everyday life.

Weekly, 7-8:30 p.m. Level 1: Mon. Level 2: Tue. Level 3: Wed. Level 5: u. Cost: $200/1.5 hour class each week, for 10 weeks. Location: Zoom, Burlington. Info: Japan America Society of Vermont, 802825-8335, jasvlanguage@gmail. com, jasv.org/v2/language.

martial arts

AIKIDO: FREE WORKSHOPS: Discover the dynamic, flowing martial art of aikido. Cultivate core power, aerobic fitness and resiliency. Aikido emphasizes throws, joint locks and internal energy. We offer inclusive classes and a safe space for all. We offer inclusive classes and a safe space for all. Free workshop for adults on Sep. 8, 6 p.m., and for youths on Sep. 9, 9:45 a.m. Basics classes 4 days/week. Membership rates incl. unlimited classes. Contact us for info about membership

rates for adults, youths & families. Location: Aikido of Champlain Valley, 257 Pine St., Burlington. Info: Benjamin Pincus, 802-9518900, bpincus@burlingtonaikido. org, burlingtonaikido.org.

nature

ECO-RESILIENCY GATHERING: is is a free monthly space to gather with others who are interested in exploring ecological questions, emotional elements of climate change, ideas of change, building community and creating a thriving world. Come together, share, engage and learn. Each month we center on topics related to the ecological and climate crises. Wed., Sep. 13, 6 p.m. Location: Online. Info: Ariel K. McK. Burgess, akmckb@gmail. com, sevendaystickets.com.

performing arts

ME2/ORCHESTRA 2023-24

SEASON: No auditions. No fees. No stigma. Me2 (“Me, too”) is the world’s only classical music organization created for individuals living with mental illness and the people who support them. If you play an orchestral instrument, we would love to hear from you.

Every Tue. evening beginning Sep. 5, 7-9 p.m. Location: Miller Community & Recreation Center, 130 Gosse Ct., Burlington. Info: Caroline Whiddon, 802-238-8369, info@me2music.org, me2music. org.

music

UKULELE STRUM REHAB WORKSHOP: In this workshop, you’ll learn techniques to help make your strum more natural, consistent and spontaneous. We’ll explore easy ways to synchronize with a song’s beat and add rhythm to make it sound more like the version of the song that plays on your inner jukebox. Wed., Sep. 13, 6:30 p.m. Location: Grange Hall Cultural Center, 317 Howard Ave., Waterbury Center. Info: 802244-4168, sevendaystickets. com.

shamanism

APPRENTICESHIP IN

SHAMANISM: Rare opportunity to apprentice locally in a shamanic tradition. Receive personal healing, learn to create your own Mesa, cultivate a relationship with the unseen world and discover your personal guide(s) who will help you “re-member” your new path of expanding possibilities. Weekend-long sessions: Sep. 15-17; Dec. 8-10; Feb. 16-18, 2024; Apr. 26-28, 2024; Aug. 23-25, 2024. Location: Heart of the Healer, St. Albans. Info: omas Mock, 802-369-4331, thomas.mock1444@gmail.com, heartofthehealer.org.

tai chi

NEW BEGINNER TAI CHI CLASS: We practice Cheng Man-ch’ing’s “simplified” 37-posture Yang-style form. e course will be taught by Patrick Cavanaugh, a longtime student and assistant to Wolfe Lowenthal; Wolfe is a direct student of Cheng Man-ch’ing and founder of Long River Tai Chi Circle. Opportunities for learning online are also available! Starts Oct. 4, 9-10 a.m.; registration open until Oct. 25. Cost: $65/mo. Location: Gym at St.

Anthony’s Church, 305 Flynn Ave., Burlington. Info: Long River Tai Chi Circle, Patrick Cavanaugh, 802490-6405, patrick@longrivertaichi. org, longrivertaichi.org.

well-being

LIVING WITH LOSS: A GATHERING FOR THE GRIEVING: During Living With Loss: A Gathering for the Grieving, we will explore how ritual, connection and community help us through times of loss. is gathering is an opportunity for those who have experienced loss to find connection through meditation, ritual and community sharing. Wed., Sep. 6, 6 p.m. Cost: $5-25. Location: Online. Info: 802-825-8141, sevendaystickets.com.

yoga

AYURVEDIC INTEGRATION

PROGRAM: Learn to integrate Ayurveda as lifestyle medicine that can prevent or reverse chronic disease; increase energy; promote longevity; and reduce stress, anxiety and depression. Specialized seasonal and daily Ayurvedic routines, holistic nutrition, stress-reduction techniques, and self-care will be taught. Sat. & Sun. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. 2023: Oct. 14-15, Nov. 4-5, Dec. 2-3; 2024: Jan. 6-7, Feb. 3-4, Mar. 9-10, Apr. 6-7, May 4-5, Jun. 8-9, Jul. 13-14. Cost: $2,895/200-hour program. Location: e Ayurvedic Center of Vermont, 34 Oak Hill Rd., Williston. Info: Allison Morse, 802-872-8898, info@ayurvedavermont.com, ayurvedavermont.com.

Find and purchase tickets for these and other classes at sevendaystickets.com.

Humane Society

Dexter

AGE/SEX: 5-year-old neutered male

ARRIVAL DATE: July 13, 2023

SUMMARY: Good boy Dexter came our way when his owner could no longer care for him. He loves going for walks and cuddling with his people. He’s a playful boy! It may take him a bit to warm up to his new surroundings, but once you’re in with Dex, he’s sure to shower you with his affection. Come visit Dexter at HSCC to see if he could be your new best friend!

DOGS/CATS/KIDS: Dexter has lived with other dogs and enjoyed playing (he can be a rough-and-tumble player). He needs a home without cats, small animals or kids.

Visit the Humane Society of Chittenden County at 142 Kindness Court, South Burlington, Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. or Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call 862-0135 or visit hsccvt.org for more info.

DID YOU KNOW?

All HSCC dogs are available for Foster-to-Adopt! When you Foster-to-Adopt a dog, you can bring a dog home for a week and get to know them before committing to adoption. Visit our adoption center or call us at 802-862-0135 to learn more!

Sponsored by:

Seven Days Pet Memorials

Lola, 2009-2022

Mighty

Squirrel Hunter

We rescued Lola from the Houston pound when she was 1-ish. She was a little feral, and we nicknamed her Beast. She had no social skills with other dogs and preferred to ignore them. If a dog approached, they got snarled at. At home, she rested under the bed for hours. She was an excellent road trip companion and set paw in many states. She enjoyed countless hours of walks and hikes and happily offered a “beast boost” on the steep parts. Carkeek and Weowna in Seattle and Enchanted Rock in central Texas were favorites. When Lola was 6, she got a backyard, and her love of chasing squirrels became a disciplined daily practice of perfecting a unique hunting method that, over years, became ruthlessly efficient. Her passion for her one hobby was remarkable, even as she grew arthritic. She loved her grandma more than anyone else, and they spent lots of time together before Lola died. She never made it to Vermont with us, but she would have loved it here. We miss you, dear Beastie.

— e Forsons

Mauzzy, 2010-2016

Shotgun Rider

Today was a special day. It just wasn’t as special without you.

Today was a bright, sunny day. But there was a dark spot in my heart because I miss you.

Today you were supposed to ride shotgun with me on my trip. e snot spots on the glass and leash coiled in my console were my reminders that you could not be with me.

Today I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts. e attendant forgot to ask if you wanted a treat.

Today when I came out of the merchant’s building, I was hoping for a warm greeting. I only got a cold seat.

Today I ate lunch at McDonald’s. You weren’t there to share a burger with.

Today I drove by the rest area where we once stopped. I had no one to walk with. You were busy walking with God.

Today I had more tears in my eyes than usual. It wasn’t dry eye. I think it was Doodle eye.

Today the ride was more quiet than normal. I had no one to talk to.

Today is a harder day than usual. You weren’t my dog, but you were my friend. Peace, Buddy.

—Love, Grandpa

Stumpy

Tough Little

Peanut Pal

I never knew what happened to your tail and leg, but not having them never seemed to slow you down. Your zest for life was an inspiration. I miss seeing you every day, but your memory lives on.

Sadie Bird, 2010-2021

Southern Lady With Style, Class

One of the world’s truest beauties, full of sass and class.

I miss our pizza parties, sports ball events, walking you and have onlookers gaze in awe of your majesty. Not sure who would breed a Great Dane with a poodle, but I’m sure glad they did!

– Love, Johnny, Mary, Yuki, Rocket

— Your Pals at Minky Manor

CLASSIFIEDS

housing ads: $25 (25 words) legals: 52¢/word buy this stuff: free online

services: $12 (25 words) fsbos: $45 (2 weeks, 30 words, photo) jobs: michelle@sevendaysvt.com, 865-1020 x121

print deadline: Mondays at 3:30 p.m. post ads online 24/7 at: sevendaysvt.com/classifieds questions? classifieds@sevendaysvt.com

865-1020 x115

on the road

CARS/TRUCKS

2010 GMC TERRAIN 103,500 miles.

6-cylinder. Inspected, no rust. Sunroof, heated leather seats, hitch, backup camera, silver. Like-new. New brakes. Asking $8,500. Call 802-355-4099.

housing FOR RENT

3-BR HOUSE RENTAL

3-BR, 3.5-BA house in Benson. Pastoral views,

professional kitchen, study, spacious dining/ family room. 20-30 min. from Middlebury/ Castleton areas. W/D, parking. $3,000. Contact xyacht332@ gmail.com.

SPACIOUS 2-STORY APT.

Newly remodeled. 2-BR, 1.5-BA, study. Large living space opens to garden. 173 S. Prospect St., Burlington. Utils., W/D incl. No dogs. 1-year lease, $3,000/mo. Avail. now. Contact Eleanor at 802-734-2014 or elanahan@burlington telecom.net.

HOUSEMATES

HOMESHARE IN S. BURLINGTON Mid-30s professional enjoys horseback riding & reading. Seeking LGBTQ-friendly housemate who enjoys lovable dog & cat! Shared BA. $650/mo. + utils. Call 802-863-5625 or visit homesharevermont. org for application. Interview, refs. & background checks req. EHO.

CLASSIFIEDS KEY

LIVE W/ CARDS & GAMES FAN

Share Williston home w/ woman in her 70s. Loves cards, board games & game shows. No rent, in exchange for help w/ evening meals, light cleaning & occasional chocolate milkshake outings! Must be cat-friendly. Call 802-863-5625 or visit homesharevermont. org for application.

Interview, refs. & background checks req. EHO.

MOUNTAIN VIEWS IN SHELBURNE BR/LR/private BA avail. in Shelburne house w/ mountain views.

Active senior seeking housemate who can help w/ spring & fall raking/trimming. $650/mo. plus utils. No pets. Call 802-863-5625 or visit homesharevermont. org for application. Interview, refs., background checks req. EHO.

OFFICE/ COMMERCIAL

OFFICE/RETAIL SPACE AT MAIN STREET LANDING on Burlington’s waterfront. Beautiful, healthy, affordable spaces for your business. Visit mainstreetlanding.com & click on space avail. Melinda, 864-7999.

car donation helps veterans! 1-866-5599123. (AAN CAN)

PROFESSIONAL SAFE

DRIVER

Avail. Mon.- u., 10 a.m.-3 p.m., fl exible. $25/hour, 1099 needed. Lightweight, no taxi or CDL. Prefer Chittenden County. Call at 802-495-1954.

COMPUTER

SOFTWARE HELP

NEEDED!

Our music studio on Pine St. is growing & we’re looking for a computer wiz to help integrate & optimize

our processes w/ Squarespace, Square Appointments, Copper CRM, Zappier. Up to $30/hour depending on your experience/speed. Email info@burlington musicdojo.com or call 802 540-0321.

ELDER CARE

FIND SENIOR LIVING

My Caring Plan has helped thousands of families fi nd senior living. Our trusted, local advisers help fi nd solutions to your unique needs at no cost to you. Call 866-386-9005. (AAN CAN)

FINANCIAL/LEGAL

$10K+ IN DEBT?

Be debt-free in 24-48 mos. Pay a fraction of your debt. Call National Debt Relief at 844-9773935. (AAN CAN)

APPEAL FOR SOCIAL SECURITY

Denied Social Security disability? Appeal! If you’re 50+, filed SSD & were denied, our attorneys can help. Win or pay nothing. Strong recent work history needed. Call 1-877-311-1416 to contact Steppacher Law Offi ces LLC. Principal

offi ce: 224 Adams Ave., Scranton, PA 18503. (AAN CAN)

HEALTH/ WELLNESS

DISCOVER OXYGEN THERAPY

Try Inogen portable oxygen concentrators. Free information kit. Call 866-859-0894. (AAN CAN)

MASSAGE FOR MEN BY SERGIO

Time for a massage to ease those aches & pains. Deep tissue & Swedish. Contact me for an appt.: 802-324-7539, sacllunas@gmail.com.

PERFECT MASSAGE FOR MEN

Men, I’m Mr. G. It’s all about you relaxing. Very private, 1-on-1 moment. If you feel good, I’m happy. e massage is real; the sessions are amazing! Located in central Vermont just off Exit 7. Text only to 802-522-3932 or email motman@ymail.com.

PSYCHIC COUNSELING

Psychic counseling, channeling w/ Bernice

Kelman, Underhill. 40+ years’ experience. Also energy healing, chakra balancing, Reiki, rebirthing, other lives, classes & more. 802-899-3542, kelman.b@juno.com.

HOME/GARDEN

BATH & SHOWER UPDATES

In as little as 1 day! Affordable prices. No payments for 18 mo.

Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & military discounts avail. Call 1-866-370-2939. (AAN CAN)

NEVER CLEAN YOUR GUTTERS AGAIN!

Affordable, professionally installed gutter guards protect your gutters & home from debris & leaves forever. For a free quote, call 844-947-1470. (AAN CAN)

SECURE YOUR HOME

Secure your home w/ Vivint Smart Home technology. Call 855-621-5855 to learn how you can get a professionally installed security system w/ $0 activation. (AAN CAN)

MOVING/HAULING

LAST MINUTE MOVERS

We are Last Minute Movers, the guys here to “Save the day when you need it done right away.” Professionally trained & fully insured. Email rickmarkoski@gmail. com to experience the difference today w/ a complimentary in-home consultation.

ser vices

AUTO

DONATE YOUR CAR TO CHARITY

Running or not! Fast, free pickup. Maximum tax deduction. Support Patriotic Hearts. Your

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 and similar Vermont statutes which make it illegal to advertise any preference, limitations, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, handicap, presence of minor children in the family or receipt of public assistance, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation or a discrimination. The newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate, which is in violation of the law. Our

readers are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. Any home seeker who feels he or she has encountered discrimination should contact:

HUD Office of Fair Housing 10 Causeway St., Boston, MA 02222-1092 (617) 565-5309

— OR —

Vermont Human Rights Commission 14-16 Baldwin St. Montpelier, VT 05633-0633

1-800-416-2010 hrc@vermont.gov

MISCELLANEOUS

DISH TV $64.99 $64.99 for 190 channels + $14.95 high-speed internet. Free installation, Smart HD DVR incl., free voice remote. Some restrictions apply. 1-866-566-1815. (AAN CAN)

HUGHESNET SATELLITE INTERNET

Finally, no hard data limits! Call today for speeds up to 25 mbps as low as $59.99/mo. $75 gift card, terms apply. 888-669-0615. (AAN CAN)

CALCOKU BY JOSH REYNOLDS

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK: ★★

Fill the grid using the numbers 1-6, only once in each row and column. e numbers in each heavily outlined “cage” must combine to produce the target number in the top corner, using the mathematical operation indicated. A one-box cage should be filled in with the target number in the top corner. A number can be repeated within a cage as long as it is not the same row or column.

