Ghostly household hijinks: Ethereal happenings abound in haunted Vermont

For the sake of full disclosure, I'd better get this on the table right up front: I'm a believer — in ghosts, that is. Not that I've ever seen any, you understand. Rather, I implicitly trust the good sense and rational recall of friends and relatives who say they've had up close and personal encounters of the weird kind.

With family rooted entirely in the UK — a place some would say has a corner on the market of all things blood-curdling — my childhood was generously peppered with chilling tales of one sort or another.

The first I ever heard came from my Dad, who grew up around the corner from Borley Rectory, considered by many to be England's most haunted location, with phantom nuns, horse-carriages and ill-fated lovers having been seen on the estate for more than a century. Though my Dad was only sure he'd heard the sounds of hooves when riding past on his bicycle, most of his schoolmates had sworn they'd witnessed all of its oddities.

While England is seemingly crawling with apparitions, its namesake is as well, for this area is steeped in oft-documented yet inexplicable mysteries. As someone who has never witnessed paranormal activity and who finds the notion both appealing and horrifying, it always astounds me that even those who have experienced it many times over can be remarkably matter of fact about it.

Friends who live in a nearby 220-year-old farmhouse are a case in point. They often awoke to find a man sitting motionless at the end of the bed, who then evaporates while turning towards them. Once they heard sounds of pots and pans crashing in the kitchen as if someone were preparing a 10-course meal, but, upon investigation, every wok and stockpot was still in its place and no one was there. And a door in the guest room has been known to open and close of its own accord.

Though they seem wholly unflustered by these creepy events, I'm fairly certain I'd be running to the nearest Realtor declaring it's time to sell and find a shiny new condo in a high-rise somewhere.

This flagrant cowardice is what kept me from heading over to Manchester's pre-eminently elegant—and allegedly haunted — resort hotel, the Equinox, to interview General Manager Courtney Lowe in person, as any self-respecting writer would. I'd heard about various preternatural incidents that have taken place at the Equinox since its founding in 1769 and, well, uh, my schedule was a little tight, so I ended up having to talk to him by phone, drat it.

According to Lowe, the hotel's housekeepers, in particular, are made aware of a presence that seems to enjoy interfering with their work in mischievous ways.

"There's a suite with floor-to-ceiling curtains which get tied up in a knot," he explained. "The housekeepers will untie them, go out of room and come back a few minutes later to find them tied again."

Lowe attests that there's a long list of peculiar goings-on, including vacuum cleaners turning on by themselves as well as ephemeral characters seen by guests. "Years ago, a corporate meeting planner looked out on the landing outside his door when he heard a noise and saw a ghostly looking figure standing there."

According to Lowe, because the hotel has been in existence for so long there are decades of testimony by employees and guests who couldn't have known each other, but whose observations have been identical, including accounts of otherworldly children running up and down one particular hallway.

I've also read about beds that have just been made up will be discovered moments later having been stripped of their linens and that a long-locked, uninhabited room has sometimes been found to have a tower of furnishings and other objects piled up in the center of the floor.

One of the most eloquent and encyclopedic resources for such compelling nuggets from this region's rich history of hauntings is Vermont native, Joe Citro, author of seven books on the countless intriguing, if not patently sepulchral, occurrences that have been taking place in New England for centuries.

Each of his publications — including "Ghosts, Ghouls and Unsolved Mysteries," "Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors" and "Green Mountains, Dark Tales" — offer a comprehensive selection of informative narratives documenting everything from big-band music emanating from a nonexistent Victrola to smells of cooking wafting through an old office building whose kitchen had long since been removed.

My favorite Citro collection is "The Vermont Ghost Guide," 100 pages of local legends in a handy pocket-sized format and perfect for keeping in one's glove box — if one has the courage to actually stop at the sites of his mesmerizing tales, that is. Citro's unofficial designation as the state's resident oddity historian is well-earned, for he has been recording and recounting these compelling reports for two decades and it all started with an eerie story told by his dad.

"My father was likely to tell stories about local events," Citro said. "And my earliest experience was when he told me about the Bowman House in Cuttingsville."

