Posted By Kymelya Sari on Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 3:03 PM

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Courtesy of Center for Cartoon Studies

The Center for Cartoon Studies has announced it will host the 9th International Comics and Medicine Conference August 16 to 18.

The annual gathering is organized by an international committee that includes the administrators of the Graphic Medicine website, along with physicians, artists, writers and scholars.

Tags: Center for Cartoon Studies , White River Junction , Comics and Medicine , Graphic Medicine , James Sturm , Image , Web Only

Posted By Kymelya Sari on Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 9:56 AM

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Kymelya Sari

Workshop attendees, left to right: Rivan Calderin, Alex Haag, Emma Haag, Rick Haag, Liz Mariani

The Burlington-based Young Writers Project held a special Soundcheck event last Friday to address gun violence, youth activism and school safety.

Twice postponed due to inclement weather, the event at the BCA Center consisted of a writing workshop led by slam poets and educators Rajnii Eddins and Denise Casey, as well as an open mic session.

Tags: Young Writers Project , Rajnii Eddins , Denise Casey , Alex Haag , Emma Haag , Isabel Blakenbaker , Ella Staats , Vermont Public Radio , Image , Web Only

Posted By Rachel Elizabeth Jones on Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:36 PM

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UVM Center for Digital Initiatives

Covers of Out in the Mountains

In February 1986, the first issue of Out in the Mountains: Vermont's Newspaper for Lesbians and Gay Men hit mailboxes, corner stores, coffee shops and other rural newsstands. The free monthly newspaper would continue to serve Vermont communities for more than 20 years, folding in 2007 due to financial difficulties. Now, thanks to the University of Vermont's Center for Digital Initiatives, the entire Out in the Mountains archive can be accessed online.

"Not too many papers like [this] have been digitized," said Prudence Doherty, public service librarian for UVM's special collections. "Certainly it has Vermont significance," she said, "but it [also] has much wider significance and will be used by people who are tracking the history of LGBTQ movements."

Tags: Pride Center , Out in the Mountains , print media , LGBTQ , Image , Web Only

Posted By Dan Bolles on Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 10:00 PM

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Susan Norton

Reuben Jackson, receiving a haircut from Amir Yasin

Amir Yasin has died. The Detroit barber passed away unexpectedly, but peacefully, in his sleep on March 2. He is survived by his son, Rashied Yasin of Portland, Ore., and his beloved girlfriend, Khadijah Rollins of Detroit. He was 79.

In recent years, Amir had become something of a cult figure in certain Vermont circles. Using his friend, longtime Vermont Public Radio jazz DJ Reuben Jackson, as a conduit, Amir — and Khadijah, increasingly — would post scattered thoughts and musings  via Jackson's Facebook page. Amir's often lyrical dispatches on everything from politics to race to music to the daily comings and goings at his HangTime Barber Shop in Motown inspired a devoted audience among Jackson's online friends and followers.

Tags: Reuben Jackson , Amir Yasin , Khadijah Rollins , Vermont Public Radio , Image , Web Only

Posted By Sadie Williams on Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 5:24 PM

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St. Johnsbury Athenaeum

"The Domes of the Yosemite" at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, after restoration

Last October, Albert Bierstadt's massive 1867 painting "The Domes of the Yosemite" left its permanent home at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum for restoration. It was carefully rolled around cardboard tubing and driven to Miami, Fla., where conservationists at the ArtCare Conservation Studio repaired the weakened canvas, removed a synthetic varnish applied in the 1950s, and performed some minor inpainting.

The 10-by-15-foot painting, commissioned by a Connecticut financier in 1867 and sold at auction to a member of the Fairbanks family shortly after, has resided at the Athenaeum since 1873. But before it returns home, it's making a pit stop at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Fla., about three hours north of the conservation studio.

This is the first time since its installation at the Athenaeum that Bierstadt's painting has been shown outside of St. Johnsbury.

