He portrayed a crooked politician beaten to a pulp by Tony Soprano. But in real life, Peter Riegert is alive and well -- well enough to now be directing for the big screen. The New York City native, who is a veteran of six 2001 episodes on the HBO mob series, has made a picture that premieres at the Lake Placid Film Festival this weekend: King of the Corner is a character study about a middle-aged man at an emotional crossroads.... Read more

Sunnis and Ba'athists and Shi'ites -- oh my! Let's talk about something funny for a change, like George W. Bush and the spoils of war.

Have you heard about Dubya's new handgun? No? It was Saddam Hussein's personal pistol, make unspecified, which the Iraqi dictator reportedly had on him when he was "rousted from his spider hole" last December near Tikrit. According to Time magazine, Saddam's little power-packer is now in the White House.... Read more

The new American $50 bill unveiled in April features background colors, security thread, color-shifting and watermarks. The website of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing reassures visitors, though, that the note "preserves the distinct size, look and feel of the traditional American 'greenback.'"... Read more

Vergennes is the election-year place to be for Memorial Day festivities and this year was no different. Where else could you see grown, fez-wearing men riding camel-butts on go-carts? Civil War cavalry and scruffy colonials firing muskets? Bernie Sanders in a coat and tie?

Plus, there was the jolt to the eardrums from the sudden low-level swoop by two F-16s from the Vermont Air Guard. It was a reminder of the current state of existence -- the state called war. It's actually the longest surviving state in the history of the human race.... Read more

It's a Saturday evening and I'm standing barefoot in a Franklin County field with a dozen other unshod women and men. It's dark, and we're holding hands in a circle, chanting. In a few minutes, those of us who want to will be walking on hot coals. I feel as if I should be in Fiji or India, flanked by fakirs and readying my soul for purification. But the locale is Fairfax, my co-chanters have day jobs ranging from acupuncturist to AmeriCorps, and the path I'm readying my soles for is strictly secular.... Read more

Dave Dellinger's father was a well-connected Massachusetts lawyer and friend of Republican Governor Calvin Coolidge. One of his grandmothers was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was a direct ancestor.... Read more

Burlington will be bopping this week and next as the Discover Jazz Festival takes over town. While heavy hitters such as Branford Marsalis and Randy Weston bring the masses to the Flynn Center, stars from a slightly different cosmos will be throwing down downstairs.

The 200-person FlynnSpace, a cabaret-style venue located next door to the Flynn Mainstage, will host a trio of performances by some of jazz's most energetic performers: the Chris Potter Quartet, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, and Han Bennink and Eugene Chadbourne.... Read more

Howard Dean's South Burlington office is a lot emptier than in the heyday of his presidential campaign, but reminders of those heady times are everywhere. On the wall to the left of the door hang huge photos showing thousands of jubilant supporters waving blue Dean signs at rallies in Seattle and Philadelphia.... Read more

Most christenings involve water or champagne, but Chip Schlegel has something else in mind. Standing in a small clearing in the woods at Bolton Valley Resort, the rock-climbing and ropes-course guru points to three long boards at our feet and several chunks of wood forming a zigzag pattern on the carpet of dried leaves. "We will be using these planks and those blocks to get across the toxic peanut-butter pit for our rite of passage," he says. "This will determine the absolute christening of the Bolton Adventure Center Challenge Course."... Read more

In the age of "Fear Factor," it was probably inevitable: a reality series in which participants risk cruel and unusual treatment along the lines of whipping, having one's head bound to one's feet overnight, branding with a hot iron, having an ear cut off and "cucking." That is, being strapped to a chair, lowered under water and exposed to the jeers of bystanders.

No, it's not "Survivor: Abu Ghraib.... Read more