Thank the gods that I live in Vermont. It's heavily democratic

it's also beautiful and progressive, and I can guarantee you I'm not the only Vermonter who feels this way. Vermont will go for the dem candidate whatever I decide to do.

We have lots in common.

Are you near Brattleboro?

I'm in the Kingdom. Do you know where Glover is? And yes, I admit it, the real revolution began in MA. On the other hand we have Rodger's Rangers and Ethan Allen.

You should come visit sometime.

I'll make you a nice dinner.

Glover is the home of Bread & Puppet. I live in an even smaller village about 15 minutes from there. We're really talking about rural backwoods here. Have you ever heard of Bread & Puppet. Amazing, amazing stuff. Peter Schumann is a national treasure. There was a great front page of the NYT Sunday Times Arts section article this summer about him and B&P.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Puppet_Theater

"2000 Republican National Convention

"Bread & Puppet volunteers were among the 79 people arrested at a warehouse in Philadelphia during the 2000 Republican National Convention. The Associated Press reported that the scene of the "SWAT-style" raid was broadcast live by news helicopters. Years later, the AP explained that there "was tense talk (later proved unfounded) of terrorist plots being hatched in the "puppetista" headquarters, of bomb building and anarchist-fueled mayhem." Its report did not include the police's side of the story.

"A couple of our folks were down there, helping to build puppets," said Linda Elbow, company manager for Bread & Puppet. "The cops went into the studio...arrested people, and took the puppets. So, now, puppets are criminals."

"Praise for the theater
Other writers to have praised Bread & Puppet include historian Howard Zinn, who praises its "magic, beauty, and power," and poet and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu, who wrote: "The Bread & Puppet Theater has been so long a part of America's conscious struggle for our better selves, that it has become, paradoxically, a fixture of our subconscious." Codrescu also praised "the genius of Peter Schumann, the prodigious Puppet-God.""

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Smaller than Glover? But Glover has only 966 people! Wow! Well, you'd be happy in some of the hilltowns around me here.

They have this enormous natural amphitheater in a field. Just Huge and 40,000 people would make the pilgrimage from all over to attend the two day magical experience. I can't describe how beautiful it was. Peter ended it about 7 years ago because it just got too big and some guy got stabbed to death in the parking area.

At dusk the huge white puppet birds would come swooping down the hillside, and eventually evil in the form of a giant puppet was set aflame. That was the pageant part. The circus was much funnier. The puppets are often enormous and so beautiful.

They still do smaller performances in the summer.

And yes, my village is tiny. Less than a third the size of Glover. In fact, I didn't realize there were so many people in Glover!

Now I command you to look up Northampton. :P

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=AHNq6U55eko

My sisters both went to Mt Holyoke. And the daughter of my closest friends (really my adopted family) is in her first year at Smith. She loves it. She grew up down the road from me, and it's her first time she's ever lived outside of the Northeast Kingdom. She brought her roomate from LA up last weekend and her roomate was mindblown by this area. She thought it was so.. not backward but sort of back in time, quaint.