Since the advent of high-definition broadcasts, Vermonters have been offered a regular diet of lavish productions in real time from New York's Metropolitan Opera, or La Scala in Milan. Then came documentaries, pop concerts and other specialty programs. And then: art exhibits from major museums around the world.

Middlebury's Town Hall Theater has gotten in on the acts by installing HD satellite technology, and in addition to opera broadcasts has already shown a Manet exhibit this year, in April. In October, a Vermeer show from London's National Gallery will arrive.

Today, in two screenings at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., it's Edvard Munch's turn.

You may know him as the bloodthirsty Sweeney Todd in Stephen Sondheim's musical of the same name. Or that guy Jack Nicholson pounded in About Schmidt. Or, perhaps as Tom Selleck's dad on CBS' popular police procedural "Blue Bloods."

But on August 17, at 7:30 p.m., Len Cariou will play the real-life role of cabaret chanteur at a benefit for the Greensboro Arts Alliance at that town's Mountain View Country Club. A dinner precedes the show at 5:30 p.m.

The veteran singer and actor introduced his show "Musical Memoirs" last November at New York nightclub 54 Below, which specializes in cabaret shows starring well-known Broadway performers.

He'll perform it for the first time since then in the Green Mountains, which he says he last visited to film skiing scenes in Stowe for Alan Alda's 1981 directorial debut, The Four Seasons.

Although the act is a new one, the 73-year-old says that he got his start in show business singing in clubs in his native Winnipeg as a teenager.

Recently Seven Days intern Meredith White wrote about Legendary Locals of Burlington, a book penned by local writer and musician Robert Resnik. He's also a Fletcher Free Library reference librarian and host of Vermont Public Radio's show "All the Traditions," two positions that utilize Resnik's gift for collecting arcane history.

So did writing Legendary Locals — the Burlington installment in Arcadia Publishing's series on American towns — which features short segments on dozens of individuals, both historic and current, who have made an impression in the Queen City's history. It's a subjective take, to be sure, but a fascinating walk through the city's history, particularly of the past few decades. Longtime residents will recognize plenty of faces, and be reminded of many more who have passed on.

Tonight at 7 p.m., Resnik will sign copies of his book at the Fletcher Free's Main Reading Room. He'll also appear up the street next Monday, August 12, 7 p.m., at Phoenix Books Burlington; and Saturday, September 7, 3-5 p.m. at Barnes & Noble in South Burlington. 

Granite sculptor Vincent Illuzzi, Sr. — father of the well-known former Essex/Orleans County senator — passed away yesterday, July 31. He was 93. 

Born in 1920 in Giovinazzo in southern Italy, Illuzzi immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 17. He made his way to Barre, Vt., and became a granite sculptor and carver — one of the many Italian artists of the storied Barre quarries.

Illuzzi volunteered for the U.S. Army during World War II and was honorably discharged in 1946. Six years later, he married Angela Piscitelli, who was also born in Giovinazzo. The couple's three sons still live in Vermont: Vincent Jr. (Derby), Frank (Brattleboro) and Joseph (Berlin).

One of Illuzzi Sr.'s best-known commissions was for a large granite sculpture near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. It is dedicated to the liberation, freedom and independence of all citizensof captive nations, and was unveiled by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1964, with the artist in attendance.

Closer to home, one of Illuzzi Sr.'s many projects was a "book of learning" carved for the lobby of the Barre City Elementary School. He was a member of the Barre Historical Society and a supporter of the restoration of the Old Labor Hall and formation of the Barre Granite Museum. The latter is in the old granite shed where Illuzzi Sr. created many of his monuments.

Kevin J. Kelley wrote a story about Vincent Illuzzi Sr. for Seven Days in March last year. Kelley spoke with Ray Rouleau, the retired manager of the Rouleau Granite Co. plant where Illuzzi worked for about 20 years until he retired in the mid-90s. Rouleau remembered Illuzzi fondly, telling Kelley, "He was a very talented sculptor and a real gentleman."

A funeral mass will be held this Saturday, August 3, at St. Monica's Church in Barre.

Photo of Vincent Illuzzi Sr. by Kevin J. Kelley.

Burlington residents can easily deduce the sources of the straightforwardnames of two of the city’s nine public schools: Burlington High School andChamplain Elementary. But who was Lyman C. Hunt? How about Lawrence Barnes?H.O. Wheeler? And did Edmunds even have a first name?

Don’t look to those schools’ websites for answers. They havenothing to say about the historical figures who gave them their names. Thatseems odd, given today’s obsession with localism. Besides, doesn’t a schoolhave a responsibility to acquaint its students with some basic facts of history— starting with, say, information about the person for whom it is named?

Props, then, to J.J. Flynn and C.P. Smith elementary schools,both in the New North End, for providing easily accessible biographicalsummaries of their namesakes.

 WouldBurlington have become the coolest place on earth if it were namedBummerton? Maybenot. So isan unfortunate handle what's been holding back Rutland?

Thelack of a university and a scenic lake probably accounts more forRutland's rep than does a name with at least a couple ofnegative connotations. But if a do-over could be arranged, brandingspecialists would surely recommend calling the city, the town and thecounty something other than Land of Rut.

As ananonymous chatter pointed out in an online forum in 2010, the namesuggests "someplace people are stuck in and can't get out of.Either that, or horned animals having sex in the streets."

There'salso the Rutles.

FormerMonty Python member Eric Idle created this Beatles parody band forBBC television in the 1970s. He named the group for England'ssmallest county — a landlocked, nondescript placed viewed by hipLondoners as a sad-arse backwater. Yes, the Rutles came from Rutland.

