Posted By Sadie Williams on Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 4:33 PM

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Cardboard Teck Instantute

PinBox 3000

Ben T. Matchstick and Pete Talbot brought an unlikely — and much quieter — pinball machine to Tilt Classic Arcade and Ale House in South Burlington on Sunday evening. The PinBox 3000 Arcade Pinball System is made of cardboard.

The central Vermont-based founders and self-appointed "professors" of the Cardboard Teck Instantute (CTI) allowed customers to try out their latest creation as they celebrated a successful Kickstarter campaign. Matchstick and Talbot exceeded their $10,000 goal, and will use the funds to produce and deliver 300 of the DIY devices.

The 15-by-22-inch PinBox 3000 is a non-virtual-reality gaming device consisting of 12 sheets of recycled, laser-cut cardboard that can be assembled in about an hour, its makers explained. It comes with marbles, rubber bands (the elastic power behind the ball launcher), an idea book and instructions. For extra fun, two PinBox 3000s can be locked together, back to back, for what Matchstick and Talbot call "BattleMode!" Each set comes with two interchangeable play boards that present endless opportunities for customization.

Matchstick and Talbot arrived at Tilt slightly after 6 p.m. on Sunday. Moments after they set down two PinBox 3000 prototypes on the end of the bar, a family that had been heading out the door instead gravitated toward the cardboard fun machines. Emily Guynup, 11, of Plattsburgh, N.Y., couldn't keep her hands off the "Grottoblaster" (so named after the "interactive hip-hop-inspired puppet adventure" the professors produced last year). "I think this game is amazing," she said.

If she had her own, Emily said, "I would put in sheep and paint it gold all over."

Tags: pinball , pinbox 300 artcade pinball system , cardboard teck instantute , ben t. matchstick , peter talbot , tilt arcade and ale house , Image , Web Only

Posted By Ethan de Seife on Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 9:02 AM

Channel101.com

J.D. Ryznar (left), as Michael McDonald, and Hunter Stair, as Kenny Loggins, belting out some smooth tunes in "Yacht Rock"

It’s hard to believe that the online series “Yacht Rock” is now 10 years old. But Rolling Stone’s (deliriously overlong, yet still somehow incomplete) “oral history” of the show recently made me aware that somehow this internet thing has been around for a while. Huh.

In the decade that has passed since this hilarious series premiered on the still-vibrant Channel101.com, many of us have come to take for granted that much of our filmed and televised entertainment will be delivered to us internetically. For the moment, at least, the identity of the internet is that of a video-delivery system.

But when “Yacht Rock” premiered in 2005, that was not the case. It wasn’t much of a surprise last year when Amazon’s online series “Transparent” won so many Golden Globes; 10 years ago, by contrast, online series were definitely a fringe phenomenon. “Yacht Rock” was not the first such series (I’m not sure anyone knows what was), but it was certainly a trailblazer.

Tags: what i'm watching , yacht rock , michael mcdonald , doobie brothers , keeny loggins , smooth , music , smooth music , christopher cross , online video , channel101 , Image , Video , Web Only

Posted By Margot Harrison on Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 3:03 PM

Courtesy of the New England Review

Left to right: Michael Coffey, Penelope Cray and Rebecca Makkai, part of the NER Reading Series

July Readings

Concerned about the gentrification of Burlington's South End? You may find like minds at a reading this Saturday celebrating the release of Pine Street Poets, a collaboration of the Pine Street Poets' Workshop and Honeybee Press.

Honeybee publisher and part-time Vermonter Ben Aleshire sent us a press release for the event (Saturday, July 11, 8 p.m., at the Green Door Studio in Burlington; $5 includes book and refreshments) accompanied by a "brief anti-gentrification rant," which runs thus:

Events such as these may soon become a thing of the past. How long until Pine Street’s vibrant community of artists are pushed out to make room for high-end condos and craft cocktail bars for the upper-middle class to slake their un-ending thirst in Capitalism’s trough and luxuriate in their delusion of participating in the cultural cache [sic] of the very ‘Arts District’ they disemboweled? Although the poems in Pine Street Poets do not directly deal with this theme, as a product of the South End, they represent one of the many cultural contributions hanging beneath gentrification’s Sword of Damocles.

