RABBIT RABBIT, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, but it'll definitely feel like fall. The low pressure that brought us the weekend has moved on, but not before topping up some streams and rivers, which could be running high this morning, though no flooding is expected. Meanwhile, a cold front is moving in, bringing us moderate winds out of the west with some strong gusts. Temps reaching the mid-50s, mid-30s tonight.Thetford's Bill Hill, Cobble Hill, and Wilmot Mountain were once just islands. That was back when Lake Hitchcock covered much of what would eventually become the Upper Valley. And that's just the blink of an eye ago in the history that geologist Peter Thompson lays out in Sidenote. You can see metamorphic rocks from 400 million years ago, give or take a few tens, along the I-91 road cuts south of John Quail Road. There's quartzite from the Taconian Orogeny on Cobble Hill (and Smarts). There's Devonian-age schist and quartzite all along the east branch of the Pompy...Already-built "barn style" restaurant and bar in Woodstock denied Act 250 permit. A cautionary tale, writes John Lippman in the Valley News: "It’s a risky idea to build a project without first getting the required permits." Boston developer John Holland, who over the past decade has brought an old farm he bought outside the village back as a working farm, had aimed to create a farm-to-table venue, along with farmer and restaurateur Matt Lombard. The project's been controversial, Lippman writes, with some townspeople supporting it but neighbors worried about noise, traffic, and nighttime lighting.“When owners are surrendering their dogs, a lot of times they are calling us in a last-ditch, desperate mode." That's Shelley Andrews, who runs Survivor’s Paws Animal Rescue in Lebanon. Animal shelters around NH are seeing a surge in people who got pets early in the pandemic seeking to give them back, reports Brad Spiegel for the Granite State News Collaborative. The reasons vary, from owners who are unwilling or unable to put in the work to train, to people returning to in-person jobs who don't want to leave their pets alone at home, to the realization that an owner can't afford a pet.Dancers, actors, poets, musicians... all come together despite the pandemic to make a film. This coming weekend, Artistree's Grange Theater will show Our Voices, Bodies Rising: Beyond Suffrage Toward Women’s Empowerment. It's a project by choreographer Peggy Brightman and dancer/photographer Carla Kimball that enlisted "swaths of the local artist community in new and creative ways," Susan Apel writes on her Artful blog. As she makes clear, getting it done in the teeth of the pandemic took both dedication and wiles."If I wasn’t too dirty or sweaty, and maybe tired, I’d postpone my shower to the next day. Bad idea." Back in September, Bob Totz got sick a few days after working in his yard—fever, chills, muscle aches, headache. Turned out he had babesiosis, a tick-borne illness that made its appearance in these parts only recently. On his Old Roads, Rivers and Rails blog, Totz—who used to be the postmaster in Post Mills and in Sharon—turns that experience into a rumination on the joys of being a rural postmaster, what drew him to the Upper Valley, change...especially climate change...and being careful out there. "Cal-EYES..." "What? What was that one?" "Cal-ASE?" That was the iconic exchange between Tunbridge farmer Fred Tuttle and Senate hopeful Jack McMullen in a 1998 GOP primary debate, after Tuttle asked McMullen—who'd moved from MA—to pronounce a list of VT town names, including Calais. It came two years after Tuttle shot to stardom—at least, around Vermont—thanks to filmmaker and farmer John O'Brien's 1996 film, Man With a Plan, his satire about a dairy farmer running for Congress. In the VN, Alex Hanson marks the 25th anniversary of the film and traces its back story and aftermath.Child-care workforce crisis "part and parcel of a larger upheaval in care work." It's hardly news that child-care workers are leaving the field. VTDigger's Lola Duffort notes the state is also seeing rising vacancies in mental health agencies and at schools. Overall, 12 percent of the “social assistance” workforce left the field between the first quarters of 2020 and 2021. “The way that this is set up doesn’t make a lick of sense," says a former child-care worker. "That I can have an easier, safer, more comfortable life once I leave a job that we all agree is essential to the functioning of our state.”Look up! The Royal Museums in Greenwich, England—which, of course, include the Observatory—a few weeks ago announced the winners of their Astronomy Photographer of the Year award for 2021. There are some stunners. The overall winner is a photo of an annular eclipse taken in Tibet last year, but each of the multiple categories—Aurorae (check out "Goðafoss Flow"), Galaxies, Our Moon, Skyscapes (the winner is of the moon over Death Valley), and others—has photos that will take your breath away. Just scroll past the marketing at the top till you get to "The Winning Photographer."
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Stan Brakhage liked to play around with film—scratching it, painting on it, making collages from found footage, shooting scenes in a strict order so there was no editing afterward... Over the course of his career from the '50s on, he became a leading figure in experimental film. Tonight at 7, Ciné Salon presents a two-part retrospective on his final films, made in 2000-2001. At 7, Brakhage's son, Rarc, and his publisher, Bruce McPherson, will present selected readings by and about him. This will be both in-person and online. Then, at 8, there'll be a film screening in the Mayer Room at the Howe, in-person only. Two notes: The Howe's doors will be locked at 7 pm, so either get there early or bring a cellphone to call the number that'll be posted on the doors for latecomers. And masks will be required.
At the time she died of cancer in November, 1996, at the age of 33, Eva Cassidy had produced only one solo album, which she sold out of the trunk of her car around the DC area, where she lived. She was a shy performer—''It embarrassed her if one of her friends asked her to sing at a party,'' her father once said—and known only locally (though her admirers included Mick Fleetwood, who owned a restaurant where she sang). But in the years since, the quality of her voice and the rigor of her arrangements—of jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, folk, rock, country, gospel—have drawn a large and devoted audience for several posthumously released albums that have sold millions, including one that hit the top of the charts in Britain. Eleven months before she died, Cassidy performed at Blues Alley in DC, a two-day gig that produced much of the material for her best-sellers;
(Thanks RK!)
See you tomorrow.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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