ruth horowitz’s fictitious memoir p.22a ernie mcleod’s sedaris envy p.28A
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SEVEN DAYS |december 22-29, 2004
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contents 05A
SEVEN DAYS DECE M B E R 22-29, 2004
55A
55A 55A
film 59A 59A 60A 61A 63A
COVER: DIANE SULLIVAN [DESIGN] SUSAN NORTON [IMAGE]
calendar scene@ calendar listings
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the winter reading issue
art
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SEVE N DAYSVT.COM
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art review exhibitions
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music soundbites club dates venues pop ten review this
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VOL.10 NO.18
theme issue
sections 47A
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The News From Ukraine Fiction BY RUTH HOROWITZ
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classes
16B
personals
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classifieds spacefinder automotive wellness employment
20B 25B 28B 30B
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Auto-bore-ography Coping with a non-memoir-worthy life BY ERNIE MCLEOD
32A
Plow Shares Fiction BY ERIK ESCKILSEN
36A
Spreading the Word A Bosnian refugee in Winooski tells her tale in verse
funstuff
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newcomb news quirks bliss straight dope american elf troubletown fickle fannie story minute life in hell no exit red meat lola 7D crossword free will astrology
BY CATHY RESMER
07A 12A 15A 15A 15A 60A 60A 45A 45A 45A 45A 16B 25B 29B
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Not-So-Light Verse Book review: In the Dark by Ruth Stone BY MARGOT HARRISON
columns 09A 10A 13A 14A 16A 18A
inside track BY PETER FREYNE AN IRREVERENT READ ON VT POLITICS local matters BY KEN PICARD AND CATHY RESMER hackie BY JERNIGAN PONTIAC A CABBIE’S REAR VIEW consumer correspondent BY KENNETH CLEAVER eyewitness BY PAMELA POLSTON TAKING NOTE OF VISUAL VERMONT work BY SUSAN GREEN VERMONTERS ON THE JOB
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06A | december 22-29, 2004
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CHARACTER CHECK
As my Representative, Gaye Symington ought to be asking her constituents, “What makes you smile” [“Inside Track,” December 8], and assisting the Senate in conducting character checks of Governor Douglas’ appointees, not just of her co-legislators in Montpelier. And, it would be of great service to the women of this state if she began with Public Safety Commissioner Kerry Sleeper. Sandy Ward
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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Marc Awodey, Kenneth Cleaver, Kristen Eaton, Peter Freyne, Rebecca Gollin, Susan Green, Margot Harrison, Ruth Horowitz, Kevin J. Kelley, Rick Kisonak, Peter Kurth, Cherise LaPine, Lola, Jernigan Pontiac, Cathy Resmer, Robert Resnik, Sarah Tuff
END THE MEAT INDUSTRY Vesna Dye [“Letters,” December 8] believes hunting should be outlawed. I am not a hunter. A healthy predator population is absolutely essential to the health of any population of animals. There is no significant nonhuman population of predators in most of the U.S. (the full-blooded American Coyote is not a predator of full-sized animals, contrary to popular belief). In the absence of significant predators, populations (human included) tend to explode, creating famine, disease, and overcrowding. God forbid meat-eating Americans abandon the horrific meat industry with its unethical conditions, steroids, growth hormones and antibiotics to eat an animal that has lived a healthy, free and happy life eating natural
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FACE FACTS Sincere thanks to Peter Freyne [“Inside Track”] for pointing up the fun and drama of local and state politics. When I was growing up (Bartlesville, Oklahoma, pop. 19,000, ca. 1940-’50), politics was never mentioned among family and friends, let alone discussed, and I was a close listener. In Boston, local politics was too complex to comprehend; little wonder that it wasn’t discussed at street level. But Vermont politics is a grand show, open to everyone. And Peter is a close and usually astute observer. I’m reminded of when he caught Governor Dean in a fleeting expression on TV, which he interpreted as Dean’s true repugnance for something welfarish, I recall. I learned something about fleeting expressions recently, viewing the candid photographs I took at my son’s wedding reception. Candid photography is a kind of stalking, with patient observance and quick shooting, and I’m pretty good at it. A digital camera, however, is more leisurely. In dim light, it takes time to auto-focus and flash a preliminary red-eye flash. By the time it exposes, the right expression is gone, and what it records is the very brief after-
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vegetation. Personally, I come closer every year to eating only hunted meat. Hunting is safer than many current OSHA-approved occupations. In king crab fishing, a ridiculous percentage of fishermen die annually. Are we lining up to save fishermen, roofers and riggers? By and large, hunted meat is the most ethically sound and wholesome meat available in this nation. We have been too long removed from the source of our food and the inherent responsibilities and dangers in providing it. Population explosions are disastrous for herds, and will prove so for humans. If you want a healthy body and you eat meat, take responsibility for your hunger. Go kill something and eat it. Eat it raw if you’re gutsy or enlightened! After all, we are food for worms. Nathan Brady Crain
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SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004
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letters 07A
SEVEN DAYS wants your rants and raves, in 250 words or fewer. Letters must respond to content in SEVEN DAYS. Include your full name and a daytime phone number and send to: SEVEN DAYS, P.O. Box 1164, Burlington, VT 05402-1164. fax: 865-1015 email: letters@sevendaysvt.com
expression of an animated face regrouping. It isn’t pretty. Animated expressions seem to be generally accepted as they’re intended, with the brief recovery from them ignored — except by astute observers. Peter might like to reconsider his close observation of them. Fred G. Hill BURLINGTON
GET LOST So we’ve gone from “Little Hitler” to “Little Mussolini.” I’ll take it, Peter [“Crank Call,” December
15]. As far as the two letters written about Kurth’s ignorant and disgraceful comparison of our sitting head of state with one of the worst mass murderers in the history of humanity: You people are lost and are the reason why your side of the debate will continue to lose election after election. Democrats with brains who actually want people in their party to get elected should burn the books and articles of Peter Kurth (though he is not important enough to bother, Vermont will take its .0005th electoral vote and
go blue). Noam Chomsky, the freak-show linguistics prof to the stars, supports the work of gentlemen like Pol Pot but swears to any stoned… college kid that Bush won in ’04 because Wang Computer fixed the deal. Or Mikey Moore: That fool believes there is no group of Jihad Johnnys out there bent on a return to the 5th century via a swath of innocent blood — of course not; Moore’s blood Fahrenheit 9/11 is basically the “Seinfeld” of Al Jazeera. As far as the two gentlemen who
wrote in from Burlington-latte town to the “Hate America First” crowd: Leave! Go to Canada! You will love it… no God talk… no concentration camps… just idiots on horseback and a lot of rude French people who don’t tip. Face it, sirs, you hate what you think your country has become and would rather see it humiliated on the battlefield like a bunch of sissies rather than win... as we have done in the past… and will do again if left to the ugly but necessary business of war that was brought to our shores on 9/11. Andrew Jacoby BURLINGTON
BRAVO, VSH EMPLOYEES! I am writing in response to the article you published about the Vermont State Hospital [“Psyched Out,” December 22]. I applaud you for publishing an article from the point of view of the hospital’s employees and administration. As a therapist in the mental health field myself, I can only imagine how grateful those employees must have felt to have their side of the story told. While I myself work for an outpatient facility, I can only
imagine the level of emotional and mental stress that the employees endure working in such an intense environment. They are working with the most difficult psychiatric patients that exist and receive little public and positive recognition for their work. I imagine these employees driving home at night, thinking hard about their clients, trying to figure out better ways to help them, or feeling proud of a small success that occurred, and then opening the paper to criticism about the job they have done. For those who are so quick to criticize, I would wonder if they have any comprehension of the level of human suffering that these employees face every single day. To the employees at the Vermont State Hospital, I admire your courage and perseverance in working with the clients that you do. Despite the negative feedback you at times have received, there are so many others who support your work and understand how hard it is to give so much of yourself to others. Don’t forget to take care of yourselves as well! Michelle Goodman RICHMOND
CORRECTION: Due to a transcription error, last week’s letter from Gene
Bergman seemed to suggest that the Peace & Justice Center is organizing affiliates of the AFSC, Military Families Speak Out and other groups. What Bergman wrote was that the PJC and these other organizations are all working against the war. We regret the mistake.
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And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
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december 22-29, 2004
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SEVEN DAYS
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SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | inside track 09A
inside track
NEW YEAR’S EVE BY PETER FREYNE
AN IRREVERENT READ ON VT POLITICS
2004 Start Your First Night Right!
Clavelle Bounces Back
B
urlington Mayor Peter Clavelle has recovered from his gubernatorial campaign and sounded like his old self the other day. The Progressive-turned-Democrat sounds pretty upbeat about the legislative session that starts next month under Montpeculiar’s golden dome. For the first time in four years, the people in charge of both House and Senate will be his kind of people. And that means the opportunity’s there to make some offensive gains in Mayor Moonie’s never-ending war against the property tax. Clavelle told Seven Days he’ll be proposing an advisory local sales tax question for the Queen City’s March ballot. It’ll pass easily. Moonie wants Burlington to add a penny to the state’s 6-cent sales tax. Enactment would require legislative approval. The mayor says a local sales tax would save property owners about $2.5 million annually. When Republican Walt Freed, the Duke of Dorset, was House Speaker, such an idea was dead on arrival under the golden dome. Anything for Burlington was. With new House Speaker Gaye Symington, a Jericho New Age Democrat on the podium, Clavelle’s proposal has legs. Because of Act 60, so-called “gold towns” like Manchester and Williston have successfully enacted local sales taxes. “Their business is booming,” said Clavelle. “It certainly hasn’t chased business out of their communities.” And last session, 22 House members cosponsored a bill that would give all Vermont communities the local sales tax option. It went absolutely nowhere, but its list of sponsors reflects the most diverse alliance of lawmakers imaginable. Conservative Republicans such as Rep. Robert Helm of Castleton and Rep. Tom DePoy of Rutland stood shoulder to shoulder with left-wing Progressives such as David Zuckerman and Democrats such as Rep. Ann Pugh of South Burlington. Interesting, eh?
Quote of the Season — “Frankly, Peter, I wouldn’t care if that statue were wearing a sweater and turtleneck, it’s not an appropriate place for a lamp!” said Gov. Jim Douglas. Ah! And what a lamp it is! It’s also a historic gift from the Friends of the Statehouse. In addition to light bulb and lampshade, the gift includes a copy of Hiram Powers’ famous “Greek Slave,” a nude woman who symbolizes antislavery sentiment. Powers (1805-1873) was a native Vermonter, born in Woodstock. Outside of the Friends of the Golden Dome, few Vermonters had heard of him. Now he’s the hottest Vermont artist since Sabra Field. And since 2005 will mark Mr. Powers’ bicentennial, Vermonters are about to hear a lot more about him. On Sunday, the Washington Post had fun making our bold, clean-living governor look like a prude. “In Vermont, Statue May Be More Than Governor Can Bare,” was the cute headline. The Beltway connection is D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery of Art, which has owned a “Greek Slave” original since 1873. According to gallery president David Levy, Mr. Powers’ “Greek Slave” was America’s “first publicly exhibited life-size sculpture of a nude figure.”
“The problem is,” said Gov. Jim Douglas, “there has not been a lamp on that desk in the past and reporters sit on that desk during press conferences.” The beautifully sculpted nude has certainly prompted a variety of reactions. Veteran Freeps reporter Candace Page suggested on “Vermont This Week” that the governor could perhaps just “turn the woman’s breasts toward the wall?” In a letter to Gov. Scissorhands, Mr. Levy wrote, “From the Egyptians and Greeks, to the great painters and sculptors of the Renaissance, the female human form has long been revered and celebrated as an important source of artistic inspiration.” “Attempts to censor, remove or destroy works of art reflecting this reverence,” wrote the curator, “have always in the light of history been regarded as misguided and unfortunate.” Yes, but Gov. Douglas says the desk is needed as a seat for journalistic derrières when he holds his legislative press conferences. What’s more important, art or the tushes of the press? Yes, indeed. Polly Billings, a Friends’ founder, told the Post the “Greek Slave” lamp would provide a “splendid opportunity” to teach the countless Vermont school kids that will pass through the Guv’s office this winter about our state’s leadership role in the fight to end human slavery. Our Guv insists the boobs are not the problem. Unfortunately, Mr. Douglas sounds like one when he makes his case.
“Y” Vote? — Because the leading political lights of the Queen City are not stupid, that’s why. The Burlington City Council got its act together Monday and passed the buck — to city voters on Town Meeting Day. Yeah, yeah. Moving the College Street YMCA to the site of the abandoned Moran Plant sounds like a decent idea. Finally transforming a piece of old waterfront wasteland into a bustling year-round destination gets a lot of people excited. Some pro. Some con. This is, after all, Burlington, Vermont. It became clear over the weekend that, despite the Clavelle administration’s backing, the proposed development agreement wasn’t going to have smooth sailing at Monday night’s council meeting. Since the public take-back of the industrialized Burlington waterfront by Mayor Bernie Sanders in the 1980s, Burlingtonians have become very possessive of, and finicky about, what goes on their prized “Waterfront for the People.” The recent case of the 11th-hour Free Press-fueled outcry that killed a proposed Battery Street transit center proves it. Besides, the Y may be a nonprofit, but many of its dues-paying members come from other towns. Many working-class city residents have complained they can’t afford the Y’s membership fees. And what about the arrest of the YMCA’s bookkeeper, Linda Hall, on embezzlement charges last May? Does this organization know how to manage money? INSIDE TRACK >> 20A
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SEVEN DAYS
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Exercising Democracy The Ys have it: Burlington voters will get to decide whether the Greater Burlington YMCA can have a new home on Lake Champlain. In a unanimous decision, the City Council voted Monday night to put the issue on the ballot on Town Meeting Day. The council’s vote defers, for the time being anyway, a proposed development agreement between the city and the Y to lease the former Moran Plant for 99 years at a cost of $1. Monday night’s announcement by Mayor Peter Clavelle that he would support the ballot measure was an abrupt about-face from earlier in the day, when it was widely believed that he would oppose a resolution to let the voters decide the matter. Clavelle has been an ardent supporter of the plan to move the Y out of its current location, which lacks adequate parking, handicapped accessibility and room for expansion. “When I hear people say that we’re moving too fast, frankly, I don’t see it,” said Clavelle, adding that in the last 20 years no one else has come forward with a viable alternative for the Moran Plant, which has sat vacant since 1986. Nevertheless, Clavelle also recognized that Burlington residents remain deeply passionate about their waterfront and said he believes it’s in the best interest of everyone to let voters weigh in. YMCA representatives also acknowledged that this project — and the Y — will be better off if
they have the full support of the council and Burlington residents. “You will see a new and more vibrant YMCA in every way,” said Tim Rollings, president of the Greater Burlington YMCA. “Tell us what you want. Tell us what you need. Hold our feet to the fire… and we can ignite this extraordinary opportunity.” Following the vote, many city councilors sounded practically giddy about the outcome. “I’m extremely pleased,” said Councilor Kevin Curley (R–Ward 4), who drafted the ballot resolution. “This is a win for grassroots politics… This is even bigger than the City Market issue.” Monday night’s vote will help the city and the Y avoid a potentially ugly and divisive fight. Still, a lot of details have to be worked out to win voter approval. Opponents of the plan — and even some of its supporters — question whether the Y will be able to double its membership in the new location, and raise the estimated $10 million needed to renovate the building. Others point out that details about parking, traffic flow and the city’s financial commitment still have to be addressed. “There’s a lot of good feeling in this room,” said Councilor Ian Carleton (D-Ward 1). “Let’s not allow this issue to just go dormant for the next two months.”
KEN PICARD
Clearing the Air Burlington High School staff, students and parents can breathe easier about airborne hazards spreading through the school’s ventilation system. That was the word last week from Burlington Schools Superintendent Lyman Amsden, who reported that the ventilation system at BHS got a clean bill of health from the private environmental firm hired to test the indoor air quality. Still, a group of teachers and their union demanded that further testing be done to put to rest any lingering doubts. “They [the teachers and their union] asked us to do testing and we’ve done the testing,” Amsden told Seven Days. “We brought VOSHA [the Vermont Occupational Safety and Health Administration] in, we brought the Vermont Health Department in, and we’ve found no evidence of problems in that building… I would send my kids or grandchildren in there. I have no worries about that building.” A spokesperson for the Department of Health clarified that DOH has not conducted tests of its own at BHS. In October, the Health Department’s School Air Quality Program was asked to review the report by ATC Associates of Richmond, the firm hired by the school district to test the air quality in BHS. Apparently, DOH found nothing in ATC’s report that would indicate an indoor air-quality problem. Amsden’s comments were made in response to a grievance filed by the Burlington Education Association, which was made public at last week’s school board meeting. The union filed the grievance after three teachers, one of their spouses and a former student contracted serious viral heart infections in the winter of 2002; the ventilation system was replaced a year later. Thus far, the only known link among the five people is the school itself. Three of the five people have recovered from their illnesses. BHS math and physics teacher Arnie Gundersen contracted viral pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart. Gundersen recovered but has since been diagnosed with post-viral chronic fatigue syndrome. Another teacher, Laura Allyn, is still receiving treatment for her life-threatening heart ailment.
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004
<localmatters> Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Gas Tank Anyone who’s ever seen an 18-wheeler belch black exhaust knows that diesel fuel fouls the air. But it’s not just ugly and gross — the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency blames particulate matter, found in those and other sooty emissions, for 15,000 premature deaths each year. Scientists have been scrambling for decades to develop alternative fuels that don’t pack such a toxic punch. Lately biodiesel — made from used vegetable oil — has emerged as a viable replacement. Any diesel engine can run on it. In January, a federal tax break will reduce the average 30 cents per gallon difference between bio- and petroleum diesel to a mere 10 cents, to encourage the use of the greener gas. At least one Vermont company plans to profit from this new incentive — Green Technologies is gearing up to increase production dramatically. Founded by University of Vermont chemistry professor Scott Gordon, the company just signed a two-year lease on a new production facility on West Canal Street in Winooski. At best, the current UVM lab generates 500 to 600 gallons of the stuff a month, at $2 a gallon, plus tax. Gordon, who will leave UVM after next term to run his company, expects that by the middle of next year, the new digs will produce nearly that much a day. He says it can’t happen soon enough. “We’ve got people queued up to buy it as fast as we can make it,” the chemist says. Netaka White, co-director of the Vermont Biofuels Association, agrees “the demand is there.” White says Vermonters used 12,000 gallons of biodiesel in 2003 and will use 45,000 gallons by the end of 2004. He predicts the industry will top that within the first four months of 2005. That’s because biodiesel is not only less toxic to produce and burn, it’s also renewable and made in the U.S.A. “That’s meaningful for a lot of people,” says White, especially in a country so dependent on foreign oil. Producing biodiesel is relatively easy. Gordon and partner John Orr round up used oil from local restaurants — NECI, Trattoria Delia and Ming Dynasty all contribute — and blend it with methanol and lye. Knowledgeable hobbyists can try it safely at home. Gordon says plenty of back-yard operations exist, especially in rural areas, where farmers or homesteaders can use it to power their heavy equipment, or pour it into their home heating oil tanks. That’s how most of Green Technologies’ 30 or so customers use their biodiesel. Gordon says he and Orr are working on producing a blend that meets federal standards for selling through gas stations. Currently only two filling stations in the state offer biodiesel. One
is in Brattleboro; the other, in Bridport, began selling it this month. Both outposts sell a B 20 blend — a 20/80, bio/petroleum diesel mixture imported from out of state — that’s still cleaner than straight petroleum diesel. Most vehicles that burn biodiesel use it; the Navy and the Postal Service are experimenting with it. The EPA estimates it reduces a variety of noxious emissions and cuts particulate matter by 10 percent. A stronger B 100 blend like Green Technologies’ cuts the sooty black stuff by 40 percent. But Gordon admits he still has a few obstacles to overcome. For one, biodiesel can freeze at temperatures as high as 30 degrees Fahrenheit, a bad omen in the wintry Northeast. Gordon and Orr are trying to find a way around that.
CATHY RESMER
The contents of the union grievance are confidential. However, BEA President Terry Buehner said the teachers are demanding that the school replace the air filters, clean exhaust vents more often and increase the school’s maintenance budget. The union also called on the district to push the Legislature for stricter indoor air-quality standard for all Vermont schools. Scott Meyer is program director of Project WorkSAFE, a division of the Department of Labor and Industry which also reviewed the air-quality study. Meyer couldn’t discuss his findings — they’re also confidential — but noted that OSHA regulations governing indoor air quality in schools are no more rigorous than other workplaces. “When we’re dealing with schools and public buildings where children are present, we’re using exposure limits which…are set for full-grown adults, not kids,” Meyer said. “Kids have a much higher metabolism and they’re more sensitive.”
The teachers are demanding that the school replace the air filters, clean exhaust vents more often and increase the school’s maintenance budget.
KEN PICARD
local matters 11A
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Another challenge is supply. Gordon will be relying on restaurants’ oil waste, but that source is uncertain. Although restaurants are supposed to dispose of their oil by hauling it to a special site, that can cost upwards of $40 a barrel, so some dump their oil illegally. Restaurants that are dumping for free might not want to pay Gordon $15 a barrel to take the oil. The Chittenden Solid Waste District, hoping to cut down on illegal dumping, is buying Green Technologies a furnace for their Winooski plant. Gordon’s enthusiasm for his expanding venture is tinged with dark humor. “If I don’t go broke in the process,” he says with a laugh, “it’ll be great.”
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m-sat 10-9 • sun 11-6
ITEMS FROM EVERY CORNER OF THE GLOBE
12A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
Curses, Foiled Again Police reported that Abran Godoy, 20, and an accomplice robbed a catering truck in King City, California, but while they were fleeing, Godoy accidentally shot himself in the leg and bled to death. “We’re positive that it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Police Chief Jim Copsey said, explaining that the gun may have gone off while Godoy was tucking it into his waistband or because he fell to the ground. • When his 16-year-old daughter came home drunk and rowdy, Kevin Winston, 46, decided to teach the girl a lesson and called the police. When they arrived, she told them that she feared for
ODD, STRANGE, CURIOUS AND WEIRD BUT TRUE NEWS
news quirks
Army Office of the Chief Attorney said, “We knew it would be embarrassing.” • Two agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security entered a toy store in St. Helens, Oregon, and asked owner Stephanie Cox if she carried the Magic Cube, which the lead agent told her was an illegal copy of the popular Rubik’s Cube. Cox told the Oregonian that he ordered her to remove the item from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement official Virginia Kice told the newspaper that the agents were acting on a trademark infringement complaint as part of their responsibility to protect “the integrity of
BY ROLAND SWEET
her safety because her father kept drugs and weapons in the Newark, New Jersey, residence. She led them to a crawl space above the ceiling where they found eight guns, 617 vials of cocaine and assorted drug paraphernalia. The officers arrested Winston on numerous charges, including drug possession within 1000 feet of a school, and discovered that he had several outstanding warrants.
Homeland Insecurity The Defense Department spent $70,500 to make a 22-minute video to teach employees to respond to citizens’ requests for information, but when the tape was released to the public, 18 months after its request under the Freedom of Information Act, parts were blacked out. Acknowledging the irony of censoring a video promoting government openness, Suzanne Council of the
the economy and our nation’s financial systems.” Meanwhile, a representative of the manufacturer of the Magic Cube assured Cox that the Rubik’s Cube patent had expired and that the Magic Cube did not infringe on the rival’s trademark.
Sitting Duck Jason Craig, 30, of Mattoon, Illinois, was raising money for charity by living in a portable toilet for most of November, when a man knocked on the door at 4 a.m. and asked to use the Port-A-Potty, which was located in a gas station parking lot. When Craig explained what he was doing, the man began arguing with him and wound up throwing a chair that hit Craig in the leg. The man drove away, but Craig wrote down his license number. After police arrested Jordan T. Maxey, 18, Craig told
reporters that gas station customers often awoke him at 2 or 3 in the morning. To make matters worse, he suffered leg pain because of the cramped quarters and a lack of exercise, and, despite being more than halfway through the fundraiser, he had collected only $2000 toward his goal of $25,000.
End of an Era New laws aimed at Australia’s cattle and sheep ranchers require cowboys to wear helmets because the traditional wide-brimmed stockman’s hat doesn’t meet modern industrial safety standards. The measures stem from the death of Daniel Croker, 23, who suffered head injuries when he fell off his horse while herding cattle and whose father, Neil Croker, has become a campaigner for safer work practices on ranches. “I think we can still have the fantasy of romantic, wild west-type attitude,” Croker told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio, “but with safety added on.”
Life in the Slow Lane Police responding to reports of a reckless driver in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, spotted Nita Friedman, 66, and tried to pull her over. Instead, she led them on a 15-mile chase, at or below the speed limit the whole way, before they blew out three of her tires with a spike strip. Police Chief Mike Hutter said that Friedman insisted she was confused because the police were driving a four-wheel-drive Chevy Silverado pickup truck. She’s from New York, and police there drive cars.
Global Warming Breakthrough Firefighters in China’s Xinjiang province extinguished a fire at a coalfield that had burned since 1874. Hou Xuecheng, head of the Xinjiang Coalfield Firefighting Project Office, told Xinhua news agency that the burning coal emitted 100,000 tons of harmful gases and produced 40,000 tons of ashes every year. The office spent $12 million in the past four years fighting the fire, which was the largest of eight major coalfield fires in Xinjiang.
Trashing Tradition The government of Uganda has banned the sale of used underwear. The garments originate as charity donations in the United States, Canada, Britain, Japan and the Middle East, then are shipped to Africa, where cast-off clothing, called mivumba, has grown into an industry supporting tens of thousands of menders and vendors. Citing studies showing that “soiled mivumba” can transmit disease, Gyaviira Musoke, the chief inspection officer at the Ugandan National Bureau of Standards, declared, “There are certain items that should not be worn by other people.”
Red-State Values Alabama voters rejected an amendment that would have changed the state constitution to stop requiring segregated schools and the poll tax. The measure, which a recount showed lost by just 1850 votes out of more than 1.3 million, also would have eliminated language declaring that children have no constitutional right to an education at public expense. 쩾
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SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | hackie 13A
hackie
BY JERNIGAN PONTIAC
A CABBIE’S REAR VIEW
Lights, Camera, Action!
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would like to be a Greek god, or at least know what it feels like. But alas, I am a mere mortal. My plebeian status does not, however, stop me from recognizing and appreciating perfection when I see it. The young man sitting in the rear of my cab was a Greek god. Yes, his body was statuesque, his skin vibrant and glowing. And, yes, his face was high of cheekbone, staunch of jaw line and entirely beautiful to behold. But it was his hair that sealed his membership in the divine pantheon: thick, golden-blonde locks, wavy as the Aegean Sea. The hair alone could seduce princesses, raise armies, subdue infidel nations. “What time is your flight?” I asked, as we crawled up Williston Road towards the airport. We were traveling, as luck would have it, in the heart of the rush-hour logjam. “Not till seven, man,” he replied. “Cool — so I don’t have to break any land-speed records.” “Definitely not,” he said, chuckling. “Don’t rush; take your time.”
With his fabulous hair doing most of the acting, it struck me that he had fully realized the blonde-haired, Victorian Elvis. In this traffic there was no rushing to be had, so that was good to hear. “Rush hour” is a misnomer, I mused to myself. “No-rush hour” would be more to the point. “I’m looking forward to getting back to L.A.,” the man continued. “I don’t think my body’s cut out for this climate.” “Ya live there, work there?” I asked, deftly killing two birds with one stone. “Yes to both. I’m an actor.” “Well, that certainly makes sense. You got that leading-man thing happening in spades.” You’d think the guy would be accustomed to comments of that ilk. But his reaction to my fawning was the opposite of jaded. A beaming smile broke out across his face, revealing — no surprise here — perfect teeth. He said, “Do you really think so? I have been going up for those roles.” “So, what have you done? Plays, ads, any movies I might have seen?” “Well, I had small roles in Patch Adams and the last Terminator film.” By “small,” I assumed he meant “bit,” because I saw both those flicks, and I certainly didn’t remember him in either of them. Suddenly, he began rifling through his small satchel, which had the look of an
alarmingly expensive designer bag you probably couldn’t purchase in Vermont. (For the record, I consider that a plus for our state.) He then extracted a small, rectangular box, got my attention and passed it to me over the seat. “This is for you, man,” he said. “Keep it.” I took my eye off the road — not an overly risky action since the traffic had ground to a halt — and looked down at a VHS tape. The title of the movie mentioned something about a viscount, and the image was of my man in the back embracing a woman with enough décolletage to shelter a small family of midgets. He was wearing a purple velvet riding coat over a ruffled white shirt. With his fabulous hair doing most of the acting, it struck me that he had fully realized the blonde-haired, Victorian Elvis. He clutched the vivacious damsel firmly, à la the cover of a juicy romance novel. I would not have been surprised if the credits read, “Produced by the Family Farmers of Cabot Creamery” — it was that cheesy. “This is my first starring role,” he said, with the effusiveness of an actor not yet familiar with mass adulation and prying paparazzi. “A friend from acting school wrote, produced and directed it. We’re all out on the publicity tour.” I was going to ask Sir Lawrence Olivier where the movie originally opened and what cities it had played in. But before the question had a chance to cross my lips, these words lit up in the marquee of my mind: “straight to video.” A space opened up in the traffic, and I slalomed into the clear. I generally proceed with the assumption — which might be a self-serving delusion — that your average civilian driver understands cabbies’ need for speed, and therefore cuts us a certain slack with regard to safe driving protocol. To all those who don’t share this enlightened perspective, allow me to issue a blanket apology. As we eased into an empty spot in front of the airport terminal, my customer said, “So, be honest — what kind of roles do you see me playing?” I shifted around in my seat, beheld the young man in his full, eager, gorgeous glory, and said, “Jude Law, Matt Damon, Colin Farrell — you name it. Anything those guys are doing, it could be you. Why not?” “Thanks, man,” he said, his killer smile returning. “That’s precisely my goal. Hey, would you like me to sign the video for you?” “Absolutely. This way, when you hit the big-time, I got something really special.” I couldn’t explain why I had so mentally ragged on this guy at the same time I was dazzled by his striking good looks. Perhaps, while I admire the Olympian ideal in theory, when I see it in the flesh jealousy has its way with me. Still, I looked forward to getting home and firing up the video. 쩾
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14A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
consumer correspondent BY KENNETH CLEAVER
LETTERS THAT PUSH THE ENVELOPE KENCLEAVER@HOTMAIL.COM
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SEVEN DAYS
bliss BY HARRY BLISS
the straight dope
BY CECIL ADAMS
ALL WORTHWHILE HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
Dear Cecil, Was Einstein a plagiarist? Several articles have been written saying he was. What do you think? mcsage1, via email This letter will raise two questions in the mind of the average reader: 1. You mean to tell me that in 1905, when Albert Einstein published his groundbreaking paper, there were, assuming that every cribber requires a cribbee, two people on the planet who understood the theory of special relativity? 2. Never mind plagiarism — whatever happened to Einstein’s brain, which, when last discussed in this column (1987), was housed in a cardboard box in a doctor’s office outside Kansas City, Missouri? Patience. We shall address both matters. Plagiarism first. Questions of priority have long swirled around the theories of relativity, both special and general. Though no one thinks Einstein confected special relativity out of thin air, his 1905 paper had no notes or references, which was odd even for the times. In fact, as Einstein’s critics long ago demonstrated, virtually all the better-known elements of the theory — most famously, the equivalence of matter and energy (E = mc2) — had previously been suggested by others. Two men in particular, French mathematician Henri Poincaré and Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, are credited with anticipating many of Einstein’s discoveries. Some latter-day writers have seized on these observations as proof that Einstein was a fraud, notably Christopher Jon Bjerknes, author of Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist (2002). The gist of his argument: (a) Einstein got many of his ideas from his first wife, Mileva Maric; (b) Maric herself plagiarized her ideas from others; and (c) the theory is a crock anyway. Clearly, some aspects of Bjerknes’ attack operate at crosspurposes — if relativity is fatally flawed, who cares if it was pirated? More importantly, though he seems to have unearthed every remark ever penned that could conceiv-
ably be construed as undercutting Einstein’s contribution, Bjerknes never manages to demonstrate that Einstein ventured over the line between building on other people’s work and stealing it. Still, you ask, given that Big Al was just one of a bunch of scientists sniffing around the same turf at the same time, why did the Smartest Person Ever trophy go to him and not one of his contemporaries? Poincaré, for instance, gave a prescient lecture in 1904 (Einstein doesn’t seem to have been aware of it) that posited many aspects of special relativity, among them the idea that the speed of light was an impassable limit. So illuminatingly did he dilate on the issues that one historian of science professes bafflement that Poincaré failed to invent the theory of special relativity himself. But he didn’t. His comments make it clear he was still wedded to classical physics, with its comforting notion of space and time as unchanging verities. Einstein alone was able to make the conceptual leap and realize that space and time were about as immutable as Silly Putty, paving the way for our modern view of the cosmos as a profoundly strange place. While one doesn’t want to deprecate Einstein’s intellectual boldness, the fact remains that he put together a puzzle all the pieces of which were then in plain sight. He himself conceded that had he not invented the theory, someone else would soon have done so. (He thought the theory of general relativity, which he completed in 1915, was a more impressive achievement — although even there, controversy still rages about who first deduced the crucial equations, Einstein or German mathematician David Hilbert.) This is not to say that Einstein was unworthy of the esteem in which he continues to be held — merely that, like every other physicist who ever lived, he stood on the shoulders of giants. Having addressed the sublime, we now turn to the pathetic. When I last looked into the matter, Einstein’s brain was in the possession of Thomas Harvey, who had performed the autopsy when Einstein died at Princeton in 1955. Harvey had kept the brain in hopes of making a rep for himself as a researcher, but was unequipped to do more than an elementary examination of the brain himself, and too timid to organize a research program involving the heavyweights. So for more than 40 years he just hung on to the thing, which he had sliced into hundreds of pieces, stored at times in mayonnaise jars. Periodically fending off inquiries from nosy journalists, Harvey bounced around the country, working as a pathologist, a small-town doctor and, finally, a factory worker after he failed a medical licensing exam at age 77. Having retired and moved back to New Jersey, in 1998 Harvey donated the brain to the man who held his old job as chief pathologist at the Princeton hospital. Scientists to whom Harvey lent chunks of the brain published three papers over the years, so I suppose the whole thing wasn’t a complete waste; still, when I shuffle off to that big reading room in the sky, I’m leaving strict instructions: No souvenirs. CECIL ADAMS
Is there something you need to get straight? Cecil Adams can deliver the Straight Dope on any topic. Write Cecil Adams at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611, or email him at cecil@chireader.com.
