AfterFab, America's only tribute to the solo careers of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, will perform at the Hooker-Dunham Theater, 139 Main St., on Saturday, March 21, at 7:30 p.m.
AfterFab is a declaration that The Beatles' magic didn't stop with their last album, Abbey Road, in 1970.
The Fab Four's solo careers continued to produce stellar music, and AfterFab's high-energy, high-fidelity renderings put all four solo Beatles together into one show.
As solo artists, The Beatles scored 70 hit singles and 325 million record sales. AfterFab's six members bring to the stage so many classics, from “Band on the Run” and “Imagine” to “It Don't Come Easy” and “What Is Life,” plus many other iconic tracks.
Reuben reads through an iPad voice. The other drop-in centers were too loud and too far away. The noise drove Reuben crazy and his mom, Julie Tamler, told him that he couldn't go all that way just to use his iPad. So they stopped going. But Reuben was bored...
At its Feb. 19 annual meeting, the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce listed growing a scholarship fund for area high school seniors as one of its goals for 2015. Launched in 2008, The Jerry Goldberg Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce Skills for Success Scholarship awards $500 to five area...
Marlboro College recently announced the completion of funding for the Luis C. Batlle Chair in Music, the first fully endowed chair at the college. The chair serves as a tribute to longtime music faculty member and Marlboro Music School and Festival mentor Luis Batlle, who retired in 2010. “We are thrilled to have the Luis Batlle Chair fully funded, with the generous help of many dear friends and supporters,” said president Ellen McCulloch-Lovell. “Luis is an exemplary teacher and musician,
Dr. Richard Orlan, 56, of Westminster, was recently recognized by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for his work delivering health care to veterans in southern Vermont. Orlan serves as the medical director at the Veterans Affairs' community based outpatient clinic (CBOC) in Brattleboro, which opened in 2011. Since his start there in 2012, the number of patients at the clinic has more than doubled, increasing from 350 to 800 veterans. “Dr. Orlan is both respected and very well-liked by the...
I had just filed a book review about a woman who risked her life in 2013 trying to help people in the Congo suffering under the rule of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) when I happened to see a journalist on CNN talking about Kayla Mueller, the young woman killed by ISIS in Syria. The juxtaposition of what I'd written and what the journalist said about having met Mueller just before she entered Syria was striking. It...
RFPL starts new social gaming group for adults BELLOWS FALLS - The Rockingham Free Public Library is starting up a new social gaming group for adults, the Rockingham Library RPG League, which will meet on Wednesdays, 5:30 to 9 p.m., through April 22. This free gaming program is open to adult gamers of all levels – whether you haven't played for years, are currently gaming, or just want to try something new. RPG stands for Role-Playing Game and is best...
Putney Cares and Landmark College will co-present a special four-class series of workshops hosted by the Putney Public Library to help Putney area seniors navigate the myriad of electronic devices, social media and the internet. “Tablets, Computers & Smart Phones, Oh My!” will be held on four consecutive Thursday mornings, beginning on March 26, at the Putney Library at 55 Main St., and will provide both small group and one-on-one instruction to help seniors with computers or with an electronic...
Elliott Greenblott of Brattleboro recently participated in the graduation ceremony for the AARP's Volunteer Leadership Institute (VLI) in Washington, D.C. He was joined by 32 other exceptional volunteers from across the country. Richard Harwood, founder and president of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, was a guest speaker. VLI, launched by AARP in December 2012, trains people in volunteer leadership. This third VLI class was designed and scheduled to appeal to the “new breed” of volunteer - tech savvy leaders...
Brattleboro Senior Meals joins with the Meals on Wheels Association of America to celebrate “March for Meals.” The month of March mobilizes hundreds of local Meals on Wheels programs across the country to reach out to their communities and build support that will sustain them all year long. In conjunction with this, Brattleboro Senior Meals will be hosting a fundraiser “Lunch at the Latchis” with the Windham Orchestra on March 26. The orchestra will be performing “Russian Easter Festival Overture”
Timson Hill Preschool, 13 Timson Hill, will host an Open House on Saturday, March 14, from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Join them for snacks and fun games and art activities. Parents and teachers will be on hand to speak with prospective families about what they feel makes Timson Hill a distinctive preschool experience. There will be a special performance by “Kasper and the Cow” performed by Jana Zeller from 10:30 to 11 a.m. Enjoy a funny adventure with Kasper, beloved...
