GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still cold and still snow north, but hey! Also some sun! A lot depends on where you are: a good bit of the region will see partly sunny skies today, but there's also a last dollop of snow showers in the forecast to the northwest in VT and to the northeast in NH, with amounts higher to the north and in the mountains. Highs today around 20 or a bit above, winds continue from the northwest with some strong gusts a good bit of the day, lows mid teens.Birds two ways.
The first is a pair of bald eagles feasting on ice-fishing leftovers on Mascoma Lake, from Brittany Schones.
And these next three are from a beautiful set of illustrations by the Hubbard Brook Foundation's Raisa Kochmaruk. They were created to accompany a forthcoming paper by Dartmouth grad student Miranda Zammarelli that draws on 50 years of bird-territory research at Hubbard Brook to demonstrate that when resources are abundant, songbirds, rather than fighting to defend territory, will actually shrink their own territory to make room for others. Each illustration also includes a soundwave for the bird's call.
It's time for Dear Daybreak! In this week's collection of readers' short posts about life in the Upper Valley: Jay Heinrichs climbs Mt. Cardigan and... hears something; Pam Kneisel celebrates the best form of heat during these bitterly cold days; and Mark Chamberlain has a suggestion for sometime when you're standing in a grocery line. And hey again! Got a good story about life in these parts? Send it in!With jury selection, rape trial of Dartmouth alum gets under way in N. Haverhill. The Valley News's John Lippman sets the scene in Grafton Superior Court, where Kyle Clampitt, a 2020 grad and former varsity lacrosse player, is accused of sexual assault after a student went to police in 2022 to say that Clampitt raped her on the roof of a frat house. Clampitt insists he is innocent. As Lippman writes, "prosecutors and defense attorneys have been wrestling over the scope of witness statements and even whether the words 'assault' and 'victim' can be used in opening statements." The trial is set to start Jan. 24.Revels North steadies the ship. As Alex Hanson writes in the Valley News, the community performing arts nonprofit has faced tough times since the pandemic, going so far as to cancel last year's Midwinter Revels. These days, though, the group is seeing renewed vigor, with a permanent home off Colburn Park in Lebanon, a sold-out concert last fall, a slate of education programs in the works, a May celebration building steam, and auditions for the 2025 Midwinter Revels set for June. “I feel like we’re going to see a big outpouring of people," executive director Julia Hautaniemi tells Hanson.SPONSORED: Acclaimed comic storyteller, author, innkeeper, and educator Cindy Pierce returns! She'll be at the Lebanon Opera House with a hilarious new show on Sunday, Jan. 26th at 7 PM with her own brand of outrageous, bawdy, and honest humor on full display. She's unveiling her latest work, a solo show of stories called Glitchy Business, to benefit the Special Needs Support Center of the Upper Valley. Tickets cost $35-40 and are available here. The show runs approximately 75 minutes and due to the mature content of the show, it’s for adults only. Sponsored by Pinzer Productions, LLC.A "bright and vibrant show" at WRJ's Kishka Gallery. "Winter Color" brings together three artists, writes Seven Days visual arts editor Alice Dodge, each with "distinct visual languages yet whose aesthetics and techniques share a close conversation." There's NYC's Jess Johnson—"Imagine a 1970s Samuel Delany space orgy that takes place inside a Minecraft simulation of an M.C. Escher drawing, and you're nearly there"; CA's Edie Fake, who uses a specially formulated black paint to get areas that "suck in the light"; and Williamstown's Jessy Park, who "map[s] out a calmly ordered yet exuberantly colorful world."January is about survival. So says the VT Center for Ecostudies in its new "Field Guide to January"—though that Green Long-jawed Orbweaver looks like it's doing just fine out there on the snow. What else to look for? Kent McFarland writes that winter finch irruptions will probably be "subdued" this year, since food sources are plentiful way up north right now. He also takes a look at deeryards. Meanwhile, Jason Loomis looks into why some trees (oaks and hornbeams especially) hold onto their leaves long after it's turned cold; and Ryan Rebozo offers a guide on how to identify different maples in winter.SPONSORED: “Dad... If you want to go skiing with these kids, you’ve got to come out." Doug Teschner was planning a trip out West to ski the Rockies with his family, but right before he was scheduled to leave, a setback—a fall on an icy trail while cross-country skiing—had him questioning whether he would make it. Read his story of how he overcame the odds to get himself out there. Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy.