The Bowman House is said to be haunted by Mrs. Bowman, whose untimely death followed the demise of both her children. Mr. Bowman's profound sorrow is manifest today in the form of a massive mausoleum he built across from the family home, replete with a life-size statue of himself grieving, hat and wreath in hand.

"That's the first story that captured my attention," Citro said. "My father knew a lot of local lore and then I would get the real scoop."

The Vermont Guide has enough real scoops to keep readers busy for many a Hallows' Eve, with descriptions that are frightening and fascinating, and alter our view of many a landmark.

Tranquil Windsor, for instance, is the site of one of the most astounding phenomena I've ever come across. In 1955, a family was forced to move out of its home when water began mysteriously filling cupboards, closets and chairs throughout the house. It even rained inside at one point and a bowl of grapes filled up with water while being carried from one room to the next. Professionals in every field were consulted, from plumbers to parapsychologists, but the puzzle was never solved and within a month it was over. The family's name? Waterman.

The stories are riveting and diverse: In Bellows Falls, the spirits of native Abenakis are said to roam along the riverbanks on which a paper mill now sits, with legs submerged in the floorboards; phantom canoes have been seen floating across the water at Sumner's Falls in Hartland; Shaftsbury Cemetery is graced by the specter of one Gardner Barton who lingers near the family tombstones; and at Wilmington's White House Inn, the ghost of Clara Brown, wife of the inn's builder, is said to speak to guests who share her name. These are but a few examples of hundreds of unearthly happenings that color Vermont's cultural history.

Along with a Citro-guided terrifying tour of Vermont, you can take in a bit of spine-chilling outdoor theater written by the author himself as well. The Haunted Forest takes place on the grounds of the Catamount Family Center in Wilmington this Friday and Saturday and, from the sounds of it, your ghoulish goblet will runneth over.

As for my own fear of foreboding, I joked with my beau that maybe we ought to actually stay at the Equinox sometime so I can do some serious journalistic research along the lines of popular TV shows like "Most Haunted" or "Ghost Hunters," wherein authorities and amateurs alike prowl around bedecked with infrared cameras, motion sensors and electromagnetic field detectors. Since the Equinox is so beautiful and its ethereal events more curious than creepy, gosh, I might just do it. Next year.

Online: www.thehauntedforest.org

www9.addr.com/~jacitro

www.equinoxresort.com

Annie:  annieguyoncommunications.com

Grafitti art augments ancient continuum and highlights human creativity

A few weeks ago, as I was walking along Eliot Street in downtown Brattleboro, I became aware of a metallic "tchank … tchank … tchank" piercing the crisp morning air, but because each dense clang was so brief, I couldn't locate the source. Upon nearly tripping over a kneeling, chisel-wielding man, who had thus far limned the first few loops of a spiral into the middle of huge sidewalk tile, I finally figured it out. 

Each time I passed by en route to meetings throughout the rest of the day, I saw his line fanning out further into energetic curves and angles, eventually filling the entire stone. I reckoned that whoever owns the nearby store sure has a wonderfully bold, enterprising aesthetic.

It wasn't until a few days later when I received a press release from the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center about their current "Street To Studio" exhibit, which runs through Dec. 21st, that I realized who had been pounding that dynamic design into the sidewalk: Ken Hiratsuka, consummate stone carver whose "one line" compositions began in the context of the 1980s graffiti art scene and which now grace sidewalks, walls, slabs and boulders around the globe.

Hiratsuka, along with painter Brian Gormley, who works in Ireland and Pennsylvania, and Brattleboro painter Scot Borofsky will talk about his work at BMAC tonight and, if the absorbing conversation I recently had with him is any indication, it's sure to be a compelling evening.

Twenty-five years ago, when Hiratsuka first began hammering designs into New York City sidewalks after moving from Japan to attend art college, he carved street tiles wherever he could, either for his own creative expression or at the request of others. Unfortunately, though, in an era when graffiti artists were brandishing spray cans and paintbrushes all over NYPD turf, even a humble stone carver risked persecution and so it happened that Hiratsuka once spent a night in the clink after the police halted a piece commissioned by a bar owner.

In those days, when his fee was usually a couple of beers and a handshake, Hiratsuka's muse and methodology were still evolving.

