Thursday, August 11, 2016
Hey, photographers — pro, amateur, Instagrammers — got any photos of trees? We’re collecting them for a print and online project and would love to see yours!
Submit your photo using the form below by Friday, August 19, at noon and you’ll be entered in a drawing for gift certificates to local restaurants. Plus, your photo may be selected for publication in a September issue of Seven Days!
This form is now closed
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Friedlander has been performing standup since 1989 and is known for roles in films such as Zoolander and Wet Hot American Summer and the TV comedies "30 Rock" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm." He developed his World Champ schtick as a pointed satire of narcissism and braggadocio in modern culture. But over the years, Friedlander has shifted his critiques of American and global exceptionalism and begun to use his excellence at everything for good. He's become not merely the champion of the world, but a champion for it, a gruff voice of reason and righteousness in increasingly uncertain times.
Friedlander performs a two-night, four-show run this Friday and Saturday, July 29 and 30, at the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington . Seven Days spoke with the Champ by phone to play a quick round of Seven Questions.
Tags: Judah Friedlander , standup comedy , Vermont Comedy Club , Image , Video , Web Only
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
The smartphone augmented-reality game, released last week, uses the phone's GPS to show players a map of their real-world surroundings — with the Pokémon world layered on top. Landmarks and local businesses become "Pokéstops" where nearby players can check in to collect items, or virtual "gyms," where players can train their Pokémon. While walking around in the real world, players may encounter Pokemon, which appear on screen and can be captured using the phone's camera.
This combination of real and virtual reality is proving to be addictive — in less than a week, the game has reportedly been downloaded some 15 million times; its players now outnumber active daily Twitter users. Reports abound of Poképlayers across the country crashing cars, walking into things while staring at their screens and getting lured to PokeStops where they've been robbed.
In Burlington, local Poképlayers have headed to central locations to battle, collect items and socialize. Kids VT intern Andie Pinga found some of them wandering the Church Street Marketplace on Tuesday afternoon.
Elsewhere in Vermont, park rangers had some fun in the field:
The folks at My Little Cupcake spotted a Meowth in their ingredients:Trying #PokemonGO and admit it's pretty fun. Anyone finding any Pokemon on summits or in parks? #VT #Vermont pic.twitter.com/F1NsBxMzDm
— Vermont State Parks (@VTStateParks) July 12, 2016
The Vermont Secretary of State is hoping to lure gamers to the voting booth with the promise of Pokémon:
Rumor has it many #PokemonGO characters will be found in Vermont voting booths on Aug 9 and Nov 8. Be there. pic.twitter.com/Ff7GB47Kbc
— VT Sec. of State (@VermontSOS) July 13, 2016
And the organizers behind Vermont Comic Con have already added a Pokémon Go meet-up to their schedule of events in late August.
So is the app a fun diversion or have we reached the Poképocalypse? You decide — and please, don't walk into traffic while you're staring at your screens.
Tags: Pokémon Go , gaming , Burlington , Church Street , apps , technology , Image , Video , Web Only
Thursday, February 18, 2016
"When you're young, you're thinking, Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie," she said on the HBO show "Real Time with Bill Maher."
The feminist icon's remarks were widely criticized as being patronizing to young liberal women. But is it possible she was onto something?
Nope, not at all. Steinem's comments were ill-advised and insulting — not to mention heteronormative — by any measure. But a new dating website, BernieSingles.com, does suggest that maybe Bernie-boosters are indeed looking for love in addition to social justice, income equality and political revolution.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Bernie Beat , BernieSingles.com , presidential campaign , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Monday, November 2, 2015
Twenty competitors went head to head in Sunday night’s laid-back competition, which was judged by Ian Bailey of Vivid Coffee (who roasts beans in-house for Scout), chef Owen Hoppe of Scout’s new Innovation Center café, and coffee lover Tim Williams. Most of the spectators were there to compete, but that didn’t stop them from cheering on their rivals in the somewhat farcical face-offs.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Bernie Sanders Plays The Bongos To Ben Harper's ‘Burn One Down’Bernie breaks it down with "Burn One Down."
Posted by The Huffington Post on Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Obviously, the title of Harper's earnest stoner ballad makes the song rife for a Sanders parody. And that proves doubly true given the weed legislation segment of the debate, which HuffPo video editors Oliver Noble and Ben Craw handle masterfully. But the real brilliance of HuffPo's video is that it tweaks a key Sanders trait that most parodies have thus far overlooked: his emphatically percussive gesticulation. Brilliant.