The Marlboro Board Leadership Institute has begun a workshop series for members of nonprofit boards. On Thursday, March 12, at 5:30 p.m., at the Marlboro College Graduate Center on Vernon Street, Ellen Koenig, a senior consultant with Full Circle Consulting, will lead a session on nonprofit board roles and responsibilities. Are you thinking about joining a board but wonder what being a board member involves? After a quick history of why we have nonprofits in the United States, participants will...
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), Feb. 20, 2015, a daughter, Ava Marie Hoyt, to Nicole Marie Smith and Jonathan Gerald Hoyt of West Brattleboro; granddaughter to Joan Houghton and Rod Houghton of Barre, Gerald Hoyt of Bennington, and Debra Hoyt Lyon of Hoosick Falls, N.Y. • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), Jan. 30, 2015, a daughter, Parker Hailie DeAngelis, to Dana (Gotfredson) and James DeAngelis of Spofford, N.H.; granddaughter to Mike and Tracy Bucossi of Brattleboro, Jim and Mary Gotfredson...
Income inequality is a widely discussed issue these days. President Obama talks about it. Paul Krugman writes about it. Even Mitch McConnell and John Boehner think it's bad. There is a lot of talk but not a lot of action. Imagine if we, in Vermont, could tackle income inequality at one of its roots. A major cause of income inequality is inequality of opportunity. Unequal opportunity starts very early in a person's life, before a child enters school. Besides the...
The Brattleboro Police Department is reporting progress in an ongoing investigation into a string of burglaries and expects to make arrests soon. According to Brattleboro Police Capt. Mark Mark Carignan, patrol officers continue to take reports and conduct initial investigations into burglaries, and detectives are conducting investigations. Some of these cases involve cooperation with New Hampshire law enforcement agencies and Vermont State Police, he said. Carignan said in a news release last week that several suspects have been identified, but...
The Windham Regional Career Center at Brattleboro Union High School will offer 18 Community Education and Training programs for this spring. Betsy Gentile, workforce development manager and adult education coordinator, said these programs are designed to meet the needs of area employers and their employees, as well as to provide personal and professional enrichment opportunities for all community members. Courses offered this spring include American Red Cross Nursing Assistant Training Program; Certified Fiber Optic Technician; Small Engine Maintenance & Repair;
More than 80,000 people still cannot return home to their towns in Fukushima, Japan, four years after the beginning of the disasters at the Dai'ichi nuclear reactors there. On Saturday, March 14, the Safe and Green Campaign will host three opportunities for area residents to honor the evacuees of Fukushima. At noon, a six-mile walk will start at Vermont Yankee in Vernon to Pliny Park in Brattleboro. At 2:30 p.m., a vigil will be held at the park to honor...
Funding is now available for Brattleboro-area projects and organizations through the Crosby-Gannett Fund and the Dunham-Mason Fund at the Vermont Community Foundation. The Crosby Foundation was founded in 1951 by Charles R. Crosby, a native of Brattleboro, to help serve community needs in the broader Brattleboro area. The name Gannett was added to the fund in 2012 by the Advisory Committee to honor Senator Robert T. Gannett, who guided the Crosby Foundation as secretary-treasurer for more than 50 years. The...
On Saturday, March 14, at 8 p.m., the Vermont Jazz Center welcomes to its stage a piano trio that focuses on the Great American Songbook. The Bill Charlap Trio, with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington (no relation), represents the epitome of this particular style: elegant, lush, and swinging. This trio interprets the lesser-known but equally beautiful songs that were written for musical theater and film. Charlap and his trio pay homage to the great songs that were written...
The Brattleboro Town Charter amendments that were clumped as one item on the ballot were too varied. I agreed with some changes and disagreed with others. For instance, time off for voting does not seem necessary because voters may receive and submit their ballots before voting day, in person or by mail. But changing the timing of voting to coincide with general elections makes sense to me. In the end, I had to vote no. I needed an opportunity to...
