A Primer on Local Currencies
If you’d like to learn more about local currencies, please read the VT Commons article by Amy Kirschner of VT Sustainable Exchange here.
Enjoy~
Kate
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Local Currency Update, Thanksgiving Edition
VFN generously supported the Onion River Exchange Harvest Party on 11.08.08, at the Moretown Town Hall. It was a lovely, friendly event, with delicious potluck food, and a fun, family-oriented contra dance with music by Knotty Pine, along with a silent auction and raffle. The turnout was lower than we’d hoped, probably due to many other events happening the same night (as usual), but it was fun.
If you haven’t joined ORE yet, I encourage you to do so. It may seem a bit complex at the very beginning, but once you get signed up and oriented, and have done your first exchange, you’ll think: why didn’t I do this sooner??? I personally have benefitted from having my lawn mowed and raked, and I’ve earned time (called “Community Credits”) by helping at local events, giving career counseling, and mending worn mittens! And I’ve met good new people in the process.
If you’re on Facebook, you can become an Onion River friend.
Next Local Currency workgroup meeting: Friday, December 5th, 8am at the Big Picture Theater. I hope to start planning for ORE information sessions in the Valley. Please come, at least for donuts and coffee!
Cheers~Kate
Transition Town Montpelier Makes Its Public Debut!
And a few MRVers were there (that I recognized, at least)–I spied Dennis Derryberry, Ben Falk, and Stan (the guy from Mass who will be here soon) in the crowd. The church sanctuary was filled, for a presentation by Naresh Giangrande, a New Jersey native who’s lived in the UK for 29 years and is a resident of Transition Town Totnes. Naresh began by having all of us turn and introduce ourselves to someone we didn’t know, and talk about what brought us there. As he pointed out, transition towns is first and always about community-building, and it was nice to have this experiential reminder right off the bat.
After the talk, folks gathered downstairs for refreshments and talking in a circle (actually several concentric circles), which is another part of the transition process. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay because I had a kid to get to bed, but I’d love to hear from others what that was like. Naresh’s point that transition is both an external and an internal process was especially poignant, I thought. He said that we have unsustainable inner psychology and we need to transition in that sense as well. I couldn’t agree more.
As several of us have already noted, the array of projects that happen under the umbrella of “transition town” reflects very closely the one we’ve got underway in the Valley. The one exception for us that I’ve noted is “health.” As a registered nurse and a certified nurse-midwife, I think about the waste and carbon-dependence that’s built into our healthcare system as it stands now, and I anticipate that we will also need to relocalize our sources for health care and wellness. Perhaps something for VFN to talk about supporting?
Transition Town Montpelier is beginning a study group of The Transition Handbook this winter. I hope that our group will get going soon too!
Also, a friend of mine named Chris Colt will be teaching a course this winter at Champlain College for which the texts will include The Transition Handbook and something by Bill McKibben, if anybody’s interested in a more formal approach.
Cheers~Kate
FILM REVIEW: Madagascar – Escape 2 Africa
If you haven’t immersed yourself in the “Madagascar” experience, you may be missing one of the most entertaining animated treats of the past decade.
And the good news here is that the new sequel is on par with the 2005 original.
Be forewarned – if you are planning to bring “the littles” to this film, know that the movie moves incredibly quickly, contains hilarious adult-aimed highbrow humor that will go over the heads of most children, and has some moments of action and violence that may be inappropriate for younger audiences. The good news – very few fart jokes or other gratuitous potty humor, and the music and dance track will get you up out of your seat. Plus, the animation is wonderful to behold on the big screen.
Like the original, “Madagascar 2” revolves around the adventures of four animal friends who grew up performing for big crowds as captives in a New York City zoo. This time, they leave their lemur-infested island home of Madagascar via airplane, and end up crashing down in – yep, you guessed it – Africa. From there, they find themselves involved in a whole crazy series of events that actually button up themselves quite neatly by the end of the movie.
