Culture story sections
Below you will find an advertisement from the Vermont Phoenix, April 1874, that informs of us the wonderful selection of lumber at the lumber yard.
“Lumber! Lumber! The undersigned is now replenishing his Lumber Yard with a fresh stock of Lumber for the spring trade consisting of shingles, lath, and finishing lumber of all descriptions,” it begins.
Over the years, I’ve often posed this question to many people, “If I could somehow give you an eternal afterlife, but with the caveat that you cannot take God with you, would you still take the afterlife?
Because the question is unprecedented, it at first takes the person by surprise. After all, most Western people still connect an afterlife with the God they were raised to believe in. It would not normally occur to them to have one without the other.
So, there is often hesitation, but not for long.
I am prudent enough to protect myself, and sensible enough not to be shamed out of it by scornful mockery.
At times, ignorant people and paid provocateurs make fun of tin hats. In fact tin hats are obsolete technology — no one talks about them any more — other than to smear those of us who have the good sense to protect ourselves from EMFs, and other electromagnetic dangers.
Pianist Renee Rosnes will perform at the Vermont Jazz Center on April 16th at 8:00 PM with her world-class quartet including vibraphonist Steve Nelson, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash. Cited as “one of the finest pianists in jazz,” Rosnes has recorded and toured with a veritable who’s who of jazz including legends Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, J.J. Johnson, James Moody, Buster Williams and Bobby Hutcherson.
Rosnes demonstrates brilliance in her approach to jazz standards and has dedicated albums to playing these classic songs (her recording A Time For Love is a good example), but it is her esteemed work as a composer whose focused ability to choose a complex concept and express it through music that further elevates her reputation. In a review of her most recent recording, Written in the Rocks, Downbeat magazine claims “Rosnes is a virtuoso jazz composer…advanced yet accessible, complex but never ostentatious, this is as good as writing can get in this setting.”
One of my creative mentors is Chuck Jones, one of the best directors to work with Bugs Bunny. I met him first through Saturday morning cartoons, then later as part of the animation program we were running at the children’s museum in DC.
Above my desk is a drawing of the coyote and road runner that he drew as part of a class at the museum. I can still remember him drawing it, explaining each line as he went along. It reminds me of him, and of the types of conversations he liked having. He was extremely well-read and drew from a lifetime of paying attention to little details.
It was 86 years ago this week that the writer HP Lovecraft was home in Providence, Rhode Island creating his story, “The Whisperer in Darkness”. Lovecraft was a self-described writer of “weird tales” which often blended fantasy, horror and science fiction. “The Whisperer in Darkness” is one of those weird tales set in a fictionalized Vermont in an area much like our own Brattleboro.
Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to present Color & Construct, an exhibit featuring the mixed media assemblages of Lauren Pollaro. The show opens with a receptionThursday, April 21, at 5pm and continues through May 29. An Artist Talk is scheduled for Saturday, May 14 at 5pm.
Lauren was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1962, and comes from a family of accomplished artists. Her father, Paul Pollaro, taught, served as Assistant Director of the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH, and has exhibited nationally over a hugely successful and lengthy career.
In the spring of 1909, the completion of a new hydro-electric dam in Vernon created at 28 mile long lake, from Vermont’s southern boarder with Massachusetts to Bellows Falls, as waters began to back up and subsume much of the river-adjacent countryside. On average, the water level rose 30 feet and eventually flooded more than 150 farms. Among the lands subsumed by permanent flood waters were a series of petroglyphs sites near the confluence of the West River and Connecticut River dating from a precolonial epoch, in the lands now known as Brattleboro, Vermont.
Guilford Free Library and Guilford Center Stage are collaborating on Stage & Stream, a new, weeklong theater and library camp this August 15-19. The session will be open to 5th-8th graders, and will be FREE to Guilford kids. Those from other towns may attend for a fee of $50 for the week.
The camp day will run Monday through Friday from 9:00 am – 3:30 pm at a pair of adjacent 1890’s venues in the village of Guilford Center.
