Cricket Blue’s Io: An Exploration of Music, Myth and Agency
April 21, 2016
Filed under Features
“Myths and old stories feel unresolved. You want to explain them,” Taylor Smith told me as we sat down to discuss Burlington folk duo Cricket Blue’s new EP “Io.” Their new EP opens as Smith and the duo’s other half Laura Heaberlin softly croon: “When the woods were full of wolves, t...
48 Hours across the Border
April 11, 2016
Filed under Features
It’s a strange feeling to hop in your car for a short ride and suddenly be in another country. It’s a little like slipping through some Fairyland portal to an alternate dimension where everyone speaks French, the money is multicolored, and teenagers can go to bars. Only Fairyland is just Canada -...
An Education: Lessons Learned from Converse Hall
March 31, 2016
Filed under Features
Incoming college students can arm themselves with myriad study guides, syllabi, and workshops that promise to deliver academic success. What they don’t prepare you for is the various oddities of day-to-day dorm life. My education has been delivered to me courtesy of UVM’s oldest (and spookiest) do...
Kendrick and Kanye: Artistry versus Ego
March 17, 2016
Filed under Features
Kendrick Lamar just released a new record, “untitled unmastered,” and it is a great listen. The quality of the music onboard the LP is astonishingly layered: every instrumental lavish and fleshed out and every lyric codified to mean three things at the same time. Even though it was drafted from B-si...
Graveyard Shift: A Night at WRUV
March 15, 2016
Filed under Features
Because of the WRUV graveyard shifts, the Davis Center is the UVM facility that never sleeps. The graveyards, late night shifts reserved for new and training DJ’s, are a mixture of scary and fun, said first-year Ashley Claude. Though being in the Davis Center late at night can be a bit daun...
Sanders’ Tie-Dyed Primary
February 16, 2016
Filed under Features
The first thing I notice as I cross the parking lot are the men in suits. It’s thirty degrees—a clear day in Rindge, New Hampshire—but the men in suits don’t seem to notice. They have ear pieces that crawl out of their stiff collars like skin tone worms and one of them is wearing a bl...
Meandering Stowe’s Main Street & Beyond
February 8, 2016
Filed under Features
Sometimes, you just need to take the day and get out of town. After a long week of running from Colchester to College Street, walking down a different Vermont Main comes as a much-needed change of pace. On a relatively balmy, brilliantly beautiful January afternoon my friend Eva and I hea...
Cricket Blue Haunts with Ethereal Folk
February 6, 2016
Filed under Features
Cricket Blue makes exactly the kind of music you would expect when you hear their name. The folk duo is comprised of Middlebury College alumni Laura Heaberlin and Taylor Smith, who play what they have deemed “botanical, spooky, umbilically-resonant folk.” With soft vocal harmonies and ca...
Extra Spice in the Old North End
November 8, 2015
Filed under Features, Food, Reviews
“I’ll do medium spice, just to be safe,” said the server at Central Market Taste of Asia on North Winooski Avenue in Burlington’s North End. I tried again. “No, I really do want it hot. I liked the curry you made me last time.” “Are you sure?” she asked. “It has chilies i...
Comedy Finds a Home in Burlington
November 7, 2015
Filed under Features
Nathan Hartswick eagerly joined me at my table at Muddy Waters one Thursday afternoon, after weeks of trying to meet. We were finally able to sit down and discuss the opening of his new Burlington establishment, the Vermont Comedy Club. I looked forward to hearing about the new place and all the c...
DIY Humanitarianism Hits UVM
November 5, 2015
Filed under Features
No matter what day of the week, walk through the Davis Center atrium or past the library steps and you’re likely to be asked for a moment of your time by a group of activists. In an atmosphere where everybody cares, it’s tricky finding the right fit for your world saving ambitions. One UVMer, thoug...
Indie Films Showcase Labor and Love at Vermont Filmmaker’s Showcase
November 5, 2015
Filed under Features
“Indie filmmaking has never had it so good,” John Summa told me. We were sitting in his Old Mill office, surrounded by stacks of towering books. Summa, an Economics professor at UVM, wrote one of the films featured at the Vermont International Film Festival’s Vermont Filmmaker’s Showcase. His...