"I was into public art and the nature of the city and I was thinking about my participation as an artist," he explained. "I wanted to make huge work and I thought 'what can I do, why did I come here?' Looking around Soho I saw that many sidewalks are made of thick granite blocks. I liked this kind of mischief so I did it in a couple of places but when the police started beating me up with a broomstick, that was my starting point. Then I knew I had to take proper steps to do this work."

Beneath pragmatic considerations, however, there lies a philosophical core to Hiratsuka's creative expression, one that's germane to the political, spiritual and geographic differences he sees dividing the world.

"I reached a point when I thought that Earth is one huge rock floating in the universe and I will carve a big rock with one line that never crosses itself," he recalled. "It is a 'thought experience' that I turn into permanent drawings."

With carvings on gray granite in the Gobi Desert, pink granite in Finland, white marble along the shores of Istanbul's Sea of Marmara, limestone in Ibiza, sandstone in Santa Fe and a 7'-long block of black andesite at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan, Hiratsuka has placed himself in the context of an ancient continuum both human and geologic.

Thus far, he has carved stones in 19 countries and, though his goal is 200, his motivation is intriguingly counter-intuitive. "Countries are like live cells — they grow up and disappear due to wars."

Such contemplation informs Hiratsuka's views on stones as well as settings. "In deserts stone turns into sand. Bronze is the strongest metal but fire melts it. Stone is the power of the Earth," he attests, "and I'm living at the end of the Stone Age."

Indeed, with ancient petroglyphs right here in Windham County, Hiratsuka's carving on the sidewalk of Brattleboro becomes part of a larger, universal dialogue across humanity and millennia.

"My work is a record of human beings," he declares. "Art is used for telling stories — it's human necessity. If a dinosaur footprint is a fossil, why aren't the chisel marks of human beings fossils?"

Since truth is often stranger than fiction, on a few occasions, Hiratsuka's carvings, which he never signs, have been "discovered" in remote areas and mistaken for markings made by ancient cultures.

One of his carvings, on a stone six-feet in diameter that sits on the Montauk shoreline, had some folks convinced that a massive trans-millennial gift from Meso-America had been left in exchange for the USS Eldridge, which they believe disappeared during WWI off the Long Island coast.

Another of Hiratsuka's carvings, in the backyard of a friend who lives in the Catskills, was the subject of a lengthy academic paper written by a team of archaeologists who deduced that the pattern dates back to 1,500 B.C., while still another group deemed one of his designs to be a prehistoric rendering over 20,000 years old.

Rather than being at all irked by such erroneous statements, Hiratsuka seems to marvel at the universal human impulse to feel connected to our primitive ancestors.

"I heard a spiritual guy once say that stone has a long vibration," he recalled, "and there's also a saying that stone doesn't speak much but it says a lot."

After watching footage of Hiratsuka methodically chiseling the Montauk piece — his hammer keeping a steady pace even as waves crashed over him — I was interested in how he establishes both design and cadence.

"I imagine a river sometimes, then the line gets liquid," he explains "like free image and also flock of universe, sky, invisible current of air. But all the time I have been continuing one continuous line till the end of time."

This innate poetry in his process is evident in the work itself. "Aqua I," a jagged slab of bluestone etched by a complex, geometric web of finely-chiseled white lines, is something of a 3-D, Escherian tessellation, its silhouette and topography reading like an architectural rendering of a newly formed continent.

These smaller pieces reveal Hiratsuka's astounding capacity for precision along with a palpable veneration for his medium, which started before his earliest memory.

"My mother told me that when I was little and the road in front of our house was being paved, I went out, took a bucket of stones and brought it inside. Now I do the same thing but the stones get bigger and bigger."

After living in New York City for 18 years, Hiratsuka recently relocated to a small village west of Woodstock and his studio includes a forge wherein he makes his own chisels, often reshaping them several times midway through a project.

With this authenticity of both technique and spirit and an unwavering predilection for using one line to complete each composition, Hiratsuka's carvings are vibrant, modern mandalas that eloquently articulate the essential conviction embedded in all of his work: An earnest, heartfelt belief that we are all one.

The entire Street to Studio show is a fluent and fervent homage to the inexorable urge we humans have to communicate and connect with one another. Accompanied by the vivid work of Gormley and Borofsky, as well as that of graffiti glitterati, the late Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, Hiratsuka's carvings epitomize the primordial ooze from whence more contemporary, painterly scrawlings spawned and is a moving testament to the tacit magnificence of stone.