Jokesabout mental depression, badly maintained roads and moose in heat are cracked only by those who "want to see it in a negative way,"objects Mike Coppinger, director of the Downtown Rutland Partnership."I've lived in Rutland all my life, and I've never perceived itlike that."

Is anyone else smitten with this guy? He's not quite a household name, considering that a number of his films, and small parts in them, are pretty forgettable.

But Brian Anthony Wilson's guest turns on "The Wire" are not forgettable. On the HBO series, sadly long over, Wilson had me at "detective." That is, Detective Vernon Holley. (Who comes up with these names?) And I remember his face, if not specific roles, on the "Law and Order" franchise, and spotted him in the more recent Silver Linings Playbook.

Wilson, 53, has played numerous film and TV characters since his 1997 breakout in a movie called The Postman. A big man with a bald head and piercing brown eyes, he seems a natural for tough-guy parts. (Me, I love his freckles.) But, btw, he can sing, too.

Right now, Wilson, a Philadelphia native, is summering in Vermont. That is, by acting in Dorset Theatre Festival's production of The Whipping Man. The show, penned by Matthew Lopez, is lately being produced all over the place, perhaps because it is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. In it, Wilson plays a character named Simon, who is a former slave and a de facto father figure to other characters. In an interesting wrinkle, he is also a Jew, having been "owned" and raised by a Jewish family.

The first installment in this series suggested that the settlement south of the mouth ofthe Winooski River came to be called "Burlington" becauseof a clerical error.

This week, we're tracing the originsof that river's name. And this etymological investigation appears tolead to a marketing ploy by 18th-century real estate speculators.

"The river's name has caused moredispute than any other place name in Vermont," historian EstherMunroe Swift wrote in her 1977 book, Vermont Place Names. Disagreements begin with how to render into English the Algonquin (orAbenaki) word for the 95-mile-long river that rises in Cabot andempties into Lake Champlain.

To Swift, it's "Winooskitook" — which, she tells us, should be pronounced "Weenooskee."Frederick Wiseman, an Abenaki scholar, transliterates the name as"Winosik" in an essay included in The Mills atWinooski Falls, edited by Laura Krawitt. And local historianVincent Feeney goes with "Winoskitegw" in his 2002 book, The Great Falls on the Onion River: A History of Winooski,Vermont.

These and other historians do agree — more or less — on the English definition of the Abenaki word. Itsroot means "onion" or "leek," they all say,noting that the tangy bulb once flourished in wild profusion alongthe river's banks.

Fitting Burlington into a book is no easy task. The eccentricgamut of its residents included in Robert J. Resnik’s recently released Legendary Locals of Burlington leavesyou with a sense of just why that may be.

Forty years as a Burlington resident and 13 as a reference librarian at the Fletcher Free Library qualify Resnik for this job, for the story of Burlington is catalogued in its people. (Full disclosure: He is an occasional contributor to Seven Days.)

Arcadia Publishing approached Resnik to write the Burlington installment in its Legendary Locals series.

"You get these emails that say, 'Congratulations, you have been selected for the jerks of New England. Write the book and you'll receive your $25 check in the mail,'" Resnik quipped in a phone call.

But that email lingered in his inbox until he decided to take on the challenge of writing short-and-sweet stories about nearly 100 Queen City residents, past and present, who have some claim to fame. More than 200 photographs help tell their tales.

"It's amazing how I got a real sense of responsibility," Resnik said. "What can you do in 120 pages of pictures and captions? There's no way you can touch all the bases."

As a self-professed foodie and music nut, Resnik resisted the urge to weight the book too heavily toward his personal interests. Instead, he divvied up Burlington's "legends" into seven chapters and included an introduction detailing Burlington's origins as a township, granted on June 7, 1763. A century later, the lucrative trading post founded by Ethan and Ira Allen evolved into the city of Burlington. And the rest is history, literally. Legendary Locals brings us up to entries as recent as Dave and Jenny Rooke, who began home-brewing all-natural Rookie's Root Beer in 2005.

"With every entry I had to ask, 'Has this person really done something to make Burlington what it is today?'" said Resnik, explaining the challenge of winnowing down the multitude of eligible candidates.

Waterbury-based photographer Peter Miller, who prefers to say his residence is in Colbyville, has published a lot of images we like to call "iconic." And that's because they are. In his previous books Vermont People and Vermont Farm Women, we can see older Vermonters, primarily living close to the land, and recognize that the photos document a passing way of life — and yet it's one that continues to resonate in the still largely agrarian Green Mountain State.

Maybe it's the "new" agricultural consciousness in Vermont that keeps the interest in Miller's images alive. Maybe it's just that he wanted to repackage previously published photographs with others never before seen. Either way, Miller's new A Lifetime of Vermont People — released on his own Silver Print Press — is a handsome, 9-by-12-inch coffee-table volume.

The photo on its cover is a head shot of Carroll Shatney, a Scottish Highlander breeder in Greensboro Bend. It was taken in 1993, when Shatney was 98. His grizzled, time-worn face is offset by a jaunty cap that says "Fun!" and appears to be a souvenir of the Champlain Valley Fair.

Shatney died in 2009. His son, Ray, and wife continue to sell Highland beef to individual customers, restaurants and stores, according to A Lifetime of Vermont People. And that's one of the lovely things about the book: that Miller provides updates about many of the people in his photographs. It illustrates not only how much research he has done, but also how much he cares about the folks he's captured on film.