It's time again for the Putney Public Library's annual Peeps Diorama Contest.
The brightly colored marshmallow treats are on the shelves and ready to star in a diorama about a favorite book. Entry forms are available at the library or online at bit.ly/758-peeps. This program is free.
Dioramas must be brought to the Library between Monday, April 1, and Saturday, April 6, during normal library hours (Monday to Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.).
Here are the rules:...
Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main St., invites everyone to visit a large group exhibit of new and recent work, "Spring Group 2024," opening with an artist reception Saturday, March 30, from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition will continue through May 12 and features a diverse selection of paintings,
The Preservation Trust of Vermont (PTV) has announced a Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization grant of $75,000 to the Windham Meeting House for accessibility improvements and exterior painting. Constructed in 1802, the Windham Meeting House has been the focus of community life for over 220 years. Use has declined over...
Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, presents Cuban quintet Espirales Project on Friday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m. Newly emerging on the Cuban music scene in 2023, the Espirales Project brings together five graduates of Cuba's Instituto Superior de Arte performing across several genres - Cuban, jazz, world, and chamber music. Tania Haase, Olivia Rodríguez, Alejandro Aguiar, Jesús Estrada, and Rodrigo García have led or contributed nationally and internationally to projects across these styles, performing at Cuba's International Jazz Plaza...
Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, presents violinist and former member of Silkroad Ensemble Johnny Gandelsman, performing Part III of This Is America, a collection of works written in response to the turbulent and disconnected time of the early pandemic and the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The anthology of compositions will be performed at Next Stage as part of Gandelsman's year-long residency at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth on Wednesday, April 3, at 7 p.m.
Obituaries • Linda Carter Capen Avery, 70, of Brattleboro. Died peacefully on June 30, 2023 in Vernon at the home of her son, Todd. Linda was born in Catskill, New York on May 9, 1953, the daughter of Alice and Charles Porter. She was a graduate of Brattleboro Union High School, Class of 1971, and married Scott Capen in January 1975. They had two children, Amy and Todd. They divorced in 1997. Linda married Lee Avery Jr. in October 2007.
Carolann Solebello and Marc Douglas Berardo will co-headline a concert at Stage 33 Live, 33 Bridge St., on Sunday, April 7, at 7 p.m. Solebello is a performing songwriter from New York City, best known as a founding member of Americana trio Red Molly. She now tours as a solo troubadour and with modern folk foursome No Fuss and Feathers. "Her smooth, pitch-perfect voice, compelling lyrics, and warm yet accomplished acoustic guitar work nod to rural folk traditions while an...
Rec. Dept. hosts annual Egg Hunt BRATTLEBORO - The Brattleboro Recreation & Parks Department will present their annual free Egg Hunt on Saturday, March 30, at the lower softball field at Living Memorial Park. In case of mud or rain, the alternate location will be inside the Nelson Withington Skating Facility. Egg hunts will start promptly at 9:30 a.m. (for ages 4 and under) and 9:45 a.m. (for ages 5 and older). There will be six stuffed animal prizes for...
Health Care and Rehabilitation Services (HCRS), southeastern Vermont's nonprofit community mental-health agency, will host its fifth multidisciplinary art exhibition to be held at the 118 Elliot Gallery throughout the month of April. The opening reception is scheduled for Friday, April 5, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., featuring live musical performances and light refreshments to enhance the vibrant atmosphere. Showcasing the diverse talents of artists within the HCRS community, both seasoned professionals and emerging talents, both people receiving services and their...
The Brattleboro Music Center's Chamber Series presents "Castle of Our Skins: Love and Justice" on Saturday, March 30. This portrait concert, set for 7 p.m. at the BMC, features the music of Adolphus Hailstork, and includes such works as Deep River rhapsody for string quartet, "Who Is Sylvia?" Sanctum rhapsody for viola and piano, String Quartet No. 2, Variations on "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Summer. Life. Song." Hailstork has written numerous works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, various...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) invites the public to explore the idea of the human body as a spiritual, psychological, and biological vehicle during an online conversation with artist Samira Abbassy and BMAC Director of Exhibitions Sarah Freeman on Wednesday, April 3, at 7 p.m. Abbassy will discuss her work currently on view at the museum in the exhibit "Out of Body," which Freeman describes as "a connection between the physical and the intangible," and "a collection of...