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december 22-29, 2004
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15A
16A
| december
22-29, 2004
| SEVEN DAYS
eyewitness
BY PAMELA POLSTON
TAKING NOTE OF VISUAL VERMONT
MIKEY WELSH
Welsh’s Juice
T IMAGE Matthew Thorsen
he words “former Weezer bassist” still hang around Mikey Welsh like a stalker, but he makes it clear right away he doesn’t want to talk about the band or his musical past. You wanna know the sordid details, go online. Welsh is more than ready for the whole famous-rock-star thing to be eclipsed by his present occupation: artist. It has been to him, and that’s apparent as soon as you step inside his Burlington home: Welsh’s paintings nearly reach out and grab you by the throat.
vasses. And then there are the drawings. Welsh works at such a feverish pitch, you’d think his life depended on it. And perhaps it does. Welsh, 33, is a big guy, tall and dark of hair, eye and demeanor. Though he might seem formidable at first glance, on the day of our recent interview he’s gentle, polite, even fragile. And he has the flat affect of someone on psychotropic drugs. “I’m afraid you caught me in the middle of a nervous breakdown,” Welsh says apologetically. He explains that he’s checked himself into a
Welsh hurls himself into painting, and seemingly hurls paint at canvas, for “eight or nine hours a day, seven days a week.” It’s an experience he suggests is more than therapeutic. “It’s like purging,” he states bluntly. That concept rings true when you witness the frenzy of strokes, smears and slashes, the orgy of brilliant colors, the often savage images. Some of the works are riotous abstractions; the “face paintings,” he says, are all self-portraits — a series of distorted visages that seem to be melting. In some works there are more narrative elements — groups of figures, though not necessarily interacting with each other — and collaged bits of nonlinear text. A new series, Welsh reveals, is of female nudes — not that they are anatomically correct. All of Welsh’s paintings exude raw, unfettered energy, and their effect on a viewer can be literally stunning. All that said, this seeming madness is not without some method. Welsh, who dropped out of high school in 10th grade, is a self-taught artist, and in some ways his work is consistent with that of the uninhibited and often childlike “outsider” canon: The perspective is flat; human anatomy and proportion are crudely approximated. But he didn’t just pick up a brush and go at it unawares: Welsh’s ongoing self-education is focused and intense, and he talks about art history with deep respect and keen intelligence. “My teachers are all the great artists of the 20th century,” Welsh says. This is evident in his studio: Paintings by some of those greats — that is, color photographs torn from magazines — are tacked to the wall. His inspirations include de Kooning, Picasso, Pollock, Bacon, Rothko; a particular favorite is the Dutch expressionist Karel Appel. And Welsh says he identifies with the Art Brut movement, which “embraced the art of children and the mentally ill.” He is not, of course, the first person to make art with such passion — nor to put the pain in paint — and readily says so. Welsh vehemently endorses the timehonored art tradition of learning from those who came before. “I like that; it’s like a family tree,” he suggests. And he’s adding his own branch: “I’m tutoring four kids — ages 18 or 19 — in art school, online,” Welsh says. “I help them with ideas with references to older artists I’ve drawn inspiration from… It’s nice to have younger people who are fans of mine getting into art, where I suspect they might not have otherwise.” As for passion, that cannot be taught, he notes: “That would be like teaching someone how to cry.”
The thing people are drawn to is the use of color. I think that’s a subconscious effort for me to [achieve] catharsis. I feel very dark inside, and frightened. It’s like trying to get out of my own skin. MIKEY WELSH Left: “Karate Practice” Right: “You Never Listen to Me Anymore”
They’re everywhere — hanging, stacked several deep and leaning against the walls, crowding the furniture and narrowing hallways. Welsh makes a dozen or more paintings a week; since July, when he moved to the Main Street townhouse with his wife Danielle and her 6-year-old son, he estimates he’s painted 150 can-
Boston psychiatric hospital for the holidays, near his family in Brookline. That’s where he retreats when his bipolar highs and lows become unmanageable. “I’m a real, live ‘tortured artist,’” Welsh says wryly. “My art is me; the pain and suffering is in my work — they’re one and the same and fuel each other.”
Welsh’s tumultuous workspace is bedroom-sized and looks like a paintball practice site; cigarette smoke scents the air like acrid incense. A large work-inprogress hangs on one wall; opposite is a tattered chair, beside the north-facing windows, where he sits to contemplate his canvasses. In between is a lot of clut-
ter, including a table laden with tubs and jars of pigment in dozens of colors. Welsh favors acrylic house paint — “oil is too fucking slow” — but also uses oil stick and paint pens. “The thing people are drawn to is the use of color,” he says. “I think that’s a subconscious effort for me to [achieve] catharsis. I feel very dark inside, and frightened. It’s like trying to get out of my own skin.” Welsh disdains the idea of being part of any art “scene,” but he nonetheless welcomes opportunities to show his work — not to mention clear some space in his house. In the last two years he’s had two solo exhibitions, and was part of a group show, in the Boston area. The Paradise Rock Club show in 2002 coincided with a Rolling Stone article about musicians who paint — Welsh was included along with such celebs as Patti Smith and Ron Wood. He does not list the article, or a more recent, similarly themed one in Art News, on his website (www.mikeywelsh.com). “My fame has given me the opportunity to be alongside these people in national magazines, but these things don’t make me confident as an artist,” he says. “My confidence has to come from my work.” Still, Welsh concedes that his rock-star past may give him an advantage in the future art world — a Chelsea gallery curator in Manhattan is interested in his work, he reports. “Needless to say, I’m very excited about that,” he says. “It proves my theory that these days, with the Internet, you can be the kind of painter I am — really aggressive — and still live in a really nice place.” Welsh seems just as pleased about his Burlington shows — one earlier this year at Opaline, and his current one at 47 Sanctuary Gallery. “Mikey is going to be getting bigger,” enthuses Sanctuary curator Joseph Peila. “He’s quickly developing his own style. I was pretty flabbergasted that he agreed to show here.” It’s hard not to notice Welsh’s artwork if you’re walking or even driving around the corner of Battery and Maple. Welsh’s exhibit is hung in the high-ceilinged, first-floor gallery space at Jager DiPaola Kemp Design, and the vibrant, largescale paintings are easily visible through the tall windows. Co-owner Michael Jager deems it “some of the best-looking work we’ve seen here in years.” He’s one viewer who was initially impressed by Welsh’s “fearless use of color.” After he met Welsh, Jager says, “I got a sense of how dedicated he is; he really doesn’t give a damn what people think — he would just be raging away creating the work in his studio whether people saw it or not.” You have to go inside JDK to discover a smaller room — a stairwell, actually — where some other paintings and modest oilstick drawings, on ripped pieces of paper, are displayed. At $25 or $30 each, the drawings are accessible to less wellheeled collectors, Peila suggests. Prices are not posted anywhere in the exhibit for the paintings, but Welsh says his works are generally $2000 to $12,000. The face paintings on wood panels go for $350 each. Many of these works can be viewed on his website, but with output at Welshspeed, it’s hard to keep the online gallery up to date. Peila expects to curate a bigger exhibit of paintings sometime next year in Sanctuary’s capacious downstairs quarters. He particularly likes Welsh’s figurative paintings. “This work, to me, speaks louder than the fact that Mikey was in a band that was well-known,” Peila says. “He’s just an artist, deep down.” m
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18A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
work
BY SUSAN GREEN
VERMONTERS ON THE JOB
Family Trees
S IMAGE Jordan Silverman
NAME JOB LOCATION
pools of red and burgundy velvet ribbon on Frank Quinlan’s dining room table are evidence of his Yuletide enterprise. The 68-year-old Williston Christmas tree farmer also uses shiny glass ornaments, real pinecones and fake huckleberries in this wreathmaking sideline. Outside, on 100 acres of hilly land stretching west from Old Stage Road, the Vermont native cultivates 10,000 evergreens for his cut-your-own business. He typically parts with about 600 trees between Thanksgiving and December 25. Quinlan, who grew up on a now-defunct dairy farm in the same neighborhood, has an avuncular look, a laconic demeanor and a wry Yankee wit. In their raised ranch, his wife Sue “does the brain work” — she keeps the books — for the seasonal cottage industry that he calls “a family hobby.” He is responsible for the physical labor, along with their two grown children, Jay and Kathy. Whoever’s on duty can access a small trailer near the main grove to stay warm, and there’s a rack of handsaws for people who forget to bring their own. On weekends, the Quinlans’ daughter-in-law dresses up like Mrs. Claus to hand out candy canes and hot Frank Quinlan chocolate to customers. As the patriarch Christmas Tree Farmer explains, “We like to make it festive.” Williston SEVEN DAYS: What attracted you to this work? FRANK QUINLAN: When I was a kid, we always went out into the woods and cut our own Christmas tree — usually, a white pine. I like to plant things and watch them grow. It turned into something bigger than I ever imagined, though. SD: What do you mean? FQ: When I began, in ’85 or ’86, I planted a couple thousand trees with no idea we’d continue. I tend to start something without a plan. But they’re not ready to sell for about nine years, so it’s slow going. It’s one of the things that stops people from going into this business. SD: Was it a career you had envisioned when you were young? FQ: No. I couldn’t farm because of back problems. I went from job to job, things like construction, until about 1980. That’s when I was hired at IBM, for line work. After 15 years, I took one of their buy-outs and retired.
SD: Where do you get your saplings? FQ: Seedlings. I used to get them from the country foresters in Essex, but they stopped [the program] in the early 1990s. Now I buy from a commercial supplier in Maine. They cost about 95 cents each. SD: How big are they? FQ: At 2 years old, they’re 5 or 6 inches. The 4-year-olds are about 10 inches. SD: What types of trees do you have? FQ: Mostly we’ve been planting Balsams. About three or four years ago, we added Frasers. Also some Douglas firs, to give people more variety. But 95 percent of them want Balsams. SD: When do you put seedlings in the ground? FQ: In the spring, as early as the weather permits.
SD: What conditions are best? FQ: Trees are reasonably hardy. But it’s better to have relatively cool summers. The past one was ideal, kind of wet. In the mid-1990s, we had a summer that was very dry. I had planted 1000, like I do every year, and all but two of them died. We lost between 3000 and 4000 trees all together. SD: Did that discourage you? FQ: It certainly did, but I went right back to planting. Luckily, 2004 has been a good year. We didn’t hardly lose any. SD: How much care do they need? FQ: I buy them with bare roots and plant by hand. I walk through a lot to make sure the shoot at the top hasn’t grown too much. We’ve got to prune the trees for fullness. And we have to make sure there are buds, which produce the branches. I also keep checking for aphids. We have to mow in between the rows. Otherwise the grass and weeds would choke the tree. Sometimes, I throw a handful of fertilizer around when we’re about to harvest. That gives them better color. SD: When do you begin selling them? FQ: Thanksgiving weekend. People want their trees earlier and earlier. I’d rather just be open for two weeks. SD: Do you plow when it snows so customers can walk around up there? FQ: Can’t. The trees are too close together. We got 18 inches last December and people just trudged through. SD: Do entire families choose a tree? FQ: Yup. But everybody sees a tree differently. What’s nice for one person
wouldn’t be for another. When I see two or three people together, it seems to take them longer to decide than when it’s just one. SD: What do your trees cost? FQ: It was $25. We went up to $27 this year. Some planted in another spot are on sale for $22. The pre-cuts come in two sizes, $20 or $27. We put about 30 or 35 of them out at a time. Wreaths are $13 plain and $16 all decorated. My son helps me make them. They cleaned us out last weekend. SD: What’s the advantage of buying here? FQ: The freshness and the old tradition of cutting your own. SD: What size tree do you prefer for your home? FQ: We like them between 7 and 8 feet high. SD: Do you get into the spirit by trimming them? FQ: I don’t mind putting it up, but I don’t enjoy the decorating. My wife does that. SD: At family gatherings here, does everyone praise your tree? FQ: Probably not. SD: But you must take a lot of pride in them, no? FQ: We get a lot of compliments. We have some of the better-looking trees you can find in the area. And I’m not bragging. SD: Of course not. Do you ever commune with your trees? They are living things. FQ: I talk to them. I’ll say, “Good morning!” Guess I’m really talking to myself, but the trees are a good excuse. m
SEVEN DAYS
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20A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
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Mayor Peter Clavelle and Y supporters on the city council finally saw the light. As Mayor Moonie put it, “We came to the conclusion there’s merit to a vote.” The distinguished council passed a unanimous resolution saying what a wonderful idea a Waterfront Y is, and then washed their hands of making any decision. Now, all their butts are covered. God bless America!
Dubie Ducking— We mistakenly thought teasing Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie last week for his silence over his recent trip to D.C. would ferret him out. Unfortunately, yet another message left at the Doobster’s office has gone unanswered. Now we’re really wondering what job Mr. Dubie might be after in D.C., and how soon into his second term he’ll pull the plug if he gets what he wants?
Fogel Fans — UVM President Dan Fogel hit the Burlington City Council Monday night and gave a little Power Point presentation on the future: more dorm rooms for more than 1000 students. Danny Boy emphasized he “feels a very strong partnership” with the city council. “Anytime you call,” he said, “I’ll be here.” The president of the university on the hill also promised to deal with increasing off-campus noise complaints. UVM, he assured the city council, “will be a good neighbor.” That message is music to the ears of locals. The councilors seemed almost in awe. In fact, not one asked Danny Boy about the recent latenight campus Red Sox riot. Hello?
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Media Notes — We finally found out about what happened to Groucho, er, Claude Marx. He was part of the new three-man team staffing the Vermont Press Bureau, the state news hub for the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. Claude was no cub reporter. Statehouse lobbyists joke about how Mr. Marx could doze off during a committee hearing and then pop out a story that included key points he slept through. Last month Claude quietly departed. Bureau Chief Darren Allen provided few details. But over the weekend, Groucho called to say he’s heading for the Eagle-Tribune in Lawrence, Massachusetts. However, he won’t be working in Lawrence. Reporter Marx will be parked at the Massachusetts Statehouse on Beacon Hill. Cool. Don’t forget the No-Doz.
From Russia With Love — Remember former Vermont AP reporter Mike Eckel? A few months ago he gave us a stirring, up-close and personal take on what he witnessed covering the hostage massacre at the school in Beslan, North Ossetia. Mike’s based at the AP bureau in Moscow. Last week he had the unique distinction of writing a story about the remains of Czar Nicholas II that miraculously fooled more than half the headline writers on Earth. It was not a bright moment for
either human or journalistic intelligence. You try it. Here’s Mike’s lead: “The Russian Orthodox church said Wednesday that Japanese researchers had confirmed its doubts about the authenticity of the remains of Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II.” Now choose what you think is the appropriate headline: 1. “Last Russian Czar’s Remains Confirmed” 2. “Fresh Doubts on Czar’s Remains.” If you chose 1, you are not alone. You are also wrong. But news has a way of changing, and today the big story in Mike’s neck of the woods is Ukraine. He sent us this email: “Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets demanding an honest and fair vote. Much of it has been high political theater, with lots of subplots, plays-within-a-play and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, with the Russians, the Americans and the Europeans all playing strong supporting roles. “It’s easy to get cynical about these sorts of things, but in a country like Ukraine, still trying to shed the vestiges of the Soviet Union — and the yoke of Russia — when thousands of people pour into the street seeking political change, that becomes a pretty remarkable watershed moment.” Yes, indeed. Meanwhile, in the land that’s known as freedom, right-wing extremists have seized absolute power via presidential electoral politics. The checks and balances installed by our founders are no longer functioning. If anything, 2005 will be a watershed in American history. P.S. Next week’s final Seven Days of 2004 will feature Inside Track’s Year in Review, comprising mostly material you only read here. Then the publishers of this distinguished locally owned weekly shut down for a week to laugh, play and drink champagne on the French Riviera. Yeah, in their dreams!
Correction — In last week’s print edition yours truly mistakenly called GOP Rep. Judy Livingston of Manchester “Connie Livingston.” Judy, Judy, Judy! That ain’t no way to treat a lady. Mea culpa. Merry Christmas — Is it OK to say it? Happy birthday, Jesus Christ! What if he were around today? Would he host a Cable TV show soliciting financial contributions in return for prayer cloths? Or would he be dousing himself with gasoline and lighting a match in front of the White House? Maybe he’d be a 40-year-old Vermont National Guard soldier driving a fuel truck in Iraq? Or a U.N. aid worker fighting the never-ending famine in Africa? It’s been nearly 2000 years since Jesus’ execution, but some things never change, eh? The senseless bloodshed, for one. The illusions of political conquest in the minds of madmen, for another. The suffering of the innocent. The maimed, blinded and insane. The American Empire, like the British, French, Spanish, Roman and Greek Empires before it, is
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004
poised on the precipice of history. All empires before ours fell because of one common reason: bad leadership. And today, the U.S. is drowning in bad leadership. Watching Monday’s presidential press conference, I didn’t know whether to cry, laugh or restart the Sons of Liberty — with a new gender-neutral name, of course. These days, reality has developed an unreal edge. Take this statement by President George W. Bush on Monday: “Now, in terms of my vision for the future of the world, I believe everybody ought to be free. I believe the world is more peaceful as liberty takes hold. Free societies don’t fight each other. And so we’ll work to continue to send a message to reformers around the world that America stands strong in our belief that freedom is universal, and that we hope at some point in time, everybody is free.” Really? Then how come Mr. Bush never mentions, and our press never points out, that right next door to Iraq is a country near and dear to both our reigning president and his father before him — the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Compared to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia is something left over from the Dark Ages. It’s a secretive, feudal prison run by greedy gazillionaires. Anyone who has even ridden in an automobile has had contact with Saudi Arabia, long the world’s leading producer of crude oil. Besides its longtime close relationship with the Bush Family, Saudi leadership runs one of the most undemocratic countries on Earth. The country is ruled by a royal family, without elections, the right to protest or freedom of the press. Women are officially second-class citizens and cannot appear alone in public. The president of the United States treats the Saudi Arabian dictators… well, like royalty. And the American mainstream press ignores them. Never, ever, have we heard a cross word out of Mr. Bush’s mouth about Saudi Arabia when he gives his democracy sermon. With Americans dying in the sand next door, Bush’s silence is deafening. Let’s be real. The bad news this Christmas is inescapable. Our president is leading us on a hopeless, priapic quest for personal glory and windfall profits for favored defense contractors. One day, we predict, historians will note Iraq marked the beginning of the end of American democracy, American prestige and American Empire. Maybe it’s because yours truly’s old man barely escaped death row in Dublin that I see it — a certain look in the eyes of, for example, the Tibetan refugee who now keeps Burlington City Hall squeaky clean and shining, or the Bosnian refugee who keeps the produce section in tiptop shape at Price Chopper. It’s a look that encapsulates oppression and freedom, despair and hope, past, present and future in a single glance. So merry Christmas to all, and keep up the good fight! m
Email Peter at InsideTrackVT@aol.com
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he fireworks! The flags! The throngs of young idealists filling the snowy streets of Lviv! I’m reading the latest news from Ukraine with the ghost of my father’s mother looking over my shoulder. I’m not STORY sure how she got here, but the smell of her RUTH cigarette is unmistakable, and her face — HOROWITZ that jutting chin, those cat-eye glasses — is clearly reflected in the mirror above me: IMAGE part of the legacy I inherited when she ABBY died in 1976. MANOCK “Those are our people,” I marvel, pointing at the demonstrators waving their opposition-orange banners on my computer screen. “Our people? No.” Dead nearly three decades and her voice hasn’t lost its edge. “Aren’t they?” I click on another page I’ve bookmarked: a map showing the historic region of Galicia, where Little Grandma was born. Back then, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but before that it was in Poland. Today it’s in the western Ukraine. “Lviv is just 100 miles west of Zbarazh,” I point out. Twin ribbons of smoke stream from Little Grandma’s nostrils. When she shrugs, her tiny shoulders seem as brittle
as chicken wings. “That doesn’t make them our people,” she says, stubbing out her cigarette. “Our people are long gone from there — left on their own, or were killed. Those people, believe me,” she continues, tapping another Pel Mel from the pack, “are glad to be rid of us. If they’re not Nazis, they’re Cossacks.” Never mind that this is a new generation. Never mind that they’ve known their own share of tragedy; since the 17th century, the citizens of Zbarazh — Roman and Greek Catholics, Jews, Ruthenians, Poles and Germans — have been trampled by Tartars, besieged by Cossacks, invaded by Nazis, and dominated by Soviets. My grandmother couldn’t care less. In her it’s hard-wired, this assuming the worst. This nursing of grudges beyond the grave. Next she’ll be complaining about the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans who overran her old neighborhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, replacing the U-Bet chocolate syrup and Wolfe’s buckwheat groats at her local Grand Union with their hideous guava paste and mango nectar. After that, if I don’t stop her, she’ll start in on the Blacks.
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 23A
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All things considered, her wariness is understandable. But I don’t want to hear it today. The disappointment of our election over here is still too raw. I want to believe that somewhere in the world there’s a place where hope can still have its day, and grassroots democracy can still triumph over politics as usual. And if that place happens to be part of my family heritage, all the better. “There must have been some good guys in Zbarazh,” I insist. “Something good must have happened there sometime.” She makes that clicking sound with her dentures. “What would you know about it?” she says. Not much, it’s true. The few details I do have about Little Grandma’s life begin in 1907, the year she came to New York at the age of 15, leaving a brother behind. I know she found a job sewing lace trim onto women’s underwear. That in the course of a garment workers’ strike, she got arrested for kicking a cop in the shins. That her brother and his family went up in ash at Belzec. That her baby son died of meningitis and her husband of lung cancer. That she hated Richard Nixon. When I was 12 and we were watching him on TV together, she said, “If I had a gun, so help me, I’d go down to Washington and shoot him. What could they do? Kill me? At my age, believe me, it would be a favor.” When I was 18, she broke her hip but managed to drag herself across her living room floor to reach the phone and call our house. She never forgave me for calling the ambulance. “You should have let me die then,” she liked to complain. If you didn’t want help, you shouldn’t have called, I’m tempted to tell her now. But what’s the point of resurrecting a 30-year-old argument? Especially today, when the streets of Lviv are filled with jubilant crowds, I’m aching to rewrite the bitter story she left me. “Can’t you tell me just one good thing about Zbarazh?” I beg. “I can’t remember any,” says Grandma. And as if to prove the point, her ghost begins to fade, the twist of her lips and her wisps of white hair merging with the smoke, and threatening to melt away. “OK,” I say, suddenly desperate not to lose her. “Then I’ll remember for you.” “Is that a fact?” she asks, unimpressed. But already, her voice sounds stronger. >> 24A
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The Warren Store Chronicles I was working the late shift, swapping snow stories with the SKIERS and RIDERS who were in to buy their SANDWICHES or COOKIES for the ride home. They had that tired-but-happy-andnow-I-need-a-big-glass-of-WINE-glow people get after a long day in the snow. The kids were sugar-plumming over at the CANDY COUNTER, but RAY was giving them the eye, so they were minding their P’s and Q’s. Just then this old guy comes in, dressed to the eights, a big brown fedora perched rakishly on the top of his head. He was carrying a rather large box under his arm, all tied up with string, and he walked up to the counter. “You must be Mr. Jimmy Beaks”, he said with a smile, “I’ve come a long way to give you this”, and he set the box down on the counter in front of me. Then, with a wink and a nod, away he flew, and I thought I heard the faint jingling of bells up on the roof.
The Warren Store, Warren Village, Open daily 8-7, Sun 8-6 warrenstore.com
H O L I D AY
Shopping & Dining
2 24A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
ukraine
for the Holidays
<<23A
Vergennes
Wishing you a Joyous Holiday Season.
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“Those people, believe me,” Little Grandma continues, tapping another Pel Mel from the pack, “are glad to be rid of us. If they’re not Nazis, they’re Cossacks.”
$75 per person. Please reserve by December 28th. View full menu on our website www.christophesonthegreen.com Buche de Noel & Chocolate Gift Boxes Available
N . G R E E N ST R E E T • V E R G E N N E S • 8 0 2 - 8 7 7- 3 413 H O L I D AY H O U R S : S E R V I N G 5 : 3 0 - 9 : 3 0 T U E - S AT C L O S E D 12 / 2 4 & 2 5
Sometimes, I say, the greatest miracles are those that take place in your mind. Take, for example, the one that occurred in Zbarzh 50 years before Little Grandma was born. The town’s spiritual leader in those days was a man by the name of Rabbi Joseph Chaim Waserman Hellerman Zilberman. So spectacularly strict was the rabbi, so exact his interpretations of Halacha, so engaging his retellings of Aggadah, so slow his stern words, so terrible his temper, so curly his white beard, so long, what’s more, his very name, that the God-loving, synagogue-going, wisdom-respecting, constantly working, pogrom-fearing, Sabbath-keeping, poppy-seed-spilling, tongue-wagging Jews of Zbarazh affectionately bestowed upon him a name normally reserved for God Himself. They called their beloved rabbi “Ha-Tzur” — the Rock. But even a rock has its problems. Ha-Tzur had just one: When he preached, the synagogue was so packed that the men downstairs in the sanctuary swayed all over their neighbors’ sore toes and prayed down each other’s damp necks, while upstairs in the balcony, the
women jostled for a spot beside the latticed screen, hoping to reach their fingers through the slots and brush the men’s prayers as they rose to heaven. Everyone complained about the situation. But only Ismar the Imbecile had the audacity to imagine a solution. He prayed for a miracle unknown since Temple times: the blessing of expanded space. And lo and behold, not long afterwards, it happened. Although no walls were knocked down and no construction took place, little by little the sanctuary seemed to enlarge. No one could explain the phenomenon until word of Ismar’s prayer got around. Hearing the story, Zissel Yust — a scholar among fishmongers — took it upon himself to investigate the possibility of Divine intervention. For months, he trolled sacred texts. And when his research failed to fetch an answer, he decided to ask the rabbi’s opinion. But bringing a question to a rabbi as impressive as Ha-Tzur was not a task to be taken lightly. So Yust brought along his friend, Itchy Tzigler, the milkman. With much trepidation, Zissel and Itchy knocked on the
rabbi’s door. The man who answered was not Ha-Tzur, however, but Wolfe Bobker (The Broom), the rabbi’s crosseyed assistant. “We would, well, like to speak with the rabbi, you see,” Itchy Tzigler bravely announced. “About what?” growled Wolfe Bobker. “A matter of some importance,” said Tzigler, sniffing. “Importance to whom?” asked The Broom. “Well, it is—” stammered the milkman. “— a matter of theological importance,” the fishmonger finished for him. “A question concerning Talmud. About the matter of a miracle, in fact.” To emphasize his point, Yust puffed out his chest and raised his bearded chin. But The Broom remained unpersuaded. “A… miracle?” he asked, folding his arms. At that, the fishmonger ran out of patience. “What is the purpose of all these questions?” he exploded. “Just announce our arrival to the rabbi and be done with it.” Bobker smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” “Of course you can,” Zissel contradicted him.
“I assure you that I can’t,” Bobker replied. “It’s utterly impossible.” “Nonsense,” said Zissel. “What is your reason?” asked Itchy, emboldened by Zissel’s courage. “My reason, quite simply, is that the rabbi isn’t here, and won’t be for some time,” said Bobker. “He’s been called out of town and has left me in charge in his absence.” “Left you?” asked the milk monger. “That’s right,” Bobker answered. “In charge?” asked the fish man. “Of everything,” said Wolfe. “For how long?” Tzigler probed. “Some time,” replied Bobker. “And how long is that?” Yust persisted. “The rabbi will return when the rabbi returns. Not a second sooner, nor a moment later.” Bobker’s eyes unaccountably uncrossed, then recrossed to their original positions. “These things can’t be rushed,” he continued with a well-practiced shrug. “And on the other hand, they must not be delayed.” Itchy looked at Zissel and Zissel looked at Itchy. Wolfe’s words, both were thinking, had a decidedly rabbinical ring. Proximity, perhaps, to the illustrious Rock had had its impact on the mind of the Broom. And what’s more, they reasoned, if the rabbi wasn’t available, the rabbi wasn’t available. And furthermore, they concluded, didn’t the story of Balak and Balaam demonstrate that even an ass might see an angel? Which was another way of saying that if an Imbecile could recognize a miracle, then it stood to reason that the insight of an Imbecile could be apprehended by a Broom. The assistant stepped back and waved them in. Reassured by their simultaneous revelation, Itchy and Zissel followed him down a long hall and into the rabbi’s study. Drapes darkened the window. The air was rich with the ripe aroma of ponderous rumination. Shadowy volumes occupied every inch of the walls. Bobker indicated two tippy chairs, then set out three tumblers and poured schnapps: a single drop into each glass. The men raised their glasses, toasted l’chaim, and tossed back the throatsearing liquid. Then they wiped their lips with the backs of their hands and the visitors told their tale. “My point is this,” Zissel concluded. “I have nothing against the man per se, but it’s obvious to all of us that >> 26A
Keep it Downtown!