TAKING STEPS BRATTTLEBORO is pleased to join in the nationwide celebration of the right of all adults to think about, talk about and make decisions about Advance Planning. Projects are underway in every state to help people truly consider their personal beliefs and wishes regarding health care options at times of serious accidents or illness.
In recognition of National Health Care Decision Day, TAKING STEPS BRATTTLEBORO is opening its volunteer facilitator training to the general community. Interested community members are encouraged to call to find out more about becoming a part of the Taking Steps Brattleboro team of volunteer Advance Care Planning Facilitators.
Open a space for every voice in the room. Practice leading by listening from the heart. Gain experience & confidence in group facilitation.
Join us for this experiential course in the art of council facilitation, led by two masters in the field, Paul LeVasseur and Kirstin Edelglass. Council is a dialogic process that stimulates compassionate understanding, deeper self-awareness, community building, collective decision-making, conflict transformation, and shared leadership. It is used worldwide in a variety of contexts including public schools, universities, prisons, social service agencies, faith-based communities, families, wilderness programs, non-profit organizations, and businesses.
VT Earth Works, Inc, the 501(c)(3) non-profit which manages WVEW-lp, Brattleboro’s Community Radio Station, invites all levels of its membership, as well as interested members of the public, to WVEW’s Bi-annual Meeting (and Potluck!), to be held on Wednesday April 13th, 2016, starting at 6pm.
There will be a vote to confirm an appointment to the Board, and a vote for new Board Members. Please be aware that in order to vote you must be a currently paid-up Full Member (now $75.00/year). The meeting will include a discussion of the station’s no-tolerance policy on profanity, and whether or not to allow adult language in adult hours as permitted by the FCC’s ‘safe harbor’ regulations. (That policy allows profanity – but not obscenity – between the hours of 10pm and 6am.)
BCTV channel 8 schedule for the week of 4/4/16
Monday, April 4, 2016
12:00 am Wind vs Water in the Grafton Woodlands
1:35 am Movement to Save Our Democracy 3/16/16
2:00 am SEON: Regional Roundtable – Zero Energy Now Program 2/23/16
3:05 am Quiet Rebel – The Lynn Martin Story
4:30 am The Cuban Bridge: Ep 52 – Rowan
At long last.
You are cordially invited to the new exhibition, Susan Brearey: Elemental Images, reception for the artist and book launch – Saturday April 2, 4-6pm, C.X. Silver Gallery, 814 Western Avenue, Brattleboro, VT (802) 257-7898. Exhibition open daily by appointment. cxsilvergallery.com/susan-brearey.
Wet into wet. Wet on dry. Dry on wet. Washes Here’s a 15 minute video to help spice up your watercolor abilities. If you follow along, you’ll end up with a series of abstract paintings that you can use to redecorate your home.
Grab some watercolors and some watercolor paper, some brushes of varying sizes, and some water. Then play along with the video.
This Week in Brattleboro History by Joe Rivers and BAMS, et. al., Friday, April 1, 2016, “The Trophies”
ACT 46 STUDY COMMITTEE
Representing the Brattleboro Town School District, Dummerston Town School District, Guilford Town School District, Putney Town School District, and the Vernon Town School District http://www.wssu.k12.vt.us
NOTICE OF MEETING
The Act 46 Study Committee will meet at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at the Guilford Central School.
AGENDA
I. CALL TO ORDER – 6:00 p.m. – Alice Laughlin, Committee Chair
II. REVIEW, PRIORITIZE AND ESTABLISH DESIRED OUTCOMES FOR MEETING BY CHAIRPERSON.
Marking a first for the organization, Brattleboro’s Strolling of the Heifers is planning to feature their newest acquisition in this year’s parade – 42 Asian elephants.
“We were watching the accelerated retirement of the Ringling elephants and realized they needed a new home quickly,” said a spokesperson for the Stroll.”Why not southern Vermont?”
It was not a secret government agency. But today’s meeting was top secret.
“HASP is quite sensitive,” the Colonel explained, “If the truth ever got out…”
“But Colonel,” interrupted Faraday, “Chemtrails are all over the internet. It’s a bit late for hush-hush!” It was true: almost from its inception, the High Altitude Spraying Program had been exposed.