SUDOKU BY JOSH REYNOLDS

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK: ★★★

Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers one to nine. e same numbers cannot be repeated in a row or column.

ANSWERS ON P.84

★ = MODERATE ★ ★ = CHALLENGING ★ ★ ★ = HOO, BOY!

WANT MORE PUZZLES?

Try

NEW

Guess today’s 5-letter word. Hint: It’s in the news!

MALE ENHANCEMENT

PILLS

Bundled network of Viagra, Cialis & Levitra alternative products for a 50-pills-for-$99 promotion. Call 888531-1192. (AAN CAN)

PETS

STANDARD POODLEBICHON PUPS

AKC registered. 2 black male poodles, 10 weeks. Bichon males/females. Accepting deposits. Will be vax/micro when ready. 1 male, 1 female, 16 weeks. Contact 802318-8249 or ljbrier@ comcast.net.

SPORTS EQUIPMENT

PICKLEBALL MACHINE

Brand new slinger machine, rotates. 2

brand-new size 12 pickleball shoes. $250 for the machine, $350 for everything. Contact 802-238-9677.

WANT TO BUY

TOP CASH FOR OLD GUITARS

1920-1980 Gibson, Martin, Fender, Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild, Mosrite, Rickenbacker, Prairie State, D’Angelico & Stromberg + Gibson mandolins & banjos. 877-589-0747. (AAN CAN)

Legal Notices

PUBLIC NOTICE

e Annual meeting of the Board of Directors for Vermont Dental Care Programs will be held on Monday, September 25, at 5:30pm at the offi ce of Vermont Dental Care at 32 Malletts Bay Ave, Winooski, Vermont. For further information please call Sandra at 802-655-2385.

NORTHFIELD MUTUAL HOLDING COMPANY

NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING

A Special Meeting of the Corporators of the Northfi eld Mutual Holding Company will be held on October 4, 2023 beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, 60 Lake St, Burlington, VT 05401. e matters to be considered include a review of corporate activities. Please call (802) 871-4492 for information.

music INSTRUCTION

GUITAR INSTRUCTION

Berklee graduate w/ 30 years’ teaching experience offers lessons in guitar, music theory, music technology, ear training. Individualized, step-by-step approach. All ages, styles, levels. Rick Belford, 864-7195, rickbelford.com.

VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT SUPERIOR COURT CIVIL DIVISION CHITTENDEN UNIT DOCKET NO: 23-CV-03306

In Re: Abandoned Mobile Home Of John Bailey

Notice of Auction Sale

Please take notice that the Auction Sale of the Abandoned Mobile Home of John Bailey shall take place on September 13, 2023 at 11:00 A.M. at the location of the Mobile Home, 158 4th Street in Breezy Acres Mobile Home Park, Colchester, Vermont. e Mobile Home shall be conveyed to the highest bidder, in “AS IS” condition. Other terms to be announced at sale. Inquiries to Plaintiff’s counsel.

Dated this 29th day of August, 2023.

Steven J. Kantor, Esq. Doremus Kantor & Zullo 346 Shelburne Road, Suite 603 P.O. Box 445 Burlington, VT 05402-0445 (802) 863-9603 skantor@dkzlegal.com

Attorney for Plaintiff Breezy Acres Cooperative

STATE OF VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT PROBATE DIVISION CHITTENDEN UNIT DOCKET NO.:23-PR-01473

In re ESTATE of Glenn M. Palmore

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

To the creditors of: Glenn M. Palmore, late of Burlington, Vermont

I have been appointed to administer this estate. All creditors having claims against the decedent or the estate must present their claims in writing within four (4) months of the date of the fi rst publication of this notice. e claim must be presented to me at the address listed below with a copy sent to the Court. e claim may be barred forever if it is not presented within the four (4) month period.

Dated: August 30, 2023

Signature of Fiduciary: /s/ Donald Palmore

Executor/Administrator: Donald Palmore, 3080 Orange Grove Trail, Naples FL 34120 802-349-9350 palmore57@gmail.com

Name of Publication: Seven Days

Publication Date: 9/6/2023

Name of Probate Court: State of VermontChittenden Probate Division

Address of Probate Court: 175 Main Street PO Box 511, Burlington, VT 05402

STATE OF VERMONT

DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH NOTIFICATION OF PERIOD OF PUBLIC COMMENT

Pursuant to 18 V.S.A. § 8907 and the Administrative Rules on Agency Designation, the Vermont Department of Mental Health (DMH) hereby notify the public of the Application for Redesignation of Northeastern Family Institute (NFI).

A 14-day period of public comment is provided for DMH to gather information about

Northeastern Family Institute (NFI) as part of the process to decide whether or not the State of Vermont will renew the agency’s designation to deliver mental health services to children, adolescents and families in Vermont. Comments from consumers, parents, family members and other concerned citizens about your experiences with services provided by NFI are welcomed. Public comments will be accepted for the two-week period from Friday, September 01, 2023, until the close of business on Friday, September 15, 2023. In particular, DMH is interested in knowing:

1. What are the strengths and challenges of the agency?

2. Does the agency work well with other agencies in the community?

3. Do people get the mental health services that they need?

4. Do people get mental health services when they need them?

5. Do you have any recommendations for improvements?

Please send written comments or contact us by phone no later than Friday, September 15, 2023.

Mail: Department of Mental Health

280 State Drive, NOB 2 North Waterbury, Vermont 05671-2010

Attn: Puja Senning

Phone: 802-585-4540

Fax: 802-241-0100

E-mail: Puja.Senning@vermont.gov

STATE OF VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT CIVIL DIVISION WASHINGTON UNIT DOCKET NO. 41-1-20 WNCV

Estate Of Gordon Stone And Estate Of Jennifer Harwood Stone Plaintiffs, v.

John C. Kirby; State Of Vermont Offi ce Of Child Support; And Any Occupant(S) Residing At 43 Randall St., Waterbury, Vt; Defendants.

NOTICE OF Foreclosure SALE

By virtue, and in execution of a Power of Sale as granted by the Judgment Order and Decree of Foreclosure and Order for Public Sale dated May 8, 2023, the undersigned, holder of a lien to secure payment of unpaid Principal and interest due on the Court’s Judgment Order dated May 8, 2023 entered in the case entitled “Gordon Stone and Jennifer Harwood Stone v. John C. Kirby, Docket No. 163-3-19 Wncv, of record in Book 448 at Page 27 of the Town of Waterbury Land Records (“Judgment Lien”) , for failure of Defendants to satisfy and for the purpose of foreclosing the same, will cause all of the premises described below to be sold by Public Auction to the highest bidder at 11:00AM. on September 28, 2023 at the property located at 43 Randall Street, Waterbury, Vermont:

To wit:

Being all and the same lands and premises conveyed to John C. Kirby by Warranty Deed of the State of Vermont dated September 1, 2016 and recorded in Book 387, Page 76 of the Town of Waterbury Land Records, consisting of a main residence and a carriage house set on 0.27 acre, more or less, located at 43 Randall Street in Waterbury, Vermont; the carriage house is also known as 45 Randall Street.

Terms of Sale: Successful bidders will sign a no contingency Purchase and Sale Contract and shall pay a deposit in the amount of $10,000.00 or 25% of the highest bid, whichever is less, in cash or certifi ed funds at the time of sale with the balance due at closing, which shall be held within ten (10) days of confi rmation of the sale. Proof of fi nancing for the balance of the purchase price must be provided at the time of sale; such sale being as-is, where-is, with buyer taking all risks and defects associated with or connected to the property.

e Defendants are entitled to redeem the premises at any time prior to the sale by paying

the full amount due under the Final Judgment Order, including the costs and expenses of the sale. Other terms to be announced at the sale or inquire at Stackpole & French Law Offices, P.O. Box 819, Stowe, VT 05672, (802) 253-7339.

Estate of Gordon Stone and Estate of Jennifer

Harwood Stone

By: Anna A. Black, Esq.

Stackpole & French Law Offices

P.O. Box 819, Stowe, VT 05672

Dated: August 18, 2023

WARNING POLICY ADOPTION CHAMPLAIN

VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT

The Board of School Directors gives public notice of its intent to adopt local district policies dealing with the following at its meeting scheduled on September 19, 2023:

E18 - Access Control and Visitor Management

E19 - Fire and Emergency Preparedness Drills

Copies of the above policies may be obtained for public review at the Office of the Human Resources Dept. in Shelburne, VT.

CITY OF ESSEX JUNCTION

DEVELOPMENT REVIEW BOARD PUBLIC HEARING

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023 6:30 P.M.

This meeting will be held in person at 2 Lincoln Street in the conference room and remotely. The meeting will be live-streamed on Town Meeting TV.

• JOIN ONLINE: Visit www.essexjunction.org for meeting connection information.

• JOIN CALLING: Join via conference call (audio only): Dial 1(888) 788-0099 (toll free)

Meeting ID: 839 2599 0985 Passcode: 940993

Public hearing

Appeal of Administrative Officer’s enforcement decision at 8 Taft Street in the R-1 District, by Stephen and Sharon Wille Padnos, adjoining residents.

Conceptual site plan to construct 3-story mixeduse building with commercial on 1st floor and 34 residential units with parking at 8 Railroad Street in the VC District, by Franklin South, LLC, owner.

Conceptual site plan to remove existing structures and construct 4-story 18 unit residential building

Support Groups

A CIRCLE OF PARENTS FOR MOTHERS OF COLOR

Please join our parent-led online support group designed to share our questions, concerns & struggles, as well as our resources & successes! Contribute to our discussion of the unique but shared experience of parenting. We will be meeting weekly on Wed., 10-11 a.m. For more info or to register, please contact Heather at hniquette@pcavt.org, 802-498-0607, pcavt.org/family-support-programs.

A CIRCLE OF PARENTS FOR SINGLE MOTHERS

Please join our parent-led online support group designed to share our questions, concerns & struggles, as well as our resources & successes!

Contribute to our discussion of the unique but shared experience of parenting. We will be meeting weekly on Fri., 10-11 a.m. For more info or to register, please contact Heather at hniquette@ pcavt.org, 802-498-0607, pcavt.org/ family-support-programs.

A CIRCLE OF PARENTS W/ LGBTQ+ CHILDREN

Please join our parent-led online support group designed to share our questions, concerns & struggles, as well as our resources & successes!

Contribute to our discussion of the unique but shared experience of parenting. We will be meeting weekly on Mon., 10-11 a.m. For more info or to register, please contact Heather at hniquette@ pcavt.org, 802-498-0607, pcavt.org/ family-support-programs.

AL-ANON

For families & friends of alcoholics. Phone meetings, electronic meetings (Zoom) & an Al-Anon blog are avail. online at the Al-Anon website. For meeting info, go to vermontalanonalateen. org or call 866-972-5266.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Do you have a drinking problem? AA meeting sites are now open, & online meetings are also avail. Call our hotline at 802-864-1212 or check for in-person or online meetings at burlingtonaa.org.

ALL ARTISTS SUPPORT GROUP

Are you a frustrated artist? Have you longed for a space to “play” & work? Let’s get together & see what we can do about this! Text anytime or call 802-777-6100.

ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION SUPPORT

GROUPS

Support groups meet to provide assistance & info on Alzheimer’s disease & related dementias. They emphasize shared experiences, emotional support & coping techniques in care for a person living w/ Alzheimer’s or a related dementia. Meetings are free & open to the public. Families, caregivers & friends may attend. Please call in advance to confirm the date & time.

The Williston Caregiver Support Group meets in person on the 2nd Tue. of every mo., 5-6:30 p.m., at the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library in Williston; this meeting also has a virtual option at the same time; contact support group facilitators Molly at dugan@ cathedralsquare.org or Mindy at moondog@burlingtontelecom.net.

The Middlebury Support Group for Individuals w/ Early Stage Dementia meets the 4th Tue. of each mo., 3 p.m., at the Residence at Otter Creek, 350 Lodge Rd., Middlebury; contact Daniel Hamilton, dhamilton@residence ottercreek.com or 802-989-0097.

The Shelburne Support Group for Individuals w/ Early Stage Dementia meets the 1st Mon. of every mo., 2-3 p.m., at the Residence at Shelburne Bay, 185 Pine Haven Shores, Shelburne; contact support group facilitator Lydia Raymond, lraymond@residenceshelburnebay.com. The Telephone Support Group meets the 2nd Tue. of each mo., 4-5:30 p.m. Prereg. is req. (to receive dial-in codes for toll-free call). Please dial the Alzheimer’s Association’s 24-7 Helpline, 800-272-3900, for more info. For questions or additional support group listings, call 800-272-3900.

AMPUTEE SUPPORT GROUP

VT Active Amputees is a new support group open to all amputees for connection, community & support. The group meets on the 1st Wed. of the mo. in S. Burlington, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Let’s get together & be active: running,

with parking at 132 Pearl Street in the HA District by Paroline Real Estate, LLC , owner.

This DRAFT agenda may be amended. Any questions re: above please call Terry Hass – 802-878-6950

TOWN OF HUNTINGTON PLANNING COMMISSION NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

The Huntington Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on September 2 6, 2023 at 7 pm at Brewster-Pierce School to receive public comment on proposed changes to the Land Use Regulations. The purpose is revisions, as follows:

Section 5.06 Preservation of Significant Natural Features: exclusions from Development Review Board (DRB) for applications that by their nature have minimal impact to prime agriculture soil and rare plant and animal species. The geographic area affected is all Districts.

Section 5.08 Accessory Dwelling Units: Change in regulations to comply with Act 47 of 2023, which requires that regulations for ADUs cannot be more restrictive than regulations for single family houses. The geographic areas affected are all Districts where single-family dwellings are allowed.

CONTACT CLASSIFIEDS@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

OR 802-865-1020 EXT. 115 TO UPDATE YOUR SUPPORT GROUP

pickleball & ultimate frisbee. Email vtactiveamputees@gmail.com or call Sue at 802-582-6750 for more info & location.