Alex (affably voiced by Ben Stiller) is a lion who loves to shake his groove thing for the enjoyment of the audience. Here, he ends up being reunited with his father and mother, but must prove himself to the rest of the pride or suffer banishment.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s hilarious hippo hip-shaking hipster Gloria discovers a whole group (gaggle? flock? posse?) of African hippos, including a muscle-bound monster male named Moto Moto (voiced by Will.I.Am) who takes a liking to her. Their courtship is borderline inappropriate for the littles, who will find themselves lost in the joke, but quite comical for the older crowd.
As it turns out, Gloria’s close friend Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer as a convincing New York City neurotic) has feelings for her, and how the two of them work out this wrinkle in their relationship over the course of the film I leave for you to discover.
Chris Rock’s Marty the Zebra has the least interesting time of it, running with a herd of his own and providing occasional comic foil relief to Alex’s “roaring” dilemma.
And then, of course, there are all the wonderful supporting characters in this film. Yes, the four commando penguins are back – Kowalski, Skipper, Private and the top dog – and of course, if they are not busy hijacking jeepfuls of savannah tourists for parts to rebuild their downed aircraft, they are busy making wisecracks or sorting through the finer points of labor contracts with their simian work force.
And yes, the lemurs return, too (and they are ring tailed lemurs, not sifakas lemurs, my six-year-old neighbor Carl Kellogg, a Valley expert on this pro-simian creature, would have you know). Sacha Baron Cohen of “Borat” fame voices King Julien with his usual trans-gendered goofiness, ably supported by Maurice, his trusty sidekick (Cedric the Entertainer.)
And the surprise character? An older retired female tourist named Nana (voiced by Elisa Gabrielli), who sports a handbag, spectacles, and an aggressive attitude (she is, we learn, a Yonkers native and learned martial arts as a Brownee) to match. Apparently, she and Alex the lion have had run-ins before, but watching her beat the stuffing out of Alex in one early scene is a bit over-the-top. As she and her other Big Apple tourist neighbors “go native,” younger viewers may be a bit dismayed, though older audience members will appreciate (perhaps) the references to “Lord of the Flies” and other dystopian novels we were force-fed in junior high school.
Is Madagascar 2 fun? You bet – but you might have to do some explaining to the kids afterwards.
Consummer Alert on Hydro-4000
Sorry Fellow Valley Futurers for the long post but this is annoying.
There should be a Special Place in Hell for Multi-Level Marketers and Those Who Falsely Paint Themselves Green
By Bob Ferris
It is a sad fact of life that charlatans prey on those that need to believe most and are least able to protect themselves. In times past it was the unwashed and rural, but on today’s landscape it is those who turn an open eye and unprepared brain to infomercials and the most bold of the internet advertisers. So our economically and intellectually challenged are further burdened by ozone air cleaners that pollute more than they clean, atmospheric water generators that are nothing more than repackaged dehumidifiers, and now in the shadow of high priced gas and diesel a veritable plethora of HHO generators and Brown’s gas boondoggles.
While all of them make my blood boil a little, I suspect the later water for gas schemes insult my scientific sensibilities the most. Perhaps it is because I finally realize why every child should take physics and higher math. And that reason manifests itself best in the $1200 Hydro-4000 electrolysis machine marketed by some geniuses in Jupiter, Florida calling themselves Green Machine Solutions (http://www.hydro4000.com/aboutus.htm). Green Machine is a business unit of Diversified Energy Group (http://www.degoil.com) which is a company run by David Havanich Jr. and Carmine Dellasala Jr. who seem to launch and then abandon businesses as a hobby (check out their various listings in http://www.sunbiz.org/corioff.html).
This machine justifies its significant price tag by claiming that the hydrogen gas captured as a result of excess energy produced by your underworked car alternator will displace 20-60% of your gasoline or diesel. Spectacular! I want one. But is this possible? The answer is: a resounding No.
What we are talking about here is a device that takes distilled water and passes electricity through it to break it into its constituent parts—hydrogen and oxygen—through a process known as hydrolysis. (Is this ringing a bell from high school chemistry or biology?) This is wonderful and logical as far as we have gone. Hydrogen is a zippy fuel with more power per pound than gasoline or diesel. But here is where it gets tricky and to keep this easier we are going to convert everything to British Thermal Units (BTUs).
