Blogs

Set Sail with Snackbeard

Set Sail with Snackbeard

According to a passage in his novel “Redburn,” no less an authority on seafaring life than Herman Melville states, “It is a great thing in a sailor to know how to sing well.” For, he explains, those at sea who are blessed with a talented voice may help raise the...
Northeast Underground Turns Six

Northeast Underground Turns Six

Another year, another milestone. As of today, this blog is six years old. But what is there to make of this anniversary? Benchmarks of five years or 10 feel more momentous than just another notch added to the belt during the intervening period. And make no mistake...
Five Years Gone – Knock on Wood

Five Years Gone – Knock on Wood

It’s been written before that five years is a long time. And after five years of Northeast Underground blog posts (over 200 articles and counting!), few could imagine just how much has been covered, discussed and critiqued on this little slice of the Internet. So on...
A Sad Moment for Valley Music

A Sad Moment for Valley Music

Usually, it’s a happy occasion that puts a band in the paper. This week, it’s tragic news. As you may have heard, The Alchemystics recently lost two of their circle. Drummer Demse Zullo and his longtime friend Brian White were killed when the van they were travelling...
Nightcrawler: Fire Power, Bash benefits Christmas Eve fire victims; Amy Fairchild joins members of Extreme, The Allmans, Megadeth and more for Boston charity

Nightcrawler: Fire Power, Bash benefits Christmas Eve fire victims; Amy Fairchild joins members of Extreme, The Allmans, Megadeth and more for Boston charity

She’s seen fire. She’s seen (freezing) rain. But Kristy Librera Chapman remains undaunted in her quest to aid her family and her community. A cousin to one of the families affected by a tragic Christmas Eve fire in Southwick, Chapman says that she knew she needed to...

Wonder Kids

  One thing that I found especially shocking when I became a first-time mama to a boy was the assumption that boys are genetically programmed to like trucks and balls and big creatures like dinosaurs. Some boys adore all of the above. Some don’t. The fact that my...

On Hurricane Island

Ellen Meeropol dreamt up a horror. She took a charged anniversary, September 11th, a remote island in Maine, and an assortment of characters whose agendas are at odds (at the most polite best), but she doesn’t go for “at best” in her second novel, On Hurricane Island,...

The Public Humanist has a new home

Cutting to the chase: The Public Humanist’s current and archived posts can now be found here: http://masshumanities.org/the-public-humanist/ And now to back up a little. Many of you will have gleaned that The Public Humanist is the one blog on the Valley Advocate site...
“Nice Work” is O.K.!

“Nice Work” is O.K.!

They just don’t make musicals like they used to. Except when they do. Nice Work If You Can Get It, playing at the Bushnell in Hartford through February 8th, is a 1920s musical that premiered on Broadway in 2012. It was whipped up by Joe DiPietro from the skeleton of a...

Making Middens

Most of us in this country generate a lot of trash. I spend a lot of time feeling guilty about it, but it turns out that doesn’t actually decrease my trash production. There’s very little incentive for cutting down other than ideology.  With a tiny amount of effort I...
Poking at Bird Poop

Poking at Bird Poop

We’re in the midst of the good New England weather that keeps the weak away. It looks desolate and lifeless out there, but it most surely isn’t. With temperatures staying below freezing the little snow we have is sticking around and treating us to the signs of the...

Staghorn Sumac in the Snow

We’re in the midst of the good New England weather that keeps the weak away. It looks desolate and lifeless out there, but it most surely isn’t. With temperatures staying below freezing the little snow we have is sticking around and treating us to the signs of the...

Four More Years! Four More Years!

Four years – the space between Olympic Games, the duration of the average college career, or the amount of time some bands take to record and release a new album. If you, dear reader, told me four years ago that I would still be writing this blog in 2015, I would’ve...

One Word

The stirrings of January and it’s apparently the year of the non-resolution, by which I mean people seem to be in exploration of the notion that we are enough as we are or less and more are ways to beat up on ourselves (read more about this on Abigail Rose...
Like a Lycopod

Like a Lycopod

This winter we haven’t gotten enough snow. “Enough” is what allows for cross-country skiing. Even in New Hampshire, where I spent part of the holidays, the snow cover was patchy or absent. We passed a wet hour tubing at a ski resort. The wet snow and underinflated...