ARE YOU HAVING PROBLEMS W/ DEBT?

Do you spend more than you earn? Get help at Debtor’s Anonymous & Business Debtor’s Anonymous. Wed., 6:30-7:30 p.m., Methodist Church in the Rainbow Room at Buell & S. Winooski, Burlington. Contact Jennifer, 917-568-6390.

BABY BUMPS SUPPORT GROUP FOR MOTHERS & PREGNANT WOMEN

Pregnancy can be a wonderful time of your life. But it can also be a time of stress often compounded by hormonal swings. If you are a pregnant woman, or have recently given birth & feel you need some help w/ managing emotional bumps in the road that can come w/ motherhood, please come to this free support group led by an experienced pediatric registered nurse. Held on the 2nd & 4th Tue. of every mo., 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Birthing Center, Northwestern Medical Center, St. Albans. Info: Rhonda Desrochers, Franklin County Home Health Agency, 527-7531.

BETTER BREATHERS CLUB

American Lung Association support group for people w/ breathing issues, their loved ones or caregivers. Meets on the 1st Mon. of every mo., 11 a.m.-noon at the Godnick Center, 1 Deer St., Rutland. For more info, call 802-776-5508.

BRAIN INJURY SUPPORT GROUP

Vermont Center for Independent Living offers virtual monthly meetings, held on the 3rd Wed. of every mo., 1-2:30 p.m. The support group will offer valuable resources & info about brain injury. It will be a place to share experiences in a safe, secure & confidential environment. To join, email Linda Meleady at lindam@vcil.org & ask to be put on the TBI mailing list. Info: 800-639-1522.

CANCER SUPPORT GROUP

The Champlain Valley Prostate Cancer Support Group will be held every 2nd Tue. of the mo., 6-7:45 p.m. via conference call. Newly diagnosed? Prostate cancer reoccurrence? General

Village Zoning Districts: Change in minimum lot size. Minimum lot size in the Village Zoning district has been reduced to a third acre from one acre in the Lower Village and Huntington Center. The area encompassed is the Lower Village and Huntington Center, as presented and described in Article IV, Section 4.02, Table 4.01 and Addendum B Town Plan Zoning District Maps B and C. The geographic area affected is Lower Village and Huntington Center.

Copies of the proposed revisions, as well as a report on how the prposed changes comply with State Statute and the Town Plan, are available on the Town web site (www.huntingtonvt.org) at the Town Office, Beaudry’s Store and the Huntington Public Library.

A list of the affected section headings follows, as required pursuant to Title 24, Chapter 117 V.S.A. Section 4444 (b).

4.02 & Table 4.01 – Zoning districts: Village Lot size

5.06 – Section 5.06 Preservation of Significant Natural Features

Section 5.08 & Table 4.01 - Accessory Dwelling Units —Heidi Racht, Clerk September 7, 2023

discussion & sharing among survivors & those beginning or rejoining the battle. Info, Mary L. Guyette RN, MS, ACNS-BC, 274-4990, vmary@aol.com.

CENTRAL VERMONT CELIAC SUPPORT GROUP

Last Thu. of every mo., 7:30 p.m. in Montpelier. Please contact Lisa Mase for location: lisa@harmonizecookery.com.

CEREBRAL PALSY GUIDANCE

Cerebral Palsy Guidance is a very comprehensive informational website broadly covering the topic of cerebral palsy & associated medical conditions. Its mission is to provide the best possible info to parents of children living w/ the complex condition of cerebral palsy.cerebralpalsyguidance.com/ cerebral-palsy.

CODEPENDENTS ANONYMOUS

CoDA is a 12-step fellowship for people whose common purpose is to develop healthy & fulfilling relationships. By actively working the program of Codependents Anonymous, we can realize a new joy, acceptance & serenity in our lives. Meets Sun. at noon at the Turning Point Center, 179 S. Winooski Ave., Suite 301, Burlington. Tom, 238-3587, coda.org.

THE COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS SUPPORT GROUP

The Compassionate Friends international support group for parents, siblings & families grieving the loss of a child meets every 4th Tue. of the mo., 7-9 p.m., at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, 2 Cherry St., Burlington. Call/email Alan at 802-233-0544, alanday88@ gmail.com, or Claire at 802-448-3569.

DECLUTTERERS’ SUPPORT GROUP

Are you ready to make improvements but find it overwhelming? Maybe 2 or 3 of us can get together to help each other simplify. 989-3234, 425-3612.

DISCOVER THE POWER OF CHOICE!

SMART Recovery welcomes anyone, including family & friends, affected by any kind of substance or activity addiction. It is a science-based program that encourages abstinence. Specially trained volunteer facilitators provide

leadership. Sun. at 5 p.m. The meeting has moved to Zoom: smartrecovery. zoom.us/j/92925275515. Volunteer facilitator: Bert, 399-8754. You can learn more at smartrecovery.org.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SUPPORT

Steps to End Domestic Violence offers a weekly drop-in support group for female-identified survivors of intimate partner violence, including individuals who are experiencing or have been affected by domestic violence. The support group offers a safe, confidential place for survivors to connect w/ others, to heal & to recover. In support group, participants talk through their experiences & hear stories from others who have experienced abuse in their relationships. Support group is also a resource for those who are unsure of their next step, even if it involves remaining in their current relationship. Tue., 6:30-8 p.m. Childcare is provided. Info: 658-1996.

FAMILY & FRIENDS OF THOSE EXPERIENCING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

This support group is a dedicated meeting for family, friends & community members who are supporting a loved one through a mental health crisis. Mental health crisis might include extreme states, psychosis, depression, anxiety & other types of distress. The group is a confidential space where family & friends can discuss shared experiences & receive support in an environment free of judgment & stigma w/ a trained facilitator. Wed., 7-8:30 p.m. Downtown Burlington. Info: Jess Horner, LICSW, 866-218-8586.

FAMILY RESTORED: SUPPORT GROUP FOR FRIENDS & FAMILIES OF ADDICTS & ALCOHOLICS Wed., 6:30-8 p.m., Holy Family/St. Lawrence Parish, 4 Prospect St., Essex Jct. For further info, please visit thefamilyrestored.org or contact Lindsay Duford at 781-960-3965 or 12lindsaymarie@gmail.com.

FCA FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP

Families Coping w/ Addiction (FCA) is an open community peer support group for adults (18+) struggling w/ the drug or alcohol addiction of a loved one. FCA is

Support Groups

HEARING VOICES SUPPORT GROUP

not 12-step-based but provides a forum for those living the family experience, in which to develop personal coping skills & to draw strength from one another. Our group meets every Wed., 5:30-6:30 p.m., live in person in the conference room at the Turning Point Center of Chittenden County (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington), &/or via our parallel Zoom session to accommodate those who cannot attend in person. The Zoom link can be found on the Turning Point Center website (turningpointcentervt.org) using the “Family Support” tab (click on “What We Offer”). Any questions, please send by email to thdaub1@gmail.com.

FIERCELY FLAT VT

A breast cancer support group for those who’ve had mastectomies. We are a casual online meeting group found on Facebook at Fiercely Flat VT. Info: stacy.m.burnett@gmail.com.

FOOD ADDICTS IN RECOVERY ANONYMOUS (FA)

Are you having trouble controlling the way you eat? FA is a free 12-step recovery program for anyone suffering from food obsession, overeating, under-eating or bulimia. Local meetings are held twice a week.: Mon., 4-5:30 p.m., at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Norwich, Vt.; & Wed., 6:30-8 p.m., at Hanover Friends Meeting House, Hanover, N.H. For more info & a list of additional meetings throughout the U.S. & the world, call 603-630-1495 or visit foodaddicts.org.

G.R.A.S.P. (GRIEF RECOVERY AFTER A SUBSTANCE PASSING)

Are you a family member who has lost a loved one to addiction? Find support, peer-led support group. Meets once a mo. on Mon. in Burlington. Please call for date & location. RSVP to mkeasler3@ gmail.com or call 310-3301 (message says Optimum Health, but this is a private number).

GRIEF & LOSS SUPPORT GROUP

Sharing your sadness, finding your joy. Please join us as we learn more about our own grief & explore the things that can help us to heal. There is great power in sharing our experiences w/ others who know the pain of the loss of a loved one & healing is possible through the sharing. BAYADA Hospice’s local bereavement support coordinator will facilitate our weekly group through discussion & activities. Everyone from the community is welcome. 1st & last Wed. of every mo. at 4 p.m. via Zoom. To register, please contact bereavement program coordinator Max Crystal, mcrystal@bayada.com or 802-448-1610.

GRIEF SUPPORT GROUPS

Meet every 2nd Mon., 6-7:30 p.m., & every 3rd Wed. from 10-11:30 a.m., at Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice in Berlin. The group is open to the public & free of charge. More info: Diana Moore, 224-2241.

GRIEVING A LOSS SUPPORT GROUP

A retired psychotherapist & an experienced life coach host a free meeting for those grieving the loss of a loved one. The group meets upstairs at All Souls Interfaith Gathering in Shelburne. There is no fee for attending, but donations are gladly accepted. Meetings are held twice a mo., the 1st & 3rd Sat. of every mo. from 10-11:30 a.m. If you are interested in attending, please register at allsoulsinterfaith. org. More information about the group leader at pamblairbooks.com.

This Hearing Voices Group seeks to find understanding of voice-hearing experiences as real lived experiences that may happen to anyone at any time. We choose to share experiences, support & empathy. We validate anyone’s experience & stories about their experience as their own, as being an honest & accurate representation of their experience, & as being acceptable exactly as they are. Tue., 2-3 p.m. Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington. Info: 802-777-8602, abby@ pathwaysvermont.org.

HELLENBACH CANCER SUPPORT

People living w/ cancer & their caretakers convene for support. Call to verify meeting place. Info, 388-6107.

INTERSTITIAL CYSTITIS/PAINFUL BLADDER SUPPORT GROUP

Interstitial cystitis (IC) & painful bladder syndrome can result in recurring pelvic pain, pressure or discomfort in the bladder/pelvic region & urinary frequency/ urgency. These are often misdiagnosed & mistreated as a chronic bladder infection. If you have been diagnosed or have these symptoms, you are not alone. For Vermont-based support group, email bladderpainvt@gmail.com or call 899-4151 for more info.

INTUITIVE EATING SUPPORT GROUP

Free weekly peer-led support group for anyone struggling w/ eating &/or body image. The only requirement is a desire to make peace w/ food & your body. Meeting format is: a short reading from Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch, 4th edition, followed by open sharing & discussion. Come find community through sharing struggles, experience, strength & hope. Located at the Pickering Room, Fletcher Free Library, Sun. 1-2:30 p.m. Contact 202-553-8953 w/ any questions.

KINDRED CONNECTIONS PROGRAM

OFFERED FOR CHITTENDEN COUNTY

CANCER SURVIVORS

The Kindred Connections program provides peer support for all those touched by cancer. Cancer patients, as well as caregivers, are provided w/ a mentor who has been through the cancer experience & knows what it’s like to go through it. In addition to sensitive listening, Kindred Connections provides practical help such as rides to doctors’ offices & meal deliveries. The program has people who have experienced a wide variety of cancers. For further info, please contact info@vcsn.net.

KINSHIP CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP

A support group for grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. Led by a trained representative & facilitator. Meets on the 2nd Tue. of every mo., 6:30-7:45 p.m., at Milton Public Library. Free. For more info, call 802-893-4644 or email library@miltonvt.gov. facebook. com/events/561452568022928.

LAUGHTER YOGA

Spontaneous, genuine laughter & gentle breathing for physical & emotional benefit. No yoga mat needed! This group is held every Mon., 2-3 p.m., at Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 North Winooski Ave., Burlington. Contact Chris Nial for any questions: chrisn@ pathwaysvermont.org.

LGBTQ SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE

The SafeSpace Anti-Violence Program at Pride Center of Vermont offers peer-led support groups for survivors of relationship, dating, emotional &/or hate-violence. These groups give survivors a safe & supportive environment

to tell their stories, share info, & offer & receive support. Support groups also provide survivors an opportunity to gain info on how to better cope w/ feelings & experiences that surface because of the trauma they have experienced. Please call SafeSpace at 863-0003 if you are interested in joining.

LGBTQ VETERANS

Share the struggles & celebrate the joys of being a service member & LGBTQIA+ in this peer-led discussion group. Meetings are at the Rainbow Bridge Community Center in Barre on the 2nd & 4th Tue. of each mo. Visit rbccvt.org for more info.

LIVING THROUGH LOSS

Gifford Medical Center is announcing the restart of its grief support group, Living Through Loss. The program is sponsored by the Gifford Volunteer Chaplaincy Program & will meet weekly on Fri., 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., in Gifford’s Chun Chapel. Meetings will be facilitated by the Rev. Timothy Eberhardt, spiritual care coordinator, & Emily Pizzale MSW, LICSW, a Gifford social worker. Anyone who has experienced a significant loss over the last year or so is warmly invited to attend & should enter through the hospital’s main entrance wearing a mask on the way to the chapel. Meetings will be based on the belief that, while each of us is on a unique journey in life, we all need a safe place to pause, to tell our stories &, especially as we grieve, to receive the support & strength we need to continue along the way.

MARIJUANA ANONYMOUS

Do you have a problem w/ marijuana?

MA is a free 12-step program where addicts help other addicts get & stay clean. Ongoing Wed., 7 p.m., at Turning Point Center, 179 S. Winooski, Suite 301, Burlington. Info: 861-3150.

MYELOMA SUPPORT GROUP

Area myeloma survivors, families & caregivers have come together to form a Multiple Myeloma Support Group. We provide emotional support, resources about treatment options, coping strategies & a support network by participating in the group experience w/ people who have been through similar situations. 3rd Tue. of every mo., 5-6 p.m., at the New Hope Lodge on East Ave. in Burlington. Info: Kay Cromie, 655-9136, kgcromey@aol.com.

NAMI CONNECTION PEER SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS

Weekly virtual meetings. If you have questions about a group in your area, please contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont, program@ namivt.org or 800-639-6480.

Connection groups are peer recovery support group programs for adults living w/ mental health challenges.

NAMI FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP

Weekly virtual & in-person meetings. ASL interpreters avail. upon request. Family Support Group meetings are for family & friends of individuals living w/ mental illness. If you have questions about a group in your area, please contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont, info@namivt.org or 800-639-6480.

NARCONON SUNCOAST DRUG & ALCOHOL REHABILITATION & EDUCATION

Narconon reminds families that overdoses due to an elephant tranquilizer known as Carfentanil have been on the rise in nearly every community nationwide. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid painkiller 100 times more powerful than

fentanyl & 1,000 times stronger than heroin. A tiny grain of it is enough to be fatal. To learn more about carfentanil abuse & how to help your loved one, visit narconon-suncoast.org/drug-abuse/ parents-get-help.html. Addiction screenings: Narconon can help you take steps to overcome addiction in your family. Call today for a no-cost screening or referral: 1-877-841-5509.

NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS is a group of recovering addicts who live without the use of drugs. It costs nothing to join. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using. Held in Burlington, Barre & St. Johnsbury. Info, 862-4516 or cvana.org.

NARCANON BURLINGTON GROUP

Group meets every Mon. at 7 p.m., at the Turning Point Center, 179 S. Winooski Ave., Suite 301, Burlington. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of addiction in a relative or friend. Info: Amanda H. 338-8106.

NEW (& EXPECTING) MAMAS & PAPAS!

EVERY PRIMARY CAREGIVER TO A BABY!

The Children’s Room invites you to join our weekly drop-in support group. Come unwind & discuss your experiences & questions around infant care & development, self-care & postpartum healing, & community resources for families w/ babies. Tea & snacks provided. Thu., 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Bring your babies! (Newborn through crawling stage.)

Located in Thatcher Brook Primary School, 47 Stowe St., childrensroomonline. org. Contact childrensroom@wwsu.org or 244-5605.

NORTHWEST VERMONT CANCER

PRAYER & SUPPORT NETWORK

A meeting of cancer patients, survivors & family members intended to comfort & support those who are currently suffering from the disease. 2nd Thu. of every mo., 6-7:30 p.m., St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 11 Church St., St. Albans. Info: stpaulum@myfairpoint. net. 2nd Wed. of every mo., 6-7:30 p.m., Winooski United Methodist Church, 24 W. Allen St., Winooski. Info: hovermann4@comcast.net.

OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS (OA)

A 12-step program for people who identify as overeaters, compulsive eaters, food addicts, anorexics, bulimics, etc. No matter what your problem w/ food, we have a solution! All are welcome, meetings are open, & there are no dues or fees. See oavermont.org/ meeting-list for the current meeting list, meeting format & more; or call 802-863-2655 anytime!

PONDERING GENDER & SEXUALITY

Pondering Gender & Sexuality is a twicemonthly facilitated mutual support group for folks of any identity (whether fully formed or a work in progress) who want to engage in meaningful conversations about gender, sexuality & sexual orientation, &/or the coming-out process. Discussions can range from the personal to the philosophical & beyond as we work together to create a compassionate, safe & courageous space to explore our experiences. The group will be held on the 2nd Sun. & 4th Tue. of every mo., 1-2:30 p.m., either virtually or at Pride Center of Vermont. Email pgs@pridecentervt.org for more info or w/ questions!

POTATO INTOLERANCE SUPPORT GROUP

Anyone coping w/ potato intolerance & interested in joining a support group,

contact Jerry Fox, 48 Saybrook Rd., Essex Junction, VT 05452.

QUEER CARE GROUP

This support group is for adult family members & caregivers of queer &/or questioning youth. It is held on the 2nd Mon. of every mo., 6:30-8 p.m., at Outright Vermont, 241 N. Winooski Ave. This group is for adults only. For more info, email info@outrightvt.org.

READY TO BE TOBACCO-FREE GROUPS

Join a free 4-5-week group workshop facilitated by our coaches, who are certified in tobacco treatment. We meet in a friendly, relaxed & virtual atmosphere. You may qualify for a free limited supply of nicotine replacement therapy. Info: call 802-847-7333 or email quittobaccoclass@uvmhealth.org to get signed up, or visit myhealthyvt.org to learn more about upcoming workshops!

RECOVERING FROM RELIGION

Meets on the 2nd Tue. of every mo., 6-8 p.m., at Brownell Public Library, 6 Lincoln St., Essex Junction, unless there’s inclement weather or the date falls on a holiday. Attendees can remain anonymous if they so choose & are not required to tell their story if they do not wish to, but everyone will be welcome to do so. The primary focus of a Recovering From Religion support group is to provide ongoing & personal support to individuals as they let go of their religious beliefs. This transitional period is an ongoing process that can result in a range of emotions, as well as a ripple effect of consequences throughout an individual’s life. As such, the support meetings are safe & anonymous places to express these doubts, fears & experiences without biased feedback or proselytizing. We are here to help each other through this journey. Free.

REFUGE RECOVERY MEETING

Burlington Refuge Recovery is a Buddhist-oriented, nontheistic addiction recovery group that meets every Tue. at 6:45 p.m. at Turning Point Center, located at 179 S. Winooski Ave. in Burlington.

SCLERODERMA FOUNDATION NEW ENGLAND

Support group meeting held on the 4th Tue. of every mo., 6:30-8:30 p.m., Williston Police Station. Info, Blythe Leonard, 878-0732.

SEX & LOVE ADDICTS ANONYMOUS

12-step recovery group. Do you have a problem w/ sex or relationships? We can help. Info: Shawn, 660-2645. Visit slaafws.org or saa-recovery.org for meetings near you.

SEX ADDICTS ANONYMOUS, MONTPELIER

Do you have a problem w/ compulsive sexual behavior? A 12-step program has helped us. SAA Montpelier meets twice weekly at 6 p.m.: Mon. virtual meeting, details at saatalk.info; Thu. face-toface at Bethany Church, Montpelier. Details at saa-recovery.org. Contact saa.vtrecovery@gmail.com or call 802-322-3701.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE SUPPORT

HOPE Works offers free support groups to women, men & teens who are survivors of sexual violence. Groups are avail. for survivors at any stage of the healing process. Intake for all support groups is ongoing. If you are interested in learning more or would like to schedule an intake to become a group member, please call our office at 864-0555, ext. 19, or email our victim advocate at advocate@sover.net.

“I just wanted to pass along the praise from my HR manager, who was overjoyed with how many solid applicants we received from our postings on Seven Days Jobs. Everyone we hired for these seasonal positions was very friendly, hardworking and cared about the success of our holiday season. is year in particular we used Seven Days as our main form of advertising, and we were highly rewarded for this strategy.

Dakin Farm advertises with Seven Days as a way to reach candidates and food lovers in our community. We appreciate that the newspaper is free and widely distributed. As a local family-run business, we also love how Seven Days shares incredible stories from Vermonters.

Our account executive, Michelle Brown, has been wonderful to work with. e whole sales team is very helpful and great at sending reminders about upcoming promotional opportunities without being too pushy. ey truly care about the success of their customers!

I greatly appreciate the support from the team and would recommend advertising with Seven Days to any local company.”

CAROLYN CUTTING Marketing Manager, Dakin Farm

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

YOUR TRUSTED LOCAL SOURCE. JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM

Champlain Orchards - Multiple Openings:

Product Operations Manager

GENERAL MANAGER

Seeking professional leadership to manage our two stores and contribute meaningfully to our next growth trajectory. We hope you join us in imagining the possibilities for an exciting future! Apply: tomgirl.co/hiring

Farm Market & Cider Garden Assistant

Diesel Mechanic - Delivery Driver

Bakery Assistant - Carpenter

Please visit our website for further information or send resume to hr@champlainorchards.com

Office Manager

Vermont Tent Company is currently accepting applications for the following positions for immediate employment.

Full time, part time and weekend hours available for each position. Pay rates vary by position with minimum starting wage ranging from $20-$23/ hour depending on job skills and experience. We also offer retention and referral bonuses.

• Tent Maintenance

• Tent Installation

• Drivers/ Delivery

• Load Crew Team

Interested candidates submit application online: vttent.com/ employment

No phone calls, please.

Baker

Scout coffee shops in Burlington and Winooski are looking for a baker to join our in house baking program. We offer good pay, paid time off and a thoughtful and supportive work environment. Some experience required.

Send resumes to: andy@scoutandcompanyvt.com

Busy consulting office in Montpelier is seeking an office manager. Involved in all aspects of the firm’s operations, the office manager ensures the smooth operation of the office and supports a team of ten professionals. Financial responsibilities include client billing, collecting and depositing client payments, paying vendor invoices and working with outside bookkeepers and accountants. The office manager is also responsible for the preparation and filing of lobbyist disclosure reports. Other activities include light administrative support and coordination with outside vendors for services such as IT support and employee benefits.

Generous benefits package includes paid time off and medical and vision benefits. Salary commensurate with experience. Compensation package includes profit-sharing, 401(k) and opportunity for bonus. Submit cover letter and resume to chris@mmrvt.com

Experienced Residential Carpenter

Silver Maple Construction is seeking a full-time, benefits-eligible Carpenter focused on high-level customer service and the execution of exceptional quality work. Here at Silver Maple, we want everyone to feel valued and do the work that inspires you while maintaining a work-life balance better than many others in this field.

•

To learn more, please visit silvermapleconstruction.com (select JOBS) and/or send resume and market rate proposal to hr@silvermapleconstruction.com

VERMONT STATE COURTS

FINANCIAL SPECIALIST II

The Vermont Judiciary seeks to fill a permanent position in Montpelier.

This position works at a professional level involving financial management, fund accounting, and internal auditing and reconciliation activities within the Vermont Judiciary. The principal function is the processing and management of state funds. High School Degree and 2 years of accounting experience or college work required. Starting pay at $20.40. Position includes 12 days of vacation & sick leave per year, 12 holidays and excellent health and retirement benefits.

For a more detailed description and how to apply see vermontjudiciary.exacthire.com/job/114511

E.O.E.

AFTERSCHOOL EDUCATOR

HIRING IN ALL DEPARTMENTS!

Full Time Year Round -

Summer & Winter Operations

Line Cook

Facilities

Maintenance Worker

Facilities

Common Area Cleaner

Lift Operators

Ski Patrollers

Snowmakers

Rental Technicians

Security Guard

*Competitive Pay, Seasonal Pass and Resort Wide Discounts, 401K, Medical, Dental & Life Insurance

For more information: boltonvalley.com/jobs

Bilingual Patient Services Coordinator

Our free health clinic seeks a detail-oriented bilingual (Spanish/English) Patient Services Coordinator who will work compassionately and collaboratively to help patients obtain needed services. The in-person role coordinates volunteer interpreters and supports Middlebury clinic operations. Desired: cultural and linguistic competence, excellent communications, problem-solving, and admin support skills. BA/BS preferred. ODC offers a great work environment. 28-32 hrs/wk, $21-$24/hr plus benefits purse. To apply, send cover letter, resume, & 3 refs to Heidi Sulis, hsulis@opendoormidd.org

Details: opendoormidd.org/ about-us/jobs

School’s Out in South Burlington is seeking qualified individuals to work with children at one of our after-school programs for this school year. Our programs operate out of the South Burlington School District and serve children between the ages of 5 and 13. The hours are 2:00 - 5:45 pm Monday through Friday.

Only available a few days a week? Not a problem. We can be flexible with scheduling!

Job duties: include planning daily activities, participating in activities and assisting with supervision of children.

Requirements: Experience working with large groups of children in an educational or recreational setting is prefered. Candidates must have the maturity, enthusiasm and commitment needed to work with children.

Interested candidates, please forward resume, contact information, and days you are available to ipero@sbschools.net

Solar Laborer

The Solar Laborer will perform many tasks requiring physical labor on construction sites in all types of weather. May operate hand & power tools: air hammers, earth tampers, cement mixers, concrete saws, surveying and measuring equipment, small equipment, and skid steer loaders. May clean and prepare sites, dig trenches, clear trees, build access roads, erect fencing, manage rubble and debris, and exfil as needed. Will assist other craft workers and take instructions. The Solar Laborer will assist the team when required. This position will learn their trade through on-the-job training. Teamwork & communication skills are highly prioritized in all aspects of this role.

REQUIRED: Minimum 1 year prior construction/installation experience. Legally permitted to work in the United States. Willing and able to pass a criminal background screening and pre-employment physical.

Starting Pay: $20/hr, Per Diem Rate $59-$110 Daily additional Apply via email with resume to hr@bullrockcorp.com

Join the Flynn and be part of a team striving to make the community better through the arts. All backgrounds encouraged to apply. This is an hourly, non-exempt, in-person position.

EVENT

OPERATIONS MANAGER

Coordinate, oversee, and conduct ‘Night of Show’ security and facility needs, support fellow Flynn staff during such events, and provide a high level of customer service and assistance to patrons. Your job will be to provide professional service that ensures the well-being and safety of patrons and the theatre during Flynn Center events. Candidates must have excellent communication skills, the ability to multitask, and have outstanding problem-solving skills.

Visit our website for more details: flynnvt.org/About-Us/Employment-andInternship-Opportunities

Email materials to: HResources@flynnvt.org

No phone calls, please. E.O.E.

CONSTITUENT ADVOCATE

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) seeks an organized, civic-minded individual to serve as a Constituent Advocate on his Vermont staff. Constituent Advocates are responsible for managing a portfolio of casework on a variety of federal issues in support of Vermonters needing assistance with the federal government.

Responsibilities include providing direct assistance to constituents with federal agencies, communicating with state and local agencies, and collaborating with colleagues in state and DC offices. Strong writing, communication, and organizational skills are required, and familiarity with federal programs and agencies is preferred.

Experience with veterans’ issues, health care systems, or disaster assistance is highly preferred. Successful candidates will have previous direct service, legal, or social work experience or training, along with a desire for helping others, a keen knowledge of Vermont, and a strong ability to problem solve, identify systemic challenges, and develop creative solutions.

The Senator’s office is an equal opportunity employer. The office does not discriminate on the basis of an individual’s race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or uniformed service. The office is committed to inclusion and encourages all individuals from all backgrounds to apply.

To apply please submit a resume, cover letter, and brief writing sample to jake_cernak@sanders.senate.gov indicating “CONSTITUENT ADVOCATE” in the subject line by September 12, 2023

Operating Room RN or Certified Surgical Technologist

NORTHEASTERN VERMONT REGIONAL HOSPITAL

(NVRH): Join our team of experienced nurses and provide exceptional patient care in Perioperative Services. We offer competitive wages, loan repayment, generous paid time off, and a comprehensive benefits package. Don’t miss out on this amazing chance to advance your career and join a healthcare team that delivers excellent services to the community.

Apply now and experience the rewards of being in a supportive and thriving environment at NVRH.

NVRH.ORG/CAREERS

Goddard College, a leader in non-traditional education, has the following full-time, benefit eligible and part-time position openings:

• ADMISSIONS & ENROLLMENT ADMIN COORDINATOR

• ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF CAMPUS OPERATIONS

• ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF ENROLLMENT SYSTEMS

• CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

• DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES

• HELP DESK ASSISTANT – PT

• MAINTENANCE GENERALIST

To view position descriptions and application instructions, visit: goddard.edu/about-goddard/employment-opportunities

TOWN ADMINISTRATOR OPENING

The Town of Westford, Vermont is seeking its next Town Administrator for an immediate opening. The perfect candidate will be an energetic, organized, and personable professional who is committed to maintaining our traditions of community and transparent good governance, while also working to bring more modern, more accessible, and more efficient services to our townspeople.

