Posted By Margot Harrison on Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 4:16 PM

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Film Presence

At the Center for Advanced Health and Living, Ehle and Urbaniak seek a solution to their spokesmodel problem.

This week in movies you missed: Visit a dark near-future where a single mom is so desperate to provide for her daughter that she agrees to the ultimate devil's bargain.

This indie film from Jennifer Phang (Half-Life) is an arty variation on the plot of John Frankenheimer's Seconds — which already received a more pedestrian homage this summer in the form of the Ryan Reynolds flop Self/less. Is this one any better?

Tags: Movies you missed , Advantageous , Jennifer Phang , Jacqueline Kim , David Cronenberg , Ex Machina , movie , film , science fiction , Image , Video , Web Only

Posted By Ethan de Seife on Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 11:21 AM

Denisismagilov | Dreamstime.com

Oplerno, the online-only, college-level educational venture founded by South Burlington’s Rob Skiff, has been targeting bloat in higher education for two years. Oplerno is one of a small number of undertakings that aim to democratize higher education by restoring greater autonomy to faculty members, allowing for greater student choice, and reducing costs by elminating infrastructural metastasis — all while providing high-quality education. In May 2014, Oplerno received approval from the Vermont State Board of Education, so its courses can be taken for college credit.

With its upcoming second annual Woodblock seminar series, Oplerno is applying the same disruptive model to that bulwark of traditional university life, the academic conference. Woodblock is free for all participants and, since it takes place online, does not require any costly travel or lodging arrangements.

Moreover, though the conference will convene for a daylong session on Tuesday, August 4, it is not circumscribed by time. Its half-dozen multimedia sessions will live on in perpetuity online.

Tags: oplerno , education , higher education , woodblock , conference , rob skiff , Image , Web Only

Posted By Dan Bolles on Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 3:41 PM

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Courtesy of Josh Panda

Josh Panda

Josh Panda recently released a new video for "Stick a Fork in Me," a song from his forthcoming new album. The riff-heavy tune suggests a harder direction for the singer than heard on his previous roots-tinged soul turns. Still, there's plenty of Panda doing Panda things, which is to say, gorgeously full-toned vocal acrobatics.

As for the video itself, it's a timely narrative that concerns a young lesbian woman shamed into hiding her sexuality from her conservative father — which ultimately goes about as well as you'd think. It's a well-shot and -acted vignette, with far more emotional pull than your average local music vid. Check it out below. And stay tuned for details on that new record.   

Tags: Josh Panda , gay marriage , LGBT , Image , Video , Web Only

Posted By Ethan de Seife on Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 9:00 AM

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Mosfilm

A gorgeous earthly landscape in Solaris

On vacation recently, my wife and I both read Stanislaw Lem’s novel Solaris, which she grabbed in haste from the shelf as we headed out the door. It was a curious choice, as she doesn’t read much science fiction; neither do I, really, but I had read and enjoyed Lem’s absolutely fascinating Imaginary Magnitude, a collection of introductions to nonexistent books. I’m sure I’m not the first to call Imaginary Magnitude “Borgesian” (a high compliment indeed), so I was keen finally to get to Solaris.

Though both my wife and I were sort of lukewarm on the novel, I nevertheless declared that we’d be embarking on the Solaris Project, in which we would watch both film versions of the book: the 1972 version by Andrei Tarkovsky, and the 2002 remake by Steven Soderbergh. (I recently learned that the book was made into a Russian television movie in 1968, but I’m not sure that I’m enough of a completist to seek it out.) I’d seen them both before, but not for approximately 20 and 10 years, respectively. So I was looking forward to revisiting them, as I admire both directors, albeit for different reasons.

Tags: film , movie , what i'm watching , solaris , science fiction , andrei tarkovsky , stanislaw lem , cinematography , mise-en-scène , visual , Image , Web Only

Posted By Margot Harrison on Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 4:05 PM

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Dreamstime.com/ Brad Calkins

Many years ago, three Berkeley professors gave me an oral examination for a doctorate in comparative literature. When I mentioned that a certain text was "centered around" a theme, one of the profs — a well-known critical theory maven and quasi-performance artist — made a sour face. "It's centered on," she said. "I'm sorry, but people make that mistake so often. You can't center something around anything, because the center is in the center."

I've avoided the phrase "centered around" ever since — and, frankly, that may be the most useful instruction the professor ever gave me. I think of it every time I edit a story where the writer uses the equally baffling — and strangely popular — phrase "based around."

Tags: grammar , words , usage , based around , bryan henderson , Image , Web Only

Posted By Dan Bolles on Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 3:42 PM

Dan Bolles

Natalie Miller and Nathan Hartswick in front of the future VCC

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A horse, a priest and Donald Trump walk into a bar, look around and say, "Holy shit. It's a comedy club in Burlington!"