So let’s start with the alternator. Car alternators generally operate in the range of 14 or so volts and 50 amperes or amps. These simple units when multiplied give you watts; in this case 700 watts in an hour’s time. Since one watt yields 3.41 BTUs each hour our little alternator is producing the equivalent of 2387 BTUs. While all of this is not really available to make hydrogen because the alternator is also charging the battery, providing juice to the sparkplugs or glow plugs, and generally running all the fans, lights, and the radio for your car—we will be generous and assume that all of it is available to the whiz-bang Hydro-4000.
Hydrolysis is not 100% efficient and we see conversions efficiencies—electricity into hydrogen power—of between 40 to 60%. But since the Jupiter folks say their unit beats everyone and has efficiencies in the 80-94% range, we again will give them the benefit of the doubt. So the potential energy drawn off the now-gainfully employed alternator in the form of hydrogen represents 80% of 2387 BTUs or 1910 BTUs. Pretty darn good. No one says the machine does not produce hydrogen.
Now let’s go to the car end of this equation. Here again for ease of analysis we will go with a simple vehicle and a simple situation: A car that gets 30 miles to the gallon driving 60 miles an hour for 60 minutes. During this hour our fairly efficient car will burn two gallons of gasoline. Gasoline contains 125,000 BTUs so the energy budget for this trip is 250,000 BTUs. So if we are looking to save 20 to 60% of that—as the Sunshine State boys claim—our car would be looking through its fuel resources for 50,000 to 150,000 BTUs to make up the difference. It gets 1910 from the Hydo-4000, on a good day.
Debates about this device are flying around the internet, but has anyone conclusively tested this device and others? The answer to that is: Yes and no. There was a TV station in Florida that installed the device on one of their news vans. They claimed in a broadcast news story that their rig went from getting 9 miles to the gallon to getting 23 miles to the gallon—more than a 200% increase in mileage. While many in the world were incredulous, sister stations around the country rebroadcast this story and it became gospel. This story wrote large on the air and on the internet—It Works—while the follow-up story of a retest by an engineering professor and his students that basically greatly scaled down the findings of the first was released with a whimper. Interesting.
One who watched the original broadcast was Sheriff Ken Mascara in St. Lucie, Florida. So he dug into confiscated drug funds and installed one of the devices on a patrol car and one on a test car owned by an undisclosed person. Here again, the announcement that they were going to do that test and that taxpayer dollars were not used in the purchase of the devices was aired widely (Note to Ken: Confiscated drug monies are taxpayer dollars). But when the testing was complete and the sheriff’s department basically said the Hydro-4000 didn’t do anything and might have decreased performance, this news did not hit the TV screen or YouTube, it was covered by a few paragraphs on the St. Lucie Sheriff’s website:
http://www.stluciesheriff.com/news_article.php?news_id=143.
Why wasn’t the “news” here about a gullible sheriff who used public funds to buy a fraudulent device for the department and a private party?
What did hit YouTube was a video of a straight test of the hydrogen making potential of the device (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBVbKXE7NWE). This industrious fellow attached the Hydro-4000 to a battery to simulate what would happen in a car. In his test he ran 11 volts at basically 7 amps and it took him eight minutes to generate one liter of Brown’s gases (hydrogen and oxygen). Doing the math on this fellow’s experiment indicates that while the battery pumped roughly 35 BTUs into the apparatus, the single liter produced during that time period contained only 9.54 BTUs. That means that the conversion efficiency of the Hydro-4000 in this experiment was not 80-94% as claimed but rather 27%.
In spite of the fact that the process cannot physically offset 20-60% of your gas or diesel use and the device does not perform as claimed, this contraption is becoming an internet phenomenon. Part of this is that dealerships are being sold to the gullible around the continent and each dealer has a website with more and more outlandish claims about this dubious product. I visited one site from Alaska called Alaskan Green Machines LLC (of course it is an LLC because these folks want to walk away with the money and not get nailed when some regulatory hammer drops). Here is a quote from the FAQ section (http://www.alaskagreenmachines.com/FAQ’s.htm):
Why buy from Alaska Green Machines?