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 25A
Shop Middlebury H O L I D A Y
2 0 0 4
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26A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
ukraine
Rapunzel Salon
Holidays in
<< 25A
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Ismar is, well, an imbecile. And so what I was wondering, Bobker, I mean, what we came here to ask is whether the prayers of such a person are actually worthy of a Divine response. And although I certainly love Zbarazh as much as anyone, I think we can all agree here, between friends, that our town is not exactly a Lemberg or even a Tarnopil, for that matter. So my second question, Bobker, is this: Does a village as insignificant as ours merit an actual miracle?” Bobker leaned back in his chair. His fat middle finger pried a stubborn morsel of something from between his teeth. Then he held up his prize for cross-eyed examination and popped it back into his mouth. At last, he leaned forward and poured another round, this time bequeathing each waiting vessel with two drops of the luxurious liquor. When the men had once again raised their glasses, toasted l’chaim, and tossed back the chest-warming drink, Wolfe produced a rich, round belch, wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand, and countered Yust’s two questions with 15 inquiries of his own. “What exactly do you mean,” Bobker asked, “by a man such as Ismar? And what, after all, is the significance of a town? And what’s more, my friends, why worry yourselves over a blessing? Either God has or God has not bestowed upon us the favor of a little extra room in which to say our humble prayers. And if He has? Who are we to question the appropriateness of the gift? And if He hasn’t? If this theoretical miracle, this unexplained expansion, is only some sort of misunderstanding? What then? Or to put it more simply, so what? If a blessing can be an illusion, doesn’t it follow that an illusion can be a blessing?” Zissel fingered his fishy beard, sneaking a sideways glance at Itchy. Itchy twiddled his milky mustache, sneaking his own sideways glance at Zissel. No question, there was a logic to the assistant’s words. Bobker poured three precious drops into each crystal glass, toasted l’chaim, tossed back the booze, uncrossed and recrossed his eyes, and wiped his wet lips with his hand. “Here in Zbarazh,” he said, “we’ve known our share of sorrows. But do we ever stop to question their legitimacy? Do we ever wonder whether people such as ourselves are worthy, as you say, of such a Divine response? Do we doubt that a town as insignificant as ours merits such authentic tzoris? To make a long story short, would it be such a tragedy if for once in our lives we simply enjoyed the illusion
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 27A
of being blessed?” The sublime logic of Bobker’s words was surpassed only by their astounding lightness. Tzigler and Yust could feel The Broom’s sentences’ buoyant lack of substance filling their blood. The sensation was neither familiar nor disagreeable. Winter darkness had descended outside in the street, but here in the rabbi’s study, the air appeared to be brighter. The shadows seemed thinner, the brooding books to have shed their forbidding weight. Even the oppressive odor of intelligence that had assaulted them when they’d entered appeared to have been replaced by the scent of something subtle and sweet. The expansive tone of The Broom’s response had, in short, brought to the rabbi’s inner sanctum the very phenomenon the men had come to question.
Itchy looked at Zissel and Zissel looked at Itchy. Wolfe’s words, both were thinking, had a decidedly rabbinical ring. Maybe it was an illusion, and maybe it was the Schnapps, but as Itchy and Zissel bid the Broom farewell and bounced down the steps, they felt alarmingly broad and blessed. A caterpillar of curled ash hangs off the end of my grandmother’s cigarette. I reach my hand out to catch it before it falls on the rug. Instead, it surprises me, unfolding gray wings and fluttering, moth-like, towards the light of the screen. Anything is possible, I think, astonished, and turn to Little Grandma with a radiant smile, ready to begin our new chapter. She bats the ash-moth away and says, “Religion, politics, believe me, it’s all smoke and mirrors.” 쩾
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28A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
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SEVEN DAYS
at these Shelburne locations:
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I
’
STORY
ERNIE MCLEOD IMAGE
MICHAEL TONN
ve been writing a first novel for years. I resist calculating exactly how many, because that would depress me, and when I’m depressed I don’t write well — or, more to the point, at all. Unfortunately, this isn’t the sort of depression that’s interesting, unless you happen to be fascinated by descriptions of a writer moping around the house, staring too long out windows and into mirrors, counting the hours till lunch. As time ticks steadily on, with my novel’s completion — let alone publication — still a distant dream, I’ve been scheming faster tracks to literary success. Perhaps if I were more flamboyantly depressed, it could become a meal ticket rather than a stumbling block? Some fiction writers claim that once their novel is underway, their characters basically develop minds of their own, leading the writer through his plot like eager tour guides. Some writers even claim that their characters become more real to them than their actual friends and family, a somewhat disturbing notion. I’m not one of those writers. My characters are prone to inaction, forgetful about where they’ve been, unclear where they’re headed, incapable of picking out their underwear and breakfast cereal without my input. How much easier it would be, I theorize, if I could plunder my own life woes instead of contriving them for my characters. Besides, in this reality-crazed age, who’s still reading literary fiction, anyway? Oprah? Lately she seems to be favoring long-dead authors, which doesn’t offer much hope to those of us still breathing. So, on those days when my characters are playing especially hard to get, I fantasize about chucking fiction to concentrate on
a red-hot memoir, one scandalous enough to get the attention of the publishing industry and maybe even People magazine. Why not sell out completely? The only problem is, both my past and present are essentially titillation-free zones. No alcoholism or drug addiction. No incest, abuse or precocious erotic adventures. No notably bizarre family members or tragedies. No eating disorders. No starring roles in porn flicks — not even a walk-on. I’ve lived the nonmemoir-worthy existence. But wait, I’m gay! That sets me apart from 90-something percent of the population. Shouldn’t that count for something? Hardly. Consider the writings of David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, two gay men who use their personal histories as primary source material. Their sexuality, while not incidental to their work, is one of the less compelling aspects of their lives. For example, Burroughs, in his bestselling memoir Running with Scissors, chronicles how his delusional poet mother signed his adolescence over to a crazy psychiatrist with a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. Thirteen-year-old Augusten moved in with the psychiatrist’s family and spent the next few years missing school, ingesting tranquilizers, getting molested by the back-yard pedophile and navigating an environment where toiletbowl turd analysis and electroshock therapy machines under the stairs were part of the everyday routine. Sedaris’ youth, though less obviously dramatic, still featured plenty of chainsmoking wackiness. He spent his days obsessively counting steps and licking light switches, while the rest of his family
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 29A
What is an Urgent Care Facility? and Occupational Health “Quality Medical Care When YOU Need It!”
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An Urgen Care Facility provides evaluation and treatment of non life-threatening illnesses and injuries on a walk-in basis.
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contributed their own cash load of tics to his memory bank. My lackluster childhood can’t begin to compete. If only I’d known that past trauma could imply future riches, I could have started ambitiously accumulating material from a tender age, say, 15. That’s how old Italian schoolgirl Melissa P. was when she began
makeup smeared,” it’s easy to see why. Alas, even if I’d worn makeup at 15, it wouldn’t have had occasion to get smeared. And it’s not like I can catch up now. After her sexual escapades, Melissa ritualistically brushes her hair a hundred times before bed to preserve some vestige of innocence. If I tried that, the fragile sprouts from my middle-aged
Though I currently lack a butt boil, I’ve got some mean nasal polyps that could prove equally comic and disgusting in print. jotting down notes about her remarkable transformation from virgin to jaded erotic adventuress to, at the advanced age of 17, “international literary phenomenon.” Melissa’s “fictionalized memoir,” 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, has sold more than 700,000 copies in Italy alone. With sentences such as, “I returned home full of sperm, my
follicles would likely scatter to the floor. No less intimidating is Jenna Jameson, the bodacious beauty behind How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale (written with ghostwriter Neil Strauss). Jenna also had a precocious sexual start, but that was just the beginning. Her path from cheerleader to stripper to porn actress to “the biggest star >> 30A
SUNDAY
SEPTEMBER 4
7:00 PM
A great stocking stuffer!
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30A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
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in the history of adult movies” is sprinkled with neo-Nazi rapists, crack addiction and thrillingly nasty celebrity tidbits. As her book flap articulates, Jenna is “a woman who has already lived a hundred lifetimes.” No wonder her memoir is nearly 600 pages long! I’m still trying to spark some excitement into my one lifetime — imagine if I had 99 more to fill? Recognizing that my shot at adult-film stardom was long indeed, I began sniffing out the alcohol fumes of my past. After all, growing up in a bluecollar Vermont town, I knew my way around a Busch 12pack. Years ago, inspired by a tragic Montgomery Clift biography, I briefly aspired to becoming an alcoholic, thinking it would make me a darker, more interesting person. So I checked out the recent cocktail canon to see how I might measure up. Not well. After the success of Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs came out with Dry, a witty yet sobering account of his rapid rise in the advertising world at age 19 to his equally swift bottoming out with the bottle by age 24. James Frey’s alcoholic memoir, A Million Little Pieces, is even more harrowing. The opening paragraph finds young James passed out and broken-faced on an airplane, clueless about his destination, and “covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood.” I can’t sleep on an airplane, much less pass out, and if I woke up with any one of those liquids on my clothes in a public setting, it would scar me for life. But for James it’s just the tip of the hurl-splattered iceberg. Before long the reader gets to accompany him to the dentist’s office, where he undergoes a variety of gruesome procedures without the benefit of anesthesia. Apparently it takes more than stumbling through “Stairway to Heaven” at high school dances to earn one’s alcoholic memoir stripes. I consistently break what must be one of the budding memoirist’s 10 commandments: Thou shall not consider consequences until memoirsufficient havoc has been wreaked. Even as a child I was wary of putting my tongue anywhere near electrical devices. My desire to be an alcoholic evaporated as soon as I envisioned the eventual recovery: AA meetings in dreary basements, complete sobriety for the rest of my days. That was enough to set me on a more moderate path, and moderation is the scandalous autobiographer’s worst enemy. As for my sex life, let’s just say that the flies on my bedroom walls get sufficient naptime. Anyway, to catch up with the likes of Jenna and Melissa I’d need to immediately score with a majority of Vermont citizens.
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 31A
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Surely even the most desperate wannabes don’t wish calamity upon themselves to improve the odds of snagging a lucrative book contract. But when calamity knocks, it seems that more and more people are answering the door with pen or keyboard in hand. An ability to actually write — like the ability to act on a socalled reality TV show — can be irrelevant. As long as you fall early and deep and then manage to scrape yourself out of the abyss with youthful looks intact and a knack for self-marketing, you’ve got it made. Or so, in my more bitter moments, I like to imagine. The reality is, a number of young writers who use personal trauma as fodder for their art are talented. For instance, I sus-
The splashy memoirs I’ve been studying tend to end on an uplifting note: Frey and Burroughs gain lasting sobriety. Melissa P. finds a loving boyfriend. Jenna is happily married, currently monogamous on-screen and off, and looking forward to motherhood. Sedaris cushily divides his time between several cities with long-term boyfriend Hugh. While I don’t begrudge these writers stability and happiness, I resent it when they start treading on my conventional turf. Incurable fidelity and an innocuous butt boil take center stage in Sedaris’ latest piece for The New Yorker, titled “Old Faithful.” Wait just one minute! I’m faithful, too. Though I currently lack a butt boil, I’ve got
As long as you fall early and deep and then manage to scrape yourself out of the abyss with youthful looks intact and a knack for self-marketing, you’ve got it made. pect that Dave Eggers would have become a recognized writer one day even if parenting his young brother after his parents’ premature deaths hadn’t provided fertile seeds for his bar-raising memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs didn’t have to work hard to find their source material, but it does take work to be a consummate stylist like Sedaris or to achieve the simultaneous hilarity and insightfulness that characterize Burroughs’ best stuff. Melissa P’s writing future is perhaps less certain, and Jenna Jameson claims she’s unsure whether she can “spit out another memoir.” (Note to writerly self: Try spitting out the pages next.)
some mean nasal polyps that could prove equally comic and disgusting in print. Now I’m being crowded out of my own boring niche before I’ve even managed to claim it. I guess I’ll be forced to carve out a new one. Just because my childhood was ho-hum, it doesn’t mean I can’t still ruin my adulthood and live to tell the tale. Except it’s going to take help. You can’t turn a non-memoir-worthy life around on your own. So to my friends and family this holiday season: Forget the mall, wrapping paper and pretty bows. Simply stuff the best, ugliest dysfunction you’ve got directly into my Christmas stocking, and spare no emotional expense. Unless I’m to rely on my imagination again, my career depends on it. 쩾
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32A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 33A
PLOW SHARES STORY: ERIK ESCKILSEN IMAGE: SUSAN NORTON
Ned took the liberty of throwing a log onto the fire crackling in Keller’s living room, although the party had migrated to the kitchen. He walked past a man who’d introduced himself as Adrian, a new associate in Keller’s law firm. One hand in the pocket of dark corduroys, another holding a wine glass, Adrian was talking to one of the caterers, a woman in her twenties with long, red hair gathered in a braid. Ned counted four caterers this year, up from last year’s three. Peering into the kitchen, he looked for Fiona’s cranberry cashmere sweater among the crowd. She’d engaged him in a bitter argument while preparing to leave for the party — in response to his suggestion that Naomi, their 14-yearold daughter, might be just as happy at Rice Memorial High School, where he taught social studies, as at the expensive boarding school she was attending downstate. The exchange had made him eager to enjoy other company for an evening. Especially Keller’s. He took a spot against the refrigerator next to the host. “Never fails,” Ned said. “A roaring fire, but we’re in the kitchen.” Keller clinked his glass. “Listen, Jeff,” Ned continued, “About those tickets...” Keller rolled his eyes. At a dinner party the previous night, at Keller’s law partner Clay Bemis’ place, Ned had asked Keller for tickets to a sold-out show at the Flynn that the firm was underwriting — a Roma dance troupe that Ned knew Naomi would enjoy. Just before Thanksgiving break, she’d emailed him a research paper on Gypsies that had earned an “A.” She was due in on the morning bus from White River Junction, and Ned wanted to tell her he was taking her to the show. Keller was an old friend, going back to their days at BHS. Surely he’d hook them up. “Make a deal with you,” Keller said, nodding toward Adrian, who was now joining the party in the kitchen. “We’ll talk afterward.” He waved Adrian over. Ned sighed into his wine glass. “Really coming down out there, isn’t it, Adrian?” Keller said. “Not quite a... what do you call it, a Nor’easter,” the young man said. “But close, right?” “Ask the man here.” Keller nudged Ned’s arm. Ned downed his wine. “Lake effect,” he said. “Yes, and with that, I’m afraid duty calls.”
Adrian gave him a puzzled look, beyond which Ned caught Keller’s wink. Ned removed his parka from beneath a pile of overcoats on the pegs beside the kitchen door. “When it snows like this...” He gestured toward South Union Street as he tugged his coat on. “...someone’s got to drive the plow.” “You’re a snowplow driver?” Adrian said. “But I thought you said — ” “In my spare time.” Ned shook his hand. “Well, to all a good night, then.” He shook Keller’s hand. “My thanks. Best party ever.” “Very sorry you can’t stay,” Keller said. “Thanks for keeping the roads safe for democracy.” That’s how the holiday party joke worked. Ned would walk around the block, during which Keller would confabulate a story for a newcomer — invariably, a new associate — about the
oncoming cars, a light clicking on in the second-floor room above him — Keller’s den — drew his attention. He looked up to find a familiar cranberry sweater pressed to the glass. In the glow of a desk lamp, he spotted Bemis wrapping his brown-tweed arms around Fiona’s waist, drawing her close. Ned coughed as the chill air gripped his throat. “Bitch,” he muttered. He began to walk but hesitated, realizing that he now had nowhere to go. Surely he wasn’t going to follow through with this tired joke. Neither could he go back inside and confront Fiona, not without making a scene he knew he’d regret. And, of course, he could forget about the dance tickets. The only viable option was to simply walk home. He and Fiona lived about a mile away, in the top block of Loomis Street, on the bottom floor of a weathered Victorian.
The siren howled just behind him, and blue light flashed in the brown film of coffee on his windshield. He jabbed the plow toward the hill. perverse pleasure Ned derived from plowing snow. And then, 10 or 20 minutes later, depending on the temperature, Ned would return to say he’d been called off at the last minute, being only an alternate driver. Whereupon a long pause would allow the butt of the joke to cement his gullibility with such words as, “Oh” or “Hmm” or “Well, you lucked out, then.” Laughter would follow, much more than Ned thought the joke merited. For five years running, starting with the very first holiday party Ned and Fiona attended after returning to Burlington, the joke had gone off without a hitch. He’d been hoping to skip it this year.
Ned walked down the driveway and mentally charted a course: Head north on South Union, turn up Maple, double back on Summit, descend Cliff, and loop back to South Union. As he checked for
As a whoop of laughter kicked up deep inside the house, Ned understood that the joke had been on him all along. Keller probably also knew about Fiona and Bemis. Perhaps even this year’s snowplow ruse had been initiated to get him out of the house. For how many holidays had it served this purpose? Stepping onto the sidewalk, Ned was startled by the rumble of an engine. A sidewalk plow throttled toward him from the corner of Adams Street, like a demonic phone booth on wheels. He stepped back and slipped. More laughter, muted by the window directly behind him, sent a rush of blood to his face. They were watching him; he could sense it. He felt the urge to whirl around and spit. Instead, he stepped into the plow’s path. Waves of snow arced from the plow blade. When the vehicle crunched to a stop, Ned wandered into the head>> 34A
34A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
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light beam and pretended to be searching for something in the snow. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the driver lean out from the rig, one hand gripping the underside of his doorframe. “Contact lens,” Ned said. “Got to be right here. The headlights help, thanks.” The driver grumbled something indecipherable, climbed down from the rig, and trudged toward him. “Sorry to hold you up,” Ned said. The plowman, short and featureless inside tan, hooded coveralls and a balaclava that covered his entire face, said nothing as he bent over. His outerwear creaked like armor. Ned quickly assessed the man’s size. “Any chance you could back onto the street and go around?” he asked. The driver stood with another creak. “What?” “Yeah,” Ned said, pointing to the idling vehicle. “Back out of that driveway.” Heavily insulated against the elements, the driver had to turn his whole body, even his boots, to look in the direction from which he’d come. Ned drove a shoulder into the man’s side, just above the hip. The driver flew back, his boots doing a little step dance in the powder. Ned shoved him with both hands, and the man fell onto the peak of the snow
Burlington. She hadn’t wanted to leave Ann Arbor. Neither did he, being just a year away, he speculated, from heading the social studies department at East Huron River High — a fine school full of motivated, civicminded kids. But Fiona, a Maine native, insisted that he gun for the Rice job. She’d been itching to move back east from the day she finished her Master’s in library science at the University of Michigan. She’d found the Rice job notice — along with an attractive part-time opportunity for herself at nearby Brownell Library. “Go blue!” she’d taunt Ned, tweaking his disdain for Ann Arbor’s municipal obsession with U of M football. It wasn’t much of an argument, he knew, but in the end it worked. Truth was, he agreed that Naomi would probably like Vermont more than Michigan, once she got settled. His own childhood here had been pretty good. But what, exactly, had he gotten in the bargain? The question pricked at him as he blustered up Loomis Street’s south sidewalk. He’d gotten a chance to start from scratch — new school, new curriculum, new administration. He’d gotten stiff supermarketcheckout reunions with high school classmates just as paunchy and bland as he’d become. He’d gotten an adulterous wife.
For five years running, the joke had gone off without a hitch. He’d been hoping to skip it this year.
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bank, where he teetered, limbs flailing like a turtle on its back, before sliding down into South Union. It was all the time Ned needed to slip-slide over and commandeer the vehicle. He pushed what looked like a gearshift lever, and the machine lurched. He pressed the gas pedal and plunged into the white chute. Ned drove all the way to Main Street, propelled by adrenaline, before he considered a route. Though he regretted neglecting to smash Bemis’ red Saab parked near Keller’s house, the oversight gave him an idea. The snowfall had intensified since his arrival at the party. The streets were empty save public works trucks. The drivers gave Ned a curt wave — flashes of orange glove behind windshields caked with snow. As he cleaved a path linking one sidewalk to another, he imagined himself as a tunnel-dwelling animal — a prairie dog, a naked mole rat, a hamster. Did hamsters tunnel? He tried to remember Naomi’s hamster, Snicket, which he’d given her the week they moved to
Tunneler or not, he thought as his scraping advance framed familiar homes in streaked glass, even the industrious Snicket couldn’t match his progress tonight. Checking his watch as he rolled into his driveway, he calculated that it had taken him roughly five minutes to get here. He spent another 15 scraping Fiona’s Jetta down to sheet metal with the outside of his plow blade. He was really beginning to get the hang of snowplow driving, he observed, as he sailed along South Prospect, thinking he’d zip down Cliff and attend to Bemis’ Saab. Hearing a police siren flare in the distance, he made a graceful, rounded turn down Main instead, and floored it. By the time the cruiser had caught up to him, he’d reached the Church Street Marketplace, so he threaded around the vehicle barricade and barreled up the pedestrian mall. While the city streets were deserted, the Marketplace was not, and he startled several shoppers and revelers as he slalomed around
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 35A
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them, moving at what he gathered, from the onslaught of profanity and coffee cups hurled at him, was an excessive speed. Still, the holiday lights were pretty, and it cheered him to see couples strolling hand in hand, swinging parcels. He was sometimes nostalgic for preMarketplace Church Street — and some of the old businesses, such as Charlie’s Red Hots — but Naomi loved to shop here. He hoped she’d let him accompany her this season. Reaching the top of Church a good block ahead of the police cruiser, he turned left at Pearl and scuttled right onto Elmwood. As he plied the streets of the Old North End, he tried to remember the last time he’d taken a close look at the neighborhood. It was during the house hunt, more than five years ago. In the years he’d been away, property values in the South End, where he’d lived as a kid, had outstripped Fiona and his budget. He’d tried to convince Fiona that the Old North End would be a fine place to live. “This is not Vermont,” she’d huffed. “Oh, you want to live in Vermont?” he’d responded, not concealing his bitterness about the relocation, “Well, then, what are we doing in Burlington?” With the siren whirring just out of view, Ned cut a few quick turns through the maze of streets. It was actually a lovely part of town, he noted, especially tonight, with snow hooding everything in white and making the ward look truly old, in an authentic, post-war sort of way. Ned crossed North Avenue at North Street and rolled into the parking lot of Burlington College, where a little-used road led down to the lake. The siren howled just behind him, and blue light flashed in the brown film of coffee on his windshield. He jabbed the plow toward the hill. His wheels gripped well on the steep road, and he fishtailed only once before rolling onto
the flat terrain at the bottom. Glancing back, he saw the cruiser taking the slope cautiously, still a good 30 yards away. Ned cranked the wheel to the right and, skidding to a stop, pushed open the door and spilled out. He ran for the lake, jumping down onto the narrow beach. He slipped on the snowcovered rocks, tumbled onto his side, and gathered himself into a crouch, out of view. He crept south, thinking that he could dash across the park and down the train tracks behind Union Station. He peeked and saw the cruiser had stopped at the bottom of the hill. The patrolman stood outside his vehicle, talking to a woman in a long coat with a baby carriage. Ned hadn’t seen her on his descent, and he shuddered at the thought that he could have hit her and her child. The plow driver emerged from the cruiser and began circling the plow. After two or three revolutions, he climbed into his rig, lifted the blade, and chugged away. The woman pointed north, away from Ned’s roost, and shrugged. The cop got back into his car. Ned ducked down. Hearing the fading whir of tires, he looked to see the cruiser’s taillights drifting uphill. The woman watched the lights retreat, then turned to Ned and waved. He scrambled up the bank and approached her. She began pushing the baby carriage toward a strip of scraggly woods along the hill that backed up to Battery Street. He drew alongside her, thinking he’d help push. “Got it, thanks,” she said. Ned followed her. At forest’s edge, he saw movement among the branches — bodies milling about — and the orange glow of flame. The carriage wheels sank into the ground, so he stepped around to pull from the front. Ned and the woman dragged the carriage to a clearing against a rock face jutting from the hill, where half a dozen people stood
around a trash-barrel furnace. A bearded man in ripped ski pants and a barn jacket hauled the carriage up closer to the barrel. He dumped the contents onto the ground — pallet boards and empty cardboard beer cases — and tossed the load into the barrel. No one spoke right away, and as the fire shot starry embers into the bare treetops, Ned thought he recognized some faces, mostly young people he’d seen hanging around City Hall Park. A man closer to his own age, wearing a camouflage Army jacket and a nappy Boston Bruins toque, looked at him. “You the guy who drives the plow?” he said. “Not anymore,” Ned said. The woman who’d been pushing the baby carriage chuckled. “The guy jacked it, Pete,” she said to the man in the toque. “The plow.” “Nice one,” the man said, nodding at Ned. “We’re anarchists.” He pulled off his glove and rummaged in his pocket for a package, roughly the size of a cell phone, which he handed to Ned. “Merry Christmas... or whatever.” Ned held the object in the fire’s glow. It was a sealed package of cheese and crackers, the kind with the well of processed cheese on one side. “Thanks,” he said. The bearded man pointed a gloved finger at the man in the toque. “We could use some more wood,” he said. “Your turn, Pete.” Pete turned his back to the fire. “In a minute,” he said. Ned stepped closer and raised his hands to the flame. He glanced at his watch. Naomi’s bus was still six hours away. Surely the station would be closed now. He’d stay here, warm up a bit, and then go wait for her. She’d be glad to be home for the holidays. Her break would be a busy one — with parties, shopping, catching up with her friends — but Ned knew she’d make time for him. She always did. He’d be very happy to see her. 쩾
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<READING>
Spreading the Word A Bosnian refugee in Winooski tells her tale in verse
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CATHY RESMER IMAGES
ANDY DUBACK Refugee: The Ugliest Word by Aftaba Mezetovic, self-published, 42 pages, $6.95
sually, when poets give readings, they stand in front of the audience and recite from memory or read from a text. So it was unusual when, at a December 9 celebration of International Human Rights Day, on the second floor of Burlington’s Firehouse Gallery, Bosnian poet Aftaba Mezetovic announced that she would not read from her recent self-published book, Refugee: The Ugliest Word; she brought a friend, Morgan Kelner, to read the poems for her. Mezetovic (pronounced “Mehzeh-toe-vitch”) apologized to the standingroom-only crowd. Reading them, she said, “brings it back. It’s just too painful.” Mezetovic lives in Winooski. She works as an English Language Learner tutor in the schools there, and as a Bosnian interpreter at the Community Health Center in Burlington. When she came to the U.S. with her husband and two small children in 1995, she was fleeing a country ravaged by civil war. The youngest of eight children, Mezetovic lost her father and three
of her brothers in the conflict, during which she and her family were forced from their home and into refugee camps. She revisits those experiences in her writing. Her book, published last February, is a remarkable achievement. It explores unimaginable experiences and emotions in a simple language that is unflinching in its approach to heartbreak and trauma — and hope. “Every single moment is dedicated to the real moment of what happened to me,” she tells the audience, speaking in her second language. “Every moment is the moment of survival.” Mezetovic elaborates during an interview in the ELL classroom in Winooski’s JFK Elementary School. Three young African children, one of them a girl in a fuchsia head scarf, solve math problems with another tutor behind a partition, while Mezetovic sits in a desk chair and munches on pretzels. She wears a bright-yellow Black Diamond fleece top and slacks. With her short, neatly curled hair, she looks no different from the
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dozens of other adults circulating throughout the school. Like other teachers, Mezetovic wears an ID card, but hers hangs from a lanyard emblazoned with the “No Child Left Behind” logo. She picked it up at a national conference, where she represented Vermont’s ELL families; the state has a sizable refugee and immigrant population. In Winooski, one of Vermont’s most diverse municipalities, more than 10 percent of the 800-plus K-12 students speak in a native tongue other than English — administrators count 22 languages in all. Mezetovic enjoys working with these children, helping to translate their assignments into “easy English,” and helping them navigate linguistic and cultural challenges. “These kids need support from somebody that has been in their shoes,” she says. But she also talks with students who have been born and raised in Winooski, sharing only the parts of her story that would be appropriate to share with small children. It offers them a different, more personal perspective on world events. Behind her desk, she’s taped to the wall a carefully handwritten note from a student. “I like you a lot,” wrote the boy. “You taught me a lot of stuff. I’m sorry you got to be in a war.”
Mezetovic is 34 years old. But sometimes, she says, “I feel like I’m 134, with everything I’ve survived.” She was 21 when the fighting began in the republics of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. Serbian Orthodox fighters attacked the mostly Muslim Bosnians, and the Catholic Croats, in a continuation of ethnic struggles that have long plagued the region. For two years, Mezetovic lived at home and managed a UN refugee camp, but in 1993, she became a refugee herself. She describes the June night her family was forced to flee in a poem called “In the Middle of Night.” She vividly recalls waking her daughter >> 39A
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december 22-29, 2004
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SEVEN DAYS
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SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 39A
spreading the word << 37A
and prying her from her “beautiful canopy bed:” “She couldn’t understand, / Why she had to leave, / Only in her pajamas / With the Barbie dolls on them.” In an earlier stanza, she explains: “She didn’t know / There was no choice, / That she had to leave / Or be killed / In her own bed.” This same daughter is now a student at Winooski High School; last quarter she made the honor roll. Though Mezetovic’s first language is Bosnian, she says she wrote her poems in English. “They don’t make sense in my language,” she insists, though she says she’s working on a translation. Mezetovic spoke some English before she came to the States, but to polish her skills she attended the English as a Second Language program at
Come share the Holiday Season
St. Michael’s College, while simultaneously attending classes at the Community College of Vermont. Mezetovic calls language “her survival kit” — her poems have played an important part in her healing process. She wrote them over the last several years, mostly around holidays. “That’s the hardest time for me,” she says. It’s no surprise that much of her work is filled with despair. “I Know a Woman,” for example, begins with a vision of a proud, fearless woman “Kicking trembling stones / Into the birdbath.” But in the second stanza, the reader sees another view of the same person. “She is raging with anger, / And steaming with sadness. / You can’t see it on her face, / That she is full of madness. / >> 40A
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FROM REFUGEE: THE UGLIEST WORD In the Middle of Night In the middle of night On June 28, of 1993, You could hear the scream Of the little girl Being awakened, After sleeping tight. She didn’t know There was no choice, That she had to leave Or be killed In her own bed. “No, Mom, It’s still night,” Was the little girl’s scream. “Leave me alone! Please let me sleep, And finish my sweet dream.” She couldn’t understand, Why she had to leave, Only in her pajamas With the Barbie dolls on them. The little girl didn’t know, There was no choice, But leave her friends, A beautiful canopy bed, Stuffed animals, And all her other favorite toys.