Guiding Good Choices is a free, interactive, five-session course for parents and caregivers of children in grades 4-9. The series provides the tools and strategies to meet the challenges of guiding your child through adolescence. The course covers setting clear guidelines with both positive and negative consequences, controlling and expressing anger constructively, promoting family bonds, and preparing kids with “refusal” skills for the time down the road when trouble may tempt them. Guiding Good Choices courses will be offered in...
Registration is now open for the fifth annual Tour de Heifer, which, organizers say, includes Vermont's most challenging dirt road cycling rides. The Tour is organized as a fund-raiser for Strolling of the Heifers, and takes place on Sunday of Strolling of the Heifers Weekend, June 7. All of the routes begin and end at Lilac Ridge Farm in West Brattleboro. For 2015, organizers have simplified the number of ride options by eliminating the “easy” 30-mile choice, as well as...
On Saturday, March 14, at 7 p.m., the dynamic team of Finn Campman and Paul Dedell present Three in the Wilderness, a modern mystery play, at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, at the corner of Bradley Avenue and Putney Road. Featuring vocals by the inimitable Zara Bode, the evocative and sophisticated puppets of Campman, and narrated by local legend Tony Barrand, this show explores the complexities of Christ's Temptation in the Wilderness. The show will be presented one time only at...
St. Patrick's Fiddle Frenzy, the annual concert presented by Stone Church Arts in celebration of Celtic music and the Patron Saint of Ireland, has been thawing winter-weary hearts for many years. This year, it features world-class musicians from Brattleboro and Boston - fiddler and singer Lissa Schneckenburger; fiddler and singer Laura Cortese,;guitarist Bethany Waickman; and a multitude of fiddling friends. They will grace the stone church on the hill, 20 Church St., with their foot-stopping jigs and reels and songs...
We write in response to Entergy's Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR). We want the following points to be part of the public record. We do not support SAFSTOR. Costs will only go up and contamination will spread by waiting up to 60 years as is currently allowed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Our community is a special case that will not benefit from a cookie-cutter approach. Vermont Yankee is only the second merchant reactor to decommission. Moreover, the plant...
Democracy is a dynamic, messy, and sometimes contentious thing, but it certainly beats all the alternatives. Democratic activity can take the form of the spoken word, of song, and of the printed word. The discussion that is happening with the proposed bylaws of the Putney Food Co-op is, of course, local. But it also has larger implications. The debate and unease about the impact of CDS Consulting on the functioning of our local co-op is one that is happening around...
My Native American friends are always amused by the folks who claim superiority because “their people got here first.” Even those of European descent who can trace ancestry back to the 1700s are Johnny-come-latelies to the real Native Vermonters!
The mind of the reader - it's almost completely beyond the control of the writer. I would add a dire warning to all writers involved with schools and workshops to never forget the need to take that subjectivity into account when evaluating criticism of their work. Both the highest praise and the lowest insult may have more to do with the critic than with the writer. At a well-known workshop, I had my fiction read by two respected writers. They...
It is essential that the 1-percent local option sales tax be voted down at Annual Representative Town Meeting! We cannot bear the weight of more reasons not to shop in Brattleboro. If this is passed, it indicates to me that our businesses are not wanted and that Brattleboro wants a barren downtown full of empty spaces. It is completely unreasonable to even consider this tax!
The annual Town and Town School District meeting will be held on Saturday, March 21, at 8:30 a.m., at the Brattleboro Area Middle School Multipurpose Room. Information packets for Town Meeting Members are now available at the Town Clerk's office at the Municipal Center. In advance of Town Meeting, there will be a series of informational meetings for both Town Meeting Members and the general public. On Monday, March 16, at 7 p.m., at the Academy School gym, a town...
By a 43-40 Australian ballot vote, a proposed town plan was defeated at the March 3 Town Meeting. Athens is the only community in Windham County without a town plan, according to the Windham Regional Commission (WRC). Generally, a Town Plan is written by a town's Planning Commission, adopted by the Selectboard and, if a community chooses to do so, approved by a regional commission such as WRC. Towns aren't required to have town plans by the state, but the...
Now that Town Meeting voters approved expanding the Selectboard from three to five members, a Special Town Meeting has been scheduled to choose the two newcomers. However, Special Town Meeting is just the technical term for what will actually be an all-day election that will take place on Tuesday, April 21, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., at the Town Office on School Road. Voters will be asked to select two candidates for two-year terms on the Selectboard, although one...