Under the direction of the Selectboard, this position is responsible for effectively administering the functions of both town government and the town office. This role will frequently also include oversight and implementation of special projects intended to advance the town in meaningful and sustainable ways.

Please review complete job advertisement at jobs.sevendaysvt.com

To be considered for this opportunity, please email a cover letter and resume, in confidence, to selectboard@westfordvt.us

The Town of Westford is an equal opportunity employer.

Long-Term Care OMBUDSMAN

Vermont Legal Aid seeks full-time, Long-Term Care Ombudsman in St. Johnsbury, VT

General responsibilities: Advocate for long-term care recipients. Identify, investigate, and help resolve complaints made by, or for, individuals receiving long-term care services in long-term care facilities and in the community through Vermont’s Choices for Care Medicaid program. Visit long-term care facilities to talk with residents and monitor conditions. Empower long-term care recipients to direct their own care. See vtlegalaid.org/vop-ltcombudsman for details.

Starting salary is $44,200, with additional salary credit given for relevant prior work experience. Four weeks paid vacation and retirement, as well as excellent health benefits.

This position is based in our St. Johnsbury office. Significant in-state travel in a personal vehicle required.

Application deadline is September 13, 2023. Your application should include a cover letter & resume, writing sample, and three professional references with contact information, sent as a single PDF. Applicants must be able to pass conflict of interest review and background check. Email your application to hiring@vtlegalaid.org. Include in the subject line your name and “VOP Ombudsman September 2023.” Please let us know how you heard about this position.

Training Administrator

The Vermont Rural Water Association is a nonprofit organization that assists public drinking water and wastewater utilities across Vermont. Our training program provides water and wastewater operators with continuing education credit hours. Our apprenticeship program trains new workers at drinking water and wastewater facilities.

The Training Administrator oversees Vermont Rural Water’s training and apprenticeship programs. This involves collaborating with our training staff to schedule classes and plan Vermont Rural Water’s annual conference. It also involves working with apprentices at drinking water and wastewater utilities to track their progress through the apprenticeship program.

There is potential to expand the position’s duties based on the selected candidate’s strengths and interests, such as: event planning, developing new class topics, workforce development initiatives, and/or K-12 and postsecondary education.

View full job description at vtruralwater.org/job-training-administrator

This position is 40 hours per week with flexible scheduling. This position will primarily work from a home office with some travel around Vermont.

To apply, send resume and cover letter to info@vtruralwater.org

The Vermont Rural Water Association is an equal opportunity employer and service provider. We value diverse perspectives, talents, and identities.

PSYCHOTHERAPIST

The Vermont Center for Anxiety Care (VCAC), a private psychotherapy practice on the Burlington waterfront, has an opening for a psychotherapist (M.A., MSW, or Ph.D) with family, child and/or adult therapy experience. Can be licensed or post-degree intern. Clinical supervision towards licensure provided as needed.

VCAC is a collaborative group with holistic approach and multiple specialties. Visit web site: vtcenterforanxietycare.com

Send resume and cover letter describing professional interests and goals to Paul Foxman, Ph.D., 86 Lake Street, Burlington, VT 05401 or email: paulfoxman@aol.com

Executive Director

Ascension Childcare, Inc is seeking an Executive Director to lead and complement our experienced, diverse, and dedicated teaching team and staff. We are an established non-profit, NAEYC accredited, 5 STAR, Seed & Sew certified early education program in Shelburne, offering early care and education for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years.

General Assembly

Supervisor of Committee Services

The Legislative support offices are currently hiring. The nonpartisan offices are an interesting, challenging, and exciting place to work. You will be part of a highly professional and collegial team that is proud of, and enthusiastic about, the mission of the state legislature.

To apply, please go to 'Career Opportunities' at legislature.vermont.gov.

The Executive Director oversees all day to day operations, supervises all staff, and maintains all records. The E.D. maintains and upholds local, state, and national partnerships, which are tied to various funding streams, program improvements, or community connections. In partnership with the Board of Directors, the E.D. maintains and manages all financials, creates and maintains a strategic plan for growth and development.

Send resumes to: director@accplayisforever.org

LEAP AmeriCorps Open Service Positions

LEAP is a national service program placing AmeriCorps members with non-profit organizations throughout Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom to provide educational programming to area schools and communities. LEAP is currently recruiting for service positions with; Farm-to-School Coordinator at Green Mountain Farm-to-School (1700 hours, Full Time), Environmental Education & Outdoor Rec Instructor at Northwoods Stewardship Center (1700 hours, Full Time), and Science Educator at Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium (1700 hours, Full Time).

Position start dates vary from Sept. 5 – Sept. 22, 2023. Members earn a living stipend and an education award. Great opportunity for recent high school grads 17+, college students, or anyone looking to gain workforce skills while making a difference in the community.

Go to leapinthenek.com or my.americorps.gov and search for LEAP in Vermont! Contact Hannah Nelson: 802-626-6638

Application deadline is 9/23

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

The Executive Assistant will provide administrative, creative, strategic support to Bolton Valley’s President and Executive Team. The person in this position will sit at the front line of an exciting period of the resort’s growth, helping to drive change by executing administrative tasks and other projects to maximize productivity.

The ideal candidate will have an interest in one of more of the following areas: project management, land use and permitting, funding, public policy, strategic planning, resort operations.

Job Functions:

Administrative and project support across a wide range of projects related to the resort’s operation, compliance, and growth objectives.

Qualifications:

Bachelor’s Degree or at least 2 years of previous administrative or project management experience

Proficiency in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Comfort with budgeting & basic accounting practices, or a willingness to learn

Excellent writing skills – both typing and composition

Excellent analytical skills (liberal arts & poly-sci majors encouraged to apply)

Application deadline is 9/23. More details and to apply: boltonvalley.com/job/assistant-to-the-president

Developmental Services

Direct Support Professionals

Are you ready to make a real difference in people's lives? Do you have a passion for helping others achieve their goals and experience a sense of belonging in their community? Then we have the perfect opportunity for you!

Community Associates, a program of the Counseling Service of Addison County, is looking for an amazing individual to join our team as a Direct Support Professional. In this role, you'll work with adults with developmental disabilities, helping them grow in job and community settings, gain more independence, build social and communication skills, and foster a community they can call their own.

We're seeking someone who's compassionate, patient, dependable, flexible, and has great judgement. If you're someone who also has fantastic mentoring skills, that's a bonus! You'll be working Monday through Friday during daytime hours. But wait, there's more! We offer an excellent benefits package, and we've just introduced a new salary scale with higher pay. Plus, to sweeten the deal even further, we're offering a $500 hiring bonus!

So what are you waiting for? Apply now by heading over to csac-vt.org/careers. We're an equal opportunity employer and can't wait to hear from you! $19/hour with 37.5 hours per week.

Explore opportunities like: Student Accounts Representative (HYBRID)

champlain.edu/careers

View opportunities here

FAMILY SELF SUFFICIENCY COORDINATOR

Burlington Housing Authority (BHA) in Burlington, VT is seeking a coordinator for its Family Self Sufficiency (FSS) program. FSS is an employment incentive program designed to support and encourage Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program participants to move towards economic self-sufficiency.

The program also provides case management services in ways that are designed to help clients achieve goals in six main categories: Employment, Education, Financial Literacy, Housing, Childcare, and Health/Wellness. This is a benefit eligible position working 36 to 40 hours per week.

Candidates should have two years’ prior experience in social services, as well as case management experience. Experience in relevant focus areas and/or the HUD Family Self Sufficiency Program preferred. A successful candidate must have strong interpersonal and computer skills.

Technology Manager and Admin Lead

The Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA) represents captive insurance companies (organizations that are wholly owned and controlled by its insureds) and service providers for the industry. To learn more about our association and industry, visit vcia.com. This position manages technology software and troubleshoots with vendors to fix any systems issue. The role also includes admin work and managing creative deliverables with the Director of Communications. VCIA offers a competitive salary and benefits, a remote working environment, and the opportunity for growth.

Responsibilities

• Technology coordinator for webinars, Annual Conference, and all other programming

• Primary contact with vendors for resolving technical issues related (but not limited) to: Microsoft, Adobe, database, and other software. Communicating clear solutions to staff

• Manage effective implementation on all non-financial technology assets and changes to those assets, including: installation and migration, training, updates, and monitoring and reporting

• Maintain relationships with print and other vendors for Annual Conference, ensuring accurate and on-time deliverables; primary contact for managing outsourced projects

• Research/recommend new systems & technologies to streamline work processes and enhance the member and attendee experience

• Understand membership database, its uses and tools, and serve as point person for staff help on database issues

• Membership and annual conference database entry; help run reports and other tasks for smooth registration process, as well as other admin tasks assigned by staff

Qualifications:

Technologically saavy; familiarity and ability in Microsoft/Adobe products; experience with CRM databases

Strong interpersonal, communication and customer service skills; self-motivated, innovative thinker

Strong analytical and communication skills, with great attention to detail

TO APPLY:

Provide minimum salary requirement in cover letter. Send cover letter, resume and any other relevant information to:

Mr. Francis McGill, VCIA Director of Communications, fmcgill@vcia.com.

Deadline to apply: EOB Wed. Sept. 20th 2023

BHA serves a diverse population of tenants and partners with a variety of community agencies. To most effectively carry out our vision of delivering safe and affordable housing to all, we are committed to cultivating a staff that reflects varied lived experiences, viewpoints, and educational histories. Therefore, we strongly encourage candidates from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women to apply. Multilingualism is a plus!

BHA offers a competitive salary, commensurate with qualifications and experience. Our robust benefit package includes premium medical insurance with a health reimbursement account, dental, vision, short and long term disability, 10% employer funded retirement plan, 457 retirement plan, accident insurance, life insurance, cancer and critical illness insurance.

We provide a generous time off policy including 12 days of paid time off and 12 days of sick time in the first year. In addition to the paid time off, Burlington Housing Authority recognizes 13 (paid) holidays and 2 (paid) floating cultural holidays. Interested in this career opportunity? Send a cover letter and resume to: humanresources@burlingtonhousing.org.

Human Resources

Burlington Housing Authority 65 Main Street, Suite 101 Burlington, VT 05401

burlingtonhousing.org

Burlington Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

POST YOUR JOBS AT: SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTMYJOB

PRINT DEADLINE: NOON ON MONDAYS (INCLUDING HOLIDAYS)

FOR RATES & INFO: MICHELLE BROWN, 802-865-1020 X121, MICHELLE@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

New, local, scamfree jobs posted every day!

AIDES FOR YOUNG MAN WITH AUTISM

Production Assistant

Weekend Respite:

Fri 5pm-Sat 5pm and/or Sat 5pm-Sun 5pm, $300/ day. Sun 5pm-Mon 8am, $250/partial day. Minimum required commitment is two consecutive 24-hr. shifts at least one weekend per month on average.

Executive Office Manager/ Executive Assistant

VSAC is seeking a talented full-time Executive Office Manager/Executive Assistant at our Winooski office. This position will closely support the executive team by overseeing the executive office’s day-to-day operations and administrative activities, managing various special projects and executive office budgets, acting as the primary point of contact for internal and external communications, and working on priority initiatives set by the executives.

See KieselsteinAutism Program.com/join-our-team for details.

Lost Lantern Spirits, an awardwinning independent bottler of American whiskey, is beginning to build out its Vermont production team! We’re seeking a Production Assistant to help with bottling, blending, and sometimes with the tasting room as well. We’re looking for someone who is detail-oriented, a problem solver, and has an interest in getting to know all about whiskey (if you aren’t already a whiskey nerd!). Reporting to Lost Lantern’s General Manager, this role is based at our Vergennes, VT production facility and tasting room. See the full job description at lostlanternwhiskey.com/careers

The ideal candidate will have five years of executive office management experience, substantial experience with Microsoft Office Suite, and excellent written and verbal communication skills. Candidates with a BA are preferred but comparable life experience will also be considered.

At Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC), we’re all about the mission. Help us fulfill our vision of providing all Vermont students with information and financial resources to reach their educational goals.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

This exciting new position supports the organization’s mission by assisting the Executive Director in all aspects of the organization’s activities. Depending on the candidates’ qualifications and experience, particular focus may be on business incubator development and implementation, acting as Regional Navigator for the Small Business Technical Assistance Exchange Program in Addison and Lamoille Counties, developing a regional economic development strategy for Addison County, and annual development of the Regional Priority Project List.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree required and/or a minimum of 3 years in a similar or equivalent organization & role; higher degree preferred.

• Minimum two years of experience in economic development or related field required.

• Demonstrated grant research and writing experience and knowledge of government and non-government funding sources preferred.

• Demonstrated experience overseeing and guiding complex projects with multiple partners and stakeholders.

• Demonstrated knowledge of Addison County, Vermont preferred.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills required.

How to Apply: Via email, submit cover letter and resume to fkenney@addisoncountyedc.org with “Assistant Director Job Application” in the subject line. Applications due by October 6, 2023.

Equal Opportunity Employer

APPLY ONLINE: VSAC.ORG/CAREERS

ME Williston is Hiring

You’re more than a massage therapist. You’re an artist, healer, and professional. Join the brand that sees you that way at Massage Envy in Williston. Currently hiring massage therapists, estheticians and two new front desk associates. Flexible hours, consistent clientele, ongoing CEs.

Send resumes to: clinic0779@massageenvy.com

Vermont Natural Coatings in Hardwick, VT has 2 openings:

• Customer Service

• Operations Manager

Join our team and help our business grow. To apply, please email your resume and letter of interest to: info@ vermontnaturalcoatings.com

Full-Time Public Safety Officer

Are you looking to make a difference in people’s lives? The Department of Public Safety at Saint Michael’s College is inviting applications for a full-time Public Safety Officer from those looking to enhance their skills. This position requires the flexibility to problemsolve in a wide range of situations, both demanding and rewarding. A successful candidate will possess the ability to work effectively in a college environment seeking a balance between education and enforcement. Benefits include health, dental, vision, employerpaid life and disability insurance, voluntary life, critical illness and accident insurance options, parental leave, flexible spending accounts (healthcare and dependent care), 401(k), generous paid time off, paid holidays, employee and dependent tuition benefits, employee and family assistance program, well-being programs and opportunities, discounted gym membership, paid volunteer time, use of the athletic facilities and the library, and countless opportunities to attend presentations, lectures, and other campus activities. For a complete job description, benefits information, and to apply online, please visit: bit.ly/SMCFTPSOD22

Part-Time Dispatch Switchboard Operator

The Public Safety/Fire & Rescue Departments at Saint Michael's College are inviting applications for a Part-Time Dispatch Switchboard Operator to dispatch radio calls and operate the College switchboard. The successful candidate will be responsible for answering all incoming calls and directing calls to the appropriate party quickly, accurately, and professionally. This role receives all emergency calls for SMC campus and the surrounding community. Dispatch, switchboard, emergency services experience desirable, but we will provide training for a motivated and dependable person with demonstrated aptitude. This position will require regular work hours, as well as evening, weekend, and holiday times.