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40A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
spreading the word
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<< 39A
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Mezetovic was 21 when the fighting began in the republics of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. “I feel like I’m 134, with everything I’ve survived.” She asks: / Why is my home destroyed? / Why can’t I fall asleep? / And just avoid.” In the next verse — repeated at the end of the poem — we see this courageous woman become furtive and meek: “Why right now she is peeking, / In the corner of the lock. / She can’t hide it, / That she is in shock.” When speaking of these times in conversation, Mezetovic refers repeatedly to abstract concepts such as murder, rape, death and destruction; her image of a woman in shock personalizes it powerfully. In other poems, Mezetovic asks to be able to celebrate ordinary life events that people who live in peaceful countries take for granted. In “The Voice of the Baby,” she writes from the perspective of her then unborn son. “Could you please? / Stop bombing, for a moment... Let my mom have a baby shower. / With her friends, and the loved ones / In her own house, / Instead of somewhere else.” Mezetovic’s poems also
acknowledge how hard it was to be one of those who managed to escape the violence. In “To You Dad,” she writes of waving a final goodbye to her father as a Red Cross truck drove her from the refugee camp. And she addresses “Please Forgive Me” to her mother, who is still in Bosnia. “Please forgive me, / Because I left you, / One Tuesday morning / In the month of May. / I was sick of living / In camps and tents. / I felt so sorry, / But I couldn’t stay.” Refugee: The Ugliest Word ends with two hopeful poems about life in the U.S. The first provides one of the book’s only laughs; it describes Mezetovic’s reaction when she first arrived in New York City on October 31, 1995 — Halloween. “Watching people curiously, / I was asking myself: / “Is this the way / That I need to dress?” / Along with coming to America, / One more stress to go through.” The last poem, printed over the backdrop of an
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | feature 41A
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American flag, is called “God Bless America.” Mary Fillmore, a Burlington poet and business consultant who helped Mezetovic edit her book, says Vermonters should be happy to have the Bosnian poet in their midst. “She has the gift of distilling her experiences in a way that people can access and understand,” says Fillmore. “I’m sure there are a lot of people who would rather simply move on. She’s had the courage to stick with it and put it in a way that the rest of us can learn from it. And Fillmore says that’s important, especially now, when our soldiers are fighting a war in a country most Vermonters will never see. “This is what it’s like on the receiving end of war,” she observes. She views the book as must-read material: “I would love to see that book in every school in Vermont.” Unfortunately, it’s actually hard to find a copy right now. Mezetovic is the book’s publisher as well as its author; she took out a loan to finance the printing last winter. Like many self-published authors, she doesn’t have connections in the book-selling world, and right now Refugee: The Ugliest Word is available only at the Peace and Justice Store on Church Street. Interested readers can also request a copy from Mezetovic directly via email, at amezetovic@ chcb.org. She hopes to sell more copies — partly to recoup her investment, but mainly because she believes telling her story is one way to fight against intolerance and hate. She wants Vermonters to understand why she and other refugees have come to this country, and she wants them to know how happy she is to be here. “I love Winooski,” she says. “I feel like I was born here.” But her poems remind readers that she wasn’t, and that her enthusiasm for her new home is tempered by her sadness at having to come here in the first place. “What are people / Without their own land?” she writes in “What Would Be.” “That would be / The right handed person / Writing with his left hand.” 쩾
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42A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
03A Thank you for your support at City Market & Shelburne Supermarket Happy New Year! We offer vegan, vegetarian and amazing meat dishes from around the world. We host any kind of party — your place or ours. Stop by or give us a call and order goodies for your party. American, Jamaican & Asian Fare • Maki Nori & Sushi Nori Daily Beer Specials - $2
GLORI NORI 131 Main Street • Burlington • Mon 12-6, Tue-Sat 12-8 802-865-9700
<READING>
Not-So-Light Verse Book review: In the Dark by Ruth Stone
R
uth Stone’s ninth book of poetry is hard to summarize. On one level, its title, In the Dark, refers to loss of sight, which the 89year-old National Book Award winner is experiencing firsthand. “Half-blind, it is STORY always twilight. / The dusk of my time MARGOT and the nights / are so long,” she writes in HARRISON the volume’s first poem, “Accepting.” But on another level — the macrocosIn the Dark mic level to which Stone’s poems often by Ruth Stone, skip without warning and seemingly withCopper Canyon Press, 113 pages, out effort — “in the dark” is the condition of all living beings, dazzled as they $22. may be by the splendid light-show of the universe. “And where are we now, old darkness?” the poet asks in “Eta Carinae.” In a poem addressed to “Cosmos,” Stone envisions the vital force in the universe
For Stone, as for many modern writers, this distinction doesn’t apply. But she goes further than many in insisting, in poem after poem, that the answers to our highfalutin questions may in fact be found in “low” places, from the pig rooting in the dirt, to the humble worm to the parts of our own bodies we’d rather not think about. “At night, I, the gut, am at work,” begins a poem called “Inner Truth.” “While you flicker in your muscles, / I am making fat out of the earliest mud. / I have lived so long in the dark.” Wormlike, the gut ties us to the earth, reminding us that we are not so far removed as we would like to believe from “the round worm, the flat worm, / and the nematode” that Stone describes in another
This yoking together of “high” and “low” has a sinister quality; who wants to be reminded that bodies return to the earth, or to accept as “godhead” an organ that produces shit? “rebounding, always rebounding” in a way that human thoughts or words can’t encompass. “What is this speech, this blind fingering of the dark?” she asks, referring to the poem itself. And answers: “Nothing, old mother, / but your wasted breath.” The ancient Greeks believed that poetry should be divided into tragedy, which dealt with lofty, metaphysical concerns, and comedy, which concerned itself with the baser, animalistic side of human life.
poem as the real inheritors of the earth. But by the end of “Inner Truth,” the gut has taken on a transcendent quality. Suddenly it links us to the cosmic forces of creation and destruction that we yearn to understand, as it proclaims, “I sing this song; force of light / that blows apart the mightiest of stars, / think now on me, / the godhead of this earth.” The unification of disparate objects by their common physical properties is a >> 44A
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004
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43A
Wrap up for the Holidays Vir
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44A | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
not-so-light verse
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<< 42A
theme to which Stone returns again and again. In “Pulsing,” for instance, she juxtaposes the “cilia in the ears” of an owl, the “rubbery cells of sea palm” and the “electric flicker in [the] brains” of an embracing human couple — all organs that pulse in response to sensation. Sometimes, as in the gut poem, this yoking together of “high” and “low” has a sinister quality; who wants to be reminded that bodies return to the earth, or to accept as “godhead” an organ that produces shit? In other poems, the sense of belonging to the cosmos provides hope, a glimpse of light in the dark, or perhaps just a flash of wonder. “[H]ow is it that I hear this echo,” the poet asks a none-tooattentive God in “Tell Me,” “catching even in my blind eye the death throes of a distant star?” Though the recurring images in In the Dark are those of the self and the cosmos, macrocosm and microcosm, the collection exhibits a wide variety of styles and subjects. Some poems are easily flowing, plain-spoken narratives; others are so condensed, packed with startling metaphorical juxtapositions, that they require several readings to tease out the associations. There’s one Joycean experiment with nonsense language, and a few deceptively simple rhyming poems. The autobiographical subject matter will be familiar to those who know Stone’s previous work. There are love poems to her husband Walter, who committed suicide in 1959. (“On this planet, for me,” she writes in “This Is How It Is,” “there was only one impetuous specimen.”) Other poems explore Stone’s family, past and present, and the traditions that bind its women together. Still others move from the personal to the political, or fuse the two. In “Consider This,” for instance, Stone entertains the satirical notion that, fearing the weakness of the flesh, people of the 21st century might prefer to replace theirs with “firm, practical” plastic: “This is the solution for us! No waste. /… / From the first plastic heart to the olyester / blood bank and viral-resistant peel-proof skin.” While the image of human essence transferred into a replaceable plastic shell is grotesque, it’s simply one more expression of our desire to cheat death. Stone doesn’t try to lull away this fear and trembling in the face of the inevitable — throughout In the Dark, she describes aging and illness in intimate, agonizingly physical terms. But she reminds us, taking the macrocosmic vantage point, that death simply completes the cycle life begins and vice versa. Like the eponymous speaker of “The Leaf,” we are all subject to the seasonal ebb and flow of warmth. And while we may feel tempted to compose elegies for our irreplaceable selves, one thing we can all say with certainty is, “I was the living world’s machine.” 쩾
FROM IN THE DARK: Ice Are you persuaded that dormant flies, moles, bears, and all the rest, as the wheel slows down, are as we, in the interstices of love? There toll the small bells of their sleeping souls. We do not sleep. We die and are reborn and die again, as the annual flowers, in the pulse of pain. Love, for a bridge of sighs, from my winter to yours, to hang with icicle garlands that the wind may crash and clang among. Then in our death’s time, showers of cold roses and snow poppies and the tracery of blue-white forget-me-nots carved of the purest ice may lash us with the sting of memory. And So Forth Someone, or a group of someones, has gone to consider the strange altered behavior of penguins along the tip of South America. It’s a film and reporting thing to do. And someone like me thinks upon it. Here in darkest Binghamton, I think of the plight of penguins in the rapidly changing climate of the oceans and polar regions. As even now, lightning flashes in mid-December, and rain and ice coat the glistening asphalt. This small polluted cluster of towns, spawned by the shoemaking industry. Many fat people, their genes programmed to make fat, waddle about the streets of these now mall-dominated towns. And shoes are made overseas. The World Wide Web is absolutely nothing, multiplied by what seems to be an infinite number. As we swing upon it, filling its no-space with our so-called communications, we are filled with the almost perfect vacuum of nothing at all. But as an Adélie penguin becomes my own penguin, inside my skull, even its oil-coated slick body that stands and waddles toward its own nest, somewhere among the million other nests, and its own chick crying out among the million others, is distinctive. Can I hope the great ear of the universe is pressed to the wall of space and hears me, its own chick, peeping? Over here in this galaxy, this welter of debris and gases, rushing along this arm of rock and stars, this little freight of penguins and so forth?
< funnies >
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december 22-29, 2004 | music 47A
<music>
C LU B DAT E S : : V E N U E S 4 1 1 : : S O U N D B I T E S : : P O P T E N : : R E V I E W T H I S
PHOTO: MATTHEW THORSEN
KEEPING CHRISTMAS DIRTY :: Attending a Dirty Blondes show this close to the Big Holiday is a surefire way to get coal in your stocking, but when James Kochalka Superstar and Sweet Ass Pussy are headlining, what choice do you have? The Blondes’ punky, lecherous rock might not win you any points with Santa, but if you drink enough eggnog, it won’t matter. Join the entire cast of miscreants this Thursday at Club Metronome.
THU
23 <music> Club listings & spotlights are written by Casey Rea. Spotlights are at the discretion of the editor. Send listings by Friday at noon, including info phone number, to clubs@sevendaysvt.com.
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SEVEN DAYS
soundbites
Got music news? BY CASEY REA
ROLL OVER, TCHAIKOVSKY! Post-rock met the classics last Thursday, when Burlington’s reigning kings of the 10-minute instrumental, Charles, Dead or Alive?, presented a re-imagining of Tchaikovsky’s perennial Nutcracker Suite. Precise and impeccably mapped, the trio voiced each movement with tranquil confidence. I can’t imagine how long it took them to work it all out, but it seems to me they probably didn’t leave their rehearsal space much last month. Loaded with Christmas paraphernalia and framed with giant plastic Noël candles, the stage looked like a Lawrence Welk set reject. Band members Nate Plasha, Gahlord Dewald and Joe Paul Slaby were dressed to impress in holiday-themed regalia, occasionally consulting charts during tricky musical passages. The sizable audience of local hipsters took it all in stride, going about their drinking with typical detachment, occasionally joining in the singing of carols. No booty dancing or pub brawls here — just good, wholesome fun. Taking a turn as a jazz combo, the band also played holiday classics with an array of guest singers, including Roxanne Vought, Tinker Taylor, Marie Whiteford and Seven Days’ very own Meghan Dewald. Local artist Abby Manock and a friend performed a dance routine dressed as cupcakes, later handing out clementines wrapped in silver and red Mylar with a sprig of holly. Inside the packages were instructions for an impromptu art contest — attendees were encouraged to make a face out of the peel for a chance to win CDOA?’s Icebox Records 3-inch CD and a decorated plaque featuring Tchaikovsky. According to sources, the winner was more excited about the latter, proving the composer still has star power. As for Charles, Dead or Alive?, we think they should consider starting their own traveling carnival — their act is prime for the big top.
Rock in the New... at our annual ,
New Year’ s eve bash featuring the World Famous
Boston Horns snd special guests!
$30. per person includes:
Entertainment • Champagne Toast Midnight Buffet
,
Don’ t miss it!
Email Casey Rea at casey@sevendaysvt.com
CHRISTMAS WITH COLIN Stressed out from all the holiday hustle? Looking for the true spirit of Christmas? Well, you might not find it at 135 Pearl this Wednesday, Dec. 22, but indie-popster Colin Clary and pals can hardly be called Scrooges. Billed as a “Holiday Reunion Show with The Smittens” the gala features the return of Smittens keyboardist/vocalist Max Andrucki, back from grad school in Pennsylvania. In addition, the event boasts the local live debut of Clary’s bliss-pop group Colin Clary & the Magogs, as well as My First Days on Junk, who have recently added Marie Whiteford (exStatic Age) to their lineup. Prefer a Clary-less group? Don’t worry — local indie-heroine Missy Bly is also scheduled to play. In addition to finishing up The Smittens’ sophomore album, tentatively titled Nothing Beats Up Spending Time Together, Clary is working another solo record. In the middle of this whirlwind, he found time to chat with Seven Days about winter in Vermont, eggnog and the big show. SEVEN DAYS: You’re a cheerful sort. Any advice on how to beat Seasonal Affective Disorder? COLIN CLARY: Well, if you treat the dark days like sick days from school, I recommend taking in a whole season or two of a television show, maybe “Twin Peaks” or “Ken Burns’ Jazz” series. But you should still spend time with other people — solo snow days can definitely be a bummer! SD: How do you remember which band you’re playing in at rehearsals? CC: Usually during load-in I take stock of who’s there and that lets me know what songs to play! If Steve Williams is on bass, it’s a Magogs practice; if it’s David, then it must be Smittens practice. If I don’t have to leave the house, it’s
probably a Let’s Whisper practice and, if my ears won’t stop ringing for a couple days, then it must’ve been an MFDOJ practice. Finally, if there’s a toddler present, I must be at James Kochalka’s house! SD: Will The Smittens show compare to a typical family reunion? Any drunk uncles? CC: Well, in my family we tend to drink scotch or gin and tonics on one side and beer on the other. At The Smittens show there will be some of both. Sometimes, if I don’t shave before the show, I feel like I’m the weird uncle Smitten! We’re just psyched to do a big hometown show with Max, who has been so hard at work on his PhD. The next day I’ll probably have a headache from smiling so much. SD: Does attending the show increase our chances at getting awesome Christmas presents? CC: No, but it does increase your chance of having an awesome Wednesday night! I don’t really know what I’m doing for gifts yet. But if you consider a hug an awesome holiday gift, well then, yes, your chances do go up if you attend! SD: Weigh in: Why aren’t there other kinds of nog? What kinds do you think there should be? CC: Well eggnog is pretty perfect — droolinducing, even. But it’s not like you’re gonna have beef nog or anything, but maybe ginger nog might be tasty. Can you put scotch in nog? Nog brownies? Seriously, though, one of my friends is addicted to the nog. I think a good way to beat the nog monkey is to buy a little mini-nog to drink while you shop so you don’t end up leaving the store with a big jug! Hmm, maybe we’ll start a new band called My First Days on Nog!
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SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004 | music 49A
<clubdates> AA = ALL AGES NC = NO COVER
WED.22 :: burlington area
IRISH SESSIONS, Radio Bean, 8 p.m. NC. PINE STREET JAZZ W/JULIET MCVICKER, Parima, 7 p.m. NC. HOLIDAY REUNION W/ THE SMITTENS, COLIN CLARY & THE MAGOGS, MISSY BLY, MY FIRST DAYS ON JUNK (indie-rock), 135 Pearl, 9 p.m. NC. COMBO 37 (jazz), Leunig’s, 7 p.m. NC. LAST NIGHT’S JOY (Celtic/bluegrass), Rà Rå Irish Pub, 7 p.m. NC. JAMES HARVEY & GARUDA (jazz), Red Square, 8 p.m. NC, followed by MEMBERS ONLY W/FATTIE B. (’80s DJ), 11 p.m. NC. OPEN MIKE W/2ND AGENDA, Manhattan Pizza & Pub, 10 p.m. NC. DAVE HARRISON W/STARSTRUCK KARAOKE, JP’s Pub, 10 p.m. NC. TRICKY PAT PRESENTS ELECTRIC LADYLAND W/REID SPEED, DJ SEKHMET (drum & bass), Millennium Nightclub, 10 p.m. $5/10. 18+ before 11 p.m. DJ A-DOG (hip-hop/lounge), Waiting Room, 10 p.m. NC. LIVE BLUEGRASS Henry’s Pub, Holiday Inn, 9 p.m. NC. DJ DEMUS (reggae/dancehall), Monkey House, 9 p.m. NC. OPEN MIKE, Geno’s Karaoke Club, from 8 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Edgewater Pub, 9:30 p.m. NC.
:: champlain valley LADIES’ NIGHT City Limits, 9 p.m. NC.
:: central OPEN MIKE Langdon St. CafĂŠ, 7 p.m. NC.
:: northern OPEN MIKE W/ABBY JENNE Overtime Saloon, 9 p.m. NC. CRAZY CHASE (Celtic/eclectic), Bee’s Knees, 7 p.m. NC. OPEN MIKE W/JOHN GOOLEY, Monopole, 9 p.m. NC.
THU.23 :: burlington area
SHANE HARDIMAN TRIO (jazz), Radio Bean, 6 p.m. NC, followed by GUADALUPE (Latin-rock), 9 p.m. NC. QUEEN CITY ROCK, POOF! (DJs/drag cabaret), 135 Pearl, 10 p.m. NC/$5. BIG JOE BURRELL & FRIENDS (jazz/blues), Halvorson’s, 8 p.m. NC. ELLEN POWELL, PARKER SHPER (jazz), Leunig’s, 7 p.m. NC. FATTIE B. & DJ A-DOG (live hip-hop), Red Square, 10 p.m. NC. JAMES HARVEY (jazz), 1/2 Lounge, 10 p.m. NC. AN EVENING W/CHIN HO! (alt-rock), Nectar’s, 9:30 p.m. NC. CHRISTMAS PAGEANT W/JAMES KOCHALKA SUPERSTAR, THE DIRTY BLONDES, SWEET ASS PUSSY (alt-rock/eclectic), Club Metronome, 9:30 p.m. $5. NILES BIRTHDAY BASH W/DA CHAMP (hip-hop), Millennium Nightclub, 10 p.m. $3/10. 18+ before 11 p.m.
TOP HAT ENTERTAINMENT DANCE PARTY (hip-hop/r&b DJs), Rasputin’s, 10 p.m. NC. C-LOW (hip-hop DJ), Ruben James, 10 p.m. NC. THE HANGLOWS (rock), JP’s, 10 p.m. NC. SHANE HARDIMAN (solo piano), Wine Bar at Wine Works, 8:30 p.m. NC. CHARLES, DEAD OR ALIVE? (postrock), Waiting Room, 10 p.m. NC. ABBY JENNE (rock/singer-songwriter), Upper Deck Pub, Windjammer, 7 p.m. NC. LARRY BRETT’S JUKEBOX LADIES’ REQUEST NIGHT (rock/urban/ dance/DVD), Henry’s Pub, 8 p.m. NC. DJ TRICKY PAT (house/trance), Monkey House, 9 p.m. NC. BUDDHA FOOD GROUP (rock), Trackside Tavern, 9 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Geno’s Karaoke Club, from 6 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Edgewater Pub, 9:30 p.m. NC. KARAOKE W/REX, Franny O’s, 9 p.m. NC.
:: central MAD MOUNTAIN SCRAMBLERS (bluegrass), Black Door Bar & Bistro, 8 p.m. NC. RICK CELLABOS (singer-songwriter), Langdon Street CafĂŠ, 8 p.m. NC. DOWN BOI (funk), Eclipse Theater, 10 p.m. $5.
:: northern HOUSE BAND (classic rock), Sami’s Harmony Pub, 9 p.m. NC.
FRI.24 >> 50A
FRI.12.24
XMAS EVE
E V E RY T H U R S DAY
THE ORIGINAL
THIRSTY THURSDAY w/The Buddah Food Group DECEMBER 31
NEW YEAR'S EVE BASH
W. CRAIG MITCHELL 10PM • NO COVER!
SAT.12.25
MERRY XMAS! W. CRAIG MITCHELL
Champagne Toast Prizes & Giveaways No Cover! 12 Mallets Bay Ave Winooski 655-9542
'('* M?BB?IJED HE7: š IEKJ> 8KHB?D=JED š ?D<E .&(#,+*#.... :EEHI . FC % I>EM / FC kdb[ii dej[Z š 7BB I>EMI '.! M?J> FEI?J?L; ?$:$ kdb[ii dej[Z I7J" :;9 '. . 7:L7D9; '& :EI ( E<< M% 97DD;: =EE: EH JEO
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SETH YACOVONE BAND JK;I" :;9 (. - 7J :EEH r 7BB 7=;I >EC; JEMD >;HE;I I>EM97I;
10PM • NO COVER!
FRI.12.31
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N.Y.E. BASH! W. DJ PRECIOUS ANS CRAIG MITCHELL PHAT TUESDAYS
DJ CYNDI LAUPER 10pm nc $1 shooters/$2 domestics/$3 wells
WEDNESDAYS
top hat karaoke 9pm nc TRANSMISSIONS dj elliot & guests 9pm nc
THURSDAYS
POOF! drag cabaret 9pm door/10pm show
Just Do It.
retexturizing european waxing
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THE ULTIMATE SUBLIME TRIBUTE BAND
ZOX, SUSPECT
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KEVIN MEANEY (SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, HBO & COMEDY CENTRAL) IKD" @7D () (& 7:L7D9; (& :7O E< I>EM r 7BB 7=;I F;H<EHC?D= IED=I <HEC D;M 7B8KC ? C M?:; 7M7A;" ?J I CEHD?D=
EYES SETH YACOVONE BRIGHT COCOROSIE TILLY & THE WALL BAND VORCZA GEORGE CLINTON BENEVENTO/RUSSO DUO & PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC FEAT. MIKE GORDON CARRIGAN SISTER HAZEL CED" @7D (* )& 7:L7D9; )) :7O E< I>EM
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GRAHAM COLTON DREW COPELAND
JAZZ MANDOLIN JOHN BROWNĂ•S PROJECT FEAT. JAMIE MASEFIELD & JON FISHMAN BODY TURKEY BOUILLON MAFIA J>KHI" @7D (- '( 7:L7D9; '* :7O E< I>EM r 7BB 7=;I
plus in the Showcase Lounge
cutting edge color design cuts
I7J" @7D '+ '& 7:L7D9; '( :7O E< I>EM r 7BB 7=;I
HAWTHORNE JENNIFER HEIGHTS HARTSWICK BAND SPITALFIELD, NUMBER ONE FAN, BLACK MARIA TAMMY FLETCHER & THE DISCIPLES MAX CREEK SCHOOL BUS YELLOW STRANGEFOLK FEAT. RUSS LAWTON BADFISH STAREFALL DARK CLOUD FOREVER IN MOTION CLASS CLOWN
$15 • FOOD • CHAMPAGNE MUSIC
Sand Blizzard
CKI?9 >7BB š BEKD=;
<H?" @7D (. ') 7:L7D9; '+ :EI '&*$- J>; FE?DJ M;B9EC;I
CHROME MELISSA FERRICK COWBOYS
GRACE POTTER & THE NOCTURNALS I7J" @7D ' '. 7:L7D9; (& :EI '&*$- J>; FE?DJ EJJ;H 9H;;A M;B9EC; 7D ;L;D?D= M?J>
SONIA DADA
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CRAIG GASS REV. BOB LEVY JIM FLORENTINE SAL THE STOCK BROKER BEETLEJUICE
HOSTED BY RICH BUTTERS J?9A;JI 7L7?B78B; 7J MMM$>?=>;H=HEKD:CKI?9$9EC" >= 8EN E<<?9; J#< ''Wc#)fc " FKH; FEF" F;79E9A CKI?9" eh YWbb ...$+'($I>EM
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50A| december 22-29, 2004
fresh music served daily SAT. DEC.25
|
SEVEN DAYS
<clubdates> AA = ALL AGES NC = NO COVER
JASON CORBIERE'S BLUE CHRISTMAS
MITCH & MIKE (piano jazz), Chow! Bella, 6 p.m. NC. SASSY KARAOKE, Tabu Café & Nightclub, 8 p.m. NC. STACY STARKWEATHER (jazz/fusion), Bee’s Knees, 7 p.m. NC. LADIES’ NIGHT (Sound Obsession DJ), Naked Turtle, 9:30 p.m. NC. WEST COAST SWINGERS (piano jazz), Overtime Saloon, 9 p.m. NC. BROKEN STRING BAND (bluegrass), Bee’s Knees, 7 p.m. NC.
SUN. JAN. 23
DON'T MISS...
JEAN GRAE W. DIVERSE, DJ A-DOG, AND THE LOYALISTS
ALBEE-DAMNED BAND
WED 22 W. LIGHTNING RIDGE, AND CRITICAL MASS
FRI.24
:: burlington area
AN EVENING WITH CHIN HO! (3 SETS!) CLOSED FOR CHRISTMAS
THU 23 FRI 24
(7PM ON 12/24 - 7PM ON 12/25)
JASON CORBIERE'S BLUE CHRISTMAS CHARLES HAVIRA
SAT 25
SUN 26 W.SPECIAL GUEST GORDON STONE, AND THE AMITY FRONT MON 27 TUE 28
WED 29
THU
23
HO DOWN! :: Vermont alt-rock institutions
Chin Ho! have been taking it
THE EVERYDAY VISUALS (18+) FRIENDS DISCOTHEQUE
FIERCE FRIDAYS W/DJ CRAIG MITCHELL (dance/house), 135 Pearl, 10 p.m. $5. TOP HAT DANCETERIA (DJs), Rasputin’s, 10 p.m. $3. BIKINI BASHMENT W/DEMUS (reggae DJ), Kahiki Moon, 10 p.m. NC. CHRISTMAS WITH MITCH (lounge), Waiting Room, 6 p.m. NC.
:: central
easy over the last five years or so — quite a
HIMPLOITHEION (rock), Charlie O’s, 10 p.m. NC.
change from the ‘90s, when the group ruled the
:: northern
New England club circuit. With heart-on-sleeve lyrics, snappy no-frills jangle and an earnest rock ‘n’ roll heart, the band made a lot of fans in their time. This Thursday at Nectar’s, old fans can
W. FATTIE B, BIG DOG, AND FUTURE METHODS
check in and newbies can see what all the fuss
THE MIDDLE 8 W. FANCY TRASH REGGAE BASHMENT
was about. Billed as “An Evening With Chin Ho!,” the show will showcase classic material and, perhaps offer a peek at the band’s future.
THU FT. SELECTAH MESSENJAH, SOLOMONIC 30 SOUND, DJ TOSHIBA, NICKEL B, HEARTICAL DAN FRI 31
THU.23 << 49A
NEW YEARS EVE! NAMED BY STRANGERS
KARAOKE, Sami’s Harmony Pub, 9 p.m. NC. VIP LADIES NIGHT, Tabu Café & Nightclub, 5 p.m. NC, followed by LIVE MUSIC, 10 p.m. $2/10. 18+ before 11 p.m. AMORPHOUS BAND (jam), Rusty Nail, 10 p.m. $5.
:: central DEREK SEMLER (blues/singer-songwriter), Charlie O’s, 10p.m. NC.
SUN.26 :: burlington area
IRISH SESSIONS (Celtic/folk), Rí Rá Irish Pub, 5 p.m. NC. NASTEE SOUL SUNDAY (DJ), Red Square, 10 p.m. NC. SYLLABIC (live drums/turntables), 1/2 Lounge, 10 p.m. NC. CHARLES HAVIRA W/GORDON STONE, THE AMITY FRONT (traditional folk), Nectar’s, 9:30 p.m. NC. SUNDAY NIGHT MASS (dance/house), Club Metronome, 10 p.m. $6. TEEN NITE (hip-hop/r&b/reggae; DJs Robbie J & Big Rye), Millennium Nightclub, 8 p.m. $10. Ages 13-17. OPEN MIKE, JP’s Pub, 9 p.m. NC. GHOSTS OF PASHA & SPECIAL GUESTS (alt-rock), Monkey House, 10 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Geno’s Karaoke Club, from 6 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Edgewater Pub, 9:30 p.m. NC.
:: champlain valley JAZZ BRUNCH W/FRED BARNES (piano), Two Brothers Tavern, 10:30 a.m. NC.
:: central JAZZ NIGHT W/ROB MORSE & FRIENDS, Langdon Street Café, 6 p.m. NC.
:: northern
SAT.25
:: burlington area LIVE MUSIC, Rí Rá Irish Pub, 10 p.m. NC. JASON CORBIERE’S CHRISTMAS BLUES Nectar’s, 9 p.m. NC. RETRONOME (’70s-’80s DJs), Club Metronome, 10 p.m. $3.
SOUND OBSESSION DJ, Naked Turtle, 9:30 p.m. $1. SUNDAY SUPER SESSIONS (live local music), Tabu Café & Nightclub, 1 p.m. NC.
W. THE CASUAL FIASCO (GET YOUR TIX NOW!)
SAT NECTAR'S WELCOMES BACK THE 1
X-RAYS OPEN MIC NIGHT
GRACE POTTER & THE NOCTURNALS
UPCOMING
@ N E C T A R ’S
1/14: AN EVENING WITH BLUES FOR BREAKFAST 1/15: TURKEY BOUILLON MAFIA W. 56 HOPE ROAD 1/21: CHUCH 1/23: JEAN GRAE W. DIVERSE, DJ A-DOG, AND THE LOYALISTS 2/1: VIRGINIA COALITION W. ADAM RICHMAN 2/6: TONY TRISCHKA SOLO (7PM) 2/11: C RAYZ WALZ W. PACK FM AND TONEDEFF 2/17: OTEIL BURBRIDGE AND THE PEACEMAKERS W. THE PERFECT SANDWICH
Come in for weekend
BRUNCH! WINNER 2003 & 2004
658-4771 • all shows at 9pm main street burlington
liveatnectars.com
WEDNESDAY
A-DOG 10PM 2004
THURSDAY10PM
DJ ENWEEZ
V
FRIDAY
CHRISTMAS W.MITCH 6-9PM
TENDERLOIN DINNER WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS! SATURDAY
CLOSED FOR CHRISTMAS SUNDAY BRUNCH 10AM-3PM MONDAY CLOSED TUESDAY
DJ ENWEEZ 10PM WINNER 2003 & 2004 OPEN MON THROUGH SAT 5:30-2:00AM SUNDAY BRUNCH 10AM-3PM • 862-3455
Friday, December 24
CHRISTMAS EVE W/
The Amorphous Band
O
T
E
D
BEST PLACE TO GRAB A VT BEER
and Here’s Why... Hardcore Malt Cider Forbidden Fruit...
Friday, December 31 NEW YEARS EVE BASH W/
Boston Horns $30 includes midnight buffet & champagne toast
1190 Mountain Road Stowe, VT 05672 (802) 253 NAIL www.rustynailbar.com
with real raspberries
Dunkelweizen Ethan Alien Lager Burly Irish Ale Dogbite Bitter Silk Ale Bombay Grab I.P.A. Handsome Mick’s Stout Vermont Smoked Porter 2 Cask Ales
OPPINGBY!WISHINGEVERYONEAVERYHAPPYHOLIDAY(WHICHEVERONEYOULIKE)ANDHOPINGNEXTYEARISEXTRAFABULOUSFORALL!THANKSFORSTOPPINGBY!WISHINGEVERYO
TUE TUESDAY RESIDENCY 4
Happy Holidays!
REAL PEACEFUL
JAMES HARVEY MEMBERS ONLY
WED 12/22
8PM 11 PM
EIGHTIES EXPLOSION WITH FATTIE B
THU 12/23
3 THE HARD WAY
9PM
FATTIE B • A-DOG • NASTEE • MANUS
SUN 12/26
SOUL SUNDAY
MON 12/27
TUE 12/28
GRIPPO
FUNK BAND BASHMENT
9PM
9PM
9PM
WITH DEMUS AND SUPER K
NASTEE NEW YEAR’s EVE!
NASTEE & FRIENDS • $10 COVER
THE DAY AFTER RECOVER WITH A-DOG
136 CHURCH STREET • BURLINGTON
859-8909 • REDSQUAREVT.COM
NEXTYEARISEXTRAFABULOUSFORALL!THANKSFORST
'93 TILL
MON 3 FT. A-DOG, NASTEE, AND RUSSELL
RONEYOULIKE)ANDHOPINGNEXTYEARISEXTRAFABULOUSFORALL!THANKSFORSTOPPINGBY!WISHINGEVERYONEAVERYHAPPYHOLIDAY(WHICHEVERONEYOULIKE)ANDHOPING
SUN 2 W. DREW OF NAMED BY STRANGERS
WISHINGEVERYONEAVERYHAPPYHOLIDAY(WHICHEVE
stowe’’'s apres-ski headquarters
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004| music 51A
MON.27 :: burlington area
NO GUITAR OPEN MIKE, Radio Bean, 7 p.m. NC. DAVE GRIPPO (funk/jazz), Red Square, 10 p.m. NC. THE EVERYDAY VISUALS (jam/ groove), Nectar’s, 9 p.m. $5/NC. 18+. ’93 TILL W/DJ A-DOG & NASTEE (underground hip-hop/old-school), Club Metronome, 9 p.m. NC. STRANGEFOLK FEATURING RUSS LAWTON, SETH YACOVONE BAND (rock/jam/funk/blues), Higher Ground Ballroom, 9 p.m. $15/17. AA. MUSIC MACHINE W/DJ TRANSPLANTE (eclectic), The Monkey House, 9 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Trackside Tavern, 9 p.m. NC.
