Culture story sections
This week we find ourselves studying the comedy stylings of our New Hampshire neighbor, Sarah Silverman.
In 2005 she released a film of her one-woman show, Jesus is Magic. In it, Sarah boasts to her friends that she, like them, has something cool going on in her life. A big show. It’s a lie, so she has to go put on a major production just to hide the fib, And then her stand-up begins.
Mole Hill Theatre presents contemporary bluegrass and folk music trio The Stockwell Brothers on Friday, April 24 at 7:30 pm.
Bruce, Barry and Alan Stockwell’s music spans traditional and progressive styles, but their trademark acoustic
sound features new singer/songwriter material recast with banjo, alternative rhythms and three-part harmonies. They cover straight ahead bluegrass songs, finger picked acoustic guitar ballads, full tilt breakdowns and traditional mandolin tunes mixed in with more unusual fare – Americana melodies riding world beat grooves and Celtic, jazzy, even neo-classical instrumentals.
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an evening of acoustic/electric indie-instrumental and folk-pop music by Brooklyn, NY-based guitar duo Threefifty, plus Vermont-based singer/songwriters Paul Siegel and Lizzy Mandell at Next Stage on Saturday, April 25 at 7:30 pm.
Formed at the Yale School of Music, and molded by the multi-faceted music scene of New York City, Threefifty incorporates elements of post-rock, folk, minimalism and Baroque classicism. Guitarists Brett Parnell and Geremy Schulick compose predominantly instrumental songs, which range from the epic to the intricate to the austerely beautiful. They have toured throughout the US as well as in the UK, Austria and Bosnia, released three albums and performed at TED Talks, BAM’s most recent Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Festival and NPR’s Soundcheck. “Outstanding guitar work… intelligent, deep and subtle” – Guitar Player Magazine
I am proposing a multi-disciplinary arts and cultural festival to take place annually in and around Brattleboro during the ‘fall foliage’ season. In practical terms this will mean from the beginning of September through the week following Columbus Day.
Here are some thoughts about the Festival which I have recently put into writing. Please note that one of the functions of the festival is to focus extraordinary funding for the arts into that season or window of time. [Photograph by William Hays]
I am seeking individuals who may be interested in serving on the founding Board of Fantastic Wantastiquet. This will be a non-profit organization, will seek funding through grants and charitable donations, and will distribute grants whose arts & cultural work projects contribute to the local economy and to the themes and purposes of the Festival.
I know that many of you like word puzzles. Here is one found in an 1837 copy of The Phoenix newspaper. Can you solve it? (The answer was not published with the puzzle. I may find it in coming weeks. I may not.)
“Enigma
I am a word of twenty two letters.
BCTV Ch.8 schedule for the week of 4/20/15
Monday, April 20, 2015
12:00 am NSA The Law And Snowden
1:40 am UVM Power from the North Conf: The Past – How We Got Here
5:15 am TED Talks: Andy Yen: Think your email’s private? Think again
5:30 am BOOKSTOCK 2014: US Laureate Charles Simic
Its time for another experience that you won’t soon forget..this time its..Attorney Alan Phillips of Asheville, NC is a nationally recognized legal expert on vaccine exemption and waiver law. He advises clients and attorneys throughout the country concerning vaccines required for birth; daycare and school enrollment; employment; military members, families and civilian contractors; immigrants, including foreign adopted children; children of separated and divorced parents in “vaccine custody disputes”; and various other contexts.
From 1995 in San Francisco, we have the droll, hipster comedy stylings of a young Janeane Garofalo.
She started out doing stand-up, and quickly moved on to TV and film roles. One of my favorite appearances was her guest spot on Viva Variety, in which she started to do stand-up but the hosts found it too depressing. They gave her a bad makeover and had her re-tell her jokes, but in a positive way. They suggested “Instead of ‘I hate Jenny McCarthy,’ how about you try “I LOVE Jenny McCarthy!’
BRATTLEBORO UNION HIGH SCHOOL BOARD
53 Green Street
Brattleboro, VT 05301
www.wssu.k12.vt.us
NOTICE OF COMMITTEE MEETING
The BUHS #6 Planning and Policy Committee will meet at 6:30 pm. on Monday, April 20, 2015 in the WRCC Cusick Conference Room.
Brattleboro homeowners, business owners, landlords, and renters who are interested in going solar will now have even more incentive. Local nonprofits, solar companies, and a credit union are teaming up to launch Brattleboro Solar Summer, a program to assist residents in choosing locally generated solar power.
The campaign will run from May 1 – September 30, 2015, with the goal of increasing the overall number of solar electric installations and the total solar capacity in Brattleboro. The campaign aims to have at least 100 Brattleboro residents and businesses install solar arrays or purchase solar capacity from community solar arrays.
This was quite a story, on April 16, 1886. It had it all — an explosion, death, and destruction. The Phoenix devoted a full column to it, and even provided a small illustration showing the path of the flying boiler. I’ll get you started with the introduction to the story, and then provide a link if you’d like to read the full account.
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“Last Tuesday afternoon at about 20 minutes past three the boiler at J. A. Church’s general wood-work factory and grist mill on Frost street burst with a terrific explosion, the result of which was the entire destruction of the one-story engine-house attached to the main shop, the partial wrecking of the rear portion of the main building, serious injury to R.D. Brown’s barn, the killing of a valuable horse, and the shaking up of things generally in that vicinity.
