Attendance was low at the All Sports Recreation and Fitness Expo at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds on Saturday. The event presumably lost many of its potential visitors to the sunny, 65-degree autumn weather. Some of the weekend activities they missed were dedicated to educating families about athletic safety and healthy food choices.... Read more

The last time I was at Bread and Puppet, I cried. I was about 8 years old and terrified by the puppets at the museum — hulking representations of the grotesque, the pained, the forgotten.

Fifteen years later, I returned to Glover to attend the 7th annual “Political Leaf-Peeping” performance — B&P’s final performance of the 2008 season at its rural home. The experience made me nearly weep for a different reason: that the 45-year-old company still has so much to protest.... Read more

With brightly colored banners, dancers in costume and local food and drink served under tents, the Langdon Street Café stopped traffic for a two-day street music festival last weekend.

Bolstered by 30 volunteers and a $900 grant from the City of Montpelier, the café featured local artists including the Prodigal String Band, Sara Grace and the Suits and The Logistical Nightmare Orchestra, along with bigger-name bands such as The Primate Fiasco, Rusty Belle and The New Nile Orchestra.... Read more

The Third Annual Pipe Classic judges’ show was the culmination of a weeklong exhibition and celebration of functional glass sculpture spearheaded by Burlington’s Bern Gallery. Dozens of extraordinary glass artists, as well as journalists and fans, turned out for the event, heralded by organizers as the largest and most challenging competition of its kind.... Read more

The day started dreary, but as I cruised down Route 7 toward the Shelburne Museum, I noted that not a single raindrop had fallen. My canine cohorts expressed their excitement more audibly, barking noisily before we even got parked. I wondered if museum founder Electra Havemeyer Webb really loved dogs enough to welcome such a commotion for her annual birthday celebration.... Read more

The large, white, double-primed canvas was laid out in the parking lot of the South End Arts and Business Association, held down on the corners by blocks of wood and stone. Artist Jean Cherouny was ready to roll, as it were. The crowd closed in as she began to stomp in a puddle of black paint on a palette next to the blank canvas.... Read more

I’m an adult who never outgrew the dress-up box. But where does cutting-edge fashion come from, if not playful experiments? Hoping an actual costume closet would yield wackier finds than my thrift-store runs, I headed up the hill.... Read more

I don’t like wine. So, when I walked into the Roxy last Friday, I braced myself for an event unlike anything I’d ever been privy to — a wine-tasting movie preview. Huh?... Read more

As the creamy, dark chocolate dripped into soft clumps before their eyes, the two boys watching the chocolate-dipping demonstration at Laughing Moon Chocolates could hardly take their eyes off the gooey delicacy. It was almost like a scene out of Willy Wonka — except instead of the mass-produced Wonka Bars, these boys were drooling over locally produced artisan truffles.... Read more

The gods doth smile upon Saturday and make fair weather o’er this blustering land! Shakespeare might have declared something like that, had he been on hand for the Strange Capers’ outdoor performance of The Taming of the Shrew last Saturday.... Read more