:: northern OPEN MIKE, Sami’s Harmony Pub, 7 p.m. NC. JERRY LAVENE (jazz guitar), Chow! Bella, 6:30 p.m. NC.
TUE.28 :: burlington area
GUA GUA (psychotropical), Radio Bean, 6 p.m. NC, followed by KEVIN GREENBLOTT (singer-songwriter), 9 p.m. NC, followed by JOHNNY HOBO & THE FREIGHT TRAINS (old-time), 10 p.m. NC. JULIET MCVICKER, TOM CLEARY, JOHN RIVERS (jazz), Leunig’s, 7 p.m. NC. BASHMENT W/DEMUS & SUPER K (reggae/dancehall), Red Square, 9 p.m. NC. NASTEE (hip-hop), 1/2 Lounge, 10 p.m. NC. FRIENDS DISCOTHEQUE W/FATTIE B., BIG DOG, FUTURE METHODS (hiphop), Nectar’s, 9 p.m. NC.
TUE.28 >> 54A
venues 411
After Dark Music Series at United Methodist Church, Rt. 7/Seminary St., Middlebury, 388-0216. American Flatbread, 115 St. Paul St., Burlington, 861-2999. Ashley’s, Merchant’s Row, Randolph, 728-9182. Backstage Pub, 60 Pearl St., Essex Jct., 878-5494. Backstreet, 17 Hudson St., St. Albans, 527-2400. Bad Girls Café Main St., Johnson, 635-7025. Ball & Chain Café 16 Park St., Brandon, 247-0050. Banana Winds Café & Pub 1 Towne Marketplace, Essex Jct., 879-0752. Barre Opera House, 6 North Main St., Barre, 476-8188. Bayside Pavilion, 13 Georgia Shore Rd., St. Albans, 524-0909. Bee’s Knees, 82 Lower Main St., Morrisville, 888-7889. Beyond Infinity Upstairs, 43 Center St., Brandon, 247-5100. Black Bear Tavern & Grill, 205 Hastings Hill, St. Johnsbury, 748-1428. Black Door Bistro, 44 Main St., Montpelier, 223-7070. The Bobcat Café, 5 Main St., Bristol, 453-3311. Borders Books & Music, 29 Church St., Burlington, 865-2711. Breakwater Café, 1 King St., Burlington, 658-6276. The Brewski, Rt. 108, Jeffersonville, 644-6366. B.U. Emporium, 163 Porters Point Rd., Colchester, 658-4292 Capitol Grounds, 45 State St., Montpelier, 223-7800. Champlain Lanes Family Fun Center, 2630 Shelburne Rd., Shelburne, 985-2576. Charlie B’s, 1746 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-7355. Charlie O’s, 70 Main St., Montpelier, 223-6820. Chow! Bella, 28 N. Main St., St. Albans, 524-1405. City Limits, 14 Greene St., Vergennes, 877-6919. Club Metronome, 188 Main St., Burlington, 865-4563. City Hall Auditorium, Burlington City Hall, 865-7166. Cuzzin’s Nightclub, 230 North Main St., Barre, 479-4344. Eclipse Theater, 48 Carroll Rd., Waitsfield, 496-8913. Edgewater Pub, 340 Malletts Bay Ave., Colchester, 865-4214. Finkerman’s Riverside Barbecue, 188 River St, Montpelier, 229-2295. Flynn Center/FlynnSpace, 153 Main St., Burlington, 863-5966. Franny O’s, 733 Queen City Pk. Rd., Burlington, 863-2909. Geno’s Karaoke Club, 127 Porters Point Road, Colchester, 658-2160. Gezellig, 324 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington, 660-9346. Good Times Café, Rt. 116, Hinesburg, 482-4444. Halvorson’s Upstreet Café, 16 Church St., Burlington, 658-0278. Hardwick Town House, 127 Church St., Hardwick, 456-8966. Henry’s Pub, Holiday Inn, 1068 Williston Rd., S. Burlington, 863-6361. Higher Ground, 1214 Williston Rd., S. Burlington, 654-8888. JP’s Pub, 139 Main St., Burlington, 658-6389. Jeff’s Maine Seafood, 65 N. Main St., St. Albans, 524-6135. Kacey’s, 31 Federal St., St. Albans, 524-9864. Kahiki Moon, 1 Lawson Lane, Burlington. 660-4852. The Kept Writer, 50 North Main St., St. Albans, 527-6242. Langdon St. Café, 4 Langdon St., Montpelier, 223-8667. Leunig’s, 115 Church St., Burlington, 863-3759. Lincoln Inn Lounge, 4 Park St., Essex Jct., 878-3309. Lion’s Den Pub, Mountain Road, Jeffersonville, 644-5567. Mad River Unplugged at Valley Players Theater, Rt. 100, Waitsfield, 496-8910.
THURSDAY December 23
Manhattan Pizza & Pub, 167 Main St., Burlington, 658-6776. Matterhorn, 4969 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-8198. McKee’s Pub, 19 East Allen St., Winooski, 655-0048. Middle Earth Music Hall, Bradford, 222-4748. Millennium Nightclub, 165 Church St., Burlington, 660-2088. The Monkey House, 30 Main St., Winooski, 655-4563. Monopole, 7 Protection Ave., Plattsburgh, N.Y., 518-563-2222. Muddy Waters, 184 Main St., Burlington, 658-0466. Music Box, 147 Creek Rd., Craftsbury, 586-7533. Music Club, 110 Business Center Rd. Williamstown, 443-6106. Naked Turtle, 1 Dock St., Plattsburgh, N.Y., 518-566-6200 Nectar’s, 188 Main St., Burlington, 658-4771. 1/2, 136 1/2 Church St., Burlington, 865-0012. 135 Pearl St., Burlington, 863-2343. Old Lantern, Greenbush Rd., Charlotte, 425-2120. Orion Pub & Grill, Route 108, Jeffersonville, 644-8884. Overtime Saloon, 38 S. Main St., St. Albans, 524-0357. Paramount Theater, 30 Center St., Rutland, 775-0570. Parima, 185 Pearl St., Burlington, 864-7917. Park Place Tavern, 38 Park St., Essex Jct., 878-3015. Peabody’s Pub, Plattsburgh, 518-561-0158. Pickle Barrel Nightclub, Killington Rd., Killington, 422-3035. Phoenix Bar, Sugarbush Village, Warren, 583-2003. The Positive Pie, 69 Main St., Plainfield, 454-0133. Purple Moon Pub, Rt. 100, Waitsfield, 496-3422. Radio Bean, 8 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington, 660-9346. Rasputin’s, 163 Church St., Burlington, 864-9324. Red Mill Restaurant, Basin Harbor, Vergennes, 475-2311. Red Square, 136 Church St., Burlington, 859-8909. Rhapsody Café, 28 Main St., Montpelier, 229-6112. Rhythm & Brews Coffeehouse, UVM, Burlington, 656-4211. Riley Rink, Rt. 7A Noth, Manchester, 362-0150. Ripton Community Coffee House, Rt. 125, 388-9782. Rí Rá Irish Pub, 123 Church St., Burlington, 860-9401. Riverwalk Records, 30 State St., Montpelier, 223-3334. Rozzi’s Lakeshore Tavern, 1072 West Lakeshore Dr., Colchester, 863-2342. Ruben James, 159 Main St., Burlington, 864-0744. Rusty Nail, Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-6245. Sami’s Harmony Pub, 216 Rt. 7, Milton, 893-7267. St. John’s Club, 9 Central Ave., Burlington, 864-9778. Starlight Lounge, 48 Carroll Rd., Waitsfield, 496-8913. Stowehof Inn, Edson Hill Rd., Stowe, 253-9722. Sweetwaters, 118 Church St., Burlington, 864-9800. Tabu Café & Nightclub, 14 Margaret St., Plattsburgh, 518-566-0666. Three Mountain Lodge, Jeffersonville, 644-5736. Trackside Tavern, 18 Malletts Bay Ave., Winooski, 655-9542. Two Brothers Tavern, 86 Main St., Middlebury, 388-0002. 242 Main, Burlington, 862-2244. Upper Deck Pub at the Windjammer, 1076 Williston Rd., S. Burlington, 862-6585. Valley Players Theater, Rt. 100, Waitsfield, 496-8910. Vermont Pub & Brewery, 144 College St., Burlington, 865-0500. The Waiting Room, 156 St. Paul St., Burlington, 862-3455. Wine Bar at Wine Works, 133 St. Paul St., Burlington, 951-9463.
XMAS PAGEANT
THE DIRTY BLONDES JAMES KOCHALKA SWEET ASS PUSSY FRIDAY December 24
YOU’VE GOTTA SLEEP IF YOU WANT SANTA TO COME! WE’LL BE CLOSED.
SATURDAY December 25
SUGARPLUMS AREN’T THE ONLY THINGS DANCING!
RETRONOME
WEDNESDAY December 29
SWALE, CARRIGAN THE HORSE THURSDAY December 30
BLACK SEA QUARTET THE RAPTURE INDEX VIDEO PIDGEON THE HANGLOWS FRIDAY December 31
FATTIE B’S GET LIVE IN ‘05 RETRO BASH! SUNDAY January 2
SUNDAY NIGHT MASS
FT. CRAIG MITCHELL, CHIA LUCID (FREE FOR ALL!) WEDNESDAY January 5
HIP-HOP SHOWCASE
THE LOYALISTS • NASTEE LEE AND S.I.N. • CRE8 & MORE THURSDAY January 6
HIGHWAY 61 RE-REVISITED FT. NEIL CLEARY W. MEMBERS OF CHROME COWBOYS, SWALE & GARUDA FRIDAY January 7
Thursday Dec.30
ENTRAIN Monday Jan.3
THE WAILERS W/DE SOL 18+
Tuesday Jan.4
CROOKLYN CLAN 18+
Wednesday Jan.5 NEGATIVE SPACE 18+
Thursday Jan.20 PARANOID SOCIAL CLUB 18+
Tickets available online or by phone
802. 422.3035 Killington Road, Killington www.picklebarrelnightclub.com
starlight
wedneSDAY
Fun Night
with Scott and Friends
THURSDAY
Voodoo Dance Hall Reggae w/Niceness FRIDAY
Bikini Top Bashment
w/Demus
SATURDAY
Island Hip Hoppin’
w/Nastee & Special Guests sunDAY
Sunday School w/Craig Mitchell
Shows start at 10 One Lawson Lane • Burlington • 660-HULA
www.kahikimoon.com
FRIDAY NIGHT # 9PM
CHRISTMAS EVE no live music
SATURDAY NIGHT # 9PM
CHRISTMAS DAY closed A fun and lively atmosphere with creative tastes, great drinks and live local music.
LIQUID DEAD SESSIONS
lounge
CLOSED FOR HOLIDAYS: 12/23 - 12/26. REOPEN: 12/27 FRIDAY 12/3 1, $15
NEW YEAR'S EVE DANCEPARTYwith
BABALOO! "These Boston mambo-samba punks transform every room they play into the Caribbean beachfront paradise on which they reside in their minds." VILLAGE VOICE
S AT U R D AY 1 / 1 , 9 : 3 0 P M
NEW YEAR'S DAY
CELEBRATE W.D'MOJA WEEKLY SPECIALS EVERY WEDNESDAY:
SUSHI & SAKE BAR, 6PM
EVERY FRIDAY & SATURDAY:
APRES SKI DINNER, 5-9PM
• eclipsetheater.com route 100 winter park waitsfield
496-7787
SEASONAL BOX OFFICE HOURS: WED-SAT, 6-11pm
An all-ages, wheelchair accessible, non-smoking venue.
FT. MEMBERS OF RAQ
############## EVERY
SATURDAY
RETRONOME
70S & 80S HITS TO BRING YOU BACK TO THE DAY
EVERY
SUNDAY
SUNDAY NIGHT MASS
HOUSE DANCE MUSIC FOR YOUR SOUL
##############
UPCOMING SHOWS 1/19 - HASIDIC REGGAE SENSATION MATISYAHO 1/20 - TOWNHALL 1/21 - RANA 1/27 - ALAN EVANS PROJECT (OF SOULIVE) 1/28 - LED LOCO 2/2 - BOB MARLEY’S B-DAY BASH W. THIRD WORLD ** SUNDAY NIGHT MASS WILL BE FREE FOR THE MONTH OF JANUARY! **
52A
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december 22-29, 2004
|
SEVEN DAYS
1popten 0 T O P S E L L E R S AT L O C A L I N D E P E N D E N T R E C O R D S T O R E S . D AT E : S U N D AY 1 2 / 1 - S AT U R D AY 1 2 / 1 8
PURE POP RECORDS, BURLINGTON
BUCH SPIELER MUSIC, MONTPELIER
EXILE ON MAIN ST., BARRE
VERMONT BOOK SHOP, MIDDLEBURY
PEACOCK MUSIC, PLATTSBURGH
1. Alison Krauss & Union Station — Lonely Runs Both Ways 2. Ben Harper & the Blind Boys of Alabama — There will be a Light 3. John Lennon — Acoustic 4. Handsome Boy Modeling School — White People 5. U2 — How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb 6. Ray Lamontagne — Trouble 7. Arcade Fire — Funeral 8. Jethro Tull — Jethro Tull Christmas Album 9. Madeline Peyroux — Careless Love 10. Ray Charles — Genius Loves Company
1. Don Fields — Don Fields and His Pony Boys 2. Diane Zeigler — December in Vermont 3. Ray Charles — Genius Loves Company 4. U2 — How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb 5. Bluegrass Gospel Project — On our way Home 6. Alison Krauss & Union Station — Lonely Runs Both Ways 7. John Lennon — Acoustic 8. Patti Casey — Just an old Sweet Song 9. Norah Jones — Feels Like Home 10. Neil Young — Greatest Hits
1. Don Fields — Don Fields and His Pony Boys 2. Ray Charles — Genius Loves Company 3. Shania Twain — Greatest Hits 4. Big & Rich — Horse of a Different Color 5. Barry Manilow — Ultimate Manilow 6. Neil Young — Greatest Hits 7. Jimmy Buffett — License to Chill 8. Black Eyed Peas — Elephunk 9. Nickelback — The Long Road 10. Alan Jackson — Greatest Hits Vol. 2
1. Anäis Mitchell — Genius Loves Company 2. Alison Krauss & Union Station — Lonely Runs Both Ways 3. Norah Jones — Feels Like Home 4. Joan Baez — Noël 5. Vermont Youth Orchestra — Between Hills Briefly Green 6. Ray Charles — Genius Loves Company 7. U2 — How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb 8. Diane Zeigler — December in Vermont 9. Elizabeth Von Trapp — Poetic License 10. Andrea Bocelli — Andrea
1. Gibson Brothers — Long Way Back Home 2. Green Day — American Idiot 3. Gibson Brothers — Bona Fide 4. Eminem — Encore 5. Ray Charles — Genius Loves Company 6. 2 Pac — Loyal to the Game 7. SGS — If I Could Have Something for Christmas 8. Jay Z & Linkin Park — Collision Course 9. Simple Plan — Still not Getting Any 10. Usher — Confessions
twice as nice ! NEW YEAR’S EVE ON 2 FLOORS FATTIE B.'S
GET LIVE IN O-5 RETRO BASH
PARTY IN STYLE WITH THE BEST OF THE 70'S AND 80'S. CHAMPAGNE TOAST AND RAFFLE. PRIZES INCLUDED WITH ENTRY FEE!
searchable. secure. sexy. A new website for Seven Days - coming this January!
NAMED BY STRANGERS
Tickets are going FAST! Available at the Flynn, Pure Pop and online at liveatnectars.com
with special guests
THE CASUAL FIASCO CALL NECTAR'S TO RESERVE A PRIVATE TABLE!
CHAMPAGNE TOAST, RAFFLE GIVEAWAYS CASH AND PRIZES INCLUDED WITH A TICKET PURCHASE FESTIVITIES START AT 8PM
>> >> >>
sevendaysvt.com 7Dclassifieds.com 7Dpersonals.com
DON’T MISS... 1/23: JEAN GRAE W. DIVERSE, THE LOYALISTS, AND A-DOG @ NECTAR'S (TIX AVAIL AT THE FLYNN, LIMITED 18+ TIX AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR) 1/27: ALAN EVANS PROJECT @ METRONOME (TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE FLYNN)
SEVEN DAYS
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004| music 53A
BEN PATTON, HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS ALBUM (Self-released, CD)
Boston producer, songwriter and “renaissance musician” Ben Patton shows off on his new CD, Here’s the Good News Album. Its 12 selections are written by Patton, and demonstrate that this 22-year-old is in command of at least 60 years’ worth of pop-music sensibilities. Patton has crafted lyrics that spin the listener around, and catchy rhythmic and melodic hooks that make nearly every song a toe-tapper. From “To Get to the Other Side”: “Did you hear the one about the singer songwriter? / Did you hear the one about the dreamer in distress? / Did you hear the one about the artist and the fighter? / Well, I hadn’t either, that’s how I got in this mess.” Patton has strong artistic ties to Vermont — he grew up in a musical Burlington family and as a teenager toured and sang with Village Harmony, the globetrotting, Marshfield-based youth folk choir. But his music is much more worldly. Patton’s high alto sometimes brings to mind prime-time Joe Jackson, and his edgy lyrics are right up there with those of Jim Infantino and Jonathan Coulton, two of the most talented and twisted songwriters around. The musicians who help fill out Here’s the Good News Album have been selected with good taste: Even when there’s a full, George Martin-esque sound, the background music doesn’t detract from the artist’s music or lyrics. Patton is a very busy guy; he has about five other music projects in the works right now, including jaunts overseas to complete a duo album with German drummer-songwriter/wünderkind Jaye Muller. Another of his “CDs in the making” is entitled Ben Patton Faces the Music of Fred and Ginger — a collection of 15 obscure songs performed by Astaire and Rogers in the 1930s. This is no surprise after hearing “I Think My Girlfriend’s Been Seeing Cole Porter” on Good News. The track shows off all the things Patton does best. From a rant that starts out sounding like a typical “my girl has been cheating” song, he moves us to this: “Don’t you give me a look, like you’ve never even heard that name / Don’t you look at me like I’m insane / I know Cole Porter is to blame, it’s true / For how could anyone write such lovely lovely love songs… unless they’d been with you?” A hint of Bing Crosby’s “buh buh buh boo” even appears in Patton’s vocals. His sister Anna and dad Will provide backup on swinging clarinet and jazzy standup bass, respectively. Written, arranged, performed and produced with eyes and ears wide open, Here’s the Good News Album is a non-stop pleasant surprise. ROBERT RESNIK
reviewthis TRANSIT, EVERY MYSTERY (Self-released, CD)
Burlington indie-rockers Transit are relatively new to the Vermont music community, but their spaced-out, wintery tunes fit the town like a pair of well-worn ski gloves. Yet another quality group to emerge from the Radio Bean coffeehouse scene, Transit has a comfortable numbness that unfolds slowly and is often quite gorgeous. Local indie hero Ryan Power produced four of the disc’s six tracks, and his patient, delicate touch is apparent. Power also contributes additional keyboards to the record; his understated synth pads successfully emulate the vintage Mellotron tones heard on countless early progressive-rock albums. Led by singer-guitarist Roland Voland, Transit isn’t just another slow-motion alt-rock outfit. An obvious jazz influence is present on “Neon Sabbath,” which sounds a bit like Pat Metheny on ’ludes. Yet it’s somehow not obnoxious — perhaps because the band members actually vibe off each other during the exploratory sections, as opposed to noodling over a prescribed set of funky motions. The disc’s title track effectively bridges the gap between the Grateful Dead and Mogwai — a delicate feat that perhaps could only happen in Vermont. Transit’s most compelling qualities are found in their more “traditional” arrangements. Voland is a truly enjoyable singer; his sweetly tragic and lazily delivered vocals fit well with the hazy, hypnotic guitars. Drummer Brian Hanf knows how to lay back — his unfettered drum fills sometimes echo Nick Mason’s work with Pink Floyd. Bassist D. Davis recently left the group and has since been replaced by Will Schebaum of Manifest Nexto Me. It will be interesting to hear what this lineup change will bring to future recordings, as Davis’ walking bass lines are significant in the group’s instrumental tunes. Although occasional forays into jazz-by-numbers territory don’t do the band justice, Transit’s dusky jams are highly agreeable for the most part. Their glacial guitar permutations and enchanting vocal melodies go a long way toward establishing Transit as serious contenders for the local indie-rock mantle. When they completely figure out how to capitalize on their strengths, look out. CASEY REA
DON’T LET THE HOLIDAYS SNEAK UP ON YOU!
THE PLATIUM PACKAGE* $99 • 4-star ROOM FOR TWO • 1 NIGHT HOTEL STAY, • V.I.P. entry for 2 • Bottle of champagne • Hors d’oeuvres buffet
GOLD PACKAGE $49 • V.I.P. entry for 2 • Hors d’oeuvres buffet
$10 General Admission at the Door
*CALL TO BOOK YOUR ROOM LIMITED AVAILABILITY
FULL TANK Knockin’ You Out Since 1998. 150A Church Street • 863-TANK Authorized dealer. Must be 18 years old to buy tobacco products, positive ID required.
Hosted by: DJ Skippy, DJ Toxic, Djs Red & Robby J.
54A| december 22-29, 2004
|
SEVEN DAYS
<clubdates> AA = ALL AGES NC = NO COVER
TUE.28 << 51A TEEN NITE (hip-hop/r&b/reggae; DJs Robbie J & Big Rye), Millennium Nightclub, 8 p.m. $10. Ages 13-17. LIVE DJS, Kahiki Moon, 10 p.m. NC. DJ ENWEEZ (retro/eclectic), Waiting Room, 10 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Edgewater Pub, 9:30 p.m. NC. DARK CLOUD, FOREVER IN MOTION, STAREFALL, CLASS CLOWN (punk/hardcore), Higher Ground Ballroom, 7 p.m. $7. AA.
:: champlain valley LADIES’ NIGHT, City Limits, 9 p.m. NC.
:: northern CHRIS LYON (singer-songwriter), Bee’s Knees, 7 p.m. NC. KARAOKE W/SASSY, Monopole, 9 p.m. NC.
WED.29 :: burlington area
ed their 1000th show together, Vermont’s kings of blues, funk and rock
The Seth
Yacovone Band are disbanding. Since bursting onto the Green Mountain scene nearly a decade ago, Yacovone & co. have made quite an impact locally and nationally. On Wednesday, Dec. 29, Higher Ground hosts the final concert appearance from the trio, so be sure to give ’em a grand send-off. Local progressive-jazzers Vorcza open.
• weCdircadia, 7pm eken
THUR. - SAT.
Listen, Relax, Request!
Closing 3p
rday •usic 10-2 u t a s • ve M
s! Li ristma h C y r Mer
• sun
day •
Bla Irish ck & Tan Sessi $ ons, 5 3 -8
pm
MNF plus 23oz. Sam Adams $4
y• • tuesIZdaat 8pm PUB QU oors Light $2.50 C
nesd
ay •
C Spon ircadia , 7p sored m by He ineke n
133 ST. PAUL STREET BURLINGTON • 951.WINE WWW.WINEWORKS.NET
879-0752
•
• fridaym•
• monday •
ES
1 Towne Mktpl • Susie Wilson Rd • Essex
$3 Lo RiRa Live ng Tr ail & 9-1 $4 Co smos
• wed
VILL
Happy Holidays!
sday
Piano Bar
OPEN MIKE W/ABBY JENNE Overtime Saloon, 9 p.m. NC. LOBSTER BIB (rock), Bee’s Knees, 7 p.m. NC. OPEN MIKE W/JOHN GOOLEY, Monopole, 9 p.m. NC. ENTRAIN (rock), Rusty Nail, 10 p.m. $5.
123 Church St. Burlington 860.9401 www.rira.com
1/2 LOUNGE
12
ON TI
OPEN CHRISTMAS DAY AT 4PM
• nesday
• thur
for some dessert
:: northern
E • STA G A
Hein red by Sponso
After dinner
OPEN MIKE Langdon St. Café, 7 p.m. NC. REV. NATHAN BRADY CRAIN (dirty solo acoustic), Charlie O’s, 10 p.m. NC.
•R
for a starter
:: central
쩾쩾쩾쩾쩾
Join us... Before dinner
LADIES’ NIGHT, City Limits, 9 p.m. NC.
•
29
Although they recently celebrat-
:: champlain valley
T
WED
FAREWELL TO FRIENDS ::
IRISH SESSIONS, Radio Bean, 8 p.m. NC. PINE STREET JAZZ W/JODY ALBRIGHT, Parima, 7 p.m. NC. TOP HAT KARAOKE, 135 Pearl, 9 p.m. NC. RED THREAD (jazz), Leunig’s, 7 p.m. NC. LAST NIGHT’S JOY (Celtic/bluegrass), Rí Rá Irish Pub, 7 p.m. NC. JAMES HARVEY & GARUDA (jazz), Red Square, 8 p.m. NC, followed by MEMBERS ONLY W/FATTIE B. (’80s DJ), 11 p.m. NC.
THE MIDDLE 8, FANCY TRASH (altcountry/bluegrass), Nectar’s, 9 p.m. NC. SWALE, CARRIGAN, THE HORSE (altrock), Club Metronome, 9:30 p.m. $5. OPEN MIKE W/2ND AGENDA, Manhattan Pizza & Pub, 10 p.m. NC. DAVE HARRISON W/STARSTRUCK KARAOKE, JP’s Pub, 10 p.m. NC. DJ HECTOR (dance/salsa), Kahiki Moon, 10 p.m. $3. DJ A-DOG (hip-hop/lounge), Waiting Room, 10 p.m. NC. LIVE BLUEGRASS Henry’s Pub, Holiday Inn, 9 p.m. NC. SETH YACOVONE BAND, VORCZA (rock/funk/jam/progressive-jazz), Higher Ground Ballroom, 9 p.m. $8/10. AA. DJ DEMUS (reggae/dancehall), Monkey House, 9 p.m. NC. OPEN MIKE, Geno’s Karaoke Club, from 8 p.m. NC. KARAOKE, Edgewater Pub, 9:30 p.m. NC.
TAU R A N
warm atmosphere, exceptional food
Small Food. Big Drinks.
Now Accepting New Year's Eve Reservations
Wed.12.22/10pm
QUEER LOUNGE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
New Year's
Thu.12.23/9pm
JAMES HARVEY (jazz) Fri.12.24 & Sat.12.25
CLOSED... HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Day Brunch 11am-3pm
Tue.12.28/10pm
DJ NASTEE (soul) Sun.1.2/10pm
SYLLABIC (drums & bass, turntables, terrell & caleb)
136 CHURCH STREET 865.0012 1/2
seven days
12 RAILROAD AVENUE ESSEX JUNCTION 878-9090
M-TH 11-10, FRI & SAT 11-11, SUN 10-5
SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004
E X H I B I T I O N S : : A R T R E V I E W : : S P OT L I G H TS
art review
|
art 55A
<art >
BY MARC AWODEY <exhibitions>
CALL TO ARTISTS THE 2005 VERMONT FLOWER SHOW is seeking floral- and garden-related work for a March event at the Sheraton. Info, michaellevy@veri zon.net or 658-8112. THE E-1 STUDIO COLLECTIVE is seeking artistic interpretations of the president for a January juried show entitled "All Bush, No Trees." Deadline for proposals: January 14; $10 entry fee. Info, e1studiocollective@yahoo.com. STUDIO PLACE ARTS is looking for artist books, altered books and paintings, prints or objects that incorporate words, letters or proto-letters. Proposal deadline: January 14. Info, call 479-7069. CATAMOUNT ARTS invites artists to participate in the first exhibition of 2005, entitled "Scale matters." Deadline for submissions: December 30. Info, call 748-2600 or come by Catamount Office in St. Johnsbury.
TALKS/ EVENTS WRAP IT UP: For a small donation to SPA, artist Pria Cambio will create works of art from ordinary boxes and packages. Studio Place Arts, Barre, 479-7069. December 23 & 24, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.
ONGOING :: burlington area
Lay of the Land
F EXHIBIT “Seasonal Sampler,” a group show of Vermont artists. Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery, Shelburne. Through January 2005.
ARTWORK “Shelburne Farms Pattern” by Malcolm Dubois
PHOTO Marc Awodey
urchgott Sourdiffe’s final exhibition of 2004 is a compendium of works by the Shelburne gallery’s most popular artists. But the show, entitled “Seasonal Sampler,” is no schmaltzy Christmas record. It’s a sampler fit for any season, featuring 16 highly regarded artists from around the state. Paintings, many of them landscapes, dominate here, but there’s still some diversity — not all landscapes are created equal. Malcolm Dubois is the headliner of this show, and it’s easy to see why. He’s a traditional landscapist in the Barbizon School vein — that historic style remains a fruitful influence. French Barbizon artists of the 19thcentury, such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, painted nature as it was, not as a backdrop for bucolic idylls. The same can be said of Dubois. His “Shelburne Farms Patterns” organizes lights and darks without imposing greater drama on the craggy pines. “Winter Stream in Compliments” uses rose, sienna and grays to define a waterway in winter, when these hues mark the onset of evening. Dubois selected a time of day to portray, then let nature take its course. David Smith uses colors that are not necessarily found in nature. His tex-
tures are also more painterly than those found in the wild. In “The Kingdom,” Smith pulls brush strokes into long furrows to capture the rhythms of a freshly plowed field. Oil glazes have been layered into a vibrant patchwork of blues, turquoise, orange and mauve on a silo and the silvered barn roof of “Farm Portrait.” But even with his polychromatic silo, Smith isn’t reinterpreting Vermont to the degree that Dan Fisher does. Fisher’s “Good Canoe Weather” is a fantasia of flowing brushwork. The canoe doesn’t appear, but placid swells undulating over a pond’s surface indicate a voyager’s point of view. Fisher’s fluidity is everywhere, not just in the water: Tree line meets sky with slinky contours, like those of a sleeping cat, while buttery cirrocumulus clouds seem to slide forward through the picture plane. By contrast, Julian Sheres’ “Flood Plain” is dry and angular. A screen of pines with scruffy tops and long, white trunks is arrayed in front of a blue mountain on an overcast day. Sheres’ palette is limited to light blue, viridian pines and sienna grasses, indicating a pre-springtime field. The aridity of “Flood Plain” gives the scene conceptual depth that many landscape paintings lack.