For a complete job description, benefits information, and to apply online, please visit: bit.ly/SMCPTDM23

Part-Time Public Safety Officer

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

The Vermont Nursery & Landscape Association invites applications for their Executive Director, a part-time, at-home flexible management position working with a board of directors. Candidates should have experience in management, communications, accounting, marketing, and computer skills. View the job posting at www,vnlavt.org/news-events/jobpostings/. To apply, please send a cover letter and resume to kristina@vnlavt.org.

The Department of Public Safety at Saint Michael’s College is inviting applications for a part-time Public Safety Officer. This position requires the ability to deal with a wide range of individuals, often in stressful or emergency situations. A successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to work effectively in a college environment seeking a balance between education and enforcement in performing duties. Maintaining a safe campus includes the performance of routine services, response to incidents and emergencies, and completing necessary documentation and follow-up. The schedule is rotating and includes nights, weekends, and holidays. This position will require regular work hours, as well as evening, weekend, and holiday times.

For a complete job description, benefits information, and to apply online, please visit: bit.ly/SMCPTPSO

We have several exciting career opportunities available!

Scan the QR code to view a full job description and apply.

Permanent, Year-Round Warming Shelter Support Full & part time shifts

Mental Health and Substance Use Counselor

with...

“Seven Days sales rep Michelle Brown is amazing! She’s extremely responsive, and I always feel so taken care of. I can only imagine how many job connections she has facilitated for local companies in the 20 years she has been doing this.”

CAROLYN ZELLER Intervale Center, Burlington

Get a quote when posting online. Contact Michelle Brown at 865-1020, ext. 121, michelle@sevendaysvt.com

Residential Program Manager

Why not have a job you love?

Benefit package includes 29 paid days off in the first year, comprehensive health insurance plan with premium as low as $13 per month, up to $6,400 to go towards medical deductibles and copays, retirement match, generous sign on bonus and so much more. And that’s on top of working at one of the “Best Places to Work in Vermont” for five years running. Great jobs in management, & direct support at an award-winning agency serving Vermonters with intellectual disabilities.

Job Highlight - Residential Program Manager:

Exciting management opportunity coordinating residential supports for an individual who lives in their own home. This individual is a considerate, resourceful, wheelchair-using man with a budding talent for photography. He is a great conversationalist and appreciates time spent with others.

This is an excellent position for someone who is looking for the next step in their career or to continue their work in this field. The ideal candidate will enjoy working in a team-oriented position, have good organizational skills, and demonstrated leadership. Salary is $48,300 plus $1,500 sign on bonus at six months. Send resume to mmccormick@ccs-vt.org

See all our positions at ccs-vt.org/current-openings/ Make a career making a difference and apply today!

VERMONT PUBLIC IS HIRING!

We are Vermont’s unified public media organization (formerly VPR and Vermont PBS), serving the community with trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and diverse educational programming.

• Director of Engineering

• Education and Youth Reporter

• Digital Producer

• Senior Vice President of Content

We believe a strong organization includes employees from a range of backgrounds with different skills, experience & passions.

To see more openings & apply: vermontpublic.org/ careers

Must be able to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Vermont Public is a proud equal opportunity employer.

Care Guide, Customer Support

This role supports a customer’s care journey during their time with MVP through high quality interactions and experiences. The Care Guide works directly with customers and as appropriate, customers’ family and/or advocates to ensure that they have a smooth transition to their plan and fully understand their benefits and resources available to them as they use their plan. The Care Guide collaborates with Plan Guides during the sales processes to provide deep benefit and product knowledge that guides a prospective customer to their best plan options and serves as the escalation and transition point for customers with clinical needs to Care Management.

Minimum Education: Associate’s degree in a health or human services field preferred. Three (3) years’ successful experience working within a managed care or health services environment.

Apply online: bit.ly/4MVPHealthcareGuide

PLANNING & ZONING ASSISTANT

The Town of Stowe is seeking to hire a Planning & Zoning Assistant who is dedicated, friendly, and customer service oriented with exceptional attention to detail. An employee in this position serves as the first point of contact for visitors and those seeking planning and zoning assistance. The individual selected will be a self-starter with the ability to work independently and will have demonstrated sound judgement and a high degree of professionalism. Attendance at regular evening meetings will be required.

Associate or para-legal degree preferred; supplemented by one to three years of progressively responsible experience in an office, real estate, or regulatory setting, or any equivalent combination of education, training, or experience. If you are excited about this opportunity and your experience does not align perfectly with qualifications, we encourage you to apply. Pay is in the $25.52 to $28.13 range, dependent upon education and experience. Although the position is currently budgeted as a full-time position, those seeking part-time employment will also be considered.

The Town of Stowe currently offers an excellent benefit package including BCBS health plans with a 5% or 10% employee premium share, dental insurance, generous paid leave including 13 holidays, 10.6% employer contribution to VMERS pension plan, life insurance and more.

Job description and employment application can be obtained at: www.townofstowevt.org. Submit letter of interest, resume, and employment application to: Town of Stowe, c/o HR Director, PO Box 730, Stowe, VT 05672 or by email recruit@stowevt.gov. Applications will be reviewed beginning September 18, 2023.

The Town of Stowe is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Phlebotomy Apprenticeship Program

• Guaranteed paid employment on day one of training

INVEST IN YOURSELF

Our apprenticeship program is a paid opportunity to become a phlebotomist with NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED.

APPLY NOW

www.iaahitec.org/phlebotomy

REGISTRATION DEADLINE

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

$2,000 SIGN ON BONUS

External candidates are eligible for a one-time sign on bonus paid over 3 installments. Amounts reflect gross pay, prior to applicable tax withholdings and deductions required by law. Current University of Vermont Health Network employees are excluded and additional terms and conditions apply.

Questions? Call or Email 802-488-5818 rebecca.spencer@vthitec.org

• Direct patient care

• Team environment

• Full Benefits

• Dedicated support during the 5-week program

• Paid Certified Phlebotomy Technician Exam

The UVM Medical Center will not discriminate against apprenticeship applicants or apprentices based on RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, SEX (INCLUDING PREGNANCY AND GENDER

Prevent Child Abuse Vermont is hiring for the following grant-funded positions:

PREVENTION EDUCATOR

Do you like working with adolescents and adults and feel passionate about protecting youth from human trafficking? PCAVT seeks prevention educator for grant funded statewide school-based anti-trafficking program. Candidate must have bachelor’s degree in related field, experience with 7th to 12th grade students, and reliable vehicle.

FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAMS COORDINATOR:

Prevent Child Abuse Vermont is seeking a Family Support Programs Coordinator to be part of a statewide team. Successful candidates will organize, oversee and facilitate online parent education and support groups. Groups may move to in-person meetings. The position may involve travel around the region. Duties include recruitment, training and supervision of volunteers and outreach and collaboration with community partners. Knowledge of child development and child abuse, love of parent education/support and experience with online facilitation are all a plus. Reliable transportation required. Minimum of Bachelor’s degree in human services, social work, education or related field required. These are currently grant funded positions.

*All employees receive health insurance, vision insurance, dental insurance, paid time off, family leave, yearly bonus, and retirement plan.

PCAVT does not discriminate in the delivery of services or benefits based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. E.O.E.

Please email cover letter, resume, and 3 references, along with the employment application to pcavt@pcavt.org

Or mail to: Prevent Child Abuse Vermont - Search PO Box 829, Montpelier, VT 05601-0829

For application visit: pcavt.org/jobs-and-internships

OFFICE MANAGER/RECEPTIONIST

Full Time

Position Description: This opportunity is available to a dynamic, hard-working individual looking to develop their hands-on experience with a community-based arts organization. The Office Manager role is an integral part of the Artistree staff and will support Artistree’s mission to deliver meaningful arts experiences to children, families, and community members in the Upper Valley.

What we are looking for in a candidate: The ideal candidate for the Office Manager/Receptionist position will have experience handling administrative responsibilities in a non-profit and/or small-office environment, and will be able to serve as a cheerful and helpful first point of contact for visitors and outside inquiries to Artistree.

Schedule and compensation: This is a full-time, salaried position with pay rate in the range of $45,000/year based on experience. Standard work hours will be Monday through Friday, 9:00am to 5:30pm. There may be adjustments to the schedule during the summer, or at other times based on Artistree’s program and event schedule.

To apply: Please send a cover letter, resume, and a list of two-three professional references to programming@artistreevt.org. Applications received by September 12 will be evaluated on a priority basis. Learn more: artistreevt.org/employment

Clara’s Garden Memory Care is looking for caring staff to join our team. Our community is beautiful, peaceful, and purposefully designed for those living with memory loss.

Excellent work environment, competitive pay, great benefits!

POLICE OFFICERS Full-Time

The Stowe Police Department is seeking full-time police officer positions to help fulfill its mission to provide quality service in a professional, respectful, and ethical manner.

Stowe is a vibrant four season resort community offering worldclass outdoor recreation. The community has 5,200 year round residents and can have over 10,000 visitors during peak periods.

Stowe Police operates throughout the Town’s 72 square miles which includes over 90 miles of roadways.

Stowe Police Department is committed to excellence in law enforcement and dedicated to the people, traditions, and diversity of our town. We work in partnership with the community to preserve and improve the quality of life, making the town a safer, more pleasant place to live, work, and visit.

If you strive for excellence and are looking to start or continue your career in law enforcement, we want to speak with you about making Stowe Police Department your employer of choice.

Applicants must be 21 years of age, a U.S. citizen, possess a High School diploma or equivalent, and possess a valid Driver’s License. Applicant must be able to perform all the essential functions involved with police duties. The hiring process includes a physical fitness examination, polygraph, oral board, written exam, medical exam, fingerprint check & extensive background check.

Minimum starting pay for a certified officer is $26.05 per hour ($23.61 for uncertified) and may be higher depending on qualifications and experience. A shift differential is available.

Stowe currently offers an excellent benefit package including BCBS health plans with 8% or 10% employee premium share, dental insurance, generous paid leave including 13 holidays, 11.1% employer contribution to VMERS D pension plan, life insurance and more.

If have any questions, please call Chief Donald Hull at (802) 253-4329 or e-mail at dhull@stowevt.gov

Job descriptions & employment application can be obtained at: townofstowevt.org. Submit application, letter of interest and resume to: Town of Stowe, c/o HR Director, PO Box 730, Stowe, VT 05672 or by email recruit@stowevt.gov. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. The Town of Stowe is an E.O.E.

BUILDING OPERATIONS TECHNICIAN

Burlington Housing Authority (BHA) in Burlington, VT seeks a full time Building Operations Technician to join our dedicated team. This position performs general maintenance work in BHA owned and managed properties. This includes building exteriors, common areas, apartments, building systems, fixtures, and grounds. Our Building Operations Techs are required to participate in the oncall rotation, which covers night and weekend emergencies.

Qualified candidates should have a minimum of two years of work in general building maintenance or building trades. The ideal candidate would have a demonstrated proficiency in building trades including carpentry, electrical, painting, plumbing, grounds keeping, and snow removal.

Technicians must have a valid state motor vehicle operator license at all times. The physical activities for this position include squatting, ascending and descending ladders, scaffolding, and stairs, working in small or confined spaces, twisting and lifting up to 100 pounds, often repeating motions with wrists, fingers, and hands. This position works in all environmental conditions.

Technicians must be detail oriented, efficient, be able to work within time sensitive parameters, and able to work independently, as well as part of a team. Having strong interpersonal skills and being sensitive to the needs of the elderly, disabled, and very low-income households is a must.

BHA serves a diverse population of tenants and partners with a variety of community agencies. To most effectively carry out our vision of delivering safe and affordable housing to all, we are committed to cultivating a staff that reflects varied lived experiences, viewpoints, and educational histories. Therefore, we strongly encourage candidates from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women to apply. Multilingualism is a plus!

BHA offers a competitive salary, commensurate with qualifications and experience. Our robust benefit package includes premium medical insurance with a health reimbursement account, dental, vision, short and long term disability, 10% employer funded retirement plan, 457 retirement plan, accident insurance, life insurance, cancer and critical illness insurance.

We provide a generous time off policy including 12 days of paid time off and 12 days of sick time in the first year. In addition to the paid time off, BHA recognizes 13 (paid) holidays and offers 2 additional paid floating holidays.

If you are interested in this career opportunity, please submit a resume and cover letter to humanresources@burlingtonhousing.org

Burlington Housing Authority - Human Resources

65 Main St, Suite 101 Burlington, VT 05401

Burlington Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer

LITIGATION ATTORNEY - MONTPELIER

The Human Rights Commission (HRC) is seeking highly qualified candidates for a litigation attorney. The HRC Litigator litigates cases where the Commission has found reasonable grounds for discrimination in housing, state government employment, and places of public accommodations. Applications will be accepted by email or mail only. Qualified applicants should send a resume, cover letter, and writing sample to human.rights@vermont.gov. OR mail to Maia Hanron c/o Vermont Human Rights Commission 12 Baldwin Street Montpelier, VT 05633-6301. For more information, contact Maia Hanron at human.rights@vermont.gov. Department: Human Rights Commission. Status: Exempt, Full Time. Location: Montpelier. Job ID #48057. Application Deadline: September 18, 2023.

GO

HIRE.

Job Recruiters:

• Post jobs using a form that includes key info about your company and open positions (location, application deadlines, video, images, etc.).

AIDE FOR YOUNG MAN WITH AUTISM

Weekends, $500/day Sat. 6pm - Sun. 6pm Min. 2 shifts/mo.

For details please visit: KieselsteinAutism Program.com/ join-our-team

To apply, send resume to: sk@kieselaw.com

Assistant Manager

A unique part time position supporting a small non profit that provides food security to local communities. Starting with 5-7 hours per week with potential for more hours and added responsibilities.

• Reliable car needed

• $25 per hour, Simple IRA available

• Must be able to lift 30 lbs   Please respond with resume via email or snail mail.

richmondfoodshelfvt@gmavt.net  PO Box 174, Richmond VT 05477

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Finance Director

The Vermont Arts Council, a statewide arts service organization based in Montpelier, seeks an experienced finance director. This is a great opportunity for a finance professional who loves art, wants to make a difference in Vermont through mission driven work, is seeking flexible, primarily remote work, and wishes to be a part of a high functioning team of dedicated professionals.

Part-time, 20 hours per week.

Salary range: $50,000 - $55,000 ($48.08 - $52.88 per hour). For more details visit: vermontartscouncil.org/

the brid ge

Independent Non-profit Community News for Central Vermont

√

Earn money part-time and help

The right candidate will be sales oriented, self-motivated and digitally savvy— ideally comfortable with Google Ad Manager, WordPress, and Google Suite.