We have the best hydrogen generators available. The GMS HYDRO-4000 contains an all stainless steel apparatus which creates far more hydrogen and oxygen than products that appear to be similar. The output is 2.3 liters per minute of hydrogen at 12v and 7 amps with 0 vacuum. Other units may look like ours, but theirs are just two rods in a plastic container that put a charge through the water, like a kid’s science experiment. They require using distilled water and an electrolyte solution such as lye to create electrolysis. With these products energy in must equal energy out, so they just don’t work! Don’t be fooled into buying a cheaper product. You get what you pay for! The GMS HYDRO -4000 are built to the highest standards.
OK. Let’s look at this statement. (I know, again with the math). Twelve volts at 7amps produces 84 watts. And since each watt produces 3.41 BTUs, we know that in one hour we are going to get 286.44 BTUs out of the alternator. Doing the same sort of math for the hydrogen claimed to be produced, we get 138 liters (these are not pressurized so this is lighter than the same volume of air). Since each liter contains 9.54 BTUs, we are looking at total of 1362.52 BTUs. So they are telling us not to be fooled and at the same time fooling us by telling us that while everyone else’s hydrolysis machines work at roughly 40-60% percent efficiency, theirs is cranking away at nearly 500%. Let’s bring on the Nobel Prize folks.
The above said, since we know that gas has about 125,000 BTUs per gallon, their greatly exaggerated generator is only displacing about half an ounce of gasoline per hour of use. This is a far cry from the 20-60% gas savings that they are claiming. But it is right in line with what we have come to expect from multi-level marketing schemes: pseudo-science to fool the uninitiated and lies stacked upon lies.
As many of us are working tirelessly to solve our environmental and energy issues for little or no pay, I get really steamed when folks inappropriately paint themselves green and try to make big bucks out of the misery of their fellow citizens. My blood pressure rose so high that I felt like giving these Alaskans a piece of my mind. So I went to the contact section of their website and found this:
Email: info@alaskagreenmachines.com
Phone: 907.373.5585
Address: PO Box 872331, Wasilla, AK 99687
Perfect. Although I felt like picking up the phone and screaming “thanks, but no thanks” to these folks, I thought that I’d write this piece instead and make these three points:
Point One: The fact that these types of devices exist and their purveyors prosper means that we need a better educated populace that will be able to do these simple types of analyses for themselves. Education is key to our surviving our current crises. Clearly, millions have been left behind and we need to invest in fixing our education gap.
Point Two: Somewhere, through some agency or entity, we have to do a better job of vetting these devices and warning the public to be wary of these sorts of claims and about the predatory tactics of those who make them.
Point Three: We all have to speak up and help those who are most vulnerable to these predatory marketing practices. Pass this piece around and help others to understand.
Let’s put our efforts and our monies towards legitimate endeavors. There are certainly plenty out there to choose from! Shred On my friends (www.carbonshredders.org)
SMALL MART at the STATEHOUSE: How Vermont’s Economy Can Prosper…
Author and analyst Michael Shuman gave a provocative talk on relocalizing businesses at the Vermont Statehouse on Tuesday, November 18.
His lecture is full of useful ideas – follow the link below to the whole talk.
MRV Community Biomass Project
Northeastern States Research Cooperative: Research for the Northern Forest 2008 Grant
Northern Forest Alliance/UVM Community Biomass Project in the Mad River Valley
Project Description: Enhancing the sustainability of community-based biomass production and use for local energy through university-community partnerships
Abstract: With energy costs increasing rapidly, more communities in the Northern Forest are exploring options for producing and using energy from local forest biomass. Yet questions remain about how forest biomass can be produced sustainably under increasing pressures for use and conservation. This project will use action research in seven to nine communities in Washington and Addison Counties, Vermont to document, develop and enhance the impacts of two models for community-based forest biomass: a community-supported firewood program for home heating in Addison County and a multi-town effort to achieve energy independence in heating and power generation in the Mad River Valley. Local sustainability indicators will be developed to assess impacts. Results will be used to develop biomass models for other communities, as well as support university-community partnerships for more effective adaptive decision-making in the Northern Forest. This is a collaborative project between the University of Vermont (UVM), the Northern Forest Alliance (NFA), and Vermont Family Forests (VFF). The two areas of focus are Addison County and the Mad River Valley. The Addison County effort will be led by VFF and focused on a community-supported firewood program while the MRV’s project will be led by NFA and focus on aspects of the community’s goal of achieving energy independence.