“Vista,” also by Sheres, has a similarly ironic title: The image is insular rather than expansive. Reedy yellowand-black weeds extend halfway up the foreground. Behind them, a dark row of shrubs flanks an almost white meadow bordered by a hazy hill. A dozen distant crows over the meadow provide the painting’s focal point, rather than the vanishing point one typically sees in a painted vista. Karen Becker’s pastels are lovely in their uncomplicated simplicity. “Tree, Field, Fog” shows a denuded winter tree standing on a light-blue slope in front of an almost lilac-colored sky. “Trees, Winter” is more naturalistic, calm and bright. Becker uses about a half-dozen shades of green in the fresh foliage; it seems as if the late-April trees are nonplussed by a late snow. “Seasonal Sampler” is also the gallery’s first show of 2005, as it is installed through January. And it offers more than landscapes. Polly Thompson’s smooth-coated dogs, Kate Hartley’s pears, Alison Goodwin’s Fauve interiors, and the meticulous pencil-and-watercolor still lifes by Miriam Adams are among Furchgott Sourdiffe’s “greatest hits,” and should not be overlooked. That is true for every picture in this exhibition. m
JOHN CHURCHMAN: "Furry and Feathered Friends: Animals in Nature," photographs. Airport Gallery, Burlington International Airport, 8657166. Through December. BONNIE ACKER: Landscapes and posters, 1987-2003, by the Burlington artist and activist. Center for Community and Neighborhoods (above City Market), Burlington, 864-8274. Through December. SABIN GRATZ: "Night Landscapes," photographs. Art Space 150, The Men's Room, Burlington, 864-2088. Through December. DAVID CURCIO: "Edifice Complex," prints of buildings. Flynndog, Burlington, 863-2227. Through January 9. KEVIN BUBRISKI: "In Tibet & Nepal," photographs taken with a 4x5 camera. Manjushri Designs Gallery, Burlington, 660-9944. Through December. VSA ARTS: "Opening the Door to Theater," artwork by adult and youth participants in three theatrical programs of the nonprofit arts organization. City Market, Burlington, 8633659, ext. 249. Through December.
ONGOING >> 56A PLEASE NOTE: Art listings are written by Pamela Polston; spotlights written by Marc Awodey. Listings are restricted to exhibits in truly public places; exceptions may be made at the discretion of the editor. Send listings, by Thursday at 5 p.m., including info phone number, to galleries@sevendaysvt.com. Also see art listings at www.sevendaysvt.com.
56A
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december 22-29, 2004
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SEVEN DAYS
<exhibitions> ONGOING << 55A
PHOTO: MARC AWODEY
OUTER LIMITS Burlington’s Lineage Gallery seems to have a taste for contemporary Surrealism; its current exhibition, “Lil’ Marbles,” featuring prints and original work by Joe Sorren and Erik White, demonstrates that the genre is vital and varied. Sorren’s “The Great Cantaloupe Day,” pictured here, was executed as an illustration for a children’s book. It’s a rather edgy kids’ book illustration.
HOWARD NELSON RILEY: Folk paintings by the local artist. Brownell Library, Essex Jct., 878-6955. Through December. VERMONT PHOTO GROUP: An exhibit and sale of works by 18 Vermont photographers. Uncommon Grounds, Burlington, 985-3930. Through December 28. KATE DAVIS CALDWELL: "Modesty of Afterthoughts," new acrylic and mixedmedia paintings. Doll-Anstadt Gallery, Burlington, 864-3661. Through December. ‘ROUNDABOUT: PRINT PROJECT SIX’: Thirteen local visual artists produce prints for this annual show and sale benefiting Burlington City Arts. Firehouse Gallery, Burlington, 8657165. Through December 23. ‘SEASONAL SAMPLER’: A group exhibit featuring the work of Malcolm Dubois and 15 other Vermont artists. Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery, Shelburne, 985-3848. Through January 2005. BEN WILSON: "Pixels," digital images, Bar; and DASHA KALISZ: Ceramics, Solarium; and DAVE GOODRICH: handpainted silkscreen prints of Vermont, Dining Room. Daily Planet, Burlington, 862-9647. Through December. MERYL LEBOWITZ: "Old Friends," oil paintings. Mirabelles, Burlington, 6583074. Also, "12 Months in the Kingdom," oil paintings on paper. Smokejacks Restaurant, Burlington, 658-1119. Both through December. CHRISTINE DEMARAIS: "Fabrications," textile art. Fletcher Room, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 865-7211. Through December. E-1 STUDIO COLLECTIVE: A group show of holiday ornaments by local artists. E-1 Studio (behind Speeder & Earl's, Pine St.), Burlington, e-1studiocollec tive@yahoo.com. Through December. SAGE TUCKER-KETCHAM: "Mapping Abstract," abstract paintings. Amy E. Tarrant Gallery, Flynn Center, Burlington, 652-4500. Through January 10, 2005.
J. ALLEN Mixed media and tattoo art. Red Square, Burlington, 859-8909. Through December. JOSHUA GIVENS & AMY JELEN: New paintings and stained glass. Café Piccolo, Burlington, 862-5515. Through December. MIKEY WELSH: The former bassist for Weezer shows his manic, edgy paintings. 47SVT Upstairs, 47 Maple St., Burlington, 864-5884, ext. 278. Through January 14. ‘VINTAGE VISIONS’: The Senior Art Guild shows works in conjunction with the exhibit, "Amazing Feats of Aging." ECHO Center, Burlington, 865-7166. Through January 9. JOE SORREN & ERIC WHITE: "Lil' Marbles," original works and new prints. Lineage Gallery, Burlington, 862-7766. Through January 30. ‘ART HOUSE’: An exhibition of 21 drawings and paintings by Vermont children ages 5-11 on what home means. Metropolitan Gallery, Burlington City Hall, 865-7165. Through December. JIM LEVEILLEE: Recent paintings. Penny Cluse Café, Burlington, 651-8834. Through january 16. HEIDI WESTON: Photographs. Cobblestone Deli, Burlington, 863-3354. Through January 15.
:: champlain valley
LES POSDAMER: "Faces," color portraits from Southeast Asia, India and Greece. Bobcat Café, Bristol, 453-3311. Through January 15. SYBIL MEYERSBURG: "Children of the World," 50 photographs taken 1957-78 around the globe. Henry Sheldon Museum, Middlebury, 388-2117. Through January 2005. ‘GOOD THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES’: A "small art" show featuring works by more than 25 local artists, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Town Hall Theater building project. Town Hall Theater Offices, Middlebury, 388-1436. Through December 23, noon - 4 p.m.
Actually, the cutting-edge figuration of “Lil’ Marbles” might have made Norman Rockwell apoplectic.
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SEVEN DAYS
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december 22-29, 2004
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art 57A
PHOTO: MARC AWODEY
ABSTRACT THINKING JIM CUNNINGHAM & REED PRESCOTT: Rustic pens using reclaimed wood, and landscape paintings, respectively. Art On Main, Bristol, 453-4032. Through December. MARK BENTON: Paintings based on images of children's art. Walkover Gallery, Bristol, 453-3188. Through January 15, 2005.
A UVM grad now living in Pennsylvania,
:: central
“Modesty of Afterthoughts,” but that
KIMBERLEE FORNEY: Fantastical oil paintings. Tegu Gallery, Morrisville, 888-1261. Through January 12. ‘TAKE IT HOME’: The fifth annual SPA Members show offers a variety of fine arts and crafts by more than 90 artists. Studio Place Arts, Barre, 479-7069. Through December. RHODA CARROLL: "Selections from the First Ten Years: Paintings," watercolor and acrylic works. Spotlight Gallery, Vermont Arts Council, Montpelier, 8285422. Through December. BEN SHADIS: Drawings; TERRY ZIGMUND: Stained glass; and KURT BUDLINGER: Color nature photography. Capitol Grounds, Montpelier, 2237800. Through December. GAYLEEN AIKEN: The renowned Vermont folk artist shows her paintings. Supreme Court Building, Montpelier, 828-3278. Through January 7. JOY SPONTAK: "Your Show of Shoes," sculpture by the local artist. Shoe Horn, Montpelier, 229-9409. Through December. GRACE GERSHUNY, PAUL SEDELNICK & CHAD HARTER: Digital photography by the Northeast Kingdom artists. Institute for Social Ecology, Plainfield, 454-8493. Through December 30. MICHAEL T. JERMYN: "The Survival of Pictorialism in the Digital Age," photographs. La Brioche, Montpelier, 2231570. Through December. PORTFOLIO GALA: Artists exhibit portfolio prints and sell their proofs. Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, White River Junction, 295-5901. Through January 10, 2005. CORA BROOKS & JOAN MARIE DAVIDSON: Recent paintings and mixed
doesn’t mean it’s demure. Davis Caldwell’s
Kate Davis shows annually at Burlington’s Doll-Anstadt Gallery; this year she also showed up with a new name: Caldwell. Her current exhibition is cryptically titled
11 paintings, abstract hybrids with realistic elements — some of them collaged photographs — are sturdy, chromatically exuberant and conceptually complex. Her “afterthoughts” are very well realized, indeed. Pictured: “Wishful Thinking.”
media. City Center, Montpelier, 485-4225. Through December. ‘TIS THE SEASON’: Central Vermont artists celebrate the season in all media. The Book Garden, Montpelier, 223-2824. Through January 2005. ANNA CONCETTA FUGARO: A onewoman retrospective of collage work. Bundy CFA, Waitsfield, 496-4781. Through January 2005.
:: northern DON HANSON: "Damaged Beauty: The Avian Series," mulitmedia prints. Fairbanks Museum, St. Johnsbury, 748-2372. Through January 2005. J.C. WELCH: Woodcuts and oils; also paintings, photography, Cibachrome reproductions and Ukrainian eggs by other artists. The Blue Eyed Dog Gallery & Frame Shop, St. Albans, 5244447. Through December. ‘NEW WORKS’: An exhibit of works by 25 artist-members of the newly formed
Stowe Studio Arts. Stowe Town Hall, 253-8571. Through March 2005. ALTOON SULTAN: Realist paintings of rural architecture, and giclée prints by the renowned Vermont artist. Cold Comfort Farm, Clarke Galleries, Stowe, 253-7116. Through January 25, 2005. WINTER SHOW: A group show featuring watercolors by Lois Eby, mixed-media works by Don Hanson, prints by Carol MacDonald and more. West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park, Stowe, 2538943. Through January 2005.
:: southern ‘ANDY WARHOL: THE JON GOULD COLLECTION’: Paintings, prints and photographs by the late pop artist from a private collection. Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, 257-0124. Through February 6, 2005. DALE CHIHULY: "Glass and Prints," works by the famed glass artist. Southern Vermont Arts Center,
Manchester, 362-1405. Through March 15, 2005. JEAN CANNON: "Portals," mysterious paintings of doors and windows. Also, ANNUAL HOLIDAY SHOW: A group exhibit including works by the Vermont Sleigh Company. Chaffee Center for the Visual Arts, Rutland, 862-9978. Through January 2. EMMETT FRANÇOIS: "Second Sight: Analog to Digital," a photography retrospective from a 47-year career by the photography professor. William Feick Arts Center, Green Mountain College, 287-8310. Through January 17. JASON BERARD: "Recent Works," abstract paintings. Tunbridge Public Library, 333-4302. Through January 3. DECEMBER SOLO EXHIBITIONS: Nine regional artists in multiple media are showcased at Yester House Gallery, Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, 362-1405. Through January 9, 2005.
:: regional 5TH ANNUAL MEMBERS’ HOLIDAY SHOW: Members of the cultural center show their seasonal wares. North Country Cultural Center for the Arts, Plattsburgh, 518-563-1604. Through January 8. WOMEN’S ART SHOW: A group show in multiple media by local female artists. Depot Theatre, Westport, N.Y., 518962-4449. Through January 11, 2005. ‘PICTURING CHANGE: THE IMPACT OF LEDGER DRAWINGS ON NATIVE AMERICAN ART’: An exhibit illustrating how the first Americans adopted and adapted Western materials, methods and conventions and transformed their own artistic traditions, from the 19th century to the present. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., 603-646-2808. Through May 15, 2005. 쩾
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58A
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december 22-29, 2004
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SEVEN DAYS
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SEVEN DAYS
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december 22-29, 2004
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film 59A
< film>
F I L M C L I P S : : S H OW T I M E S : : F I L M R E V I E W : : F I L M Q U I Z : : F L I C K C H I C K
film review
<filmclips>
BY RICK KISONAK
PREVIEWS MEET THE FOCKERS: Ben Stiller and Teri Polo reprise their roles from Meet the Parents. This time her parents (Blythe Danner and Robert DeNiro) meet his (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand) for some future in-laws bonding. Or not.
(94 min, PG-13) DARKNESS: Jaume Balaguero directs this suspense-fest about yet another house inhabited by a mysterious evil spirit. Anna Paquin, Lena Olin and Iain Glen star. (102 min, R) FAT ALBERT: Kenan Thompson plays the heavy in this live-action update of the ‘70s animated series based on characters created by Bill Cosby. Dania Ramirez and Keith Robinson costar. Joel Zwick directs. (100 min, PG) KINSEY: Gods and Monsters director Bill Condon brings us this biopic exploring the life and work of the world’s bestknown sex researcher. Liam Neeson and Laura Linney star. Chris O’Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton and John Lithgow round out the cast. (118 min, R) THE AVIATORHHH Howard Hughes was an innovator and a risk taker. So it’s ironic that Martin Scorsese’s screen portrait of him is the least audacious and adventurous movie he’s ever made. Leonardo DiCaprio does a captivating impression, but the script never quite brings its subject meaningfully to life. With Cate Blanchette, Alec Baldwin and, it goes without saying, Jude Law. THE LIFE AQUATIC: Bill Murray stars in the new one from Rushmore director Wes Anderson, the offbeat saga of an oceanographer who undergoes an existential crisis after his partner is eaten by a giant shark. Costarring Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchette, Anjelica Huston and Willem Dafoe. (118 min, R)
The Aviator HHH
I THE PLANE TRUTH Scorsese’s biopic coasts along on autopilot for most of its nearly three hours.
t’s noteworthy that Martin Scorsese’s screen portrait of Howard Hughes — a brilliant innovator who risked his fortune compulsively — is the least audacious, least adventurous, least electric movie the director has ever made. With the exception of two or three scenes, The Aviator is a boilerplate biopic that virtually any film-school grad could have given us. Leonardo DiCaprio furrows his augmented brow, twitches, tics and, with his blackened, slicked-back hair, does a transfixing impersonation of the young Hughes. Scorsese picks up his subject’s story when he was 22 and already a player in the fields of aviation and movie-making, having inherited millions his father made in the less-glamorous fields of oil and machine parts. Two rather long and only marginally compelling chapters open the film. The first involves the making of the war epic Hell’s Angels. As the director tells it, the silent-era indie took three years to produce, cost an unprecedented $4 million (nearly bankrupting the young filmmaker), and had to be completely reshot for sound after its completion due to the arrival of talkies. It’s nice that the chapter closes on a note of apparent triumph: At the premiere, Hughes is given a standing ovation. What might have been nicer still would have been some degree of perspective as to how the picture ultimately sugared out financially and what its place in the history of cinema is generally considered to be. Given that The Aviator portrays Hughes as a well-connected visionary always one step ahead of his competition, it might have been nice also to get some sort of explanation as to why our hero wouldn’t have known that sound was about to make its debut in the movies. It’s not like The Jazz Singer was a top-secret government project. Next, Scorsese traces the course of Hughes’ doomed romance with Katharine Hepburn. Cate Blanchette does a decent impression, too. They play golf together, put up with Errol (Jude Law Alert!) Flynn’s drunken impudence at the Coconut Grove — Flynn picks one of the already germ-wary Hughes’ peas off his dinner plate, rendering the meal uneatable. They fly over Hollywood at night in Howard’s plane together, Hepburn taking the wheel while her date drinks milk straight from the bottle. It’s all rendered with loving care to period detail — and yet a persistent so-whatness pervades. Later Hughes boldly envisions leaps in plane design, buys a
controlling interest in TWA and basically invents the modern transcontinental air-travel industry. And yet I’m not sure the viewer is allowed an opportunity to be properly impressed. Faster than colossal accomplishments such as these can be processed, Scorsese shifts focus again and again, away from his subject’s entrepreneurial breakthroughs to his emotional and psychological breakdowns. The picture’s portrait leaves off well before Hughes’ descent into major-league, Vegas-based madness, and one comes away suspecting the director wanted to get all the mileage he could out of its intimations. Scenes revolving around Hughes’ exploits as a womanizer aren’t particularly convincing. DiCaprio comes off as a somewhat pervy playboy. The only relationship in the film that really fires on all cylinders is that between Hughes and his rival, Juan Trippe, the head of Pan American. Alec Baldwin gives one of his juiciest performances in years in the role of the genial schemer. There’s a wonderful scene in which DiCaprio and Baldwin talk business behind opposite sides of a locked door. On one side, a bemused Trippe is dressed in pinstripes and carries a briefcase. On the other, Hughes is bearded, naked and desperately struggling to hold it together. For my money, the highpoint of The Aviator isn’t any of its colorful test-flight catastrophes — one of which results in Hughes being burned nearly to death. It’s the climactic chapter set in 1947 in which he faces off with a corrupt senator (Alan Alda), a flunky in Trippe’s back pocket, whose committee holds public hearings designed to ruin his reputation and pave the way for Pan American’s dominance of the skies. Scorsese’s latest coasts along on autopilot for most of its nearly three hours, but soars in these final moments. DiCaprio does a masterful job of suggesting the monumental act of will required for Hughes to appear in public at that point in his life, and the bristling counterattack his testimony provides, ranks among the most dramatic bits of film dialogue in the past year. A diverting but only intermittently memorable look at the early years of a famously troubled titan, The Aviator is a movie meant to be as big as its larger-than-life subject. To achieve that would have required an approach heavier on psychology and far, far lighter on showy period replication. The fact is, the depth of The Aviator never quite justifies its length. m
SHORTS BLADE: TRINITYHH Wesley Snipes goes vampire hunting for the final time in this third installment of the franchise. Things wrap up with an epic confrontation pitting Blade and his buddies against the Vampire Nation. Kris Kristofferson costars. David S. Goyer directs. (106 min, R) BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON HHH Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant reprise the roles they originated in the 2001 hit Bridget Jones’s Diary. Despite that film’s happy ending, the sequel features an hour and 48 minutes of romantic misunderstandings and embarrassing situations. Gemma Jones costars. Beeban Kidron directs. (108 min, R) CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKSH This year’s Christmas-related Tim Allen comedy concerns a married couple whose plans to forgo holiday celebrations in favor of a Caribbean vacation are foiled at the last minute. Based, believe it or not, on a novel by John Grisham. Jamie Lee Curtis costars. Joe Roth directs. (94 min, PG) CLOSERHHH Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman and, it goes without saying, Jude Law star in Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Patrick Marber’s play about four Londoners whose love lives become entangled. (10 min, R)
SHORTS >> 61A
RATINGS
H = refund, please HH = could’ve been worse, but not a lot HHH = has its moments; so-so HHHH = smarter than the average bear HHHHH = as good as it gets Ratings assigned to movies not reviewed by Rick Kisonak are courtesy of Metacritic.com, which averages scores given by the country’s most widely read reviewers (Rick included).
SEVEN DAYS
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december 22-29, 2004
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THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIEHHH Everybody’s favorite talking rectangle makes the leap to the big screen. The community of Bikini Bottom is thrown into chaos when Mr. Krabs steals King Neptune’s crown. The voice cast includes Clancy Brown, Mary Jo Catlett and Alec Baldwin. Stephen Hillenburg directs. (88 min, PG) WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?HH Marlee Matlin stars in this metaphysical, partially animated docudrama in which a woman learns the secrets of the universe with a little help from a Greek chorus of scientists and mystics. (108 min, R)
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SHORTS << 59A Sarandon costars. Peter Chelsom directs. (95 min, PG-13) SIDEWAYSHHHH1/2 Alexander (About Schmidt) Payne directed and co-wrote this buzz-happy story about two old friends who take a wine-tasting road trip and assess their lives along the way. Starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church. (98 min, R) SPANGLISHHH1/2 Adam Sandler, Téa Leoni and Paz Vega star in the latest from writer-director James (As Good As It Gets) Brooks, the saga of an upscale American family and the native Mexican woman it comes to embrace. With Anne Bancroft. (137 min, PG-13) THE GRUDGEHH Sarah Michelle Gellar stars in this remake of a Japanese blockbuster about a house possessed by a curse that dooms all who enter it to die in the grip of a violent rage. Takeshi Shimizu directs. Jason Behr costars. (100 min, PG-13) THE INCREDIBLESHHH A shoe-in for this year’s Best Animated Picture Oscar, Pixar’s latest tells the story of a superhero who’s retired from crime-fighting and relocated to the suburbs, where he battles boredom and a bulging waistline as an insurance claims adjuster. Featuring the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by Brad Bird. (118 min, PG) THE MACHINISTHHH1/2 Brad (Next Stop Wonderland) Anderson directs this suspense-fest about a young man who hasn’t slept for more than a year and suspects he is on the run from someone, but isn’t quite sure whom, and is slowly descending into full-blown madness. Starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh. (102 min, R) THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIESHHH1/2 Based on Che Guevara’s boyhood memoirs about motorbiking through South America with his best friend in the 1950s, the latest from Brazilian director Walter Salles offers a humanizing portrait of the communist revolutionary. Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna star. (128 min, R) THE POLAR EXPRESSHHH Bosom Buddies Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari are re-teamed for Robert Zemeckis’ take on the holiday favorite by Chris Van Allsburg. Hanks plays five roles, including Santa Claus.
film 61A
MERRY KISSES, GENTLEMEN
< filmclips> FINDING NEVERLANDHHH1/2 Johnny Depp stars in the new film from Monster’s Ball director Marc Forster, a fantasy-tinged look at the life of Peter Pan author James Barrie. Costarring Kate Winslet and Radha Mitchell. (106 min, PG) FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIXHH1/2 Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi and Hugh Laurie star in director John Moore’s action adventure about crash survivors who try to build a new plane from the wreckage of their old one while stranded in the Mongolian desert. (PG-13) LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTSHHH Jim Carrey stars in this big screen adaptation of the popular children’s book series by Daniel Handler. He plays a scheming count consumed with the desire to relieve three orphans placed in his care of their vast inheritance. With Meryl Streep, Billy Connolly, Liam Aiken and, of course, Jude Law. (113 min, PG) NATIONAL TREASUREHH Nicolas Cage stars in this Jerry Bruckheimer action adventure about a historian on the trail of a treasure he’s convinced was stashed away by the country’s founding fathers. With Justin Bartha and Diane Kruger. (100 min, PG) OCEAN'S TWELVEHH Steven Soderbergh directs this sequel to his 2001 remake about a gang that robs a dangerous Las Vegas businessman. This time around, the newly rich crew finds themselves scrambling to repay what they stole. Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts. (125 min, PG-13) RAYHHH Taylor (An Officer and a Gentleman) Hackford directs this bigscreen bio of Ray Charles featuring Jamie Foxx, Regina King and Kerry Washington. (153 min, PG-13) SEDUCING DOCTOR LEWISHHHH In the directorial debut from Canadian filmmaker Jean-Francois Pouliet, members of an impoverished fishing community attempt to convince a young Montréal doctor to take up residence so they can qualify for a much-needed new factory. (108 min, NR) SHALL WE DANCE?HH1/2 Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez are paired for this remake of a 1996 Japanese hit about a man who redeems his troubled marriage by taking ballroom dance lessons. Susan
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NEW ON DVD/VHS DE-LOVELYHH1/2 Kevin Kline stars in Irwin Winkler’s big-screen look at the life of immortal composer and man’s man Cole Porter. Ashley Judd costars in the role of his slack-cutting missus. With Jonathan Pryce. (125 min, PG-13) NAPOLEON DYNAMITEHHH Jared Hess makes his directorial debut with this quirky comedy about a high school outcast who proves an unlikely hero. Starring Jon Heder and Aaron Ruell. (86 min, PG) SURVIVING CHRISTMASH1/2 Ben Affleck presides over this laugh-a-thon about a sentimental fool who longs to spend the holidays with family in his childhood home and doesn’t let the fact that his family no longer lives there get in his way. With James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate and Catherine O’Hara. (91 min, PG-13) THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATEHHH1/2 What’s next — Citizen Kane remade by Renny Harlin? Jonathan Demme updates John Frankenheimer’s 1962 movie mindgame about a vet who’s used as a pawn in a political scheme. Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber stand in for Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. Sure, this sounds like it should work. (126 min, R) THUNDERBIRDSH1/2 Based on the hit ‘60s British show about a family of puppets that battles evil with the help of a fleet of highly advanced rescue vehicles, this live-action adaptation features Bill Paxton and Anthony Edwards, with Ben Kingsley as master criminal The Hood.
SPONSORED BY:
FILMQUIZ
W W W. M E R R I L LT H E AT R E S . N E T
Once again we’ve selected scenes from four well-known movies and, through the magic of Film Quiz Technology, zapped the famous faces of their stars right out of the picture. Your job, as always, is to identify the four films, anyway, minus their stars and with only a single clue-ridden scene apiece to go on.
1
2
© 2004, Rick Kisonak
FACE LIFTS
Share a Ride. Save a Bundle. LAST WEEK’S WINNER:
Vanpool!
IAN JOHNSON
LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS:
3
4
DUETS KATE & LEOPOLD THE SKULLS THREE TO TANGO
A vanpool takes the stress out of your commute, saves you money, and reduces pollution. And if you ever miss your van due to an emergency or unexpected overtime, we pay for a taxi. So save money AND stress! Call 864-CCTA today.
DEADLINE: Noon on Monday. PRIZES: Dinner and a movie for two. In the event of a tie, winner chosen by lottery. SEND ENTRIES TO: Movie Quiz, PO Box 68, Williston, VT 05495. OR EMAIL TO: ultrfnprd@aol.com. Be sure to include your address. Please allow four to six weeks for delivery of prizes. For more film fun don’t forget to watch “Art Patrol” every Thursday, Friday and Saturday on News Channel 5!
C • C • T • A CHITTENDEN COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
Space is available in the following vanpool:
Montpelier Vanpool • Departs Essex Junction at 7:05am • Richmond P&R pick-up at 7:30am • Leaves Montpelier at 4:30pm
Call today to reserve your space before the winter weather makes your commute frustrating!
60A
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december 22-29, 2004
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SEVEN DAYS
LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
flick chick
BY SUSAN GREEN
SHORT TAKES ON THE REEL WORLD
Craven Images will be changed to something Hispanic. It’s a four-week role, so we have to be sure about his availability. He’s a busy guy.” No kidding. Since the early 1990s Guzman has performed in about 58 motion pictures and briefly had his own TV sitcom, “Luis,” on Fox. Disappearances is adapted from a 1977 Howard Frank Mosher novel and qualifies for the action-adventure genre. It centers on a Prohibition-era dairy farmer named “Québec” Bill Bonhomme. After some economic setbacks, he hopes to save his cattle during a harsh winter by smuggling whiskey across the Canadian border. This illicit enterprise happens to be a family tradition. Rat is his downbeat hired hand and partner-in-crime. Kristofferson has been tapped for the lead, and Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of the legendary Charlie, will portray his Aunt Cordelia. Cinematographer Alain
I’ve been in the nonprofit arts for 30 years and it has not gotten one bit easier. I don’t get paid at all from Kingdom County. JAY CRAVEN duction that’s now scheduled to begin shooting on March 21. (An earlier window of opportunity last fall had to be scrapped when star Kris Kristofferson went to New Orleans to make Dreamer, a mainstream movie that coincidentally also features Guzman.) “Luis would like to do the film,” Craven says. “He’ll probably play Rat Kinneson. But the character’s name likely
Choquart, who often partners with French auteur Bertrand Tavernier, is also on board. Craven, 54, says he’s still casting for three important adult parts; he was in New York City recently auditioning boys to portray “Québec” Bill’s 14-year-old son. Although Craven has raised only $620,000 of the $1.1 million budget so far, his Kingdom County Productions
may be able to benefit from its collaboration with two Boston-based producers, John McNeil and Mark Donadio. They’re the team behind several well-received independents, such as Next Stop, Wonderland and Made-Up. Tight finances might give the ambitious Disappearances endeavor something of an adrenaline rush. “We need to accomplish a lot in a very short time,” Craven acknowledges. With mostly outdoor locations around St. Johnsbury and Lake Willoughby, he says the toughest challenge could emerge if there’s a need to make snow. “The story’s concept is that this is ‘the winter that won’t let go,’” Craven explains. “We also have to shoot a big canoe trip that might be problematic.” As long as he continues to give cinematic life to Mosher’s writing, Craven can’t seem to stay dry. His previous soggy sagas were the short High Water in 1989 and the 1993 feature Where the Rivers Flow North. Craven waxes philosophical about the “hardscrabble” reputation of his efforts, which include commuting about 110 miles to Marlboro College to teach filmmaking. “I’ve been in the nonprofit arts for 30 years and it has not gotten one bit easier,” he muses. “I don’t get paid at all from Kingdom County.”
He also experienced a shortfall on his venture into another medium, the recent Vermont Public Television broadcast of “Windy Acres,” a six-episode situation comedy about a farmer (Rusty DeWees) and a female city slicker. The station put in $15,000. But the Feds apparently nixed a grant Craven had hoped to get from the state agriculture department. “D.C. decided it was not an appropriate use of the money,” he laments. “We sold $60,000 worth of videos last month. But our $50,000 loan still has to be repaid.” Too bad rum running — the get-richquick scheme in Disappearances — has gone out of fashion.
Bess O’Brien, Craven’s wife and co-producer, is also a documentarian, whose gritty Here Today explores the agony of teen heroin addicts and their families. She will speak about the project, and the overarching issue of social change, at 7 p.m. on January 5 at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. This free event is part of the monthly “First Wednesdays” lecture series sponsored by Vermont Council on the Humanities. m
Email Susan at flickchick@sevendaysvt.com
fickle fannie BY DAVID DIEFENDORF
READ THIS FIRST:
This week, as always, the things Fannie likes (shown in CAPITAL letters) all follow a secret rule. Can you figure out what it is? NOTE: Fickle Fannie likes words.
But each week she likes something different about them — how they’re spelled, how they sound, how they look, what they mean, or what’s inside them. JESSE & GLENDA have very different accents. DONALD & JOAN act up at the opera. DAVID & CHRISTIE said goodnight to a model. ROGER & JULIANNE visited the queen for tea. KENNY & GINGER sing and dance the night away. DICK & PETULA have a weakness for chocolate bars. BERTRAND & ROSALIND were an uncle and an auntie. MARY & DEAN like to fly a lot and drink a lot. GLEN & NAOMI love tomato soup from a can. ITZHAK & RHEA get cheers from the audience. E me with your Qs or comments (dd44art@aol.com). Difficulty rating for this puzzle: HARD AS PEOPLE MAGAZINE. If you’re stuck, see the HINT on this page. If you cave, see the ANSWER on page 63A. So much for Fickle Fannie’s tastes this week. Next week she’ll have a whole new set of likes and dislikes.
FICKLE FANNIE HINT: A name does not a relation make.