Tags: book , words , literature , Vermont , fiction , rebecca makkai , vcfa , award , green writers press , honeybee press , pine street poets , poetry , bigtown gallery , Image , Web Only

Posted By Ken Picard on Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 5:31 PM

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Ken Picard

Not something you see every day in South Burlington

Last week I felt more than a twinge of regret for not having made the trip out to Chicago for the final three shows of the Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” tour. The band was born in 1965, the same year I was, and many of the Deadheads I met at Northwestern University, with whom I toured over the years, were headed back to our old stomping ground at Soldier Field.

So when my editor asked me to check out one of the three live simulcasts of the shows from the Palace 9 Theater in South Burlington, I was more than game and picked the final show.

To be honest, the Dead’s retirement tour hadn’t really registered on my radar. It’s been more than two decades since I went through the whole Grateful Dead mail-order ticket rigmarole and logged thousands of miles to party and dance in stadiums, fields and parking lots. And, nothing against the four surviving members — Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman — but, for me, the Dead were laid to rest when Jerry Garcia died.

That night in August 1995, I watched a red, white and blue meteorite shoot across the Texas sky, smoked a joint and hung up my tie-dye for good. Or so I thought.

Tags: the grateful dead , trey anastasio , phil lesh , mickey hart , bob weir , bill kreutzman , Phish , Phishheads , Deadheads , Image , Web Only

Posted By Ethan de Seife on Sat, Jul 4, 2015 at 9:00 AM

Universal Pictures

James McAvoy in Wanted

When an old friend of mine announced his plans to visit recently, I told him that I’d make him sleep in the shed if he didn’t bring back the Blu-ray of Wanted that I loaned to him about four years ago. The shed is pretty ramshackle, and my friend would have had to share it with numerous chipmunks, skunks and swallows (or whatever the hell those birds are), so it’s a good thing he was as good as his promise to return this long-lost disc. He’s a good friend, but I might have followed through on my threat. I really like this clever, visually exciting movie.

As soon as it returned to my possession, I was quick to rewatch Wanted, and it did not disappoint. The film is every bit as clever and exhilarating as I remembered it from the previous three or four times I’d seen it.

Tags: film , movie , what i'm watching , wanted , point of view , cgi , timur bekmambetov , guns , special effects , narrative , Image , Video , Web Only

Posted By Margot Harrison on Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 2:56 PM

Relativity Media

Mbatha-Raw and Parker play a pop star and a cop in love.

This week in movies you missed: I could describe Beyond the Lights as the second film that made 2014 the Year of Slightly Increased Visibility of Black Female Directors (along with Ava DuVernay's Selma). Or I could just describe it as a surprisingly powerful little film that makes perfect summer viewing for anyone with even the slightest tolerance for romance scored to an r&b beat.

Either way, this show-biz drama from writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood deserves to be less obscure than it is — at least in Vermont, where it didn't play theatrically.

Tags: Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only

Posted By Dan Bolles on Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 2:07 PM

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Courtesy of Caroline Rose

Caroline Rose

For the last two weeks in Soundbites, we've been revisiting some of the excellent recordings made in Vermont through the first half of 2015. Given the voluminous number of notable local albums, EPs and singles that have already rocked our ears this year, that's been a daunting task. And it hasn't left much print space for anything else in the ol' column. So here are some music notes and news you can use for the upcoming holiday weekend and beyond.

Did you miss out on tix for the now-sold-out Madaila boat cruise on Saturday, July 4? We're not gonna lie. That pretty much sucks. It's gonna be one rad three-hour tour. But here are some other BTV options you could try on July 3, Burlington's Independence Day celebration, that might tire you out enough that you won't mind missing it …

Tags: Caroline Rose , Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band , Mango Jam , Sambatucada , Madaila , Brett Hughes & Caleb Elder , Francesca Blanchard , Great Western , Eric George , John Abair & Collin Cope , Middlebury Festival on the Green , Image , Video , Web Only