Online: brattleboromuseum.org

Annie:  annieguyoncommunications.com

Music that transports us

It was the first day of the Roots On the River music festival this past June and a fine line-up of Vermont artists was under the big tent entertaining an appreciative crowd. Being a humid summer day, most everyone - including the musicians - had arrived in comfy jeans and T-shirts, so when the next band due onstage came out of their dressing room decked out in full pressed-shirts-with-contrast-piping rockabilly regalia, they kinda stood out. My kids noticed them instantly and asked if they could meet the band, so we went over and I introduced them to Danny Coane, amiable lead singer of the Starline Rhythm Boys. With his slicked-back hair, western bow tie and two-tone wing tips, he looked as though he'd just taken a Wellsian jaunt on a time machine from 1949 Memphis.

My daughter, shaking Danny's hand while gawking at his attire, asked, "Why are you dressed up like a cowboy?"

"Because I am a cowboy, darlin'!" Danny chuckled.

"Then where's your pistol?" my son inquired skeptically.

"Uh, well now, this is my pistol," Danny said, slapping the big black wireless guitar transmitter hanging from his belt.

They may not have just come off a dusty trail with a herd of Texas cattle, but, as far this New England audience was concerned, we were in the exalted presence of honky-tonk royalty, albeit good-natured rustlers more inclined to buff up a classic fin on a Cadillac DeVille than saddle a Tennessee stud.

It was one of many culturally colorful moments when I've had to pinch myself to make sure I was still in 2007 Vermont and not some other era or region. The Starline Rhythm Boys, despite their old-fashioned aesthetics and southern twang, are a wildly popular, modern-day band based in Burlington and have been spreading the Americana gospel for nearly a decade. With fans and airplay around the globe, they've taken their message far beyond the borders of our fair state, particularly with their latest CD.

"Red's Place" - a comprehensive collection of 16 expertly-crafted, original tunes about farms, filling stations, heartbreak and hard drinking - is as pure and potent as a shot of Kentucky bourbon, with a melodic charm and lyrical guilelessness that simultaneously sizzle and soothe.

One listen and you'll understand why the record release party at Nectar's in Burlington included a red carpet entry with velvet ropes, fans taking rides through town in a classic red Oldsmobile and a vivacious cigarette girl making the rounds through the club, holding a tray filled with CDs. The Starline Rhythm Boys aren't just a band, they're an era personified.

With candid homages to various genres from bluegrass to boogie, this - their third record - boasts a sparkling energy and enigmatic glow that demonstrates their collective charisma and versatility.

"It's Anyone's Guess," with gentle acoustic strumming, sweet pedal steel strains and reflective vocals, is a glimmering stroll that vividly showcases this seasoned trio's musical muscle and, with Danny on guitar, Billy Bratcher slapping upright bass and Al Lemery deftly wielding his expressive Telecaster, the sound is authentic, clean and bright.

Their subject matter is equally appealing, with lyrics that can be pointedly brooding in songs such as "I'm Fed Up Drinking Here" or carefree and cheeky, as with "Just a Thought," in which Danny pitches a few pleasant options to his gal, like, "Let's skip a day of work and go bug a hotel clerk."

Amidst lush ballads and old-timey tunes, "Red's Place" opens up the throttle on occasion as well. The juke-joint swing of "The Joke's On You" makes it an irresistible heel-tapper, thanks to Al's insistent hot-rod guitar riffs and Billy's percussive bass line.

Everything these vintage troubadours do seems to exude untethered zeal and earnest reverence for an earlier time, when notions like bar tabs, overalls, sin and salvation were real and cherished aspects of life.

My favorite tune on this disc - a rousingly harmonized "Drunk Tank," delivered with matter-of-fact Buck Owen's élan - might not deliver the most high-falutin' message but, gee willikers, it gets you on your feet. I've never properly learned how to do the Lindy hop, but I reckon there must be some subliminal dance lesson encoded into the song because after only a few listens, my kids and I are really darn good at it.