Just Getting By, a new documentary film by Bess O'Brien focused on Vermonters struggling with food and housing insecurity will tour Vermont from March 22-April 12th. The movie will play the Latchis Theatre on Sunday, March 31, at 7 p.m. The film is described as "a sweeping and yet intimate look at the lives of Vermonters who are struggling with food and housing insecurity. Vermont has the second-highest rate of homeless people in the United States, right after California. One...
The Southern Vermont League (SVL) recently announced their all-star teams for basketball and Nordic skiing for the 2023-24 season, and several of our local athletes were honored. • Selected to the A Division girls' basketball first team was Brattleboro's Reese Croutworst. Teammates Kaitlyn Pattison and Abigail Henry received honorable mention. C Division girls' first team selections included Leland & Gray's Maggie Parker and Laura Kamel and Abby Nystrom of Bellows Falls. Receiving honorable mention were Nola Sciacca of Bellows Falls,
Some people call him St. Patrick. Former U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, along with his wife, Marcelle, are beloved by many in Vermont for many reasons. First, for their accessibility, and second, for their clear and obvious love of Vermont. Third, for being on the right side of most of the issues Vermonters care about. Fourth, for their wit, charm, warmth and grace. And fifth, for Sen. Leahy's record of ensuring that Vermont would get its slice of the federal-funding...
Raise your hand if you're ready to do the time warp again! Thanks to a collaboration between Kinetic Theory Theatre (KTT) and the Latchis Theater, you can soon bellow this iconic tune from Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) - en masse and in Brattleboro. Complete with shadow cast and all its quirky culture, RHPS will soon be a monthly feature on the area arts scene. RHPS mania first swept the country nearly 50 years ago, and it endures today. A...
By way of taking to task Tim Wessel for criticizing those of us who are righteously standing up against Israel's genocidal assault upon the people of Gaza, I offer the following. People need to remember that our opposition is part of a growing worldwide condemnation of Israel's behavior as an outlaw state, including the United Nation's International Court of Justice finding this past January that Israel was "plausibly" perpetuating genocide in Gaza, and thus ordering its government to "take measures...
Do you have Monday, April 8, circled in red on your calendar? Just in case you are someone who isn't excited about the upcoming total solar eclipse, I want to make sure you know why you should be. If you have seen lunar eclipses and partial solar eclipses, you might think April 8 will be similar. Consider this: the sun is so bright that even a 90% eclipse could go unnoticed if you weren't watching for it. That is not...
I am aghast that The Commons printed Joyce Marcel's article about Rep. Becca Balint's recent trip to Israel as a front-page news story. To give a few examples of how this reporting was heavily biased: • Balint was the only person quoted. • Balint and the House delegation traveled with a Zionist lobbyist group, J Street, which was never even mentioned. • Despite the subtitle of the article, Balint did not visit Gaza; the House delegation visited the "Gaza envelope,"
There is one significant issue that Tim Wessel did not address in his recent letter (where he wrote that "if you are on the streets demanding that Israel lay down arms and you are not asking the same of Hamas, you are siding with terrorists, and I question your moral compass"). This issue is also not generally addressed in other discussions about Palestine and Israel, so I'd like to do so here: I don't like fighting, and I wish people...
I just finished reading Tim Wessel's absurd Viewpoint, and I am aghast. He bemoans the lack of condemnation of Hamas at protests here in Brattleboro. Now, what can that be likened to? Back when slavery was still a thing here in the United States, occasionally there would be slave revolts. Sometimes these revolts would end in the death of a vicious slave owner. So when abolitionists protest slavery, I guess they also ought to condemn the enslaved for daring to...
Both the ignorance and arrogance of Tim Wessel's cold, completely one-sided, pro-Israeli op-ed are simply breathtaking. Here's one egregious example, particularly of the latter: "I don't believe the [pro-Palestinian] protestors fully understand the politics. I say that many haven't studied the history, and most have been taken in by an advanced, Hamas propaganda machine […]" You "say"? You also say that Hamas started the war. Is that some kind of joke? It's obvious you nothing of the real history of...
Representative Town Meeting members went through several hours of discussion regarding non-binding resolutions after members increased the fiscal year 2025 budget by $70,000 for climate change concerns and passed a total budget of $23,063,830 - a 4.3% increase over this year's - by a 65–41 vote. The budget is predicated on $17,701,970 being raised in property taxes. Members gathered at the Brattleboro Union High School gymnasium on March 23. A quorum, defined as 50% of all potential RTM members plus...