Click here to watch the video on HuffPo.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Huffington Post , Ben Harper , Presidential Campaign , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
The eBook, penned by I.I. Dene, is the first in the Presidential Passion Series and follows in a longstanding historical tradition of erotic fan fiction dating back to the 1788 hit Washington's Cherry — though the phenomenon truly peaked in 1865 with the S&M novel Honest Abe's Chains of Bondage. A posthumous Lincoln sequel, POTUS Interruptus, was not as well received, for obvious reasons.
Dene's outlandishly porneriffic novella features the distinguished gentleman from Vermont — and his wife, Jane Sanders — in all manner of compromising situations, including, but not limited to, orgies, drug parties and, in one particularly imaginative passage, shapeshifting sex. But it's meant to be as educational as it is titillating, using salacious scenes as a means of kinda-sorta explaining Bernie's socialist, ahem, positions.
(Rumors of a follow-up erotic novel, Feel the Bern, about a perhaps inevitable trip to the VD clinic, are, as of press time, completely made up by me. We suspect its publication will depend on Sanders' ability to achieve and sustain his election.)
For a different kind of Sanders porn, we turn to the comic book world, where this week graphic novel publishing company StormFront Entertainment released "Political Power: Bernie Sanders." The comic is the latest in a series of biographical comics about presidential hopefuls, following books about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. Yes, it seems even in the funny pages, as in the national media, Bernie gets, well, trumped for coverage.
Judging by sample pages sent to Seven Days, the comic applies the superhero narrative arc to politicking, zealously painting Bernie as a righteous, non-caped crusader for the common man. Writer and illustrator Joe Paradise, who also drew the Clinton, Bush and Paul comics, offers Sanders' humble origin story, his unlikely rise to power and highlights epic battles he's fought against supervillains such as evil-doing Republicans and the NRA — all in the name of truth, justice and the American way, of course. Here's hoping that if he's elected, Bernie remembers that most important of lessons from another comic, "Spiderman": With great power, comes great responsibility.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , comic books , erotic fiction , Presidential Campaign , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
But for three days this weekend, starting at noon Friday, September 4, fans of the classic 1960s sci-fi television series — commonly referred to as "Star Trek: The Original Series" — can beam down to Ticonderoga, N.Y., for the inaugural Trekonderoga 2015.
The first-ever Star Trek convention in the Adirondacks is being co-hosted by the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance and Retro Film Studios. The latter is a Ticonderoga-based fan film group that produces "Star Trek: New Voyages" episodes based on the original series, all of which are available on the internet and viewable free of charge here.
Fans of "Star Trek: TOS" series will definitely want to check out the set of the bridge from the first USS Enterprise, which Retro Film Studios recreated using original blueprints acquired from Desilu Productions.
Tags: star trek , trekkies , trekonderoga , ticonderoga , NY , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Montpelier artists Pete Talbot and Ben t. Matchstick have upended the traditional definition of pinball by building a machine that is lightweight, customizable and made of cheap, recyclable materials. And they’ll be traveling to Washington, D.C., this week to show it off on a national stage.
The artists, who collectively call themselves the Cardboard Teck Instantute, have just been invited to the first annual National Maker Faire to show off their creation, which they’ve dubbed the PinBox 3000. The cabinet of the device is constructed entirely of custom-cut cardboard. Its pinball is a marble, and the spring in its flippers and plunger are supplied by ordinary rubber bands. Says Matchstick, “It doesn’t require any fasteners to construct. We can ship it with 10 sheets of cardboard. It takes about an hour or less to assemble, and then you’ve got a really solid little game on your hands.”
Tags: pinball , cardboard , cardboard teck instantute , pinbox 3000 , generator , maker , maker faire , ben t. matchstick , Image , Web Only
Sunday, February 9, 2014
“I bought a fuckin' case of bagels, didn’t even get laid. I ain’t worried about the four dollars.”
— Two men smoking cigarettes
“I woke up with no clothes on and a wine bottle between my fuckin' legs.”
— 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. Every week, the blogger shares a couple of snippets with Live Culture. You can read more at the OOCS archive. Submissions are also welcome.