In the morning of October 24, 2008, about 50 people filed into the oak and crimson Representatives Hall in the Vermont Statehouse.... Read more

When Québec’s law banning smoking in public places took effect on May 31, 2006, bar owners across Montréal braced for a hit — with good reason. The province and its metropolis contain a higher percentage of smokers (roughly one-third) than do other parts of Canada, making a burg such as New York City (at 19 percent smokers) look positively ruddy and robust. Though Montréal residents overwhelmingly approve of the ban, bar owners have continued to fight: In 2006, the Union des tenanciers des bars du Québec sought an injunction against the ban.... Read more

In any discussion of transgender life, questions of definition and process come up. What distinguishes a transgender person from a transsexual? How is sexual orientation defined when a person born as a woman chooses to live as a man, or vice versa? What terms describe him or her: lesbian, gay, straight, bi? For that matter, do personal pronouns apply any longer to such a person, or is our gender dictionary in need of an expansion?... Read more

The rain fell in sheets and gusty waves last Saturday night in Burlington, jeopardizing the outfits of anyone going to the Vermont Symphony Orchestra performance at the Flynn. That is, unless a doorman-scale umbrella and Wellies were part of the ensemble. At the Green Room on St. Paul Street, however, a dozen or so well-heeled, cocktail-toting twenty- and thirtysomethings lounged in fitted shirts, evening dresses, French cuffs and fashionable knee-high boots.... Read more

Author, musician and “stuntologist” Sam Bartlett recalls the first time he was thrown out of a restaurant. It was nearly 20 years ago, and he and some friends were eating breakfast in Amherst, Massachusetts, while experimenting with bending and folding straws. “I found that if I chewed one end of a straw and bit the very end into a kind of point, I could form a sort of double reed,” he says. “I blew into it, and the most astonishingly loud noise came out. We just couldn’t believe it, and neither could the staff. They asked us to stop, but we . . .... Read more

It’s often been said that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels owe their absorbing investigatory detail to the author’s medical degree. While working as a ship’s doctor and in private practice, Doyle got glimpses into the frailty of the human condition that were terrific on-the-job training for a writer.... Read more

The name Clarence Darrow is used so consistently as a substitute for “person of eloquence” or “progressive” or even “atheist” that it has become its own pseudo brand. The legendary orator, trial attorney and author most famously defended schoolteacher John Scopes in 1925 for teaching evolution to high school students in Tennessee at a time when creationism was the state’s only legal curriculum. Darrow has been the subject of dozens of books, plays and films.... Read more

A new performing-arts season is upon us, and culture junkies around the region are already feeling the rush of anticipation. But given a shaky economy, record-high fuel prices and the challenges of international travel, no one could be blamed for asking the question: How long will the world’s performing artists continue to frequent small venues in the northeastern U.S.? Conversely, presenting organizations might worry whether the audiences will come out, too.... Read more

I have an aversion to performance art that trumps my fears of eight-legged insects and meteor strikes combined. The concept conjures notions of naked recent graduates of adolescence arranging themselves in Abu Ghraib-like piles or digging in boxes of dirt, to an Edgard Varése soundtrack. So, when Gerard Rinaldi suggested at the outset of our conversation that his collection of photographs on display at Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library could best be described as a “performance piece about death,” I eyed a nearby bottle of Jack Daniels.... Read more

Barnstorming first captured the consciousness of America in the wake of the First World War. Bands of itinerant pilots — many of them ex-Army flyers who managed to buy or otherwise hold on to their sputtering Curtis Jenny or Standard H-1 biplanes — buzzed rural areas and dropped pamphlets to attract locals to air shows, where the pilots made a living by stunning crowds with aerobatics, wing walking and other reckless feats. With no regulations to govern access to the skies, anyone with enough starch and stomach could take the stick and give it a go, with wildly varied results.... Read more