O
ne day before the official release of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, some young Vermonters were treated to a sneak preview of the probable blockbuster. Thanks to one of the film’s perfomers, Sutton resident Luis Guzman, local schoolchildren attended a special screening at the Star Theater in St. Johnsbury last Thursday. Guzman is a noted actor in dozens of Hollywood movies (the American narc assassinated in Traffic, for instance). His wife Angelita works as a reading specialist in the Northeast Kingdom — where Jay Craven invariably seems to be involved with anything arts-related. The indie director from Peacham did, in fact, help Guzman arrange the Green Mountain State premiere of Lemony Snicket. Craven has also recruited the Puerto Rico-born thespian for Disappearances, his long-delayed pro-
SEVEN DAYS
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december 22-29, 2004
T H E
R OX Y
C I N E M A S
52 Church Street, Burlington 802.864.4238 www.vermontjeweler.com
MOVIEHHH Everybody’s favorite talking rectangle makes the leap to the big screen. The community of Bikini Bottom is thrown into chaos when Mr. Krabs steals King Neptune’s crown. The voice cast includes Clancy Brown, Mary Jo Catlett and Alec Baldwin. Stephen Hillenburg directs. (88 min, PG) WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?HH Marlee Matlin stars in this metaphysical, partially animated docudrama in which a woman learns the secrets of the universe with a little help from a Greek chorus of scientists and mystics. (108 min, R)
© 2004
20% off diamond earrings, pendants & bracelets
SHORTS << 59A (95 min, PG-13) SIDEWAYSHHHH1/2 Alexander (About Schmidt) Payne directed and co-wrote this buzz-happy story about two old friends who take a wine-tasting road trip and assess their lives along the way. Starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church. (98 min, R) SPANGLISHHH1/2 Adam Sandler, Téa Leoni and Paz Vega star in the latest from writer-director James (As Good As It Gets) Brooks, the saga of an upscale American family and the native Mexican woman it comes to embrace. With Anne Bancroft. (137 min, PG-13) THE GRUDGEHH Sarah Michelle Gellar stars in this remake of a Japanese blockbuster about a house possessed by a curse that dooms all who enter it to die in the grip of a violent rage. Takeshi Shimizu directs. Jason Behr costars. (100 min, PG-13) THE INCREDIBLESHHH A shoe-in for this year’s Best Animated Picture Oscar, Pixar’s latest tells the story of a superhero who’s retired from crime-fighting and relocated to the suburbs, where he battles boredom and a bulging waistline as an insurance claims adjuster. Featuring the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by Brad Bird. (118 min, PG) THE MACHINISTHHH1/2 Brad (Next Stop Wonderland) Anderson directs this suspense-fest about a young man who hasn’t slept for more than a year and suspects he is on the run from someone, but isn’t quite sure whom, and is slowly descending into full-blown madness. Starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh. (102 min, R) THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIESHHH1/2 Based on Che Guevara’s boyhood memoirs about motorbiking through South America with his best friend in the 1950s, the latest from Brazilian director Walter Salles offers a humanizing portrait of the communist revolutionary. Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna star. (128 min, R) THE POLAR EXPRESSHHH Bosom Buddies Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari are re-teamed for Robert Zemeckis’ take on the holiday favorite by Chris Van Allsburg. Hanks plays five roles, including Santa Claus. THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
film 61A
MERRY KISSES, GENTLEMEN
< filmclips> FINDING NEVERLANDHHH1/2 Johnny Depp stars in the new film from Monster’s Ball director Marc Forster, a fantasy-tinged look at the life of Peter Pan author James Barrie. Costarring Kate Winslet and Radha Mitchell. (106 min, PG) FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIXHH1/2 Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi and Hugh Laurie star in director John Moore’s action adventure about crash survivors who try to build a new plane from the wreckage of their old one while stranded in the Mongolian desert. (PG-13) LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTSHHH Jim Carrey stars in this big screen adaptation of the popular children’s book series by Daniel Handler. He plays a scheming count consumed with the desire to relieve three orphans placed in his care of their vast inheritance. With Meryl Streep, Billy Connolly, Liam Aiken and, of course, Jude Law. (113 min, PG) NATIONAL TREASUREHH Nicolas Cage stars in this Jerry Bruckheimer action adventure about a historian on the trail of a treasure he’s convinced was stashed away by the country’s founding fathers. With Justin Bartha and Diane Kruger. (100 min, PG) OCEAN'S TWELVEHH Steven Soderbergh directs this sequel to his 2001 remake about a gang that robs a dangerous Las Vegas businessman. This time around, the newly rich crew finds themselves scrambling to repay what they stole. Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts. (125 min, PG-13) RAYHHH Taylor (An Officer and a Gentleman) Hackford directs this bigscreen bio of Ray Charles featuring Jamie Foxx, Regina King and Kerry Washington. (153 min, PG-13) SEDUCING DOCTOR LEWISHHHH In the directorial debut from Canadian filmmaker Jean-Francois Pouliet, members of an impoverished fishing community attempt to convince a young Montréal doctor to take up residence so they can qualify for a much-needed new factory. (108 min, NR) SHALL WE DANCE?HH1/2 Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez are paired for this remake of a 1996 Japanese hit about a man who redeems his troubled marriage by taking ballroom dance lessons. Susan Sarandon costars. Peter Chelsom directs.
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NEW ON DVD/VHS DE-LOVELYHH1/2 Kevin Kline stars in Irwin Winkler’s big-screen look at the life of immortal composer and man’s man Cole Porter. Ashley Judd costars in the role of his slack-cutting missus. With Jonathan Pryce. (125 min, PG-13) NAPOLEON DYNAMITEHHH Jared Hess makes his directorial debut with this quirky comedy about a high school outcast who proves an unlikely hero. Starring Jon Heder and Aaron Ruell. (86 min, PG) SURVIVING CHRISTMASH1/2 Ben Affleck presides over this laugh-a-thon about a sentimental fool who longs to spend the holidays with family in his childhood home and doesn’t let the fact that his family no longer lives there get in his way. With James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate and Catherine O’Hara. (91 min, PG-13) THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATEHHH1/2 What’s next — Citizen Kane remade by Renny Harlin? Jonathan Demme updates John Frankenheimer’s 1962 movie mindgame about a vet who’s used as a pawn in a political scheme. Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber stand in for Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. Sure, this sounds like it should work. (126 min, R) THUNDERBIRDSH1/2 Based on the hit ‘60s British show about a family of puppets that battles evil with the help of a fleet of highly advanced rescue vehicles, this live-action adaptation features Bill Paxton and Anthony Edwards, with Ben Kingsley as master criminal The Hood. Jonathan Frakes directs. (89 min, PG) m
SPONSORED BY:
FILMQUIZ
W W W. M E R R I L LT H E AT R E S . N E T
Once again we’ve selected scenes from four well-known movies and, through the magic of Film Quiz Technology, zapped the famous faces of their stars right out of the picture. Your job, as always, is to identify the four films, anyway, minus their stars and with only a single clue-ridden scene apiece to go on.
1
2
© 2004, Rick Kisonak
FACE LIFTS
Share a Ride. Save a Bundle. LAST WEEK’S WINNER:
Vanpool!
IAN JOHNSON
LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS:
3
4
DUETS KATE & LEOPOLD THE SKULLS THREE TO TANGO
A vanpool takes the stress out of your commute, saves you money, and reduces pollution. And if you ever miss your van due to an emergency or unexpected overtime, we pay for a taxi. So save money AND stress! Call 864-CCTA today.
DEADLINE: Noon on Monday. PRIZES: Dinner and a movie for two. In the event of a tie, winner chosen by lottery. SEND ENTRIES TO: Movie Quiz, PO Box 68, Williston, VT 05495. OR EMAIL TO: ultrfnprd@aol.com. Be sure to include your address. Please allow four to six weeks for delivery of prizes. For more film fun don’t forget to watch “Art Patrol” every Thursday, Friday and Saturday on News Channel 5!
C • C • T • A CHITTENDEN COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
Space is available in the following vanpool:
Montpelier Vanpool • Departs Essex Junction at 7:05am • Richmond P&R pick-up at 7:30am • Leaves Montpelier at 4:30pm
Call today to reserve your space before the winter weather makes your commute frustrating!
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december 22-29, 2004
|
SEVEN DAYS
SUBJECT
FRIENDS
“FRIENDS”
MOVIES
WATCH MOVIES
MAKE MOVIES
DINING
COME OVER FOR DINNER
STAY FOR BREAKFAST
TENURE
ARE FOREVER
ARE FOR THE NIGHT
COMFORT
HAVE YOUR BACK
RUB YOUR BACK
GAMES
PLAY PING-PONG
PLAY DOCTOR
TRUTH OR DARE
PICK TRUTH
PICK DARE
At Molson we know the line between friend and“friend”can get blurry. That’s why we’ve created this easy to follow checklist. Simply think of one of your friends and what you like to do together. If that person falls into any one of the “friends” sides then they’re most definitely a “friend.” Here’s to a long and healthy “friendship.”
enjoy molson draft & bottle specials this saturday at ruben james on main street, burlington MAKE “FRIENDS”AT THESE FINE “DRINKING” ESTABLISHMENTS.
©2004 IMPORTED BY MOLSON U.S.A., LLC. GOLDEN, CO 80401* BEER
HOW TO TELL A FRIEND FROM A“FRIEND.”
In 1786, John Molson began brewing beer using the finest Canadian water and barley from a land we now call Saskatchewan. We left well enough alone.
62A
SEVEN DAYS
<showtimes> All shows daily unless otherwise indicated. Film times may change. Please call theaters to confirm. * = New film.
BIJOU CINEPLEX 1-2-3-4 Rt. 100, Morrisville, 888-3293. wednesday 22 — thursday 30 *Meet the Fockers 12:50 (not Christmas Day), 3:40, 6:40 & 9 (not Christmas Eve). *Fat Albert 1:10 (SunThu), 4, 7 (Sat-Thu). Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 1 (not Christmas Day), 3:30, 6:30 & 8:30 (not Christmas Eve). Ocean’s Twelve 6:50 & 9 (not Christmas Eve). The Polar Express 1:20 (not Christmas Day), 3:50. Blade: Trinity 1:10 (not Christmas Day), 4, 7 & 9 (not Christmas Eve). No evening shows Christmas Eve, no matinees before 3:30 Christmas Day.
ESSEX CINEMA Essex Outlet Fair, Rt. 15 & 289, Essex Junction, 879-6543 wednesday 22 — thursday 23 *Meet the Fockers 1, 4, 7, 9:45. Christmas with the Kranks 6:30, 9. Flight of the Phoenix 1:15, 4:15, 7:15, 9:45. The Incredibles 12:30, 3:30. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 12:15, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10. National Treasure 12:45, 3:45, 6:45, 9:30. Ocean’s Twelve 1, 4, 7, 9:40. The Polar Express 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15. Spanglish 12:30, 3:30, 6:30, 9:15. friday 24 — thursday 30 *The Aviator 12:45 (Sun-Thu), 4:15 & 7:45 (Sat-Thu). *Fat Albert 12:45 (Sun-Thu), 3 (Sat-Thu), 5:15 (Sat-Thu), 7:30 (Sat-Thu), 9:40 (Sat-Thu). *Meet the Fockers 1 (Sun-Thu), 4, 7 & 9:45 (Sat-Thu). Flight of the Phoenix 1:15 & 4:15 (Fri), 9:45 (Sat-Thu). The Incredibles 12:30 (not Sat), 3:30. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 12:15 (not Sat), 2:40, 5:10 (Sat-Thu), 7:40 (Sat-Thu), 10 (Sat-Thu). National Treasure 12:45 & 3:45 (Fri), 6:45 & 9:30 (Sat-Thu). Ocean’s Twelve 1 (not Sat), 4, 7 & 9:40 (Sat-Thu). The Polar Express 12:15 (not Sat), 2:30, 4:45 & 7 (SatThu). Spanglish 12:30 (not Sat), 3:30, 6:30 & 9:15 (Sat-Thu).
12:35, 3:15, 6:50, 9:30. Ocean’s Twelve 12:15, 1:30, 3, 4:10, 6, 7, 8:45, 9:40. The Polar Express 12:20, 3:05, 4:55. Spanglish 12:55, 3:40, 6:30, 9:15. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 2:30. Christmas With the Kranks 12:10, 2:25, 7:20, 9:35.
No evening shows Christmas Eve. No matinees Christmas Day. Times subject to change. See www.majestic10.com.
MARQUIS THEATER Main St., Middlebury, 388-4841. wednesday 22 — thursday 23 *Meet the Fockers 1 (Thu), 6:15 & 8:30. Ocean’s Twelve 6 & 8:30. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 1:15 (Thur). friday 24 — thursday 30 *Meet the Fockers 1 (Fri), 1:30, 3:45, 6:15 & 8:30 (Sun-Thu). Ocean’s Twelve 6 & 8:15 (Sun-Tue), 8:30 (Fri). The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 1 (Sun-Thu), 1:15 (Fri), 2:45 & 4:30 (Sun-Thu).
No evening shows Christmas Eve. Closed Christmas Day.
MERRILL’S ROXY CINEMA Ethan Allen Shopping Center, North Ave., Burlington, 863-6040. wednesday 22 — thursday 23 Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason 7:20. Ray 7. The Grudge 7:30. Shall We Dance? 7:10. friday 24 — thursday 30 Blade: Trinity 1:10 (not Sat), 6:50, 9:15 (not Fri). Christmas With the Kranks (not Sat), 6:30 & 8:45 (not Fri). Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason 1:30 (not Sat), 7 & 9:25 (not Fri). Motorcycle Diaries 1:20 (SunThu), 6:40 & 9:20 (Sat-Thu). No evening shows Christmas Eve. No matinees Christmas Day. See www.merrilltheatres.net.
MAJESTIC 10 Maple Tree Place, Taft Corners, Williston, 878-2010. wednesday 22 — thursday 23 Blade: Trinity 4:35, 7:20, 9:45. Closer 2, 4:25, 7:20, 9:45. Flight of the Phoenix 12:40, 3:15, 6:45, 9:20. The Incredibles 12:40, 5:05, 7:30. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 12:05, 2:25, 4:50, 7:15, 9:40. National Treasure
Closed Christmas Eve.
SOUTH BURLINGTON 9 friday 24 — thursday 30 *Meet the Fockers 12:20, 1:10, 2:50 & 3:55 (not Sat), 6:20, 7, 9:05, 9:40 (not Fri). *The Aviator 2:15 (SunThu), 5:45 & 9:10 (Sat-Thu). *Darkness 7:20 & 9:50 (Sat-Thu). *Fat Albert 12:10, 2:15, 4:30 (SunThu), 6:45 & 9 (Sat-Thu). Closer 1:30 (Sun-Thu), 2 (Fri), 4:05 (Sun-Thu), 7:10 & 9:45 (Sat-Thu). Flight of the Phoenix 12:40 & 3:15 (Fri), 9:20 (SatThu). The Incredibles 12:15 (Sun-Thu) 12:40 & 3:05 (Fri), 4:50 (Sun-Thu). Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 12:05 & 2:25 (not Sat), 4:50 (Sun-Thu), 7:15 & 9:30 (not Fri). National Treasure 12:10 & 2:40 (Sun-Thu), 6:35 (Sat-Thu). Ocean’s Twelve 12:15 (Fri), 1 (SunThu), 1:30 & 3 (Fri), 3:40 (Sun-Thu), 6:40 & 9:20 (Sat-Thu). The Polar Express 12:05 (Sun-Thu), 12:20 & 2:30 (Fri), 2:40 (Sun-Thu). Spanglish 12:55 & 3:40 (not Sat), 6:35 & 9:15 (not Fri).
No evening shows Christmas Eve. No matinees before 2:30 Christmas Day.
ETHAN ALLEN CINEMAS
saturday 17 — thursday 23 *Kinsey 1:30 (not Sat), 4 (Wed), 6:30 & 8:45.
College Street, Burlington, 864-3456 wednesday 22 — thursday 23 *Meet the Fockers 1:15, 3:55, 6:45, 9:25. *Kinsey 1:20, 4, 6:50, 9:30. Ocean’s Twelve 1, 3:45, 6:35, 9:10. Finding Neverland 1:10, 3:30, 7, 9:20. Sideways 1:05, 3:50, 6:40, 9:15. The Motorcycle Diaries 3:35, 6:30. The Machinist 1:20, 9:05. friday 24 — tuesday 28 *Meet the Fockers 1:15 & 3:55 (not Sat), 6:45-9:25 (not Fri). *Kinsey 1:20 & 4 (not Sat), 6:50 & 9:30 (not Fri). *Life Aquatic 1:10 & 4 (Sun-Tue), 6:30 & 9:05 (Sat-Tue). Finding Neverland 12:55 (Sun-Tue), 1:10 (Fri), 3:30 (not Sat), 7 & 9:20 (not Fri). Ocean’s Twelve 1 & 3:45 (not Sat), 6:35 & 9:10 (not Fri). Sideways 1:05 & 3:50 (not Sat), 6:40 & 9:15 (not Fri). The Machinist 1:20 (Fri). The Motorcycle Diaries 3:35 (Fri).
No evening shows Christmas Eve. No matinees Christmas Day. Times subject to change. See www.merrilltheatres.net.
THE SAVOY THEATER Main Street, Montpelier, 229-0509. wednesday 22 — thursday 23 What the Bleep Do We Know? 4 (Wed), 6:30, 8:45.
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december 22-29, 2004
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film 63A
Great Stocking Stuffers: MOVIE SALE! • Buy one, Get the 2nd for Half Off* • $9.95 (and less) for VHS, DVD, and Games
GIFT CERTIFICATES!
Shelburne Rd, S. Burlington, 864-5610. wednesday 22 — thursday 23 *Meet the Fockers 12:20, 1:20, 3:20, 4:20, 6:45, 7:10, 9:25, 9:50. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 12:50, 3:50, 7:05, 9:35. Spanglish 12:25, 3:30, 6:50, 9:40. Flight of the Phoenix 12:35, 3:15, 7:20, 10. Ocean’s Twelve 1:10, 4:10, 7, 9:45. Blade: Trinity 1, 3:40, 7:15, 9:55. National Treasure 6:40, 9:30. The Polar Express 1:30, 4, 6:30, 9. The Incredibles 1:15, 4:05. friday 24 — thursday 30 *Meet the Fockers 12:20 & 1:20 (not Sat), 3:20, 4:20, 6:45, 7:10, 9:25 & 9:50 (not Fri). *The Aviator 12 (not Sat), 3:45 & 7:30 (Sat-Thu). *Fat Albert 12:10 & 2:25 (Sun-Thu), 4:40, 7:05 & 9:20 (Sat-Thu). Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 12:50 (not Sat), 3:50 (Fri), 3:55 (Sat-Thu), 7:05, 9:35 (not Fri). Spanglish 12:25 (not Sat), 3:30, 6:50, 9:40 (not Fri). Flight of the Phoenix 12:35, 3:15 & 7:20 (Fri), 8:20 (SatThu). Ocean’s Twelve 1:10 (not Sat), 4:10, 7, 9:45 (not Fri). Blade: Trinity 1, 3:40 & 7:15 (Fri). The Polar Express 1 (Sun-Thu),1:30 (Fri), 3:30 (Sat-Thu), 4 (Fri), 6 (Sat-Thu), 6:30 (Fri). The Incredibles 1:15 (not Sat), 4:05. National Treasure 6:40 & 9:30 (not Fri).
STOWE CINEMA 3 PLEX Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-4678. wednesday 22 — thursday 23 *Meet the Fockers 7, 9:10. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 7, 9:10. Ocean’s Twelve 7, 9:10. friday 24 — thursday 30 *Meet the Fockers 2:30 (Sun-Thu), 4:45, 7, 9:10. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events 2:30 (Sun-Thu), 4:45, 7, 9:10. Ocean’s Twelve 2:30 (Sun-Thu), 4:45, 7, 9:10.
Schedules for the following theaters are not available at press time. CAPITOL SHOWPLACE 93 State Street, Montpelier, 229-0343. THE ECLIPSE THEATER Rt. 100, Waitsfield, 496-7787. PARAMOUNT THEATRE 211 North Main Street, Barre, 479-4921. WELDEN THEATER 104 No. Main St., St. Albans, 527-7888.
쩾 쩾
* previously viewed
878-8374 mon-sat 10-10 • sun 12-10 taft farms village center, williston email: passportvideo@aol.com
Dinner & A Movie only $20 enjoy a great dinner at Nicco’s Cucina next to The Majestic 10 Cinema
Maple Tree Place in Williston for dinner purchase of $15 per person (exclusive of tax and gratuity)
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Now Serving Lunch Maple Tree Place, Williston
802-857-2200 fax 802-857-2203 good food I new friends
Party With Us! Make your next event one to remember at the Eclipse Theater and Starlight Lounge... r Facilities available for your private function. artistic or charitable event r Community oriented. Competitive rental rates r Professional bar & food catering service r Capable event management staff r High-definition state-of-the-art sound & projection systems r Capacity for small parties up to 500 people r Discounts on area lodging with advance notice
r ALL AGES, AESTHETICALLY ENTICING MULTI-MEDIA EVENT CENTER r LOCATED IN THE HEART OF VERMONT’S SKI COUNTRY AND THE MAJESTIC MAD RIVER VALLEY r IMPECCABLE VIBE
Rental Rates & Specifications available at www.eclipsetheater.com 434-7650 • rt 100 winter park, waitsfield wheelchair accessible non-smoking • all-ages
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Fickle Fannie Answer: Each pair of first names refers to two famous but unrelated people with the same last name (Jackson, Sutherland, Brinkley, etc.)
IDEAS FOR LAST-MINUTE SHOPPERS... People really love food gifts… because people love to eat! So here’s a random collection of suggestions for the passionate cooks and eaters on your holiday gift list… Zingy Curry Sauces • FANCY JAMS AND JELLIES FROM STONEWALL KITCHEN Tons of Thai Condiments • Arborio Rices from a Variety of Italy’s Regions Imported Pastas • Delicious Dipping Sauces • Luscious Chutneys Asian Noodles to Make Every Noodle-Lover Happy • Tapenades and More Tapenades A Fabulous Selection of Affordable Wines • Wondrous Olives Sauces and Marinades for Every Palate • Marvelous Olive Oils and Velvety Balsamics Imported, Aged Vinegars • Holiday Baked Treats from Around the World Organic Chocolates A Bevy of Mexican Hot Sauces, Peppers, Piquantes and Salsas
Chutney-Glazed Ham 1 medium bone-in ham (7-8 lbs) 4 garlic cloves 10 ounces mango chutney 1/2 cup Dijon mustard 1 cup light brown sugar, packed Zest of 1 orange 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the ham in a heavy roasting pan. Mince the garlic in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the chutney, mustard, brown sugar, orange zest, and orange juice and process until smooth. Pour half the glaze over the ham and bake for 1 hour until the ham is fully heated and the glaze is well browned. While the ham is baking, gently heat the rest of the glaze. Pass the remaining glaze alongside in a sauce boat.
Fresh from our Meat Department
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Nitrate-Free Sausage – Breakfast, Hot Italian, Sweet Italian reg. $4.99 SALE $3.99
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STORY TIME
03B calendar scene@ 04B calendar listings 05B
11B classes 16B personals 20B classifieds spacefinder auto employment
20B 25B 30B
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16B 25B 29B
FRONT PAGE GALLERY “Untitled,” photograph by Stu Hall of Jericho. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Seven Days accepts hi-resolution digital files and full-color reproductions of 2-dimensional artwork from Vermont artists for a one-time, non-paying exhibition in the FRONT PAGE GALLERY of Section B. Submissions must be vertically-oriented, non-originals no larger than 8 1/2" x 11". Please do not send work in a current public exhibit. We will only return artwork that includes a SASE with the appropriate postage. Please include your name, address, phone number, title of the works, and medium. Send submissions to: SEVEN DAYS, c/o FPAG, PO Box 1164, Burlington, VT 05402 or email to: fpag@sevendaysvt.com. No phone calls, please.
02B | december 22-29, 2004 | SEVEN DAYS
Small Dog Electronics Your source for holiday gifts!
:: SEVEN DAYS PRESENTS ::
Register to win an iPod mini! Drawing is December 18! iMacs!
Need a gift idea? Check our list of affordable gifts! iPods and accessories! USB storage keys! iSight video cameras! Digital cameras as low as $99! Burton iPod jackets and backpacks! Color printers and MUCH, MUCH more!
iPods!
New Holiday Hours! Open 12PM to 8PM Tuesdays and Thursdays
1-800-511-MACS Hours: Mon/Wed/Fri 10AM-6PM
Tues/Thurs 12PM-8PM
Sat 10AM-5PM
>> EXTENDED!
NOW THROUGH FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2004 @ 3PM:
2 FOR 1 GIFT CERTIFICATES AT BURLINGTON CITY LIMITS SALON! BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: Buy a gift and get one for yourself — FREE! Buy a $25 gift certificate good for hair, nail or tanning services and get another $25 gift certificate for FREE! (Limit one per Wizard Card Holder, please. Not valid with any other offers. Closed Sundays. Shelburne Road, Burlington, across from Creative Habitat, 802-951-HAIR [4247] )
SIGN UP FOR YOUR FREE WIZARD CARD AT:
WIZARD EVENTS • WWW.WIZN.COM • THURSDAY NIGHT: MOLSON MAYHEM AT MCKEE’S PUB THURSDAYS: AT THE WIZARD’S POWER LUNCH • FRIDAYS: AT THE WIZARD’S BAR & GRILL AT THE LINCOLN INN
CELEBRATE NEW YEAR’S EVE @ ECHO AT THE LEAHY CENTER! 2 1 + 9 P M . I N F O 8 6 4 -1 8 4 8 X 1 2 2 FEATURING: THE GRIPPO FUNK BAND ATTIRE: CREATIVE FORMAL
ALSO: FREE HORS D’OEUVRES, CASH BAR AND THE TOASTIEST SPOT
TO WATCH THE FIREWORKS!
TICKETS: $40/PERSON, $50 AFTER 12/25 AVAILABLE AT ECHO OR 86-FLYNN & WWW.FLYNNTIX.ORG • PROCEEDS BENEFIT THE ECHO ACCESS FUND •
04B
|december
22-29, 2004
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SEVEN DAYS
<calendar >
scene@GREEN DRINKS RÎ-RÅ IRISH PUB, BURLINGTON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 6 P.M. At 10 after six, Erik Hoekstra nursed a pint of Guinness by himself at a long wooden table in the back of Rí-Rá. Each third Friday of the month, the clean-cut 26-year-old, an affordable-housing developer, invites a group of environmentally minded grad students, builders and consultants for dinner or drinks at a local restaurant. “Most people show up by seven or so,” he explained. The gatherings mirror similar “Green Drinks” events hosted each month worldwide. A website, www.greeNdrinks.org, advertises meetings in cities such as Warsaw, Sacramento and Santiago, Chile. “In Chicago, they’re really organized,” Hoekstra confided. “They’ve got speakers. But we’re pretty informal.” Half an hour later, a Burlington woman, on break from grad school at Yale, dropped by. This was her first Green Drinks meeting; they don’t have one in New Haven. “We’ve got happy hour in the Forestry School every Friday,” she noted. Hoekstra and the Yalie, who wished to remain anonymous — fearing, perhaps, a crackdown on the Forestry keggers — immediately began exchanging contacts. When she outlined her latest project, Hoekstra chimed in with an idea. “You know who’s an amazing person to talk to,” he suggested, “my friend...” He mentioned a name that was lost in the after-work cacophony. “Mayor Daley hired him to be the Green Czar of Chicago.” “I’d love to have his phone number,” replied the grad student. “Can I email you?” By 7:30, the group had grown to nine — mostly twentysomething professional types. Their conversations ranged from the cost-effectiveness of solar panels to the difficulty of securing grant funding to how hard it is to meet people when you move to Burlington (some of them, like Hoekstra, had relocated here from New York City). Housing underwriter Eliza Smith-Vedder said she’s on Hoekstra’s green builders email list. The connection is important to her, she said, because it’s hard to keep up with changes in environmentally friendly technology. She asks other list members for advice. “Like, is this green roof idea totally crazy, or totally great?” she said between sips of her Sprite. “It’s nice to be able to just get it out there.” First-time Green Drinker Rich Graham agreed. “Networking is everything,” he said. CATHY RESMER
5x8-122204-St.Albans
12/20/04
1:27 PM
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PHOTO: MATTHEW THORSEN
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Make your New Year's Reservations Now! Connie Jacobs-Warden, Chef/Proprietor Live Music in the Encore room
Candles • Pottery • Art • Jewelry • Body Care Corliss Blakely Prints • Vermont Made Products
OPEN MONDAY-SATURDAY 9-6
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SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004
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calendar 05B
WED 22 THU 23 FRI 24 SAT 25 SU N 26 MON 27 TU E 28 WED 29
WED.22 music See clubdates in Section A.
dance ‘SALSALINA’ PRACTICE: Work on your sensuous nightclub routines at this weekly Latin dance session. Salsalina Studio, Burlington, nonmembers, 6 p.m., members, 7 p.m. $510. Info, 598-1077.
drama TEEN DRAMA CLUB: Puppeteers practice for an upcoming performance of The Nutcracker. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 3-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6955. ‘MY FAIR LADY’: Northern Stage presents this musical about a cockney street vendor’s transformation into a “loverly” high-society gal. See calendar spotlight. Briggs Opera House, White River Juntion, 2 & 7:30 p.m. $18-39. Info, 296-7000. ‘A CHRISTMAS CAROL’: Audience members can exorcise Scrooge’s bah-humbug spirit with Charles Dickens’ holiday classic. Pendragon Theatre, Saranac Lake, N.Y., 7 p.m. $20. Info, 518-891-1854.
film ‘BEING JULIA’: Annette Benning and Jeremy Irons star in this film based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel Theatre, about an actress’ mid-life crisis and subsequent affair. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 7 p.m. $6.50. Info, 748-2600.
art Also, see exhibitions in Section A. ‘TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS’: This holiday exhibit features historic and contemporary miniature railroads next to trimmed trees. Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, noon - 5 p.m. $3. Info, 253-8358.
kids WESTFORD PLAYGROUP: Children gather for games, songs and stories at the Westford Library, 9:30-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 8785639. PRESCHOOL STORYTIME: Tots take in their favorite tales at the Pierson Library, Shelburne, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 985-5124. ANIMAL FEEDING: Watch critters do lunch with help from the animal-care staff at the ECHO Center, Burlington, noon & 3 p.m. $69. Info, 864-1848. BARNES & NOBLE STORYTIME: Readings of family faves provide morning fun for toddlers at Barnes & Noble, South Burlington, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 864-8001. WATERBURY STORYTIME: Little ones ages 2 and under get hooked on books at the Waterbury Library, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 244-7036. BROWNELL LIBRARY STORYTIME: Growing readers aged 3-5 participate with picture books and puppets at the Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 10-10:45 a.m. Free. Info, 878-6956. ‘MOVING & GROOVING’: Two- to 5-year-olds boogie down with rock ’n’ roll and worldbeat music. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 865-7216.
HINESBURG PLAY GROUP: Little ones let loose in a fun, friendly, toy-filled atmosphere. Hinesburg Town Hall, 10-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 453-3038.
sport WALK THE TALK: Area exercisers welcome friends and dogs on this 30-minute stroll with staff from a local health clinic. Meet at 32 East Malletts Bay Avenue, Winooski, 8 a.m. Free. Info, 655-4422. MOONLIGHT HIKE: Take a moderate-level walk in the dark around Vermont’s capital to view holiday lights from a distance. Meet at the Statehouse cannons, Montpelier, 5:30 p.m. Free. Info, 223-7035.
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music See clubdates in Section A.
BURLINGTON PEACE VIGIL: Activists stand together in opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Top of Church Street, Burlington, 5-5:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-2345.
drama
etc
film
‘RAPTORS UP CLOSE’: Nature lovers enjoy guided tours of live bird enclosures at the VINS Nature Center, Quechee, 2 p.m. $8. Info, 359-5000. GIANT HOLIDAY BOOK SALE: Shoppers pause to peruse tempting tomes for the bookworms on their lists. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier, 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338. CHRISTMAS CANDLELIGHT SERVICE: Neighbors and strangers greet one another at this non-denominational gathering celebrating the light and warmth of the season. Starksboro Village Meeting House, 7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 453-5227.
‘BEING JULIA’: See December 22.
‘MY FAIR LADY’: See December 22. ‘A CHRISTMAS CAROL’: See December 22.
art Also, see exhibitions in Section A. ‘TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS’: See December 22, COMMUNITY DARKROOM: Shutterbugs develop film and print pictures at the Center for Photographic Studies, Barre, 6-9 p.m. $8 per hour. Info, 479-4127.
THU.23 >> 06B
SUN DAZE
WITH THE BEST SELECTION OF :
Salami Bacon Kielbasa Herring & Smoked Fish European Chocolates and Cakes Beer & Wine, too!
THU.23
activism
Holidays Around the World! CELEBRATE
CHRISTMAS SERVICE: Candles glow gently at this annual church event welcoming everyone to celebrate community. Unity Church of Vermont, Essex Junction, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 288-9265. RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: Holiday donors can give the gift of life at the Red Cross Blood Center, Burlington, 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. Free. Info, 1-800-448-3543.
presents
T A N N I N G
S A L O N
Think GIFT CARDS! Open Christmas Eve 'til 5pm
Beans for the Holiday Season
F WOLF M SYSTE
4 CARMICHAEL ST, ESSEX TOWN CENTER • 878-9600
www.sundazetan.com
— AVAILABLE NOW —
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An adventure in every cup!