With Brattleboro artist William Hays ending 25 years’ presence in the downtown on Main Street, several of us have gotten together to try to honor his contributions to our community’s cultural life. Accordingly, we are seeking places to display portraits by Hays which are part of his Brattleboro community portrait series.
We’ll anchor these Hays retrospective displays with a front-window feature of two of his best-known portraits, those of ‘Nina’ (NIna Singleton-Spencer, now the bass player for The Snaz), and of Wayne London, the iconoclastic psychiatrist / metaphysician who is founder of the Brattleboro M.A.S.H. Unit (Metaphysical and Spiritual Healing).
Set on Saturday, April 18, in an elegant Hillwinds home in Brattleboro, Friends of Music at Guilford’s celebration of Women in Music is its signature annual fundraiser. Patrons will enjoy a generous buffet of hearty hors d’oeuvresand salads between 6 and 7 p.m. This year’s concert then features vocalist Jessica Gelter and pianist Ken Olsson in a centennial tribute to legendary chanteuse Edith Piaf (1915-1963). An array of desserts prepared by area restaurant and bakery chefs follows.
Edith Piaf, who was “discovered” as a street singer while still in her teens, took the Paris cabaret scene by storm and became regarded as France’s national diva. She was also one of its greatest international stars and mentored many other aspiring performers. Piaf’s music was often autobiographical: her singing reflected her life, a contemplation of femininity, love, and home, sprinkled liberally with loss and sorrow. The program will cover a mix of Piaf’s iconic hits and less-familiar songs, among them La Vie en Rose, Rien de Rien, La Belle Histoire d’Amour, Mon Dieu, and more.
The author (John Burke) of the following quote, from an essay entitled Technology and Values, was educated at Boston Latin, MIT and Stanford and was, in order, a metallurgist, B-17 bomber pilot and prisoner of war, executive for Cummins Diesel, establisher and owner of an engineering firm, grad student and recipient of a doctorate at Stanford and assistant professor of the history of science and the history of technology at UCLA.
The essay was included in a volume called The Great Ideas Today – 1969 published in 1969 by Britannica Great Books.
Today, in 1893, the Estey Organ company was putting the finishing touches on their organs to be shipped to the World’s Fair in Chicago. The Phoenix reported on it thusly:
….
FOR THE WORLD’S FAIR
The Estey Organ Company’s Exhibit
A Description of the Beautiful Instruments Comprising their Display
Today the finishing touches are being put to the large and beautiful exhibit of instruments which the Estey Organ company are to send to the World’s Fair at Chicago, and it is the present plan of the company to have the organs en route to their place in the great exhibition to-morrow. Many workmen are very busy upon them, and our glance at the instruments was necessarily hasty and imperfect, but a short chapter of notes will be of general interest.
On April 18th, 2015, the Vermont Jazz Center welcomes the Holopohonor Sextet, a group of young musicians representing the future of jazz. The pianist of the ensemble, Miro Sprague is well-known in this area. Born and raised in Western Massachusetts, he has earned the deep respect and admiration of the entire jazz community. Since leaving the Pioneer Valley, he has lived in New York and Los Angeles where his talent, ability and humility have contributed to his rising star status. The great pianist and educator, Armen Donelian says “Miro Sprague is among the most talented young composer/pianists of his generation.” Other members of Holophonor include Josh Joshnson on alto saxophone, Eric Miller, trombone; Diego Urbano, vibraphone; Dave Robaire, bass and Jonathan Pinson on drums.
BCTV Ch. 8 Schedule for the week of 4/13/15
Monday, April 13, 2015
12:00 am NSA The Law And Snowden
1:35 am Brattleboro Food Co-op Shareholders Forum 3/15/15
4:15 am The Benefits of Acupuncture at Morningside Shelter
4:30 am An Untrodden Route to India
6:00 am Abydos Egypt – Uncovering Egypt’s Ancient Past
Not much needs to be said about this musical comedy duo. They hit it big during the 60’s, first poking fun at the coffeehouse folk music scene with their interrupted musical numbers and brotherly disagreements, then as counter-culture leaders challenging the boundaries of television.
We’ll celebrate by showing a couple fo their best known routines, and an episode of the 60’s comedy show.
The Guilford Community Church, UCC will hold its annual Book Sale on Saturday, April 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Excellent current and collectible books will be offered, including a selection of children’s and young adult books. “Vermont.calm” T-shirts will also be available for purchase.
The sale helps support the many local and global missions of the church. From Route 5, just beyond the Guilford Country Store, turn left onto Bee Barn Road then right to 38 Church Drive.
For further information contact Pat Haine (802) 257-0626.
April 2015, Brattleboro, Vermont — Thursday, April 30 an opening reception for an exhibit of acclaimed photographer, Amy Arbus, will be held from from 5 – 8pm at Mitchell • GIddings FIne Arts at 183 Main Street, Brattleboro.
The exhibit, After Images, will run from April 30 to May 24 and is a series Arbus made in 2011 and 2012 to payhomage to her favorite painters such as Balthus, Cezanne, David, Ingres, Modigliani and Picasso. The images will seem familiar to most viewers. They are photographs of live scenes staged to replicate the powerful effects of original paintings from the early 20th century, Arbus’s team painted costumes, props, and the models themselves. What has materialized is a series of hybrid images that challenges the thin line between painting and art photography.