The project goals are to:
1. Improve understanding and effectiveness of renewable local wood biomass production and conservation.
2. Develop a model for consensus-based, community identification and implementation of sustainable, local wood biomass projects.
3. Create a foundation for improved collaborative learning among universities and forest communities to increase the impact of sustainability initiatives in the Northern Forest.
General MRV Project Summary
NFA will work with UVM faculty and students and Biomass Energy Resource Center (BERC) to implement a three-year action research project to implement and monitor a shared multi-town effort toward achieving energy independence in the four to five towns of the Mad River Valley in Washington County, Vermont. The project will contribute to the question “how can communities in and near the Northern Forest produce and use local forest biomass to meet their energy needs in ways that are sustainable, efficient and fair?” and be framed within the larger methodological question of “how can universities and communities work together more effectively to share learning and enhance the impacts of sustainability initiatives in the Northern Forest?”
Mad River Valley Community Biomass Project: Assess to what extent the mad river valley can supply its heating needs from sustainably harvested local wood.
Research Questions
§ Given that it is a stated goal in the MRV to achieve full energy independence – while adhering to and fostering values related to rejuvenation and sustainability — what percentage can sustainably harvested woody biomass reasonably contribute to the overall equation of striving for this energy autonomy?
§ How can our community use significantly more wood energy in ways that are at once sustainable, efficient, local and fair?
§ Help us to answer: What should our community’s energy strategy look like? Rather than simply substituting biomass for fossil fuels, can we figure out how to dramatically reduce our total fuel use and then substitute sustainable, local fuels?
§ Inclusive in the attempt to answer the overarching questions are the specific goals to:
- Engage the community in dialogue and exploration of the feasibility of a multi-jurisdictional pellet-making facility, given local forest capacity, potential future demand, community-driven sustainability parameters, etc.
- Determine how transportation of material and products affects the effort to heat with local and sustainable wood products, i.e. what is the community tolerance for transportation of wood and wood products into, around, and out of the Valley, and how wide of a radius makes sense to import and potentially export wood biomass and/or products given the overarching goal of sustainability and reducing carbon footprint?
- Assess what percentage of the woodchips going to the Harwood facility can be sourced locally and how can we help facilitate more local sources being available going into the future?
BASIC WORK PLAN
Action items from project grant proposal:
1) UVM and/or BERC (Biomass Energy Resource Center) will lead the process of collecting both qualitative and quantitative data on the current use, production and management of forest-based biomass in the MRV. This baseline data will cover:
§ Forest condition
§ Existing and recent biomass production and consumption
§ Community energy priorities
§ Community knowledge about biomass options
This data will be collected and assessed using a variety of methods including a survey administered to landowners and stakeholders, and a variety of quantitative data collection instruments.
2) Northern Forest Alliance (NFA) will work with individuals and community groups within the Mad River Valley (such as the VFN’s Energy Group, Mad River Sustainability Group, conservation commissions, and the Mad River Valley Planning District) to a) identify practices that will improve the community’s production, use, or management of biomass and b) define local indicators or values for sustainability. It will also c) document community decision-making processes surrounding biomass and efforts toward energy independence as well as d) work with the community on setting and refining goals for the project as it progresses through its three-year timespan.
Project Status
§ UVM, BERC, VFF, and NFA are currently developing the data collection methodologies that will be used for the project(s), given the refined goals set for the community-based biomass project for the Valley.
§ NFA will begin working with the community to develop and define practices and indicators to frame the research so that the data that is collected and assessments arrived at are useful – and reflect the community’s values. UVM and NFA will work with the community to then monitor these practices and indicators throughout the project’s duration.
FILM REVIEW: Quantum of Solace – The Best of Bond, the Worst of Bond
There are moments in a moviegoer’s experience when one feels a simultaneous sense of deep satisfaction and bewildered puzzlement.
For me, this was the case with the new James Bond film “Quantum of Solace,” which made $70 billion opening week-end, shattering all Bond film openings to date and officially ushering in the holiday movie season.
