The winged monkeys perched on Burlington’s Union Station have a good view of the changes taking place across Lake Street: April Cornell’s HQ — which formerly housed Waterfront Video and Mesa International — is getting a makeover.

The squat brick rectangle has become downright girly this summer. Its broad, cement-block backside has been painted sherbet hues of orange and raspberry, and pretty floral banners now hang protruding from the wall.... Read more

Nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina, the effects — and the memories — haven’t gone away. That’s the message of New Orleans poet Ray “Moose” Jackson, who’s currently crafting a piece about the city called “Danger Angels” during his residency at Montpelier’s nonprofit performance space Lamb Abbey.... Read more

As book publishers and Hollywood execs know well, kids love talking animals. So why not use a garrulous canine to teach them a bit about great ideas in philosophy?... Read more

For eight years, Joe Russo scoured 31 towns north of Rutland for the perfect place to open a combination art gallery and café. “I wanted somewhere that we could provide a needed service to the community,” he says. Last August, he found the place: Highgate, land of hockey, Holsteins and homeland security — because it also borders Canada.... Read more

If you’ve got a cellphone with a camera — and who doesn’t these days? — you may want to know about a nifty show coming up at Stowe’s ... Read more

Claes Oldenburg first met Patty Mucha in an art-supply store in New York City. The two had separately gravitated there from the Midwest: he was a Swede who had recently obtained American citizenship; she was a Milwaukee girl of Polish extraction. They struck up a friendship that eventually led to marriage — 50 years ago — and a series of collaborations that helped make Oldenburg a household name.... Read more

High culture keeps rolling into the North Country.... Read more

Last Saturday shortly after 6 p.m., a giant, hollow woman woven from sticks and cedar boughs made her way down Burlington’s Main Street to the almost funereal beat of a gong. With her came four tall “elemental spirits” whose candy-colored papier-mâché mouths formed ‘O’s like tuba horns, as if perpetually poised to unleash wild weather on the Champlain Valley.... Read more

Thousands of people flocked to the musical and theatrical events presented by the Burlington International Waterfront Festival over the past couple of weeks. The number of tickets sold — or given away — will enable organizers to determine almost exactly how many showed up (not including, of course, the concertgoers sitting in their boats just off Waterfront Park).... Read more

Broadway’s most colorful recent scandal, “Sushi-gate,” unfolded when Jeremy Piven abruptly withdrew from David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, claiming mercury poisoning. Weybridge’s Melissa Lourie, artistic director of the Middlebury Actors Workshop, took in the revival just after the wasabi hit the fan. Ironically, the play skewers ego, power and relationships in Hollywood.... Read more