20 Years of Song! Montpelier Community Gospel Choir to Perform Concert in Brattleboro May 31

The Montpelier Community Gospel Choir, an ecumenical community choir with members from 19 Vermont towns, celebrates its 20th anniversary season with a special spring concert in Brattleboro on May 31. The choir’s mission is to share the joy, hope and inspiration of music, especially during these challenging times. Their concerts are a great time to celebrate spring with family, friends and community.


Plant Trees To Become a Member of the Rural Improvement Association

In May of 1885, Brattleboro formed a village improvement society. They called it the Rural Improvement Association, and many of the big names in town joined the executive committee. Dr Draper of the Retreat was chosen as president, and vice presidents included Gov. Holbrook, Jacob Estey, George Brooks, Edward Crosby and others.


150 Years Ago (1864 5/15 #2)

(To P. Baxter, Derby Line, Vt. M.C. 1stVt. District)

Philadelphia, May 15, 1864.

Honored friend:

I have received yours of the 12th inst. That money came most opportunely as I hardly knew how I was to get through here. I am sometimes fearful that I cannot pass here. If I do I shall be very sure of the other examination. They do not mean to pass a man here that will be rejected by the board. If I cannot pass here, I think I can withdraw from the school. If I do I am determined to keep on with the study until I am qualified to command, whether I ever have that pleasure or not, the time is too short for me. There must be a great many soldiers here that cannot pass. There was hope of getting extensions to their furloughs, but that is gone. There are some that have come merely to pass away the time. There are others, noble fellows, that are working with all their might, but they must fail. One cannot learn the first two volumes in Casey, Geography, Arithmetic, Modern and Ancient History in thirty days.


Open Reading at The Blue Dot Studio in the Hooker Dunham Building Friday May 16

Every month, on the third Friday, Write Action hosts Open Reading. All readers have about 7 minutes to share their readings of either their own work, or works by authors that they especially enjoy. It starts at 7:30 and is free to all writers and those who enjoy the spoken word. If you want to read, or recite, come a little early and drop your name in the hat. We will draw names at random to determine the order of readers.


A Theory of Everything in Everyday Life

The difficulty of simplifying the universe is that the theoretical concepts devised by physicists do not easily lend themselves to most of us undereducated laymen. Yet, from these three interrelated links of spacetime conjectures I have excerpted below, I did find the description of our everyday world to be, as it says, familiar: “In everyday life, there are three familiar dimensions of space (up/down, left/right, and forward/backward), and there is one dimension of time (later/earlier). Thus, in the language of modern physics, one says that spacetime is four-dimensional.”

I found it interesting that four-dimensional spacetime does not contain the defined present. The grand here and now moment that is ubiquitous and perpetual for everyday life.


C.C.C.K.

Over the past few weeks or so, comedian Louis C.K. has kicked up some dust by speaking out against the Common Core. His perspective is that of a parent of NYC public school kids, and there has been a fair amount of controversy, and back and forth in a variety of venues as a result of his take on this. Here’s a screen shot of some of his tweets.


150 Years Ago (1864 5/15)

Philadelphia, May 15, 1864.

Dearest Abiah,

Here I am yet. This is Sunday. Henry Ward Beecher teaches near here, but notwithstanding my anxiety to
hear him I have not done it. There has a large number of wounded arrived in the city this morning. I went to the Baltimore depot to see them, but the crowd was so great that I could not get near. I saw in the ambulances as they passed, some I knew but they were all recruits, and knew but little about the old boys. I had quite a chat with one man, a recruit, who has left Brattleboro since I came from there, wounded very severely in the ankle. I walked by the side of the ambulance. He told me that a great many Vermont boys were with along, but he had not been in the army long enough to know the men.


WKVT To Broadcast Forum On Heroin Problem In Community, May 15

WKVT radio will present “A Call to Action” on Thursday, May 15, a special community forum about the increasing problems with heroin use and related criminal activity in the Brattleboro Area.

The program will be broadcast live from Brooks Memorial Library and air during the “Live and Local” show’s regular slot, from 9am-12noon, on 100.3FM and 1490AM.

“A Call to Action” brings together policy makers, members of law enforcement, treatment providers and drug awareness and prevention specialists for a discussion about what every community member can do to assist those who are on the front line waging the battle against crime and addiction every day.


Electric Fence @ Whetstone Station Thursday

Electric Fence will play Thursday night, May 15, at Whetstone Station in Brattleboro. We’re very excited to have our friends Mark Trichka on mandolin and Lisa Brande on fiddle for the show. Electric Fence is Steve Carmichael, Howard Weiss-Tisman, Jonny Sheehan and Jeremy Holch. We play original music and cover rock, swing, rhythm and blues and country, finding the funky groove throughout. Music starts at 8:30 and is free.


Brattleboro Concert Choir Presents Missa Gaia

Get ready, Brattleboro. The wolves are coming to church.