Whether you're an official honkytonk fan or not, you need this CD, if nothing else, to experience a slice of American history not even a documentary miniseries can capture. Not only has it been No. 1 on the Free Form American Roots Chart for two months - beating out Steve Earle, no less, at No. 2 - it's a dynamic, genuine homage to the roots of rock 'n' roll itself, with a splash of hillbilly, a cup of jive and a big helping of country soul.

The Starline Rhythm Boys' next CD is being recorded live at Charlie O's in Montpelier on Oct. 19 and 20 and everyone is invited over to "have a ball an' crawl the wall," as Danny puts it. Their shows are known for shaking the crowd loose by the end of the first song, so it's bound to be a high-octane trip down rockabilly lane. The lyrical simplicity and rich musical heritage of their sublime sound bear an endearingly comfortable patina and, well, not to sound corny, but it just feels like home, even up here in rural Vermont.

Equally mandatory is a recent release from Bristol singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, whose newest offering, "The Brightness," is a gorgeous, intimate travelogue that takes us around the globe, back through history and into an interior life that pulses with astute curiosity and poetic eloquence.

Though Mitchell's voice is often deemed girlish and innocent, what I hear in its thoughtful wondering and crackling diction is a ripe old soul as if, at all of 25, she's inhabited by a nimble, earnest and ever-questioning elderly woman. There is a depth of character and philosophical poise in her delivery that only comes from worn luggage, dog-eared books and profound life lessons that, even at a young age, she very plainly possesses.

A consummate storyteller, Mitchell offers a satiating selection of songs on this, her second CD, exploring Shenandoah, Sante Fe, Jerusalem and train tracks bound for nowhere in particular. Literary sojourns feature prominently as well, with references to Greek mythology in "Hades and Persephone" and the work of avant-garde writer Anaïs Nin in "Namesake."

Mitchell's poignant piano and emotive guitar paint luminous landscapes wherein her viscous, melodious voice moves purposefully, but with a light, inquisitive cadence. Paired with complex lyrics that pluck heartstrings and search unwaveringly, her unique coloratura is as heady in its eccentricity as it is resonant in timbre.

There's an innate, compelling wisdom in Mitchell's compositions that, within her vigilant annunciation, comes through vociferously in the form of sweet songs of heartache, like "Changer," and somber odes to hopelessness, as in "Hobo Lullaby." This record is a homegrown jewel from a prolific young woman who, I suspect, will be writing and performing more remarkable tunes for many years to come.

Anaïs Mitchell will be at Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on Oct. 26 and, with this rich, insightful songbook in tow, it's sure to be a meaningful and moving night.

Online: cowislandmusic.com

righteousbabe.com

Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com

The avocation of antiquing: Vermont Antiques Week offers up history's finest

I often wonder what people long ago would make of certain modern phenomena.

Besides iPhones, hip-hop and hi-def television, another compelling curiosity of present-day humanity would very likely be the way we perceive and process knowledge, particularly our own past.

Take the word "antique," for example. First written as "anticke" in the early 1500s and derived from the Latin word "antiquus," or "existing earlier," it's interesting to consider how the concept itself must have shifted over the centuries.

When Virgil wrote, in the 1st century B.C., of Tityrus playing his "rustic pipe" and Silenus' "heavy tankard with its well-worn handle," I doubt he regarded those items as prized possessions because they were antiquus. Nowadays, though, the notion that an object's value increases with age has become embedded in our culture on numerous fronts.

Type in "antique" on Google and it yields more than 100 million results, on eBay nearly 200,000 items and on HGTV more than 4,000 listings, with entire shows devoted to the admiration and valuation of odd objects like inkwells, tobacco labels, doorknobs or oil cans.

Common vernacular also turns "antique" into a verb form that doesn't simply mean coating one's shabby dresser with a faux-patina: These days we don't merely shop for antiques, we go "antiquing" — and how.

With the rich historical heritage of this region, antiquing has become a passionate pastime for a lot of folks in New England, where experts and exquisite wares abound in antique shops, dealers' co-ops and renowned annual and multi-vendor fairs.

One of Southern Vermont's most popular versions of the latter — Vermont Antiques Week — takes place this weekend in five spacious locations along a 30-mile stretch of road between Ludlow and Manchester from today through Sunday, so if you're wondering just how one gets into "antiquing," that's the place to start.

