Here's a feel-good story for the end of the year. It's a story about perfect serendipity, and turning lemons into lemonade.

"Lemons" in this case were the news that the University of Vermont art department was going to phase out its fine-metals program upon the retirement this year of its longtime instructor, Laurie Peters. (An example of her work is pictured here.)

That news was part of a November 27 article I wrote about a then-upcoming exhibit featuring jewelry by Peters and a number of her former students, who have gone on to make beautiful, sculptural work and names for themselves. Names such as Timothy Grannis, Jacob Albee and Jane Koplewitz, among others.

That exhibit opened on Wednesday with a buzzing reception at Von Bargen's in downtown Burlington, and continues through December 18.

But on to the lemonade.

You wouldn't expect Burlington musicians Gregory Douglass, Monique Citro or Joshua Glass to line up at Sears for their holiday band photos. And they didn't. They just pretended to. 

"While we didn’t have any ugly Christmas sweaters to seal the deal, we did the best we could with what we had to work with," writes Douglass in a recent e-newsletter.

Still, you can do a lot with matching sweaters and ties. Not to mention ironic, vapid expressions.

But never mind the awkward band photos; if you're on Douglass' mailing list, you can also get a free monthly download. This month, it's the classic "O Holy Night" from his 2010 release Merry. 

Happy holidays!

Yeah, it’s like this in every place. Fucking crazy. Not for nothing, but if I were a terrorist, this is where I’d be.—   Two men in line at Starbucks

Black Friday? Yeah, right. Ain’t nothing black in Vermont.—   Two young men

A2VT are at it again. Almost exactly one year after showing their adopted Onion City home some love with the video "Winooski, My Town," the trio of African refugees turned "urban global" rappers cast a longing gaze toward their native soil with a lively new vid, "Africa (I'm Coming back to You)."

Directed and produced by Casey Clark, the new video was shot at various locations along the Burlington waterfront and features some nifty dance moves courtesy of the Roxy Dance Studio, a solo dancer by the name of Mimosa — she's the young lady on the rocks — and, as always, A2VT themselves. 

It's a Christmas miracle! 

The Mountain Says No, the new band from Farm's Ben Maddox and Jedd Kettler — and featuring Andrew Frappier and Justus Gaston — have just released a terrific new holiday single, "Christmas Sled." The indie-rockin' jingle is now part of the quietly growing canon of original local holiday music — which includes the trio of cult classics by the Physics Club, Rue Mevlana's EP Dancing to Keep Warm, the single "Harvest" by Myra Flynn and Gregory Douglass, and of course, the Handel's "Messiah" of local Christmas songs: "Christmas Every Day" by Victor Rudolph Gittens. 

The low-key, mostly acoustic cut calls to mind John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." But in place of that song's sleigh-bell-ringin' climax, it features a cheeky nod to the Lemonheads' song "Rudderless" — "A sled without a rudder's like a sled without a rudder …" We approve, heartily.

Ben Aleshire, the former Burlington "poet for hire" who could often be spotted at the downtown Farmers Market, moved to New Orleans last year. He's set up shop at a busy intersection in the French Quarter, selling poems to passersby, and has attracted the attention of that city's press.

The Gambit, New Orleans' alt-weekly, focuses on Aleshire and several other local poets for hire in a recent cover article. Here's a quote from it:

Both [Aleshire] and [fellow poet Tristan] Bennett say they can come up with meaningful work in 10 to 15 minutes. "When people stand there and hug me and weep and tell me they're going to frame it, I think the evidence is there," Aleshire says. "That keeps me doing it. It fuels me when people tell me that this is real."

Gambit photo of Ben Aleshire by Cheryl Gerber.

Just another chocolate-chip-size taste of Burlington, from the Overheard on Church Street tumblr:

Oh hey, Bill. I didn’t even recognize you in that suit and all. What’re you, going to court or something?
— Woman to older man

What’re we, in fuckin California or Vermont?
— Two men

One intrepid Burlington resident has been compiling random heard-on-the-street comments in a tumblr blog aptly called Overheard on Church Street since 2010. Now, every Monday, the blogger is sharing a couple of snippets with Live Culture. You can read more at the OOCS archive. Submissions are also welcome.