Since Karin Mallory's father, Ted, was diagnosed with the aggressive Glioblastoma brain cancer in February 2014, her aim has been to spread awareness of the illness the same way cancer spreads through a body: divide and multiply. From her Walpole, N.H., home, Mallory began researching brain cancer and found that because of its rarity, as compared with other types of cancer, funding for research is limited. (The National Cancer Institute's estimates claim brain cancer diagnoses only make up 1.4 percent...
Vermont Lt. Gov. Phil Scott told a gathering of business and social-agency leaders gathered in the Vernon Elementary School cafeteria that the afternoon ahead would look like a “cross between speed dating and Shark Tank.” Scott visited the town for the Southern Vermont Economic Development Pitch Night, similar to many the lieutenant governor has held across the state. His goal: to gather on-the-ground ideas from movers and shakers on how the state can improve the economy. Sixteen local business owners...
This week, the town School Board will witness a recount of Annual Town Meeting's narrow school budget vote. Voters defeated the $4.4 million budget by only four votes, 245 to 241, on March 3. School Board chair and state Rep. Mike Hebert, R-Vernon, said that four votes is so close, “it's almost an automatic deal you're going to ask for a recount.” Hebert informed the board and members of the public at the Monday School Board meeting that the recount...
Spring is coming, but there still is a lot of skiing and riding left to do in Vermont. March is always the best month of the skiing and snowboarding season, especially after a snowy winter like this one. The sun is higher in the sky, and temperatures warm up to the point where you're not risking frostbite on the hill. And, if there's no rain and it doesn't warm up too fast, snow conditions are perfect. The ski slope at...
Marlboro Music, the unique Vermont summer community which The New Yorker described as “the classical world's most coveted retreat” will share the discoveries of its 80 resident artists on five concert weekends from July 18 through Aug. 16. Performances are on Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m., with two special Friday concerts on Aug. 7 and 14 at 8:30 p.m. Programs are selected by the musicians themselves, a week in advance, from the 75 works being explored...
One of the more contentious items on the Town Meeting warrant each year is the article that allocates town money for area social services agencies ranging from Morningside Shelter and the Brattleboro Area Drop-In Center, to the Women's Freedom Center and Brattleboro Area Hospice. At this year's Town Meeting on March 3, voters considered an $875 increase for fiscal year 2016, from $10,350 to $11,225. It passed narrowly, 66 to 39. While a relatively modest increase, this motion was made...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an evening of acoustic/electric Americana music from Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. by The Slambovian Circus of Dreams (a.k.a., The Grand Slambovians) on Saturday, March 14, at 7:30 pm at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill. The music of The Slambovian Circus of Dreams has been described as “hillbilly-Floyd,” “folk-pop,” “alt-country, roots-rock,” and “surreal Americana” - a clear indicator of its singularly indescribable uniqueness. The quartet taps a broad palette of styles ranging from dusty...
Joseph Cincotta, the principal architect of LineSync Architecture, admits that his grand ambition is to build a skyscraper and an airport. Cincotta is well aware that the prospects of a design firm in Wilmington, Vermont building either of them is pretty remote. But Joseph believes strong creativity starts with imagining goals that seem outside one's near reach. LineSync Architecture is an award-winning firm with various residential, commercial, and public projects in Vermont, New York and throughout the United States. It...
Children have an odd fascination with knowing how old adults are. It's in their DNA to think of life experience in terms of numbers. At my first daughter's first birthday party, I'm on film saying, “When your child is turning 60, you know you're old.” I was speaking about my grandmother and my uncle. It was his 60th birthday, and my grandmother was traveling to celebrate with him. At 27, sitting with my 1-year-old, I couldn't even grasp the idea...
March 11 marks the four-year anniversary of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan. That's when an earthquake and tsunami damaged the facilities' cooling systems to the extent that the hot radioactive fuel melted, burned, and exploded, causing massive radiation releases. Radiation damages human, animal, and plant tissue, causing mutation and disease. It lasts for a very long time. In our region, we have at least three good reasons to learn from Fukushima. I'm not talking about...