Did I like this film? Well, no…and yes. “Quantum of Solace” offered the best and the worst of Bond, all in one two hour package.
Here are the film’s five worst (Boo!) and five best (Yay!) aspects.
1. Boo – The Title: Presumably, the title of any film ought to inform a film’s plot, direction, theme, or characters in some concrete or tangible way. Not in this case. “Quantum,” we learn in one early throwaway scene, refers to a mysterious cabal of baddies who have somehow infiltrated British intelligence. As it turns out, they’ve been so successful that viewers never ever hear from them again. They’re that good.
2. Boo – The Lack of Lust: There isn’t any to speak of here. What’s a James Bond film without a little flirtation? We get a bare shoulder in one scene and a brief kiss in a car in another. That’s it?
3. Boo – Zero Gadgetry: C’mon now. Has Q exhausted all of his inventive options in the M.I. laboratory? How ‘bout a pneumatic zip line, or a solar-powered wallet that shoots darts? Anything!
4. Boo – Stereotypical Bad Guy: I have an idea! Let’s find an actor who can play a lascivious, mustachioed, dark-skinned South American dictator-in-training, and give him a central role in the film! Gosh, that’s never been done before. Not.
5. Boo – no femme fatale: How can you have a Bond film without a femme fatale? Or maybe those Bond gals are so twentieth century? Jeezum Crow.
That said, there is much to like about “Quantum.” Here are just five elements.
1. Yay – “Art Mirrors Life” plot: OK, there is the barest whisper of a narrative arc here, but what we get revolves around Peak Oil, the world’s supply of fresh water, and an insidious corporate wheeler dealer who topples and re-installs Third World governments at will, with the tacit backing and blessing of U.S. intelligence. Gawsh, that never happens in real life, does it? Naw.
2. Yay – Chase scenes: Director Mark Forster knows how to film them, from the opening sequence involving an Aston Martin (phew) along Italy’s stunning coastline, to a truly remarkable rooftop sequence that is choreographed as if the actors were two ballet dancers brawling. Stunning.
3. Yay – Creative/Metaphorical Offing: Strawberry Fields, a minor M.I. character, is dispatched by the bad guys in a way that is truly poetic, given current global Peak Oil dilemmas. I’ll stop here, so as not to ruin the moment.
4. Yay – Sexy Women: Dame Judy Dench is able to project an aura that is once alluring and maternal in her relationship with James. She doesn’t have much to work with here script-wise, but she makes the most of it. And relative newcomer Olga Kurylenko turns out to be a pleasant surprise – smart, sexy, tenacious and a good match for Mr. Bond as Camille the Bolivian mercenary. Bravo.
5. Yay – Daniel Craig: A buffed-up Craig plays Bond straight up. In the wake of his the assassination of his love interest Vespa (see 2006’s “Casino Royale”), Craig’s Bond is a remorseless killing machine, a combination of Timex Watch (he takes a licking and keeps on ticking) and tiger shark. Craig is mesmerizing on screen, always in motion, quick with the one-liners, and all business. In a post 9/11 world of uncertainty, Craig’s Bond fits the bill.
All of this is to say that, if you are a Bond fan and willing to forgive some narrative indiscretions here, “Quantum of Solace” is a more-than-adequate thrill ride to inaugurate the 2008 holiday season.
Look for it at Mad River Valley’s Big Picture movie theater soon.
MUSIC REVIEW: In the Round – Five Acoustic Performers in the Central Vermont Area This Week-end!
John Gorka.
It’s one of those week-ends when the acoustic stars align here in central Vermont. The phrase “in the round” refers to those performances when two or more artists share the stage for a night of song, literally playing off one another through tune smithing, joke-telling and witty repartee.
