SO NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN, UPPER VALLEY!
There's a serious storm taking shape off the southern New England coast, and we'll see... very little of it. We've got this high pressure sitting over us, keeping things pretty quiet around here. Mostly cloudy today with a slight chance of light rain, especially in southern parts of the region. Highs bumping up toward 60.Parts of Norwich Green to be fenced off starting Nov. 1. That'll be to keep people from walking across the Marion Cross School's failing septic leach field. Meanwhile, the school board is eyeing tying up to Hartford's sewage system and had hoped to bring the question to voters at Town Meeting 2020. But now it looks like an analysis of Hartford's system, which that town's SB wants to undertake, won't be ready in time. (VN, sub reqd)Want to get the paper versions of the Times or the Globe in Barnard? Oliver Szott, 14-year-old entrepreneur, is your guy. The New York Times profiles Szott, who set up his business after the Barnard General Store stopped selling papers last year. He started out six days a week, but this year has come face-to-face with falling demand, so now sells only the Sunday papers off his family's porch. Seven bucks using the honor system. (Thanks for the tip, ML!)Want to donate socks to Preston O'Donnell's Socktober effort? The Hartford Town Clerk's got a box. You may have read about Preston, a first-grader in Bradford, in the VN. She's trying to collect 3,000 pairs of socks for The Haven by the end of the month, part of a national campaign to help homeless shelters.Dartblog remembers Joe Asch. The River Valley Club founder and thorn-in-the-side to Dartmouth administrators took his own life a year ago yesterday. Now the keepers of the right-leaning blog closely identified with Asch are gathering posts in his honor. "As every day passes without Joe clamouring at his keyboard, it becomes increasingly important for us to remember those values, customs, and traditions that crystallised and were defended in Joe’s labour of love," writes Ishaan Jajodia, a senior at the college who's helped revive the site.In the mood for bright fall foliage shots on a gray day? WNTK's got a portfolio from around the NH side of the river, including Cornish, Goshen, and Danbury.“I started crying. And before anyone could respond I stormed out of the theater." That's Stevie Walker-Webb, recalling his impulsively delivered comments about the staged reading of Nathan Yungerberg's Esai's Table he'd just seen at JAGFest last year. Which makes the fact that he's now the director of the play's world premiere a definite story. It opens in previews at the Briggs tonight. It's "Afro-surrealism," Walker-Webb tells the Times Argus. “And it’s also really funny. It’s amazing how (Yungerberg) has taken painful events and turned (them) into something beautiful and fresh. It’s a ride. The audience will go on a ride.”Meanwhile, the VN's David Corriveau notes a connection opening up between WRJ and NYC. Esai's Table is headed Off Broadway after it finishes up here. And Norwich resident Bob Stevens’ play Only Yesterday, which got its start last year at Northern Stage, just finished its own run there and is waiting to hear whether it's headed to a bigger stage in the city.Vermont Law School inks tie to National Wildlife Federation. Starting this fall, the school's Environmental Advocacy Clinic — essentially its in-house public advocacy clinic for training students — will become legal counsel to the Federation."By representing NWF, our students will co-pilot key policy and environmental outcomes across the country," says associate dean Jennifer Rushlow in a press release.And speaking of the natural world, NHPR's The Exchange will take up "52 with a View" today. Those would be the 52 peaks in New Hampshire that are below 4,000 feet but still reward you with a vista. The idea was a late '70s brainchild of a group called the "Over The Hill" hikers in Sandwich. Airs at 9 am and 7 pm.NH moves up a notch on energy efficiency, still trails rest of New England. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy is out with its ratings of state efforts to boost efficiency, including utility and public benefit programs, state government initiatives, and transportation policies. NH moved from 21st to 20th. MA ranks 1st in the nation, RI 3rd, VT 4th, CT 6th, and ME 15th.NHDOT wants your views on how it should set priorities for roadwork over the next 10 years. Would you want it to pave 50 miles of road and keep it in fair condition or reconstruct one mile of road and keep it in good condition? Invest in road bike/pedestrian routes (shoulder signs, striping, etc.), or invest in off-road bike/pedestrian routes like trails, paths, and sidewalks? These are all questions in a new public survey, at the link.Vermont is the "strongest argument" against single-payer health insurance. That's Peter Suderman, the features editor at the Libertarian magazine Reason, in an op-ed yesterday in the NYT. He details the state's efforts under Peter Shumlin to create Green Mountain Care to cover all residents, and the reasons it failed. "The Vermont plan was done in by high taxes, distrust of government and lack of political support," he writes, and asserts that any national effort would face similar obstacles. (Thanks for the tip, CJ!)To craft beers, the ski industry, and leaf peepers we can add mountain biking. It's boosting Vermont's tourism economy as places like Killington, Mt. Snow and Ascutney Outdoors focus on bringing bikers to the region. Besides Kingdom Trails, Perry Hill in Waterbury, Pine Hill in Rutland, the Aldis Hill Network in St. Albans, and others are landing on visitors' mental maps. What's the most remote point in VT? There's a riveting discussion on Reddit kicking around that question. Parts of the Kingdom? The closed military base in East Haven? The "Bennington Triangle"? Stannard (pop. 217)? Groton State Forest near Owl's Head? The VT Country Deli gets some love from Bon Appétit. You may know people who religiously get off of I-91 at Exit 2 in Brattleboro just to swing by the place. Turns out, so do two of the food mag's editors. "The place is stocked to the nines with Vermont-made stuff, but not the hokey kind. So much craft beer. The best maple candy. Local honey. Walpole ice cream. Champlain Valley cider. Even the coffee comes from a local roastery," says one. "So cute! So East Coast," says the other.
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SO MUCH TONIGHT! HOW YOU GOIN' TO CHOOSE?
. Nathan Yungerberg's fable (see above) is JAG Productions' first world premiere, and is co-produced with New York's legendary Cherry Lane Theater. At the Briggs in WRJ at 7:30, official opening is Saturday, and if you want to see it before you have to pay Off Broadway ticket prices, you have until October 27.
. Sh-boom, Sh-boom. On the way to their first big gig, the "Plaids" are hit by a bus and killed instantly. The show opens as they're brought back from the afterlife with one chance to do their close-harmony doowop for an audience. "Chain Gang," "Lady of Spain," "Three Coins in the Fountain"... the music, antics, and banter don't stop flowing. At 7:30 tonight, runs through Oct. 26.
It seems only right that a grouchy news guy like Lou Grant should get a promotion to preside — with wisecracks — over a heated red-blue exchange between two political commentators who happen to be ex-lovers. The show's touring theaters around the country in this highly political season, with the legendary Asner leading the way. Tonight only, at 7:30, not many tix left.
As if there's not enough great acting going on, there's also Phoebe Waller-Bridge's one-woman show version of Fleabag in HD
It's the recent London remount of the stage production that led to Waller-Bridge's Emmy-winning BBC series of the same name, about a sexually voracious, seriously unfiltered woman making her way through life, family, cyclical breakups, and deep loss. And Waller-Bridge manages to play it all for laughs. 7:30 pm at the Loew.
Not the 2004 Denzel Washington flick, but a documentary about an event that took place a decade later: The Rev. Charles Moore, a social activist and retired Methodist minister in Grand Saline, TX, doused himself in gasoline, lit a match, and set himself on fire to protest racism and homophobia. After the hour-long film, which first aired on PBS, a panel will include the film's producer, Middlebury prof James Chase Sanchez, who grew up in Grand Saline; the Rev. Eric Jackson of the NAACP; and ACLU organizer Daniel Pontoh. Starts at 6.
Starting and ending with Haydn quartets, with commissioned pieces by John Adams and Osvaldo Golijov in between. "There is a restless freedom to their playing, as if the dinner-party conversation of chamber music were about to break down into altercation, demonstration, or confession," Alex Ross once wrote in
The New Yorker
. Starts at 7:30.
With that, let's go face the day. See you tomorrow.
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