A couple months ago, local electro-pop songwriter tooth ache. — aka Alexandria Hall — released a rerecorded version of her debut LP Flash & Yearn, which was originally released in 2011. Ms. ache. has just unveiled a provocative new video for one of that record's signature cuts, "Matador."

Earlier this year, Hall dished to 7D about the song for a piece we did on local love songs. Here's what she said:

“Matador” is a glimpse at love as the game or sport or chase. In the song, the matador exercises more control over the situation, while the speaker, the bull, is the passionate, even desperate one, hurling herself at him despite love’s lances.

But the matador is in danger, too. So while it may seem like the bull is the “victim” of love, they’re both in this turbulent, dangerous, but showy and appealing zone. It’s this kind of chaotic but necessary ritual. It’s anxiety and anticipation … the drum machine’s urgency or the bass line’s hesitance.

Playing up the aforementioned love-as-sport angle, Hall's new video is set in a combination bowling alley/strip club — Shenanigan's in White River Junction, to be exact. (And, yeah, it's a real place.) Produced by Burlington's Sullen Belle Productions, it's an entertaining video that almost plays like a short film. It features bowlers, strippers, one of the greatest ironic T-shirts ever and one unfortunate fella laid to waste by a stiletto heel through the eye — perhaps a stylish allegory for bullfighting? Oh, yeah, there's a real live bull, too. (We hear his name is Ace.)

Here's the video, in all its delightfully sleazy glory. And, yes, some of the strippers are topless. So if naked lady parts offend, maybe skip this one. (Though frankly, we find the heel through the eye scene to be far more unsettling than a few passing bewbs.)

Tooth Ache | "Matador" [NSFW] from SULLEN BELLE productions on Vimeo.

Jay Baruchel has no immediate plans to visit the Queen City, as far as we know — in reality, that is. But in bizarro TV reality, Burlington is the Canadian comedian's hometown.

The actor's face and voice are familiar from a slew of movies, including Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder and How to Train Your Dragon. He starred in Judd Apatow's series "Undeclared" and wrote the excellent hockey comedy Goon. Now Baruchel has a deal with ABC to produce a pilot for an autobiographical sitcom in which he'll play a famous actor who chooses to leave Hollywood, return to his hometown and move in with his buds.

Baruchel really does live in his hometown — Montréal. On TV, however, his character will settle in Burlington.

Say what? Despite their relative physical proximity, last time we checked, BTV and Montréal were about as much alike as ... a small, quirky American college town and a glittering, ethnically diverse metropolis. Both wonderful towns, but apples and pamplemousses.

So ... why?

About a year ago, Paddy Reagan stepped down as the talent buyer at the Monkey House, ending a six-year tenure during which he helped oversee the growth of the Winooski nightspot from a relative hole-in-the-wall to a relative hole-in-the-wall with consistently great music, both local and from beyond. The factors influencing his decision to leave the Monkey were twofold. One, he needed to spend more time on his bedbug-sniffing-dog business. Two — and most germane to our purposes here — he hoped to devote more energy to his talented, but oft-idle, indie band, Paper Castles.

On Wednesday, November 20, Paper Castles will unveil the fruits of those latter labors: a new album titled Vague Era, which is a follow-up to their 2011 effort, Bleating Heart. Earlier this week, the band — which also includes Wren Kitz, John Ragone and Brennan Mangan — made an advance single from the record available for public consumption, "Rest in Piece."

Much like Paper Castles' previous work, the song is a winsome, laid-back slice of jangly indie rock. But this time around, that slackerly bent is fortified with punchy hints of latter-day Yo La Tengo and cool, angular guitar lines that call to mind Slanted and Enchanted-era Pavement — ditto Reagan's sleepy vocals on that latter score. Check it out below.