Red House Comes to Randolph
If you appreciate “in the round” performances, then don’t miss three of acoustic music’s top performers – Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka, and Cliff Eberhardt – at the Chandler Music Hall (71-73 Main St in Randolph) on Friday, November 14th at 7:30 pm. All three are long-time artists for the world renowned acoustic/roots label Red House Records and this unique opportunity to see three good friends perform some of the best acoustic music in the world is one not to be missed
Beautiful World is Eliza Gilkyson’s “masterpiece” (All Music Guide) that is a powerful commentary on corruption, war, politics, a devastated environment and a crumbling economy. The record was one of the top albums on folk and Americana radio this summer and has garnered praise from all around the world. Produced by long-time musical partner Mark Hallman, Gilkyson seamlessly crosses between catchy pop/folk to rock, and a little jazz. The masterfully penned “Great Correction” and “Party’s Over” seem to resonate with an eerie relevance, providing a soundtrack to the chaos we are seeing in today’s economic climate. Despite Beautiful World’s dramatic themes, Gilyson’s presents each song with a sense of hope for the future and a reason to fight for what makes the world beautiful.
Eberhardt’s critically acclaimed 2007 release, The High Above and the Down Below, is his first effort in 5 years and showcases some of his strongest work to date. Drawing from his pop and jazz influences, Cliff created a gritty, soulful album that earned a spot on USA Today’s Top 5 list for 2007.
Rounding out the trio is one my favorite performers – John Gorka – who has been on Red House for almost his entire career and has become one of the most respected songwriters in the music industry. His 2006, Writing in the Margins was a favorite among fans and critics with its upbeat folk, country and soul vibe. The always-understated but very funny Gorka has been busy writing new songs, so don’t be surprised to hear some fresh material as well as the old classics like the hilarious “I’m From New Jersey” and the beautifully haunting “Houses In The Fields.”
For tickets and more information, call 802-728-9878, or visit www.chandler-arts.org.
Valley Players Saturday Night: Up and Comers Extraordinaire!
If you are feeling in the mood to hear some new talent, then don’t miss Bruce Jones’ double-shot –Meg Hutchinson and Mark Erelli – on Saturday night at Waitsfield’s Valley Players Theater, beginning at 8:00.
Meg Hutchinson (also now on the Red House label) has one of the most arresting voices I’ve heard in some time – think Anais Mitchell crossed with Natalie Merchant – and can write songs to match – beautiful, soulful, and heart-stopping. I’ve never seen her live – but if she is half as good in person as she is on CD, listeners are in for a real treat.
And Mark Erelli channels Ellis Paul-like intensity and high quality song-writing with a captivating stage presence. His new CD “Delivered” is one of the most moody and atmospheric compilations I’ve heard in some time – I’ve been spinning it for a few weeks now, and the songs reach out of the CD player to grab you by the emotions.
I commend Bruce Jones for taking a chance on bringing in new performers – let’s give them an enthusiastic Valley welcome and turn out for their show!
Order $15 advance tickets by phone – 496-8910 – or buy them at the door for $17.
What a pleasure for us all – to live in a community with so much good music traveling through. Hope to see you at the shows!
Transition Town Meet Up in Montpelier November 24th
Monday, November 24, 2008. 7 pm, Unitarian Church, Montpelier Transition Towns: From Oil Dependency to Resilient Communities
A talk by Naresh Giangrande,
co-founder of Transition Town Totnes. Free; donations accepted.
The Transition Town movement has seized the historic opportunity presented by our global challenges of peak oil, climate change, and economic unravelling, to creatively examine the choices and choose the future we want. This talk will look at what those choices are, and why they are so important; and why the Transition movement offers us solutions to the many problems with energy security, carbon emissions, food, and how we can learn to live with the inevitable changes to the way we live and work.
Naresh Giangrande is the co founder of the first Transition Town in Totnes in the UK. Transition Towns began in September 2006 and has since morphed into a worldwide movement with over 100 official Transition Towns, cities, counties, and islands, and several thousand who are considering this model for positive change. ‘Transition Town’ is an inspiring vision and action plan for how a community can transition to an energy lean, carbon constrained, and relocalised future that is abundant, sustainable, pleasurable, and resilient. http://transitiontowns.org/ For more information, contact Annie McCleary, 456-8122.
Presented by Transition Town Montpelier and the Post-Carbon Sustainability Network
Refreshments will be served. Donations by Red Hen Bakery.
To reply to this message, click here: http://transitionvermont.ning.com/profiles/message/listInbox