Burlington Housing Authority (BHA)

Are you interested in a job that helps your community and makes a difference in people’s lives every day? Consider joining Burlington Housing Authority (BHA) in Burlington, VT to continue BHA’s success in promoting innovative solutions that address housing instability challenges facing our diverse population of low-income families and individuals.

We’re currently expanding our team of professionals in the Housing Retention and Services department Here are three full time (40 hours per week) positions available:

HOUSING RETENTION SPECIALIST – COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Aids community members who are experiencing homelessness and need support navigating housing systems and locating and securing housing in the Chittenden County community. The Housing Retention Specialist – Community Outreach works collaboratively with community service agencies and providers in addition to Chittenden County Coordinated Entry, BHA Section 8, and Property Management.

HOUSING RETENTION SERVICES – SITE BASED

Responsible for supporting those who have mental health and substance use challenges and/or who have moved from homelessness to Bobbin Mill, Wharf Lane, and other BHA properties. The position works closely with property management and other site-based staff to identify challenges and respond with appropriate direct service and coordination of community services, with a goal of eviction prevention and facilitating a healthy tenancy.

Join our innovative and award-winning team to help bring more affordable housing to Vermont!

Federal Housing Programs Manager

We’re looking for a skilled professional to independently support our federal housing programs while working in a collaborative problem-solving environment.

This position is open until filled; application deadline is October 9, 2023.

Housing Stewardship Coordinator

The Housing Stewardship Coordinator will support the sustainability and impact of Vermont’s network of community-based housing non-profits.

This position is open until filled; application deadline is September 12, 2023.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer

Candidates from diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply. We offer a comprehensive benefit package and an inclusive, supportive work environment.

For full job descriptions, salary information, and application instructions please visit vhcb.org/about-us/jobs

OFFENDER RE-ENTRY HOUSING SPECIALIST

Provides support to men and women under the VT Department of Corrections supervision from prison back to Chittenden County. The ORHS focuses on high-risk men and women who are being released from jail and graduating transitional housing programs and in need of permanent housing. The ORHS provides intensive retention and eviction prevention services and works collaboratively with the Burlington Probation and Parole Office. Additionally, the ORHS works with various case workers, Re-Entry staff and the Administrative Staff from the VT Department of Corrections and the broad network of COSA staff as necessary throughout Chittenden County.

Find more info about these career opportunities at burlingtonhousing.org

*BHA serves a diverse population of tenants and partners with a variety of community agencies. To most effectively carry out our vision of delivering safe and affordable housing to all, we are committed to cultivating a staff that reflects varied lived experiences, viewpoints, and educational histories. Therefore, we strongly encourage candidates from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ individuals, and women to apply. Multilingualism is a plus!

Our robust benefit package includes premium medical insurance with a health reimbursement account, dental, vision, short and long term disability, 10% employer funded retirement plan, 457 retirement plan, accident insurance, life insurance, cancer and critical illness insurance.

We provide a generous time off policy including 12 days of paid time off and 12 days of sick time in the first year. In addition to the paid time off, BHA recognizes 13 (paid) holidays and 2 (paid) floating cultural holidays.

Interested in this career opportunity? Send a cover letter and resume to: humanresources@burlingtonhousing.org

Human Resources

Burlington Housing Authority

65 Main Street, Suite 101 Burlington, VT 05401

burlingtonhousing.org

Burlington Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Vermont Housing & Conser vation Board

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fun stuff

CALCOKU & SUDOKU (P.83) CROSSWORD (P.83)

JEN SORENSEN

HARRY BLISS & STEVE MARTIN

WANT MORE FUN STUFF?

VIRGO

(AUG. 23-SEP. 22)

In honor of the Virgo birthday season, I invite you to be exceptionally distinctive and singular in the coming weeks, even idiosyncratic and downright incomparable. That’s not always a comfortable state for you Virgos to inhabit, but right now it’s healthy to experiment with. Here’s counsel from writer Christopher Morley: “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” Here’s a bonus quote from Virgo poet Edith Sitwell: “I am not eccentric! It’s just that I am more alive than most people.”

ARIES (Mar. 21-Apr. 19): Aries chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov says war is “more like a game of poker than chess. On a chess board, the pieces are face up, but poker is essentially a game of incomplete information, a game where you have to guess and act on those guesses.” I suspect that’s helpful information for you these days, Aries. You may not be ensconced in an out-and-out conflict, but the complex situation you’re managing has resemblances to a game of poker. For best results, practice maintaining a poker face. Try to reduce your tells to near zero. Here’s the definition of “tell” as I am using the term:

reflexive or unconscious behavior that reveals information you would rather withhold.

TAURUS (Apr. 20-May 20): Raised in poverty, Taurus-born Eva Peron became a charismatic politician and actor who served as first lady of Argentina for six years. The Argentine Congress ultimately gave her the title “Spiritual Leader of the Nation.” How did she accomplish such a meteoric ascent? “Without fanaticism,” she testified, “one cannot accomplish anything.” But I don’t think her strategy has to be yours in the coming months, Taurus. It will make sense for you to be highly devoted, intensely focused and strongly motivated — even a bit obsessed in a healthy way. But you won’t need to be fanatical.

GEMINI (May 21-Jun. 20): Gemini author Ben H. Winters has useful counsel. “Every choice forecloses on other choices,” he says. “Each step forward leaves a thousand dead possible universes behind you.” I don’t think there are a thousand dead universes after each choice; the number’s more like two or three. But the point is, you must be fully committed to leaving the past behind. Making decisions requires resolve. Second-guessing your brave actions rarely yields constructive results. So are you ready to have fun being firm and determined, Gemini? The cosmic rhythms will be on your side if you do.

CANCER (Jun. 21-Jul. 22): Journalist Alexandra Robbins was addressing young people when she gave the following advice, but you will benefit from it regardless of your age: “There is nothing wrong with you just because you haven’t yet met people who share your interests or outlook on life. Know that you will eventually meet people who will appreciate you for being you.” I offer this to you now, Cancerian, because the coming months will bring you into connection with an abundance of like-minded people who are working to create the same kind of world you are. Are you ready to enjoy the richest social life ever?

LEO (Jul. 23-Aug. 22): Author Kevin Kelly is a maverick visionary who has thought a lot about how to create the best possible future. He advocates that we give up hoping for the

NEW

unrealistic concept of utopia. Instead, he suggests we empower our practical efforts with the term “protopia.” In this model, we “crawl toward betterment,” trying to improve the world by 1 percent each year. You would be wise to apply a variation on this approach to your personal life in the coming months, Leo. A mere 1 percent enhancement is too modest a goal, though. By your birthday in 2024, a 6 percent upgrade is realistic, and you could reach as high as 10 percent.

LIBRA (Sep. 23-Oct. 22): Do you sometimes wish your life were different from what it actually is? Do you criticize yourself for not being a perfect manifestation of your ideal self? Most of us indulge in these fruitless energy drains. One of the chief causes of unhappiness is the fantasy that we are not whom we are supposed to be. In accordance with cosmic rhythms, I authorize you to be totally free of these feelings for the next four weeks. As an experiment, I invite you to treasure yourself exactly as you are right now. Congratulate yourself for all the heroic work you have done to be pretty damn good. Use your ingenuity to figure out how to give yourself big doses of sweet and festive love.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio novelist Kurt Vonnegut testified, “I want to stay as close on the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge, you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. Big, undreamedof-things — the people on the edge see them first.” I’m not definitively telling you that you should live like Vonnegut, dear Scorpio. To do so, you would have to summon extra courage and alertness. But if you are inclined to explore such a state, the coming weeks will offer you a chance to live on the edge with as much safety, reward and enjoyment as possible.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Where there is great love, there are always miracles,” Sagittarian novelist Willa Cather (1873-1947) wrote. In accordance with upcoming astrological aspects, I encourage you to prepare the way for such miracles. If you don’t have as much love as you would like, be imaginative as you offer more of the best love you have to give. If there is good but not great love in

your life, figure out how you can make it even better. If you are blessed with great love, see if you can transform it into being even more extraordinary. For you Sagittarians, it is the season of generating miracles through the intimate power of marvelous love.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn author Alexander Woollcott (1887-1943) could be rude and vulgar. He sometimes greeted cohorts by saying, “Hello, Repulsive.” After he read the refined novelist Marcel Proust, he described the experience as “like lying in someone else’s dirty bath water.” But according to Woollcott’s many close and enduring friends, he was often warm, generous and humble. I bring this to your attention in the hope that you will address any discrepancies between your public persona and your authentic soul. Now is a good time to get your outer and inner selves into greater harmony.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In 1963, Aquarian author Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, a groundbreaking book that became a bestseller crucial in launching the feminist movement. She brought to wide cultural awareness “the problem that has no name”: millions of women’s sense of invisibility, powerlessness and depression. In a later book, Friedan reported on those early days of the awakening: “We couldn’t possibly know where it would lead, but we knew it had to be done.” I encourage you to identify an equivalent quest in your personal life, Aquarius: a project that feels necessary to your future, even if you don’t yet know what that future will turn out to be.

PISCES (Feb. 19-Mar. 20): “Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: All of them make me laugh.” Piscean poet W.H. Auden said that. After analyzing the astrological omens, I conclude that laughing with those you love is an experience you should especially seek right now. It will be the medicine for anything that’s bothering you. It will loosen obstructions that might be interfering with the arrival of your next valuable teachings. Use your imagination to dream up ways you can place yourself in situations where this magic will unfold.

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(I surely can’t be the only individual who has no idea how to begin this paragraph.) Here goes: I’m an empty nester who enjoys time with friends, family. A great glass of wine. Live music. The smell of a Christmas tree. Jumping in a lake. Riding on the back of a motorcycle. A sweaty Bikram yoga class. Laughter is key. vtyogagrl71, 52 seeking: M, l

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M = Men

TW = Trans women

TM = Trans men

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NC = Gender nonconformists

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Fat, funny, farty (sixtysomething) femme seeks same in a man. Must be clean, clever and kind.

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Back in Vermont after moving to San Francisco in 1980, a dream of mine since high school in southern Vermont, where I grew up and learned to love the beauty of Vermont. The land conservation nonprofit I work for allowed me to work remotely after many years there, so I could relocate to live near my brother and keep working. VTtaketwo 66 seeking: M, l

NOT DEAD YET

I considered myself a high-heels, makeupat-all-times city girl until I moved to Vermont 12 years ago. I never even owned a car, and all my Boston/New York friends wondered how I would survive. Well, not only did I survive, but I learned how to fish in a lake year-round and even how to shoot a gun. CLC, 77 seeking: M, l

LIFE IS GOOD

Nice lady seeking wonderful guy. CookiesandCream, 65, seeking: M, l

SUNSHINE AND WANDERLUST

Seeking fun-loving, easygoing people for friendship and maybe more. Wonderful weather these days. Who’s up for enjoying it? CarolinaGirl 36 seeking: M, TM, Q, NC, NBP, l

MEN seeking...

LAID-BACK, EASYGOING, HARDWORKING

Honest, hardworking, trustworthy man. I like laughing, having a good time and making memories. Looking for the same with a strong sex drive and an open mind. I’m not looking to change you; I just want to enhance our lives. I love to spoil my partner. Just ask for a picture. I’m a middle-aged handsome man who works a lot. HappyGoLucky72, 51, seeking: W, l

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Let’s just get together IRL and see what happens. supernovaender 42 seeking: W, l

OUTDOORSY AND SOCIAL

New to Vermont from Colorado. I would consider myself a mountain person who loves spending time with someone in the mountains and ski resorts of any sort. Apart from outdoor things, karaoke is also my thing, and I can sing ’til my Adam’s apple dries out. Looking for someone who can share fun moments together.

MountainKnight12 27, seeking: W, Cp

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LOOKING FOR OUR MAN!

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If you’ve been spied, go online to contact your admirer!

dating.sevendaysvt.com

BEAUTIFUL SMILE

MUTTS ARE THE BEST

To the tattooed woman who took the time to give Miss Tulip some love: In the moment, I resisted the urge to state the obvious, but I just can’t keep it bottled up any longer ... You are beautiful! ( ere, it’s out. I feel better now.) P.S. I hope your life is blessed with many more magical mutts. When: Sunday, September 3, 2023. Where: Gardener’s Supply, Williston. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915836

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME

You were in a smokin’ black dress! You were leaving with a tall bald guy. I walked up to him (you’re leaving with the most beautiful girl!). You were flattered, I believe. Need to meet you again. If you are one of her friends reading, please tell her to answer this post. #iscrewedup When: Friday, September 1, 2023. Where: the Old Post. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915835

STUNNING BLONDE

ree Brothers around 1:15 p.m. You: stunning blonde driving the Audi. Me: the guy with no game eating pizza in the corner. I am sure you are taken, but I could feel your radiance. Would love to have a coffee and chat. When: ursday, August 31, 2023. Where: Colchester. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915834

YOU HAD ME AT SUBLIME

I was grabbing some coffee that night. You said, “Nice shirt, miss.” We chatted about seeing Badfish live. You saw them the other week. We spotted each other once more. I should have grabbed your number! You were wearing a hat and brown shirt and had gorgeous blue eyes. Let’s go to a concert together? When: Tuesday, August 29, 2023. Where: Shaw’s, Randolph. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915833

You held the door for me. You were with your daughter, I believe. Even though I wanted you to enter first, you insisted. You said “Have a nice day” when I walked by. I was drawn to your smile, someone with a kind heart. Someone I would really like to get to know. When: Saturday, August 5, 2023. Where: Jiffy, Hinesburg. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915832

BERLIN PRICE CHOPPER

BLONDE

You: gorgeous blonde, tan skirt with green and pink stripes. Me: guy in a red T-shirt and baseball hat. We passed each other, made eye contact and smiled. I wish I had stopped and said hi, but you were a woman on a mission. Coffee sometime? When: Sunday, August 27, 2023. Where: Berlin Price Chopper. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915831

RE: LOOKINGFORONLYYOU

ey say, “Don’t take the risk, you’re sure to fail. ere’s no ‘get out of jail free’ card in life.” But what’s the worst that could happen, end up in a coffin? Isn’t that where we’re all headed anyway? Can’t escape the madness, so you might as well embrace it. Can’t be worse than a nine-to-five cubicle jail cell. When: ursday, February 23, 2023. Where: on the run, sin amor. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915829

TO MY MAINTENANCE MAN

I know that you’ve had a lot on your plate recently. And things haven’t been easy. I just wanted to let you know I’m proud of you, and no matter what, I have your back. I love you. I wouldn’t want to go through the rest of this life with anyone but you. When: Friday, November 11, 2022. Where: in my future. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915828

REVEREND Ask

Irreverent counsel on life’s conundrums

De Rev end,

My boyfriend and I have been dating each other exclusively for a little over a year. I love him, and I feel like he loves me, but neither of us has come right out and said it yet. I want to say “I love you” to him, but every time I try, I lose my nerve. Should I just wait for him to say it first?