Data breach may affect school families throughout NH, VT. Details are scant at the moment, but schools in both states are reporting that they're part of a nationwide cyberattack on PowerSchool, which tracks student and teacher data. "The information breached varies by school, but included both student and teacher data, like Social Security numbers, other personally identifiable information and medical information," reports WCAX's Kendall Claar. According to WMUR's Ross Ketschke, PowerSchool says it will be offering credit monitoring and identity protection to both students and adults.In NH legislature, 1,155 bills. How do you keep track? Much less weigh in? Fortunately, NH Bulletin's Claire Sullivan and Ethan DeWitt are up with a guide to how to find bills even as they're being drafted (they're called "legislative service requests"); how to search for bills and track their status; how to get in touch with your legislators; how to give input—even if you can't make it to Concord or don't want to submit written testimony; and how to track what's going on in committee through legislative calendarsNH House rejects move to let bills get axed without a public hearing—but will let members "inadvertently" display guns. As NHPR's Josh Rogers reports, the GOP leadership's controversial bid to do away with formal public hearings for every bill introduced went down to defeat, as did a proposed rule requiring lawmakers to wear "formal business attire." Legislators did vote, 216-164, to change a rule prohibiting the display of guns under any circumstances to clarify that it's the intentional display of guns it wants to bar. A GOP bid to strengthen the hand of committee chairs also succeeded.In Montpelier, House speaker and Senate president both re-elected. There wasn't much drama over on the Senate side after GOP Sen. Randy Brock dropped out hours before yesterday's vote, leaving incumbent Senate President Phil Baruth the only candidate. On the House side, however, independent Rep. Laura Sibilia had mounted a spirited challenge to incumbent Speaker Jill Krowinski. In the end, though she fell far short, with Krowinski prevailing 111-35. Ballots were secret, but as VTDigger's Shaun Robinson and Ethan Weinstein note, the margin suggests Krowinski got plenty of GOP votes.On the way to karaoke at Burlington's Decker Towers: "I don't have the stun gun or the pepper spray or any of that." Last year, the low-income high-rise pretty much became synonymous with fear and disorder in VT's largest city as it drew drug dealers and squatters amid official neglect. But as Derek Brouwer reports in Seven Days, an all-out organizing effort by residents—and new spending on security by the city and the housing authority after his story last February uncovered the extent of the problem—have turned things around. He digs into how the turnaround happened.Retired VT state trooper: "We're out here doing your dirty work and sometimes you hate us for it." At some point, Rumble Strip's Erica Heilman will put out an episode featuring Ingrid Jonas, who spent most of her career with the VSP as a detective. But yesterday, she went up with a short episode from their conversation about how law enforcement officers perceive class—and believe they're perceived. "Cops are really street smart and they're savvy and they're willing to ask super hard questions," Jonas says (not to mention deal with dead bodies), but there's often a class dynamic at work on both sides.A tumultuous history "involving everything from organized crime to Supreme Court rulings.” Yup, you guessed it: pinball. On Ars Technica, Tim Stevens dives into a history of the machines and profiles Steve Young, owner of Poughkeepsie's The Pinball Resource. In college in the 1970s, Young operated dozens of games and began collecting the parts he needed to fix them—since vintage machines were designed to last a max of three years and they take a beating. Now he's got "the world's greatest collection of rare parts and schematics." And he keeps obsessed fans' machines running worldwide.You think it's cold here? Photographer and filmmaker Drew Simms spent a week camping last winter at Yellowstone and training his lenses on bison, bighorn sheep, coyotes, geysers, and more. It got as low as -40F, and he's got plenty of footage of ice-encrusted bison. Sure, the film's from last year, but here's guessing the feel of -40F never changes.
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Fleece vests, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies... Strong Rabbit has updated the Daybreak page to keep up with the changing weather. Plus, of course, the usual: t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
Sethi, a practicing oncologist at Harvard Med School, is probably better known as co-creator of the TV series
The Resident
, as well as director of three films (his latest,
A Nice Indian Boy
, will be released this year). He'll be talking bias in medicine today at 5 pm, and though seating in Haldeman 41 has sold out, Dickey says there's overflow seating and staff will help you find a spot. It's also being livestreamed, and
The "Library After Hours" event will be moderated by the popular Vermont-based Pub Geeks, NWPL says: "Questions will run the gamut from pop culture, sports, history, and – of course – books. The winning team gets bragging rights and their picture on the coveted digital display board!" BYOB, teams of up to 6 but you can also come on your own, doors at 7, questions at 7:30.
This isn't today, but looking ahead,
. There are still some publicly available tix left for her in-person talk at the Hanover Inn ballroom; the event will also be livestreamed, but only for people with a valid Dartmouth email address and NetID or who are Dartmouth alums.
Remember how there's a group of students at Lebanon High building an airplane? Now there's a series about the effort. Also this week: the December "Mudroom" at AVA, with storytelling on the theme of "Too Much" by Jen Shepherd, Ellen Jonsson, Keith Elfland, Robin Ng, Deena Frankel, Don Kollisch, and Lianne Moccia; and Barbara Krinitz's "The Magic's in the Music" series talks to the Lebanon Opera House's Brian Cook, musicians Nick Charyk and Tommy Crawford, and Northern Stage's Carol Dunne about musical training.
What the heck, let's go with the zeitgeist...
As you probably know, Peter Yarrow died Tuesday morning, aged 86. Mary Travers predeceased him in 2009, leaving Noel Paul Stookey, now 87, as the last living member of Peter, Paul, and Mary. The group's been in the air not just because of Yarrow's death, but because for people who care about music history, the trio's absence from the new Dylan film
A Complete Unknown
(though Yarrow's in it, since he was on the board of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival) seems like a glaring oversight. As Elijah Wald, who wrote the book on which the film is based, put it recently, “They are virtually non-existent when in fact [their versions of early Dylan songs were] what made Bob Dylan world famous."
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
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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