Update: Happy April Fools' Day!

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is going back to the studio.

In a recent phone call with Seven Days from Sheboygan, Wisc., Sanders' arts, culture and youth-vote manager Luis Calderin confirmed rumors that the Vermont senator is planning to record a follow-up to his 1987 folk and spoken-word album, We Shall Overcome. He also offered details on the project, which is tentatively titled We Shall Overcome 2: Birdsongs.

"It's basically an updated take on the concept of the first record," explained Calderin. He added that Todd Lockwood, the Burlington recording engineer who produced the original album, will be brought in as an adviser to the project, but that it will be recorded by Jer Coons and Eric Maier of Burlington label Future Fields. Calderin said the project has attracted some of Sanders' high-profile musician supporters, including rapper Killer Mike, songwriter Jackson Browne and indie-rock band Vampire Weekend, all of whom will appear on the album.

Update: Happy April Fools' Day!

Visit the webpage for the city of Burlington and you might notice a small button in the top right corner that says "Select Language." The feature allows you to translate the website into more than a hundred languages, from Afrikaans to Zulu. But starting Monday, a new language will be added to that list: emoji. 

That's right. In an effort to cater to the ever-expanding population of digital natives, the mayor's office has decided to take the plunge into what they call "modern hieroglyphics." 

Update: Happy April Fools' Day!

Alex Aldrich opened a mysterious certified letter yesterday afternoon and  got the shock of a lifetime. The Vermont Arts Council executive director told Seven Days he stared at the page for several minutes in disbelief. "I thought it was an April Fools prank," he said.

But no. The letter, from the National Endowment for the Arts, announced that it was allocating all $119 million of its annual funding budget to the VAC (minus $30 mill for administrative costs). Of course, a large string was attached: The Vermont office would have responsibility for dispersing the money to arts programs and agencies across all 50 states, plus seven territories and six regional agencies, Aldrich explained.

Updated: Happy April Fools' Day!

Howard Frank Mosher's name is virtually synonymous with Vermont fiction. Over several decades, the 73-year-old Irasburg author has written 11 novels set at least partially in the state's Northeast Kingdom. In a Seven Days profile last fall, reporter Mark Davis called Mosher "the region's most articulate spokesman and beloved chronicler" — a title few would dispute.

Now Mosher says it's time for a change of pace. And place.