Gorgeous YARNS by: Filatura Di Crosa Brown Sheep K1C2
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06B
|
december 22-29, 2004
|
SEVEN DAYS
<calendar >
THU.23 << 05B
kids ANIMAL FEEDING: See December 22. SOUTH BURLINGTON LIBRARY STORYTIME: Youngsters ages 3-5 get together for easy listening at the South Burlington Library, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 652-7080. BARRE LIBRARY STORY HOUR: Three- to 5year-olds break into books at the Aldrich Public Library, Barre, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 476-7550, ext. 308. DADS’ PLAYGROUP: Fathers and their offspring bond through fun and games. Family Center, Montpelier, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 828-8765. KIDS’ GARDEN TOUR: Young ones explore the world of plants on a walk around the Four Seasons Garden Center, Williston, 10 a.m. & 1 p.m. Free. Info, 658-2433. ‘LITTLE ROOTS’ STORYTIME: Kids gather in the garden to hear tales about plants, flowers and bugs. Four Seasons Garden Center, Williston, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 658-2433. BABY TIME: Little ones up to age 2 meet each other at the Pierson Library, Shelburne, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 985-5124.
activism BURLINGTON PEACE VIGIL: See December 22.
etc ‘RAPTORS UP CLOSE’: See December 22. GIANT HOLIDAY BOOK SALE: See December 22. RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: See December 22. SLEIGH RIDES: Weather permitting, jingling horses trot visitors over the snow on a wintry tour of Shelburne Farms. Rides depart every half-hour from the Welcome Center, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. $5-7. Info, 985-8442
FRI.24
art
kids
Also, see exhibitions in Section A.
ANIMAL FEEDING: See December 22. ‘TELL ME A STORY’: Local luminaries in politics, sports and business lend an hour to read children’s books out loud. See calendar spotlight. ECHO Center, Burlington, noon - 1 p.m. $6-9. Info, 864-1848.
music See clubdates in Section A.
SUN.26
art Also, see exhibitions in Section A. ‘TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS’: See December 22, noon - 3 p.m.
kids WATERBURY STORYTIME: See December 22, Waterbury Branch Library, for children ages 3-5.
activism BURLINGTON PEACE VIGIL: See December 22. ‘THE CHURCH ST. ENERGY SYSTEM’: Learn about the effect of local architecture on politics on this half-hour downtown tour. Meet in front of Main St. Courthouse, Burlington, 4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 861-2273.
etc ‘RAPTORS UP CLOSE’: See December 22. RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: See December 22, 7:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. SLEIGH RIDES: See December 23.
SAT.25 MERRY CHRISTMAS!
music See clubdates in Section A.
music Also, see clubdates in Section A. ‘BREAKIN’ UP CHRISTMAS’: Husband-andwife folk duo Pete and Karen Sutherland offer original and traditional faves in a group concert with Common Thread. See calendar spotlight. Vergennes Opera House, 2 p.m. $10. Info, 877-6737. KIRTAN SINGING: Students of yoga stretch vocal cords with chants in Sanskrit. Yoga Vermont, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 5981929.
drama ‘MY FAIR LADY’: See December 22. ‘THE LOGGER’S HOLIDAY VARIETY SHOW’: Comedian Rusty DeWees shares rustic humor with local musicians and a group of young stand-ups. Stowe High School, 8 p.m. $17. Info, 888-917-8789.
film ‘RED LIGHTS’: In this French thriller, a couple on a holiday highway drive separates, and the husband picks up a strange hitchhiker while searching for his wife. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 1:30 & 7 p.m. $6.50. Info, 748-2600.
art Also, see exhibitions in Section A. ‘TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS’: See December 22.
talks AGING PROGRAM: Folks at all stages of life mark time by learning the mysteries of growing older. ECHO Center, Burlington, 11:30 a.m. & 2 p.m. $9. Info, 864-1848.
sport QUECHEE GORGE TOUR: A naturalist leads hikers into Vermont’s version of the Grand Canyon to explore the state’s geological history. VINS Nature Center, Quechee, noon. $8. Info, 359-5000. RITTERBUSH LOOP: Snowshoers get an early start on this easy, 4-mile route in northern Vermont. Call for Newport area meeting time and location. Free. Info, 229-1936. MT. HUNGER HIKE: Athletes ascend the Middlesex Trail with the aid of snowshoes on this moderate-to-difficult, 6-mile trek. Meet at 8:30 a.m., call for location. Free. Info, 888-3375. MOONLIGHT SKI & SNOWSHOE: Winter wayfarers explore the Intervale by the light of the silvery moon. Ethan Allen Homestead, Burlington, gate remains open until 9 p.m. Free. Info, 863-5744.
activism QUEER LIBERATION ARMY: Queer-identified activists of all ages plan flamboyant responses to intolerance. 135 Pearl, Burlington, 4 p.m. Free. Info, 864-6665.
etc ‘RAPTORS UP CLOSE’: See December 22, 11 a.m. & 2 p.m. SLEIGH RIDES: See December 23. KWANZAA CELEBRATION: West African drum and dance group Jeh Kulu provides a rhythmic welcome to this community reflection on black heritage. Unitarian Church, Burlington, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 862-5630. ‘CHRISTMAS AT THE FARM’: Visitors ride on 19th-century sleds and sleighs, help with meal preparations and tour the dairy barns at the Billings Farm & Museum, Woodstock, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. $9. Info, 457-2355.
SUN.26 >> 08B
New Year’s Eve Menu Appetizers
Get Your Gift Certificates! Restaurant Solarium Bar
Braised Snails Roasted Vegetable & Goat Cheese Terrine Grilled Quail
cafe & bistro
Entrees Roasted Monkfish Grilled Beef Tenderloin Duck Cassoulet Pan Seared Veal Chop
THE PLACE WHERE LOCALS DINE
Reservations Accepted
862-9647
15 Center Street Burlington
Best Brunch on the West Coast of New England! Pancakes, Veggie Specials, Eggs Benedict, BelgianWaffles, Omelettes, Fresh Fruit, Granola, Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice 36 main street • winooski • 655.9081 www.sneakersbistro.com • open 7-3
Wishing You A Very Happy Holiday & Prosperous New Year!
from the Lincoln Inn Staff & Family 5 Corners, Essex Junction • 878-3309 www.lincolninn.net Still accepting reservations for holiday parties.
SEVEN DAYS |december 22-29, 2004
WED 22 THU 23 FRI 24 SAT 25 SU N 26 MON 27 TU E 28 WED 29
SUNDAY 26 - FRIDAY 31
BOOKIES
So long as it’s not the riot act, who doesn’t like being read to? This holiday season, kids and their parents can settle down for some quality circle time with a lineup of local celebrities. Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, former Vermont governor Madeleine Kunin, artist Katharine Montstream and Chittenden County Emergency Food Shelf director Wanda Hines all lend their voices to selected storybooks and recall their own childhood holidays. The six-day run wraps up with Taylor Coppenrath, the senior star forward of UVM’s basketball team — a sure hit with small sports fans. Take me to your reader.
‘TELL ME A STORY’ Sunday through Friday, December 26-31, ECHO Center, Burlington, noon - 1 p.m. $6-9. Info, 864-1848.
Art For Everyday Living ™
Burlington
Manchester
85 Church Street 802.863.6458
Historic Rt 7 802.362.3321
Middlebury
froghollow.org info@froghollow.org
1 Mill Street 802.388.3177
Vermont State Craft Center
A
s vis ions of sugar plu ms i n g be
d
an
cing in your h ea
d…
Remember to share some natural comfort & warmth this season. Exquisite clothing accessories and jewelry.
66 church st. • burlington • 864.3633 mon - sat 10-8, friday til 9, sunday 11-6
|
calendar 7B
08B
|december
22-29, 2004
|
SEVEN DAYS
<calendar >
SUN.26 << 6B BURLINGTON AREA SCRABBLE CLUB: Letter wranglers make every word count by playing tournament-style. Bring your board to Allenwood at Pillsbury Manor, South Burlington, 2-6 p.m. Free. Info, 862-7558.
music Also, see clubdates in Section A. MICHAEL KENNEDY & ALLEN CHURCH: This dynamic duo entertains with traditional and seasonal tunes on concertina, fiddle, hammered dulcimer and guitar. The Inn at Essex, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 633-4883.
‘MY FAIR LADY’: See December 22. ‘THE LOGGER’S HOLIDAY VARIETY SHOW’: See December 26.
‘RED LIGHTS’: See December 26, 7 p.m.
art Also, see exhibitions in Section A. COMMUNITY DARKROOM: See December 23. LIFE DRAWING SESSION: Creative types try a hand at sketching. Wolfe Kahn Building, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, 6-8 p.m. $7. Info, 635-1769.
MON.27
drama
film
kids ANIMAL FEEDING: See December 22. WATERBURY STORYTIME: See December 22, for children ages 3-5. BROWNELL LIBRARY STORYTIME: See December 22. Toddlers take their turn with tales first, 9:10-9:30 a.m. ‘TELL ME A STORY’: See December 26. BARRE LIBRARY STORY HOUR: Babies up to age 2 take in tales at the Aldrich Public Library, Barre, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 4767550, ext. 308.
GYM FOR TOTS: Youngsters burn energy running, jumping and hula-hooping at the Charlotte Community School, 9:30-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 425-4144. CHARLOTTE COMMUNITY PLAYGROUP: Children and their caregivers gather for crafts, reading and music-making. Charlotte Community School Cafeteria, 9-10:15 a.m. Free. Info, 985-5096. ‘STARBURST BOOKS’: Origami fans ages 9 and up fold small, star-shaped volumes at the Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 2-3 p.m. Free. Registration and info, 865-7216. ‘MIND YOUR P’S AND Q’S’: Kids and parents can stop by a self-serve table to make and sign inspired thank-you cards. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. Free. Info, 865-7216.
sport NIGHT SKI & SNOWSHOE: Cross-country and snowshoe fans enjoy lighted trails, then share sandwiches and drinks for après ski socializing. Catamount Family Center, Williston, 5:30 p.m. $7. Info, 253-5028.
drama ‘MY FAIR LADY’: See December 22, 7:30 p.m. ‘THE LOGGER’S HOLIDAY VARIETY SHOW’: See December 26.
film art Also, see exhibitions in Section A. ‘TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS’: See December 22.
words
BURLINGTON PEACE VIGIL: See December 22.
BURLINGTON WRITERS’ GROUP: Bring pencil, paper and the will to be inspired to the Daily Planet, Burlington, 7-9 p.m. Free. Info, 758-2287.
etc
kids
‘RAPTORS UP CLOSE’: See December 22. RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: See December 22, 7:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. SLEIGH RIDES: See December 23. ‘CHRISTMAS AT THE FARM’: See December 26.
ANIMAL FEEDING: See December 22. ‘TELL ME A STORY’: See December 26. ‘MIND YOUR P’S AND Q’S’: See December 27. TODDLER-AND-UNDER STORYTIME: Wee ones up to age 3 open their ears to songs and stories. South Burlington Community Library, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 652-7080. PLAYGROUP TIME: Kids gather for stories and interactive fun at the Woodbury Community Library, 6-7 p.m. Free. Info, 456-7404. EAST BARRE STORY HOUR: Babies aged 2 and under take in tales at the Aldrich Public Library, East Barre branch, 10:15 a.m. Free. Info, 476-5118. CHILDREN’S STORYTIME: Kids get cozy and listen to favorite tales at Annie’s Book Stop, Rutland, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 775-6993.
TUE.28 music
SEVEN DAYS
LINE DANCING: Show off your fancy footwork at the Harvest Moon Banquet Room, Essex Junction, 6:30-9:30 p.m. $8.50. Info, 2888044. SWING DANCING: Movers of all ages and abilities dance at the Greek Orthodox Church, Burlington, 7:30-9:30 p.m. $3. Info, 860-7501.
‘RED LIGHTS’: See December 26, 7 p.m.
activism
Say you saw it in
dance
Also, see clubdates in Section A. MICHAEL KENNEDY & ALLEN CHURCH: See December 27. GREEN MOUNTAIN CHORUS: Male musicmakers rehearse barbershop singing and quartetting at St. Francis Xavier School, Winooski, 7-9:30 p.m. Free. Info, 860-6465.
TUE.28 << 10B
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SEVEN DAYS |december 22-29, 2004
|
calendar 09B
WED 22 THU 23 FRI 24 SAT 25 SU N 26 MON 27 TU E 28 WED 29
SUNDAY 26
COMMON CAUSE
Pete and Karen Sutherland are practically a Vermont cultural institution. The folkster spouses have been writing and performing music rooted in the state’s heritage for more than 25 years. This week, they share the stage with the quartet Common Thread for a multi-instrument program of seasonal songs from New England, as well as the wider world of cowboy, Celtic, African and Scandinavian traditions. Next up for the foursome: a spring tour and cultural exchange in Transylvania. True to its name, the Champlain Valley-centered musical act will be accompanied by an exhibit of illustrated song lyrics, and a blanket woven with threads spun from all the places they’ve performed. Talk about continuity.
‘BREAKIN’ UP CHRISTMAS’ Sunday, December 26, Vergennes Opera House, 2 p.m. $10. Info, 877-6737.
03A
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10B
|december
22-29, 2004
|
SEVEN DAYS
TUE.28 << 8B
<calendar > Free. Info, 247-0050.
ECHO STORYTIME: Young explorers discover the wonders of the natural world through books and imaginative play. ECHO Center, Burlington, 11 a.m. $6-9. Info, 864-1848. BOOK DISCUSSION: Readers in grade 3 and up talk about the lucky stray dog at the heart of Kate DiCamillo’s Because of WinnDixie. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 1-2 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6956. ‘RING IN THE NEW YEAR’: Kids ages 7-10 hear stories about New Year’s celebrations around the world, then create a time capsule to be opened in 2006. Bring tangible memories from 2004 to the Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 3-4:15 p.m. Free. Registration and info, 865-7216.
WED.29
BROWNELL LIBRARY STORYTIME: See December 22. ‘TELL ME A STORY’: See December 26. ‘MIND YOUR P’S AND Q’S’: See December 27, 8:30 a.m. - 9 p.m. CRAFT TIME: Preschoolers join older kids for creativity at the South Burlington Community Library, 11 a.m. Free. Registration and info, 652-7080. ‘THE NUTCRACKER’: Local teens stage a fairy-tale puppet show about a culinarytool-turned-prince, for ages 5 and up. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 3:30-4 p.m. Free. Registration and info, 878-6956.
music Also, see clubdates in Section A. MICHAEL KENNEDY & ALLEN CHURCH: See December 27.
dance ‘SALSALINA’ PRACTICE: See December 22.
drama ‘MY FAIR LADY’: See December 22. ‘THE LOGGER’S HOLIDAY VARIETY SHOW’: See December 26.
sport
BURLINGTON PEACE VIGIL: See December 22.
film
activism
etc
‘RED LIGHTS’: See December 26, 7 p.m.
BURLINGTON PEACE VIGIL: See December 22.
‘RAPTORS UP CLOSE’: See December 22. RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: See December 22. SLEIGH RIDES: See December 23. ‘CHRISTMAS AT THE FARM’: See December 26. LAUGHING CLUB: Local yoga instructor and author Carol Winfield touts the untapped healing power of yukking it up. Union Station, Burlington, 8-8:30 a.m. Donations. Info, 864-7999. CHAMPLAIN VALLEY BUSINESS NETWORK: Entrepreneurs make corporate connections at the Courtyard by Marriott, Williston, 7:30-9 a.m. Free. Info, 434-6434. PAUSE CAFÉ: Novice and fluent French speakers practice and improve their linguistics — en français. Borders Café, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 655-1346. ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC: Authors and musicians take turns sharing poetry, prose and song. Briggs Carriage Bookstore, Brandon, 7 p.m.
art
activism
WALK THE TALK: See December 22.
etc
Also, see exhibitions in Section A. ‘TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS’: See December 22.
‘RAPTORS UP CLOSE’: See December 22. SLEIGH RIDES: See December 23. ‘CHRISTMAS AT THE FARM’: See December 26. FESTIVUS PARTY & BLOOD DRIVE: “Seinfeld” fans who brave the needle can munch on catered food and register to win a DVD collection of the classic sitcom. Red Cross Blood Center, Burlington, 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. Free. Info, 1-800-448-3543. RUTLAND BLOOD DRIVE: The American Red Cross pulls out the stops for donors at the Rutland Regional Medical Center, 9 a.m. 1:30 p.m. Free. Info, 1-800-448-3543.
talks ‘EXPLORING TIBETAN BUDDHISM’: Lama Tsondru Sangpo Rinpoche speaks about meditation practice and Buddhist philosophy at the Bixby Memorial Library, Vergennes, 6:30-8 p.m. Donations. Info, 238-9710.
kids WESTFORD PLAYGROUP: See December 22. PRESCHOOL STORYTIME: See December 22. ANIMAL FEEDING: See December 22. BARNES & NOBLE STORYTIME: See December 22. WATERBURY STORYTIME: See December 22.
Zipper hurt? Need relief from the holiday gut?
Snow date January 9, 4:30 p.m. Constance J. Price Founding Artistic Director
Chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel Information at 863-9161
Saint Michael's College
Donations for gift to the community welcome.
Twelfth Night Celebration January 8, 2005, 6:30 p.m.
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SEVEN DAYS | december 22-29, 2004
<classes> Written by Katherine Reilly-FitzPatrick. Class listings are $15 per week or $50 for four weeks. All class listings must be pre-paid and are subject to editing for space and style. Send info with check or complete credit card information, including exact name on card, to: Classes, SEVEN DAYS, P.O. Box 1164, Burlington, VT 05402-1164.
acting
clay
ACTING FOR THE STAGE: A WORKSHOP FOR STUDENTS: January 11 - March 10. Info, 865-3312 or john.alexander4@att.net. Since 1997, John D. Alexander (Screen Actor’s Guild) has helped students become focused, grounded, and comfortable on stage; study presence, motivation, and voice work while learning to have fun and succeed on stage. ACTING WORKSHOP: Rebecca Harrell returns to teach her 3rd annual Acting Workshop. December 27 and 28, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. at the Hinesburg Town Hall. Cost for the comprehensive 2-day workshop is $100. Info, 4823223. Come join us and discover your potential! Be authentic with characters, perform with confidence, learn how to prepare for an audition and more! The New York Post described Rebecca Harrell as “A star waiting to be discovered” on her role in “A Piece of Eden” with Tyne Daly. Rebecca resides in Hollywood and is preparing for a film to shoot early next year. She is currently portraying Laura Bush in the comedic play “Dumbya’s Rapture in Los Angeles. LEARN THE TECHNIQUE OF “HOLLYWOOD’S MOST SOUGHT AFTER ACTING COACH.” (MOVELINE, NOV. 2001): Classes in Burlington, Tuesday evenings, and Montpelier, Monday evenings. Info, 802-318-8555 or visit www.thoreast.com. Mr. MacDonald has acted professionally for over 25 years and he has taught professionally for over 10 years. He has appeared in over 10 major motion pictures, with leading roles in three, including The Basket, and has guest-starred on “Providence,” “Pensacola: Wings of Gold,” “Murphy Brown,” and many other TV shows.
CLAY CREATIONS, AGES 7-11 WITH JENNIFER SMEDLEY: Thursdays, 3-4:30 p.m. Two four-week sessions. January 13 - February 3 and February 10 - March 10. Shelburne Craft School, Shelburne Village. $90, includes materials and snack. Info, 985-3648. Build a box with customized compartments to organize your things! Share your ideas with us and we’ll figure out how to build it out of clay. HANDBUILDING WITH BIRGIT KNAPP: Tuesdays, 6:309:30 p.m. Eight weeks. Winter session: January 18 March 8. Spring session: March 22 - May 10. Shelburne Craft School, Shelburne Village. 985-3648. Members $170, non-members $190. Materials and firing $40. We will hand build with little clay balls, coils, strips and slabs– whatever fits best for your ideas. We will try different textures and glazes. Class will include discussions about shape and form and their harmony. Suitable for all levels, including beginners.
activism/spirituality RADICAL MAGIC: BECOME A CONSCIOUS EARTH DWELLER: Mondays, January 3, 10, 17, 24, February 14, 21, 7-10 p.m. Burlington. Each participant will determine payment based on their own values and resources. Info, contact Ruby, 879-5439 or evolve@surfglobal.net. We will work with the elements and patterns of our individual and communal lives to explore the very real implications of our inter-dependence. This class will focus on the practice and principles of embodied energy, and permaculture as resources for making root change. This is an opportunity and a challenge to choose to live in the world you want, now.
art ART CLASSES AT CVU HIGH SCHOOL, HINESBURG: Batik on Silk with Jen Labie, five Wednesdays beginning January 12, 6-8 p.m. $95. Basic Drawing with Christine Cole, five Mondays beginning January 10, 6:30-8:30 p.m. $75. Sculptures in Clay with Adele Dienno, four Tuesdays beginning January 18, 6:30-8:30 p.m. $85. Photography, Black and White Darkroom, five Thursdays beginning January 13, 6:30-8:30 p.m. $75. Origami Stationery, Tuesday, February 8, 6-8 p.m., $25. Beekeeping, three Thursdays beginning January 13, 6:30-8 p.m., $25. All materials and equipment included. Info, 482-7194, or find full descriptions for all 66 Winter Access classes at www.cvuhs.org and click on Access to CVU. 10 minutes from Exit 12. FIREHOUSE CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS: Figure Drawing with Model, every Monday evening beginning in February. Dynamic Still Life Painting with Gail Salzman, February 2 - March 9. Wood Sculpture with Robert Babcock, February 8 - March 22. Figurative Sculpture with Fay Menis, February 10 - March 17. Drawing II with Lynn Imperatore, February 18 - March 25. Info, 8657166 or visit www.BurlingtonCityArts.com.
bartending PROFESSIONAL TRAINING: Day, evening and weekend courses. Various locations. Info, 888-4DRINKS or bartendingschool.com. Get certified to make a mean martini, margarita, Manhattan or mai tai.
childbirth HYPNOBIRTHING: Classes now forming for 10-hour series. Four-week evening series or eight-week lunchtime series. Burlington. $175. To register, call Nan Reid, 660-0420. Learn self-hypnosis and summon your natural birthing instincts.
classes 11B
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climbing CO-ED I AND II CLIMBING CLINICS: Six-week clinics, every Tuesday, January 4 - February 8, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Petra Cliffs Climbing Center. $150, includes all equipment. Info, 657-3872 or visit www.petracliffs.com. Two clinics (Introductory and Intermediate), focused on the basics of climbing, that can be applied both indoors or out. No experience necessary for Co-Ed I. CoEd II builds from Co-Ed I or previous experience. FRIDAY NIGHT KIDS CLUB: Every Friday night, 6-9 p.m. Petra Cliffs Climbing Center. $25, preregistration required. Info, 657-3872 or visit www.petracliffs.com. Climb the walls, boulder in the cave, brave the Burma Bridge, and play fun games. Parents, enjoy an evening out while your kids burn energy, develop coordination, build self-confidence, and practice problem solving under the supervision of the Petra Cliffs staff. ICE CLIMBING I AND II: Level I, December 18, 9 a.m. 4 p.m. $100. Level II, December 19, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. $160. Petra Cliffs Mountaineering School. Info, 6573872 or visit petracliffs.com. Learn about the exhilarating sport of ice climbing! Level I is for the beginning ice climber, no experience necessary. Level II is for those who have completed Level I or have previous experience. Learn how to move over easy to moderate terrain, master belaying, rappelling, climbing skills, multi-pitch routes, anchor building and climbing techniques. ICE CLIMBING I & II: Level 1, January 22, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. $100. Level 2, January 23, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., $160. Petra Cliffs Mountaineering School. Info, 657-3872 or visit www.petracliffs.com. Learn about the exhilarating sport of ice climbing! Level 1 is for the beginning ice climber, no experience necessary. Level 2 is for those who have completed Level 1 or have previous experience. With a skilled instructor, learn how to move over easy to moderate terrain. Master belaying, rappelling, climbing skills, multipitch routes, anchor building and climbing technique. INTRODUCTION TO MOUNTAINEERING: January 15, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. $100. Info, 657-3872 or visit www.petra cliffs.com. Learn the fundamentals of safe winter travel over snow and ice! Components of instruction include the use of crampons and ice axe, rope management skills, glissading and self-arrest techniques. JUNIOR CLIMBING TEAM: Ages 10-16. Two sessions, January - March and March - May. Beginning January 17, practices will be held every Monday and Wednesday through May, with occasional weekend USA Climbing competitions in New England. $375 each. Petra Cliffs Climbing Center. Info, 657-3872 or visit www.petra cliffs.com. Do you have enthusiasm for climbing? Traditional sports not your thing? Join the Petra Cliffs Junior Climbing Team! Improve climbing skills, make friends within the climbing community. Sign up now or anytime during the season. WOMEN’S I AND II CLIMBING CLINICS: Six-week clinic, Thursdays, January 6 - February 10, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Petra Cliffs Climbing Center. $150. Info, 657-3872 or visit www.petracliffs.com. Two clinics (Introductory and Intermediate) for women, taught by women. No experience necessary for Women’s I. Women’s II builds from Women’s I or previous experience.
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Acoustic Guitars from $99 & up It’s all about the music
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from Friday, Nov 26 10am-6pm to Thursday, Dec 24 Closed Mondays
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12B
|december
22-29, 2004
|
SEVEN DAYS
S T R E N G T H E N . E V O LV E . A S P I R E .
KATHY JAFFE KAREN CRUICKSHANK KATHLEEN KISH • LISEL RICHARDS
PILATES Winter Wellness Gift Certificates!
<classes> <LIST YOUR CLASS> DEADLINE: Thursday at 5 p.m. Call: 864-5684 email: classes@sevendaysvt.com / fax: 865-1015
862-8686
IM=X PILATES • PERSONAL TRAINING • ON THE WATERFRONT! 3 MAIN STREET • SUITE 215 • CORNERSTONE BUILDING • BURLINGTON PRIVATE • SEMI-PRIVATE • SMALL GROUPS • CLASSES • 802.862.8686
Say you saw it in
SEVEN DAYS
computers COMPUTER CLASSES AT CVU HIGH SCHOOL, HINESBURG: MS Excel For Intermediates, five Tuesdays, beginning January 11, 7:15-8:30 p.m. $65. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, four Mondays beginning January 10, 7:00–8:45 p.m. $85. Advanced Photoshop, Thursday February 3 and 10, 5-6:30 p.m. $40. Powerpoint Tuesdays, January 11 and 18, 5:30-7 p.m. $40. MS Publisher, two Tuesdays, February 1 and 8, 5:30-7 p.m. $40. Digital Camera Use, two-week offering, Wednesday January 12 and 19, 5-7 p.m., or Thursday January 13 and 20, 6:45-8:45 p.m., or Thursday February 3 and 10, 6:458:45 p.m. $40. Digital Winter Landscape Photography, two Mondays, January 10 and 17, 5:15-6:45 p.m. $30. Digital Albums, two choices, Thursday January 13 and 20 from 5-6:30 p.m. or Monday January 31 and February 7 from 5:15-6:45 p,m. $30. MS Word Wizardry, Monday, February 7, 7-8:30 p.m. $15. Digital Photo-Phun using Photoshop, five Tuesdays beginning January 11, 6:308:30 p.m. $55. Website Design with Frontpage, five Wednesdays beginning January 12, 7:10-8:40 p.m. $65. Info, 482-7194, or find full descriptions for all 66 Access classes at www.cvuhs.org and click on Access to CVU. 10 minutes from Exit 12.
craft
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BASIC BEADING: Saturdays, 3-5 p.m., Thursdays, 6-8 p.m. The Blue Plate Ceramic Café, 119 College St., Burlington. $15, plus materials. Preregister, 652-0102. Learn the basics of stringing beads: which wire or thread to use, measuring for the right length, bead size and type, and using the right tools. You will learn about color, design and mixing types of beads for an interesting design. You’ll learn how to attach the clasp and how to make your knots stay in place. CRAFT CLASSES AT CVU HIGH SCHOOL, HINESBURG: Rug Hooking for Beginners, five Thursdays, beginning January 13, 6-8 p.m. $70. Bobbin Lace-Handmade, five weeks beginning January 12, 6-8 p.m. $75. Cake Decorating I (Wilton), four Thursdays beginning January 20, 6:30-8:30 p.m. $75. Quilting for Beginners, five Thursdays beginning January 13, 6:30-8:30 p.m., $65. Rustic Furniture-Adult Chair, two Tuesdays, January 11 and 18, 6-8 p.m. $85. Rustic Furniture-Love Seat, two Tuesdays, February 1 and 8, 6-8 p.m. $115. Info, 4827194, or find full descriptions for all 66 Winter Access classes at www.cvuhs.org and click on Access to CVU. 10 min. from Exit 12. STAINED GLASS COMPREHENSIVE WITH GRETCHEN BEGNOCHE: Wednesdays, 6-8:30 p.m. Ten weeks. Winter: January 12 - March 16. Spring: March 30 - June 1. Shelburne Craft School, Shelburne Village. Members $216, non members $240. Materials $25. Info, 985-3648. Create a beautiful stained glass window panel or lampshade for your home. Comprehensive stained glass class for beginners and intermediate students seeking additional instruction. Materials are supplied for demonstrations and practice, students will purchase materials for their projects.
THE FIREHOUSE CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS: Coming in February, Beginning Knitting with Esther Maynard, February 1-22. Wax Ring Carving with Lisa Whalen, February 17 - March 17. Paper Arts with Barbara Hammell, February 19 - March 12. Info, 8657166 or visit www.BurlingtonCity Arts.com.
dance AFRO-CARIBBEAN DANCE: TRADITIONAL DANCES FROM CUBA AND HAITI: Weekly classes: Thursdays, 10:30 a.m. - noon, Capitol City Grange, Montpelier. Fridays, 5:30-7 p.m., Memorial Auditorium Loft, Burlington. Info, 9853665. Dance to the rhythms of Cuban and Haitian music. Dance class led by Carla Kevorkian. Live drumming led by Stuart Paton. Monthly master classes with visiting instructors. Beginners welcome! AMERICAN TRIBAL BELLYDANCE: New classes start in January in Burlington. Info, 863-3005 or gwinnad@ yahoo.com. Get strong, feel beautiful! Learn to shimmy, undulate and play the zils (finger cymbals). Great for all ages body types, ethnicities and genders (yes, men too). BURLINGTON’S BEST BALLROOM: Burlington’s Best Ballroom will be premiering their 2005 Ballroom Dance season with an open house, Thursday, January 6. Three classes will be offered: Classic Waltz 6:30 p.m., Tango 7:30 p.m. and Cuban Salsa 8:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:15 for the new guest social and registration for classes. The Champlain Club, 20 Crowley St., Burlington. Info, contact David Larson, 864-7953. No partner necessary, all are welcome. Office casual attire requested. CUBAN-STYLE SALSA RETURNS TO BURLINGTON: Salsa Sensations and professional dance director David Larson premiere their 2005 Salsa dance season with an Open House Party, January 6. Beginners class starting January 6, 8:30 p.m. Champlain Club, 20 Crowley St., Burlington. Info, contact David Larson, 864-7953. Salsa dancers of this style always look the best and have the most fun with authentic Cuban Rueda! Catch the excitement that’s caught the nation and see why this is so much fun! DANCE CLASSES AT CVU HIGH SCHOOL, HINESBURG: Swing Dance for Beginners with Kym Reid Taylor, five Tuesdays beginning January 11, 7:45-8:45 p.m., $50. Ballroom for Beginners with Kym Reid Taylor, five Thursdays beginning January 13, 7:45-8:45 p.m., $50. Info, 482-7194 or find full descriptions for all 66 Access classes at www.cvuhs.org and click on Access to CVU. 10 minutes from Exit 12. FLYNNARTS DANCE CLASSES: Info, 652-4548, email regis trar@flynncenter.org, or visit www.flynncenter.org. Spring semester begins January 17 and features dance classes for all ages and skill levels, including modern dance, ballet, jazz, hip-hop, lunchtime classes, dance master classes with visiting Flynn performers, and more.