As an inadvertent antiquer who has unwittingly started rather unusual collections in unconventional ways, this kind of event is terribly enticing, for I'm quite sure I could launch new and quirky collections in one fell purchase.

That's how all my collections started. Take the row of elderly manual typewriters that adorn the top of my piano. I spotted the first one — a diminutive, rickety World War I journalist's Underwood — sitting on the floor of a cluttered garage under a table full of things I did need, like pots and pans, at a neighbor's tag sale when I was in college.

I'd just moved into a new flat on Haight Street and needed a good saucepan or two, but did I come home with any of those practical items? Nope. When the neighbor saw me crouched down examining the typewriter, he said I could have it if I promised to fix it up since he'd never gotten around to it and thought the thing deserved some TLC. So, I hefted it up my steep hill, put it in my Plymouth Valiant (my biggest antique), took it to a repair shop and laid down a hundred bucks to give it a much-needed tune-up.

Twenty years later, here I am with five other beautiful black manual typewriters, bearing names such as Remington Rand, Royal, Oliver and Woodstock, all of which at this point feel like members of the family. I once looked on eBay and found that some of my typewriters, which either came to me as gifts or for less than a tenner, are now worth several hundred dollars. Not that I want to part with any of them, but it's nice to know I own a few truly valuable antiques.

Same goes for my circa Civil War captains' chairs. I'd initially bought two at a second-hand shop just because I needed a couple of extra chairs for a dinner party, but when a friend attending the soiree examined them, he found a symbol on the underside that confirmed his suspicion that they were not only from that period, but had been at a veterans' hospital during the war.

I scooped up the other two at the store the following day and ever since then have been fascinated with the provenance of old chairs. You'd think I regularly hold town meetings in my house or that I had 38 children, considering how many chairs I own, but it's become a bit of an antiquing obsession, I suppose.

One specimen is a fragile 200-year-old thing from England, with no finish remaining and yet even the splits in the grain are enthralling to me. I think about the conversations to which that chair must have been a part and the life stories of the people who've sat in it.

I find antique dealers to be just as captivated by the stories behind what they sell and more than willing to impart everything they know about an item. Bend the ear of the average shop owner and you'll likely go away with not only a beautiful purchase, but very likely an intriguing morsel or two about the lore surrounding it.

Many dealers are themselves historians, often specializing in distinct eras, furnishings or fine arts and this weekend promises a broad range of wisdom, styles and sensibilities.

Phyllis Carlson and Timothy Stevenson are antiques and art dealers who coordinate the Manchester branch of Vermont Antiques Week, where 75 vendors from across the country will fill the Riley Rink. The work that Carlson and Stevenson sell reveals their personal taste in genres, with 18th- and 19th- century "schoolgirl art," handmade textiles and "high country" furniture.

Each location has a distinct atmosphere as well and, since most of these shows have taken place every year for decades, the professional lineage and comradeship go deep.

The Bromley Mountain Antiques Show is celebrating 30 years with 30 vendors selling their country antiques in the base lodge and Jim Dunn, who organizes the event with his wife, Elizabeth, cherishes the camaraderie.

"I grew up with antiques so one of the things I appreciate about our participants is that they're more like a family than vendors," Dunn explained.

The Dunns also invest the event with their unique aesthetics.

"The Bromley show is considered 'strong country,'" he said, "with a lot of blue- and yellow-painted furnishings from the early 1800s as well as samplers, sterling silver, ceramics, boxes, chests, stands, fabric, quilts and linens."

To celebrate their three decades of involvement in Vermont Antiques Week, the proceedings at Bromley start early Saturday, with a buying preview breakfast from 8 to 10 a.m., featuring homemade scones, pastries, fruit and coffee.

The show also takes place at the Okemo Mountain Resort, Black River High School in Ludlow and the Weston Playhouse which, in its 48th year, is the longest running of all Southern Vermont's antique shows.

I just hope nobody's selling antique pianos because that could mean trouble. I found my 1880 upright grand Steinway on eBay a few years ago and I love it so much that whenever I come across an old piano for sale it's all I can do not to whip out my checkbook. Now chairs, on the other hand …

Online: www.westonantiquesshow.org