Arts & Entertainment

Tischler returns home with new musical

Tim Simard

Featured Article
fireflymag.com-Mar

Next week will be somewhat of a homecoming for St. George resident and Champlain Valley Union High School graduate Jacob Tischler.

As a “thank you” to the CVU community and all of those that helped steer Tischler towards a life of theater arts, he’ll debut the first musical he’s written as a college student.

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Multi-talented Vermont musician John Mullett and the band Skyler takes to the stage at Higher Ground on Sunday

Tim Simard

Featured Article
fireflymag.com-Jan

The Maine-based band Skyler will take to the stage this Sunday, Jan. 9, at Higher Ground in South Burlington. The band features multi-talented instrumentalist John Mullett, who grew up in Worcester and attended U-32 High School in Montpelier. Twenty-year-old Mullett plays fiddle, guitar, and keys, among other instruments, in the five-man band.

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Cold-weather date ideas

By Jessica Sanders

Featured Article
fireflymag.com-Dec

With the temperature dropping as fast as the snowflakes, your go-to date ideas are going to need a cold-weather update. We compiled a list of fun date ideas that cost very little, if anything at all! Plus, they’ll get you out of your house and away from your parents.

 

Outdoor dates:

 

Take a winter hike 

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fireflymag.com-Dec
Independent music stores offer unique experience
By Jack Martin

 

As Pure Pop employee Amy Wild organized vinyl records in the Burlington music store, the multi-colored covers were as diverse as the music they contained. 

“It’s just a really cool atmosphere,” Wild said. “A lot of things come in that you’re not going to find anywhere else. You never know what you’re going to see in here.” 

Wild has been working there on and off for nearly three years. 

fireflymag.com-Dec
Makeover: Creating a sleek, low-key look
By Stephanie Choate

Essex High School senior Rachel Croce rarely wears make-up— “not even for prom,” she said. Her hair styling routine is equally low-maintenance: it consists of brushing it when she gets out of the shower.

Any look would need to be simple, she said, since she’s “not much of a morning person.”

fireflymag.com-Dec
Ode to Apple: 15 Cool Apps
By Jack Martin

Here are 15 cool apps we discovered for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Appzilla

This app comes with 90 different tools ranging from the practical (WalkNType shows what’s in your path in real-time, preventing you from bumping into obstacles as you focus on the screen) to the inane (Voodoo Doll and Game Buzzer provide the exact services their names imply). (iPhone, iPod Touch, $0.99) 

Eliminate Pro

fireflymag.com-Nov
Q & A with The Underground
By Jack Martin

Firefly caught up with the members of The Underground— (from left) lead guitarist Mike Cribari, drummer Ian Solomon, bassist Ian Senesac, vocalist, keyboardist and guitarist Rosemary Moore, and keyboardist, guitarist, and vocalist Daphnee Vandal.

How would you describe your music?

fireflymag.com-Nov
High school photography exhibit opens in Essex
By Stephanie Choate

Photographs by nearly 40 Vermont high school students are on display at the Vermont Photo Space Gallery in Essex.

The exhibit, called Within the Frame, includes 50 photographs by high school photographers across the state. Essex photography teacher Wendy James organized the show, which opened Wednesday.

“For the most part, it’s just the usual scene in an unusual way,” James said. “The subject matter isn’t what makes the photos stand out, it’s something about the viewpoint or the focus…it’s the little decisions students make.”

fireflymag.com-Sep
Things to do this fall
By Stephanie Choate

There’s still plenty of nice weather left, so here are a few ideas to take advantage of every minute. 

-Play ball. Get some friends together for a game of wiffle ball, kickball, soccer, volleyball, tennis or whatever you’re into. 

-Have a movie night. Get a ton of friends together to watch movies and eat pizza. Pick a recent hit, a cheesy horror flick or a classic.

fireflymag.com-Oct
Casey's reading list
By Casey Hockman

For all of my fellow bookworms, here are my top fifteen summer book recommendations.  

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813) 

fireflymag.com-Jul
Vermont teens tour with Circus Smirkus
By Stephanie Choate

This summer, three Vermont teens are performing under the Big Top.

Al Mireault, Maia Gawor-Sloane and Noah Nielson join 25 other young acrobats, trapeze artists, jugglers and clowns in Circus Smirkus’ two-month Big Top Tour.

“It’s almost an entirely new genre of circus, because we’re teenagers,” Mireault said.