Tags: St. Johnsbury Athenaeum , Albert Bierstadt , Domes of the Yosemite , restoration , art , Image , Web Only

Posted By Dan Bolles on Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 7:03 PM

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Luke Awtry Photography

Eastern Mountain Time

"Did you ever think you might've been better / if you'd just tried harder at just about anything?"

Those are lyrics to the chorus of Eastern Mountain Time's latest, sorta-surprise single, "On Backstreets," released in mid-February. Even for songwriter Sean Hood, who specializes in shambling songs that straddle the line between self-deprecation and self-loathing, that's one shambling, self-loathing question to pose.  It's an existential landmine.

(And no, Sean, I hadn't ever posed that question to myself … until just now. But I'll be up all night wrestling with why I quit karate in sixth grade. Thanks a fuckin' lot! )

Tags: Eastern Mountain Time , Sean Hood , Willoughby Morse , Image , Web Only

Posted By Kymelya Sari on Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 7:00 AM

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Courtesy of Kerubo

Kerubo and Michael Webster performing at Champlain College in 2016

Irene Webster is on a social mission. About three years ago, the singer-songwriter, who uses her middle name, Kerubo, professionally, went into a coma following a ruptured aneurysm.

"When I woke up, I was not able to speak. I wasn't able to walk," recalled the Winooski-based artist. Her road to recovery was difficult, she said. But it made her realize that she wanted to resume her singing career and write songs with social messages.

"It has to be meaningful singing," said Kerubo, 49. "It has [to have] messages that help people who have gone through life-or-death experiences, or [are] trapped in situations and they don't have a voice."

Tags: Irene Webster , Kerubo , Suzanna Owiyo , Achieng Abura , Michael Webster , Vermont International Festival , Burlington Discover Jazz Festival , Association of Africans Living in Vermont , Image , Web Only

Posted By Jordan Adams on Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 4:55 PM

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Courtesy of Kayhl Cooper

Paper Castles

Burlington slacker rockers Paper Castles just released their first new material since 2013's Vague Era. "First Blush," the debut single from the quartet's upcoming third album, Acceptionalism,;comes with an accompanying music video courtesy of Noise Ordinance's Kayhl Cooper.

Tags: Paper Castles , Paddy Reagan , Liz Stafford , Wren Kitz , Brennan Mangan , Acceptionalism , new music , Image , Web Only , Video

Posted By Kymelya Sari on Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 9:01 AM

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Kymelya Sari

Winners of 2018 Snow Snake Games, left to right: Nate Chenevert, Gavin MacNeille, Rhonda Besaw and Bryan Blanchett

Last Saturday, about two dozen people gathered in West Barnet to play the traditional Native American winter game of snow snake. The games also coincided with the official opening of the Nulhegan Abenaki Cultural Center.

"This is an ancient Native game," explained Donald Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan band of the Abenaki nation. "You slide a stick down the track. Whoever goes the farthest wins."

Tags: Native American , Abenaki , snow snake games , Nulhegan Abenaki Cultural Center , Image , Web Only , Video

Posted By Sadie Williams on Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 8:00 AM

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Vermont Complex Systems Center

Josh Bongard

The Generator Maker Space in Burlington's South End is launching a new speaker series that follows the previous Big Maker Series.

"Reckless Ideas" is the brainchild of Generator director Chris Thompson and Juniper Lovato, outreach director for the Vermont Complex Systems Center. That part of the University of Vermont's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences deals with trans-disciplinary ideas.

"I met Juniper a few months ago when she was just getting ready to move to Vermont with her husband, Laurent [Hébert-Dufresne]," Thompson writes in an email. "We were talking over coffee at Muddy Waters about all the incredible people doing intriguing, original work around Burlington who she had to meet. Within about half an hour, we had decided that we had to collaborate on a speaker series as an excuse to bring them together."

Tags: Generator , Chris Thompson , Vermont Complex Systems Center , Juniper Lovato , robots , Josh Bomgard , Image , Web Only