Shy Guy (MAN, 25)

COLCHESTER SHAW’S

We crossed paths, once when I was walking toward the refrigerated pasta section and the other moment we were at adjacent checkouts. I think we exchanged smiles, but maybe it was in my head? Dark blonde here, tattooed. You had dark hair, glasses and a salmon-colored shirt, I think. When: Tuesday, August 22, 2023. Where: Shaw’s. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915827

WE ALMOST COLLIDED

We almost collided with our shopping carts. Sorry, not sorry! Your smile was amazing! I wish we had made more of a connection. You: silverhaired male. Me: curly hair, Wolfsgart tank. When: Sunday, August 20, 2023. Where: Milton Hannaford.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915826

CAMEL’S HUMP DOG DAD

To the dog dad hiking in the rain: I was running/hiking and crossed paths with you guys on the last section of the trail before the summit. You said, “Not a good day to hang out up here.” I hoped I’d catch you on the way down, but sadly I did not. Would love to connect! When: Saturday, August 19, 2023. Where: Camel’s Hump.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915825

ENCHANTING IN OVERALLS, FOX MARKET

I was sitting at the downstairs table with a friend when you walked in on a rainy Saturday. We held eye contact and smiled. I felt a spark. Did you?

When: Saturday, August 19, 2023. Where: Fox Market, East Montpelier.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915824

LOOKING FOR COMPANIONSHIP

I want someone who is single, around 70 years old, and wants to have fun and do things together. Do things outdoors and other types of activities. He is a man who is a mechanic who I saw on this personals list. Can you get in touch with him for me? His ad says just what I would like. When: Friday, August 18, 2023. Where: internet.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915823

TALL SHELBURNE BLONDE

We crossed paths twice. You were wearing leggings and dark-rimmed glasses! Are you around and available?

When: ursday, August 10, 2023.

Where: Kinney Drugs, Shelburne Rd. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915822

De

Shy Guy,

Telling someone you love them is never a bad thing. Well, walking up to a complete stranger and professing your love would be odd, but you know what I mean. I’m a big fan of love, and I think you should tell your favorite people that you love them all the damn time — don’t wait! You never know what tomorrow might bring.

e two of you have been together for a while. I’m sure you’ve shared many intimate moments and conversations. So what are you afraid of? Are you worried that he’ll think you’re too serious about the relationship? Seems like he would

TAKE ME FOR A RIDE?

You were driving a two-tone blue/cream ’70s Chevy truck in the evening. I was behind you in a boring-ass car. Your fumes were intoxicating. All I could see was a baseball cap. If you take me for a ride, I’ll take you for a... When:

Friday, August 11, 2023. Where: Route 2. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915820

OLDER MAN AT HANNAFORD, RUTLAND

Around 4:30 p.m., I was in the produce department and I saw you walk in. You were white, older, balding, wearing shorts, a graphic T-shirt and flip-flops. You have a nice butt/hot package. Would love to invite you over for cocktails! I was the one wearing short shorts, flipflops. I’m 50, masculine and enjoy older white mature men. When: Saturday, August 5, 2023. Where: Hannaford, Rutland. You: Man. Me: Man. #915819

HUBBARD PATHS

Serious eye contact! Let’s connect!

When: Saturday, August 5, 2023.

Where: Hubbard, Montpelier. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915818

SEXY ART MAN

You: big, hairy muscle man with white tank. Your drawing was beautiful. Emotional but understated and classic. I feel like I understand you. I borrowed your eraser. I’m a 28-y/o woman, brown hair, hazel eyes. I also saw you at Target, and I smiled. Come back to class. Maybe I’ll even model sometime if you want a preview. When: Tuesday, June 13, 2023. Where: Kestrel Coffee.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915816

BRAVO ZULU

You greeted us as we were leaving at night. Something about that has me still thinking about you! Please reach out if you’re interested in getting acquainted! When: Saturday, August 5, 2023. Where: Bravo Zulu.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915812

MONTPELIER FARMERS MARKET

You: black dress with flannel shirt, 40ish, driving a beautiful black VW Bug convertible. Me: tall, dark and handsome. Gave you a big smile. Would love to take a long ride in that sweet Bug! When: Saturday, August 5, 2023. Where: Montpelier farmers market.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915811

HIGH PRIESTESS

I was at the rite you held in the woods of Mansfield. I was there when the moon ascended into the heavens, our souls freed from our corporeal forms to become one in the night. Praise Lugh Ildánach the harvest this fall will be a blessed one. Anyhow, we should get a cup of coffee sometime. You’re really pretty. When: Tuesday, August 1, 2023. Where: Mount Mansfield. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915810

DOG WEARING SUNGLASSES

Saw ‘em. Dog wearing sunglasses. at’s a cool dog. Feel free to reach out. When: Friday, August 4, 2023. Where: dog park. You: Group. Me: Man. #915809

SHUCKING CLAMS

You were shucking clams by the dock when I said, “Hey there, Daddy-o, what say ye give one of them thar clams?” and you said “If you get any closer, I won’t be responsible for my actions.” Anyways, what’s it like being the most enrapturing lass in all the land? Drop me a line sometime. Johnny Cool. When: ursday, August 3, 2023. Where: Burlington shore. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915808

WEDDING, SUNDAY, JULY 30, SPIRIT OF ETHAN ALLEN

If you are the couple who married aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen’s noon tour, my aunt took a lovely photo from the upper deck we’d like you to have. One of the party wore a white sun hat. Tell me something else notable about that person to confirm ID, and I’ll send it off. And congrats! When: Sunday, July 30, 2023. Where: Spirit of Ethan Allen daily cruise. You: Group. Me: Woman. #915803

FOREVER YOUR KNIGHT

Dani, since you came into my life, all the clouds have disappeared. All I can see ahead for us is pure love and happiness. So many destinations to travel, photos and memories to be made. Hurry home, my queen! When: Tuesday, March 22, 2022. Where: in my dreams. You: Woman. Me: Gender nonconformist. #915802

ALLIE FROM BUMBLE

You stood out to me, and I told you. We matched and rematched, then you disappeared. When may I take you to dinner? When: Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Where: Bumble. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915801

have split by now if he wanted something casual. Worst-case scenario: He says he doesn’t love you and breaks up with you on the spot. I doubt that’ll happen, but if it does, it’s a sign that he isn’t the one for you after all.

Practice saying the word “love” to him. Start with “I love spending time with you” or “I love your new pants.” en it might feel less intimidating when you say “I love you.” It’s quite possible that he’s also nervous and waiting for you to go first. Oh, and the way you tell this fella that you love him doesn’t have to be fancy. You can do it at the grocery store, or driving in the car, or watching TV. You don’t have to make some grand speech. It’s just a few words, but they pack a punch no matter where or how you say them.

Good luck and God bless, The Rev end

What’s your problem?

Send

GM bottom looking for playmates. Age and race not important. Just fun, hot sex without strings. Also interested in three-way. Rutland County. Call/text. #L1694

I’m a very unique lady who’s seeking a gentleman. Very passionate, honest, loyal, humble. I love to garden, read, listen to music and watch a good movie. Love to walk in the beautiful nature and earth, as well. Hoping to meet a gentleman with the same likes. #L1693

Need an heir? Too busy on that career? Let’s meet on that. #L1684

I’m a 79-y/o woman seeking a man, 70-plus y/o. Want companionship as well as a friend. Willing to stay home or travel — whichever you want to. Want to help anyone who needs it. #L1691

Handsome straight man wanting an erotic exchange with another handsome straight man, but only in a full threesome with your wife, fiancée or girlfriend. #L1692

Gracious, faithful, educated, humorous soul seeks a fit, tender and natural female counterpart (55 to 65) to bask in autumn splendor. Let’s hike, bike, frolic, listen, ponder and share! I’m a worthy companion. #L1690

HOW TO REPLY TO THESE LOVE LE ERS:

Seal your reply — including your preferred contact info — inside an envelope. Write your pen pal’s box number on the outside of that envelope and place it inside another envelope with payment. Responses for Love Letters must begin with the #L box number.

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P.O. Box 1164, Burlington, VT 05402

PAYMENT: $5/response. Include cash or check (made out to “Seven Days”) in the outer envelope. To send unlimited replies for only $15/month, call us at 802-865-1020, ext. 161 for a membership (credit accepted).

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Submit your FREE message at sevendaysvt.com/loveletters or use the handy form at right.

We’ll publish as many messages as we can in the Love Letters section above.

Interested readers will send you letters in the mail. No internet required!

I’m a woman, 79 y/o, seeking a man, 65 to 70 y/o. I am looking for someone who likes to travel and stay at home. Like to play games of all sorts. Very friendly and want to meet new friends.

#L1688

Dragonfly, hummingbird / warm winds, butterfly, / sun in bright sky, sun inside, / Iris, tigerlily, / Bright flowers in summer sun, / Dreams that fly, Come back in spring, / Lalee, lalee, lalee, liii. / Grown up boy for similar girl.

#L1686

58-y/o SW. Humbled, thoughtful. Hoping for a safe, kind, honest relationship with a man. Calm in nature, love for nature. Morning coffees, long walks, talks, sunsets, art, music, dance, friends, family, laughs! Willing to see and resolve suffering. Unconditional love and support find me at home. Phone number, please. #L1680

Man, early 70s. Still grieving from two-plus years ago, but moving on. Funny, engaging, storyteller, listener. Interesting life (so far!). Greater MontpelierBarre area. Looking for a woman friend: have fun, eat out, do stuff. Maybe more, but maybe not. Companionship. #L1687

I’m a SWM, 38, attractive, pierced nipples, friendly tattoos, purple and blue hair and goatee. No booze, no drugs. Looking for a kindred spirit, female, 18 to 58. #L1685

Int net-Free Dating!

Reply to these messages with real, honest-to-goodness le ers. DETAILS BELOW.

I’m a working man, 33, seeking a working woman, 25 to 33, to get to know and possibly build a life together. Born in Vermont to European family. Nonsmoking; no drugs. #L1683

I’m a man, 72, seeking a woman, 45 to 70. Looking for a friend to go to dinner, movie, walking. I am fit for my age and seek the same in a woman. Phone number, please. #L1681

I’m an older guy with a high libido looking to meet a woman with similar interests to hopefully develop a LTR. My interests are country living, travel, humanpowered sports, music, art, gardening, etc. I’m secure and happy; very fit and healthy; a financially secure large-property owner; a curious, free-spirited adventurer; a singer and musician; a connoisseur of peace and quiet. 420-cool, friendly, compassionate, experienced and well endowed. You are your own beautiful self with a lust for life. Willing to travel for the right gal. Ability to sing, slender and body hair a plus. #LL1677

Describe yourself and who you’re looking for in 40 words below:

(OR, ATTACH A SEPARATE PIECE OF PAPER.)

I’m a AGE + GENDER (OPTIONAL) seeking a

I’m a man seeking a woman. Very passionate, sexual and loyal man. Honest, loving, treatyou-like-a-lady guy seeking special woman, 35 to 60ish. No drugs or drunks. Must be honest and supportive emotionally. #LL1678

Seeking kinky individuals. Deviant desires? Yes, please! Only raunchiness needed. Have perverted tales? Hot confessions? Anything goes! No judgment. I only want your forbidden fantasies. Openminded. I dare you to shock me. Replies upon request. #LL1676

I’m a 72-y/o M seeking a woman 70s-80s. I would love to experience sensuality with a mature woman in her 70s and 80s. Phone # please. #LL1674

Cerulean, rose, verdant, crimson, hearts, blood, hands, souls, faces, satin, rock, warm, faith, freedom, time, eyes, know, waterlines, embraces, changes, earth, sky, grow, balance, groove. Man for woman. #LL1675

Required confidential info: NAME

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MAIL TO: SEVEN DAYS LOVE LETTERS • PO BOX 1164, BURLINGTON, VT 05402 OPTIONAL WEB FORM: SEVENDAYSVT.COM/LOVELETTERS HELP: 802-865-1020, EXT. 161, LOVELETTERS@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

THIS FORM IS FOR LOVE LETTERS ONLY. Messages for the Personals and I-Spy sections must be submitted online at dating.sevendaysvt.com.

Queen City Ghostwalk Tours

SEP.-OCT.; SEE WEBSITE FOR DETAILS

BURLINGTON

e International Sustainable Comedy Music & Variety Showcase

FRI., SEP. 8

THE UNDERGROUND LISTENING ROOM, RANDOLPH

Central Vermont Flood Relief Benefit

Concert

SAT., SEP. 9

STATE HOUSE LAWN, MONTPELIER

American Red Cross Blood Drive

SAT., SEP. 9

DOUBLE E LOUNGE, ESSEX JUNCTION

Lawn Market

SUN., SEP. 10

THE ESSEX RESORT AND SPA, ESSEX

Cut Flower Gardening & Arranging

SUN., SEP. 10

HORSFORD GARDENS & NURSERY, CHARLOTTE

Vermontijuana Farm Tour

SUN., SEP. 10

IRASBURG TOWN COMMON

Figure Drawing

MON., SEP. 11

SOAPBOX ARTS AT THE SODA PLANT, BURLINGTON

Sip and Shop

TUE., SEP. 12

THE ESSEX RESORT AND SPA, ESSEX

e Retirement Dilemma

TUE., SEP. 12

SOUTH BURLINGTON LIBRARY

Ukulele Strum Rehab Workshop and Shenanigan Jam

WED., SEP. 13

GRANGE HALL CULTURAL CENTER, WATERBURY

Eco-resiliency Gathering: New Stories for a New World

THU., SEP. 14 ONLINE

Focaccia Art Workshop

THU., SEP. 14

RED POPPY CAKERY, WATERBURY

Higher Calling

FRI., SEP. 15

PRANSKY’S FARM, WASHINGTON COUNTY

Hart’s Kitchen’s Anniversary Party Pop-Up

FRI., SEP. 15

TINY COMMUNITY KITCHEN, BURLINGTON

Live in the Gardens Music Series

FRI., SEP. 15

SNAPS AND SUNFLOWERS, CAMBRIDGE

Chatham Rabbits

FRI., SEP. 15

DOUBLE E PERFORMANCE CENTER: LOUNGE, ESSEX JUNCTION

Brunch Baking Workshop with Brave Coffee and Tea

SAT., SEP. 16

RED POPPY CAKERY, WATERBURY VILLAGE HISTORIC DISTRICT

e Hills Are Alive

10th Anniversary Dinner

SAT., SEP. 16

HOTEL VERMONT, BURLINGTON

Vermont Pro Wrestling Entertainment presents World of Hurt Wrestling

SAT., SEP.

O.N.E.