After about 80 minutes of discussion, 242, or 1.7%, of Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) voters agreed to a $65,846,891 budget for fiscal year 2025 at its annual meeting on March 19. The breakdown of voters in attendance at Brattleboro Union High School was: 120, or 1.3% of eligible voters, from Brattleboro; 35, or 2.2%, from Dummerston; 49, or 2.8%, from Guilford; and 38, or 1.9%, from Putney. Moderator Steven Brown quickly dispatched articles electing him as moderator, Frank Rucker...
I appreciate that Arlene Distler is supportive of the movement for Palestinian liberation and wants to see wider and more vibrant protests, but I think she's pointing her finger at the wrong culprit. We have had huge mobilizations in Washington, D.C. over the past few months for Palestine. There was one in early November with tens of thousands of people and one in January with 400,000 people. They have been incredible! Plus, there have been amazing actions across the country:
Matt Dricker submitted this letter, which is co-signed by Casey Parles, Jane Katz Field, John Field, Leo Moskowitz, Liz Harris, Lucy Johnston, Maya Faerstein-Weiss, Naomi Ullian, Rebecca Speisman, Steve Wangh, and Abby Mnookin. Tim Wessel asks readers to "think for a few moments about your Jewish friends. Ask them how they've been since Oct. 7." As some of Tim's Jewish neighbors in Windham County, allow us to answer this question: We are horrified, heartbroken, fiercely angry, and unwilling to stand...
A former Twin Valley student, who is Black, has settled a complaint with the district that alleges school officials didn't do enough to address racist bullying she faced at the district's middle and high schools, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Vermont, which is representing her. In a 2021 complaint to the Vermont Human Rights Commission, the ACLU wrote that the student, referred to as "C.B.," was a 10th grader at Twin Valley Middle High School and...
I am dismayed that The Commons chose to commission the biased, inaccurate reporting in Joyce Marcel's front-page article about Rep. Becca Balint's recent trip to Israel. A three-page, 2,500-plus-word article quoting at length from a single source is not a news story. Balint has a proven history in Brattleboro publications of communicating to the public coherently in her own words, and I would have preferred that she had been allowed to do so, however much I may disagree with her...
Hannah Sorila aims to align intention and impact in global education and education abroad. She strives to challenge the field of global education to become more ethical, decolonial, sustainable, and accessible. I want to acknowledge that many people (Tim Wessel included) are projecting their fears, skewed perspectives, and beliefs rooted in (white/colonial) dominance culture onto a movement whose ultimate goal is the collective liberation of all (oppressed) people. For those of us calling for a ceasefire, for a free Palestine,
Dear Tim Wessel: Your recent article about antiwar protests ["Few Signs of Support. Literally,"] begs for a response. Let me begin by simply saying: I share your anguish at the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza, and at the intense reactions this violence has evoked among so many heart-weary people here in Vermont. However, as a Jewish American whose parents lived in Jerusalem for 10 years - my father was a member of the Zionist Youth Movement in Hitler's Germany,
Melissa Swim completed 13 years as a breast cancer survivor on March 10. When I saw the video announcing that Catherine, princess of Wales, had cancer, I wasn't at all surprised. I had a feeling since I heard the words "abdominal surgery." What I have been surprised about in the last several weeks was the vicious speculation around her whereabouts. Has she died? Is that a body double? William is having an affair? Are they divorcing? Was she "Epsteined"? No,
Tim Wessel believes he's cleverly posed a gotcha-question when he asks, "Can it be 'genocide' when the population of Gaza has essentially tripled in the last 25 years?" Yes. Yes, it can. Would Wessel argue that the Holocaust wasn't a genocide if it was found that the Jewish population in Germany increased prior to the Holocaust? Of course he wouldn't. Population growth has nothing to do with the crimes against humanity inflicted on a people. The U.N. Convention on the...
Becky Chan sits casually with us, her friends, chatting about our youth in Brattleboro. Fellow graduates of Brattleboro Union High School class of 1976, we have traveled to Tarrytown, N.Y., to see Chan perform in "The Moth in Terrytown," a Moth Mainstage event. Chan, who now lives in Seattle, has invited us to see her live on stage tonight during her short return to the East Coast. She shows no signs of stage fright or nervousness, and before she takes...
Dan DeWalt, a frequent contributor to these pages and one of the founders of this newspaper, writes that if he didn't love his country, he "wouldn't spend so much time trying to get it to live up to its purported principles." Tim Wessel's Viewpoint chastising Vermonters who are advocating for a ceasefire in Palestine was grounded in half-truths and speculative musings. The most astonishing error was the statement that "this war" started on Oct. 7, 2023. The October attack is...