The Brattleboro Concert Choir, directed by Susan Dedell, joyfully present Paul Winter’s “Missa Gaia” on Saturday, May 17th at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, May 18th at 4 p.m.  Both concerts will be at Centre Congregational Church, downtown Brattleboro.

And the wolves?  Their recorded voices, along with those of loons, whales, and harp seals, will join with the men and women of the Brattleboro Concert Choir in interconnected harmony in this joyful, rhythmic, and contemporary mass for the earth.


BCTV Channel 8 & 10 Schedules for the Week of 5/12/14

BCTV Ch.8 Schedule for the week of 5-12-14

Monday May 12            

12:00 am      Tom Goldtooth – Indigenous Resistance

1:40 am       Ted Talks: Wendy Chung: Autism – what we know and what we don’t know yet

2:00 am       FSTV Overnight

4:00 am       The Road to Recovery: Diverse Cultures and Recovery

5:00 am       Dr. Gil Fanciullo – Prescription Drugs and You


BMC Offers New Summer Programs For Kids, Singers, Instrumentalists and Ensemble Players

The Brattleboro Music Center is offering a full line-up of new
programs this summer. 

Children as young as 5, teens and adults will find opportunities to play, sing and be part of ensembles.  

Programs for kids include “Camp Presto” for 5-9 year-olds, which provides a great introduction to music and playing an instrument; “Time Traveling Through Music” for 7-12 year olds creatively explores time through music; “Traditional Arts Camp” for 9-14 year-olds explores traditional music and arts;  “Musicals Workshop” for 7-12 year olds is all about singing for theater; “Chamber Music for Kids” for ages 9-12 and  “Piano Duets” for ages 10-17, explore the fun of making music with others; there is a beginning guitar camp for ages 8-10; and also a place for horn players in the BMC’s Trumpet Camp for elementary and middle school students.


The Vermont Jazz Center Presents: Eugene Uman’s Convergence Project

VJC Presents a CD Release Concert with the Convergence Project, Saturday, May 17th at 8:00 PM.

Eugene Uman’s Convergence Project is back for their yearly Vermont Jazz Center concert on May 17th at 8:00 PM, presenting music that fuses jazz and rock with Colombian rhythms. This concert will celebrate the release of a new album, Six Elements, recorded last October at Guilford Sound and mixed at Northern Tracks Studio in Wilmington.


Weekend Concert Series: Mogwai

Scottish band Mogwai got their start in 1995. They are not like many other bands, but were in a group of musicians from Glasgow during that period that were dominating the indie music scene for a while.

Most songs are long guitar-based, droning instrumentals. Mogwai loves to rock, both quietly and noisily. They often start out on one energy level, then the band all jump on their pedals and it becomes big musical noise.


150 Years Ago (1864 5/9)

Philadelphia, May 9, 1864.

Dearest wife,- 

You see I am here yet. I wrote to you on leaving Brattleboro April 25th and again on reaching this place, but have heard nothing in answer to them. I have received one letter from you directed to Brattleboro and forwarded to me here. I thought that I would write to you again from here now, for if you have not received my letters and have heard that our boys at Brattleboro have been ordered to the front, they stopped in this place the night of May 3rd. I did not know of it until they had gone on. All my luggage is in Brattleboro, except that clothes I took with me here.


On Exhibit at Brooks Library: Art Work of Barbara Frodenberg (1931-2013)

A retrospective of Barbara Frodenberg’s works will show at the Brooks Memorial Library through the month of May. The collection represents an intimate view into her creative world. Many of the works are prints from an intensely creative period when she lived in Shelton, Washington.

Also included are watercolors and sequence paintings from her time here in Brattleboro. There will be a public reception in the Library’s meeting room beginning at 2 PM on Friday, May 9. Location Reception Meeting Room, 2nd Floor. Exhibit Main Floor. Contact Christine de Vallet, Public Art Coordinator.


Donald Saaf Exhibit at the Brooks Memorial Library

Donald Saaf creates collages by carefully integrating torn wallpaper, images from magazines and catalogs, and photocopies of everyday objects with his bold gouache paintings. He has illustrated such popular books as Pushkin Minds the Bundle, Flemenpeo, and Animal Music.

Trained in painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Donald Saaf exhibits his work at the nearby Clark Gallery. He lives with his family in Saxtons River, Vermont.


1903 Village Meeting in Brattleboro

To add to our continuing look at town government and annual town meetings, let’s head back to see the news of May 8, 1903. From the Phoenix:

Village Meeting as Exciting as a Quaker Meeting – Tax of 40 Cents Voted With About 30 Present

Thirty men transacted the business of the annual village meeting Tuesday, with the exception of the election of the officers, making provision in three minutes for the expenditure of about $20,000, which is at the rate of over $6,500 a minute. Stated another way, each man voted away over $650, provided all voted.