“We’re more passionate about it, because we don’t have the pressure of having to make a living off of it yet. It’s always a great show. You will leave definitely not forgetting it.”

fireflymag.com-Jun
Vermonters send hand-knit dolls to Haiti
By Casey Hockman

Burlington High School students and staff are sending a bit of Vermont comfort to an orphanage in Haiti. 

Students Quincy Cundiff-Kopplin and Jessica Fountain helped librarian Jan Hughes make 100 hand-knit dolls.

“I think getting a handmade doll is much nicer than a store-bought one,” Cundiff-Kopplin said. “It’s more special.”

fireflymag.com-May
Students display work in competition
By Stephanie Choate

A St. Johnsbury Academy student took the top honors in the 29th Annual Congressional Art Competition for high school students.

Holly Greenleaf’s winning piece, entitled “Milking Time” is headed to Washington, D.C. for an exhibit featuring the artwork of students across the country.

Students from 38 Vermont high schools submitted 175 pieces to the competition, held May 10 in Montpelier. Representative Peter Welch hosted the event.

'True Grit' is sure as shootin' cinema
Michael S. Goldberger

Putting off for a paragraph or so my customary, bombastic analogies and gratuitous citing of metaphors, note that the Coen brothers’ re-creation of “True Grit” is a rip-roaring, sure as shootin’ adventure yarn, by cracky! To borrow from “The Lone Ranger” intro, it stirringly invites you to “Return with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear.”

'The Fighter' exhibits championship form
By Michael S. Goldberger

 

Director David O. Russell’s “The Fighter,” an absorbing, powerfully realistic account of light welterweight “Irish” Micky Ward’s trials and tribulations in and out of the ring, is both metaphor and anthropological critic. Pulling no punches, it identifies the vestigial emotions that make this genre such a searing microcosm of the human condition.

'Due Date' has not so great expectations
By Michael S. Goldberger

“Sacrilege … plagiarism … they did everything but pay the original writer royalties.” Thus I incredulously uttered as the plot of director Todd Phillips’s “Due Date” unspooled. Indignantly, I analogized my initial distaste. It was like once having a dear friend, now passed, and here shows up this less gifted usurper, this pretender to the hallowed throne.

‘Hereafter’ makes matter of life and death no big deal
By Michael S. Goldberger

Let’s say Clint Eastwood phoned a while back and said he wanted to tell you all about this movie, “Hereafter,” he was planning to direct. Be at the pub. Drinks are on him. You spend a swell night listening to his ideas and philosophy, and why he wants to explore whether or not there is a Great Beyond. Lucky you. I would have jumped at the offer.

'Red' means go, in this case
By Michael S. Goldberger

A sweet ‘n’ salty, kettle popcorn of a film, Robert Schwentke’s “Red” is a mixture of farce and shoot-‘em-up action certain to warm the cockles of any retiree’s heart. You’ll see more and more of these whimsical tributes to Baby Boomers — depicted as virile, vibrant and virtuous — as they enter their golden years. I like to think of it as non-fiction.

'The Social Network' proves ya gotta have friends
By Michael S. Goldberger

Call it a character flaw. But aside from a cherished gaggle of relatives and friends, I don’t much care what folks are up to if it doesn’t affect me. Thus my conspicuous absence from Facebook. However, after seeing director David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” about its wunderkind founder, Mark Zuckerberg, I am rethinking my stance.

'The American' has a different yearning to be free
By Michael S. Goldberger

Artsy without being too schmartsy, director Anton Corbijn’s “The American” should please those viewers who don’t mind their movies veering off the main line from time to time. Though there’s no way of grasping all the secret ponderings that spirit this tale of derring-do, trying to make heads or tails of things certainly commands our attention.

'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World' is a match made on the cutting edge
By Michael S. Goldberger

As inevitable as the rock opera was in the late 1960s, director Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” creatively combines the audio-visual tools of a new generation in a kaleidoscopic mélange of mediums. It may not always be art, and may not care. But the process by which Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel is adapted is watershed striking.

'Inception,' perchance to dream
By Michael S. Goldberger

Anyone who says he totally comprehends writer-director Christopher Nolan’s surreally fascinating yet confounding “Inception” is full of it. Aside from the economy, rarely is there so much pontification about what is so little understood. Which, if you don’t mind someone having a bit of sport with you, is what makes this movie such strange fun.

'Predators' preys on its viewers
By Michael S. Goldberger

There is something awful yet probably necessary about a female praying mantis eating its mate. Just as horrible but bereft of any biological or social rationale is director Nimród Antal’s “Predators.” Both ugly facts of life, I hold each in the same esteem. Happily, I can warn you about it. Sadly, I doubt one male praying mantis will read this review.