OK, so maybe my punchline needs a little work. But starting the third week of November I could brush up on my joke construction at the Vermont Comedy Club. No joke. Co-owners, comedy moguls and sickeningly cute married couple Natalie Miller and Nathan Hartswick — seen above in a photo taken by a guy named Dan Bowles, which is kinda freakin' me out — announced earlier this week that they have finally broken ground on their long-awaited comedy club.

The venue, which will take up residence in the old Armory building on Main Street in Burlington — formerly home Sh-Na-Na's and Hunt's and also occupied by the Hilton Garden Inn — will open in November with the 2015 Vermont's Funniest Comedian competition. Appropriate for the soon-to-be epicenter of local comedy. (Obviously, based on the previous joke, I will not be competing.)

In a press release announcing the groundbreaking, Miller and Hartswick and developer Erik Hoekstra said a bunch of stuff you'd expect to see in a glowing press release. ("We're totes pumped, you guys." "This will be great for the children." "I just wanna thank God and give 110%." "Feel the Bern." And so on.)

OK, I made up those quotes, because I hate reading press releases. But the point is this: After well more than a year of planning and speculation, VCC is going to open. For real. And that's great news. (Also cool news: The team behind hot BTV eatery Butch + Babe's is designing the VCC menu.)

Stay tuned for updates — and better jokes — as events warrant.

Tags: Natalie Miller , Nathan Hartswick , Vermont Comedy Club , Butch + Babe's , Image , Web Only

Posted By Ken Picard on Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 5:43 PM

File illustration by Paul Laud

Vermonters Flo Meiler and Barbara Jordan are two hard-core medal heads: As readers may recall from Seven Days' July 8, 2015, Cartoon Issue story, "Silver and Gold," Meiler, 81, of Shelburne, and Jordan, 79, of South Burlington, are longtime friends, training partners and competitors in the National Senior Games, aka "Senior Olympics." For nearly two decades, the pair of track-and-field stars have been breaking world and national records in their age category.

But in 2013, Jordan's athletic career was nearly derailed by a diagnosis of breast and lung cancer, which claimed part of her lung. As recently as two weeks ago, Jordan wasn't even sure if she'd be up for competing in this year's games, which were held in various cities in Minnesota from July 3 to 16.

“I almost didn’t go," Jordan says. "I said to my doctor, 'Are you sure I won’t drop dead on the track?' He said, ‘No, just go for it!’”

Tags: National Senior Games , Senior Olympics , Flo Meiler , Barbara Jordan , sports , Cartoon Issue , Image , Web Only

Posted By Ethan de Seife on Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 9:01 AM

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Psychopathic Records

Three Juggalos from the future watch Juggalos from the present day on the video screen of a time machine.What, that doesn't make sense to you?

Every year around this time, the far-flung organisms of a colorful and peculiarly American species converge on their ancestral spawning grounds in the Midwest. There they engage in ritualistic behavior unheard of anywhere else in the animal kingdom. These rituals include arrhythmic gyrations, decorative facial camouflage and the liberal consumption and dispersion of the brightly colored nectar on which the species subsists.

I’m referring, of course, to the annual Gathering of the Juggalos.

Tags: what i'm watching , insane clown posse , icp , juggalo , juggalos , gathering of the juggalos , infomerical , faygo , sexism , Image , Video , Web Only

Posted By Margot Harrison on Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 3:00 PM

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In this monthly Live Culture feature, I review the first 50 pages of a local book — and sometimes, if I feel like it, more.

Summer's my favorite time to stay up late reading scary books. So I checked out The Remedy, a horror novel set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom from Ludlow writer Asher Ellis (Full Fathom Five Digital, 259 pages. $3.99).

The author
Ellis holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine and teaches English at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire (here's his website). His publisher is the new digital imprint of Full Fathom Five, author James Frey's book packaging company, so the book is available only in e-formats.

The deal
The Remedy opens with two rednecks pounding beers at a desolate hunting camp. If you guessed a horrible fate will shortly befall them, horror is clearly your genre.

Tags: asher ellis , remedy , full fathom five digital , cabin in the woods , Image , Web Only

Posted By Ken Picard on Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 5:52 PM

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Wake Up to Dying Project

Executive director Nina Thompson's design of a traveling trailer exhibit that can be erected wherever WUTD events are held

It’s summer in Vermont, which means it’s the season for fairs and festivals around such popular interests as craft beer, classic cars, hot air balloons and … dying?

Yup, you read that right. This week, the Wake Up to Dying Project comes to Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library from Thursday through Sunday, July 16-19. Its goal is to help Vermonters broach that difficult, painful yet inevitable subject most of us prefer not to think about until it’s unwillingly thrust upon us.

These days, even national journalists seem increasingly averse to using the verb “died” in stories, opting instead for the more wishy-washy “passed away.” Nevertheless, the subjects of death and dying are generating considerable public interest and attention — and not just among the old or infirm who are nearest to it.

Tags: Wake Up to Dying Project , death , dying , Nina Thompson , hospice , Image , Web Only