RABBIT RABBIT, UPPER VALLEY!
Oh, well. There's an Alberta Clipper (for the province where they tend to originate) heading this way, but a combination of depressing factors—the fact that it's weakening, its track, and above all today's relative warmth—mean that we'll maybe get some drizzle or a bit of snow. There may be some snow overnight, but a lot depends on where you are: odds are higher farther north. Highs closing in on 40, lows upper 20s to around freezing.Not a hitchhiker. Around dusk on Tuesday, Pam Havener was getting off I-89 around George's Mills when she saw large, gray wings. They turned out to belong to this barred owl, taking advantage of a handy spot to perch.Massachusetts woman dies in early morning collision with freight train in S. Royalton. Reah LaRoche of Westminster, MA, who was 92, had gone out to get her nails done near her home on Tuesday, her niece tells the Valley News's John Lippman—and never returned home. Anxious family members were able to track her car's movements intermittently. It's unclear how the car wound up on the tracks in S. Royalton at 3:15 yesterday morning, facing north with its headlights off, when it was struck by a freight train. "Maybe she thought the road was the tracks," Royalton Police Chief Loretta Stalnaker tells NBC5.Noah Kahan Is Vermont's Biggest Cultural Export in Years. How the Hell Did That Happen? That's the headline atop Chris Farnsworth's piece in Seven Days exploring that question. Tickets for Kahan's Fenway show in July are going for between $900 and $8,000. He evokes what Farnsworth calls "group therapy bordering on mass religious experience" tears from fans. So how did a guy who grew up in Hanover and Strafford get to this point? Farnsworth checks in with Hanover High soccer coach Rob Grabill and others who knew him when and traces how Stick Season came about and the arc of Kahan's fame since.SPONSORED: “Witnessing the grace that some of my patients have demonstrated in handling problems in their own lives has served as an inspiration to me.” From the desk of Billy Cioffredi: “The opportunity we have when we help our patients goes well beyond improving their strength or joint motion, and even their pain. It’s helping them develop more certainty that they can handle some of the problems that life has thrown at them. And I believe that can happen best when the care is delivered with kindness. That is a calling of its own.” Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy.On the Hanover High stage tonight: A direct line to Ukraine. “I place great hope in the young generation. They are whole persons. They are not crushed.” That's Dartmouth prof Lada Kolomiyets talking to the VN's Alex Hanson about I'm Fine, the four-teen play set during the early days of the Russian invasion that it took a village to create and produce. The play, by Ukrainian playwright Nina Zakhozhenko, has its North American premiere tonight, and Hanson talks to the actors—“Even though it’s this fictional scenario, it’s not a fictional world,” says one—and several of the adults who translated it and helped bring it to life.Check out those seats! The walls are pretty striking, too. There's actually a photo of the newly renovated Lebanon Opera House to go along with Hannah Feuer's Seven Days piece on the newly refurbished space, which holds its "housewarming" party next Wednesday. "For a long time, we were trying to fit ourselves into the city hall building," LOH director Joe Clifford says. "Now, we're making a space comfortable for our essential purposes, which is about welcoming people to the theater."The Chandler Music Hall, in Randolph, has its own reopening coming, too. In the VN, Alex Hanson writes about LOH, too, but adds in the Chandler's big effort to repair and repaint its plasterwork—and add a new sound system and curtain. LOH also donated some of its lighting equipment.ACLU, NH officials disagree about northern border-crossing numbers and their meaning. As you may remember, Gov. Chris Sununu has been pushing for money and patrols to stem what he says is a growing problem with illegal immigration. Yesterday, the ACLU said it had gotten stats from Customs and Border Protection showing that between Oct., 2022 and Dec., 2023, the agency had encountered or taken into custody just 21 people without documentation. "It shows that it is not a crisis,” the ACLU's Giles Bissonette said. Sununu and the AG's office counter that the group "cherry-picked" data, WMUR reports.Gun bill in NH House has bipartisan support—but will face hurdles if it passes. The measure, House Bill 1711, would add "certain mental health records to the database that gun dealers must check before selling a firearm," writes Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin. But recently, the state Supreme Court ruled that a man who had been the object of concern from police and his family and repeatedly been in psychiatric hospitals was legally entitled to buy the gun with which he shot two Manchester police officers in 2016—because there was no evidence a court had ordered him committed. Timmins details the case.Also in NH House: Debates on EVs and other energy-related bills. Like, there's one bill that would bar EVs from parking in public garages out of safety concerns—a notion that got some pushback from the state's Dept. of Environmental Services, which pointed out that NH has had only two EV fires and that all cars, not just EVs, are getting heavier. Then there was the bill making it a felony to use environmental, social, and governance criteria when investing taxpayer money; that got voted down in committee, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian. And there's the bill that would mandate state policy favor “dispatchable resources" like nuclear power and gas-fired generation.
That last one is actually a big deal, as state consumer advocate Don Kreis writes in a commentary. It comes from the chair of the House Committee on Science, Technology and Energy and includes as cosponsors "nearly all of the other energy policy thought leaders in the Republican caucus of the General Court." Kreis explains what it's about, how it would zero out NHSaves—and how it seeks to safeguard NH energy policy priorities from federal regulations that might run counter.
The measure would expand the state's anti-discrimination and fair employment statutes, covering public spaces like schools and stores, as well as workplaces, to add discrimination based on hair types, styles, and textures, reports
VTDigger
's Auditi Gupta. “It seems like a small bill but in actuality, it’s another big block in the foundation of equity in the state,” Hartford Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie, one of its sponsors, told the House. Gupta describes the testimony and arguments that led up to the 132-5 vote. It now goes to the Senate.
That was state Rep. Emilie Kornheiser last week. She was one of the sponsors of the 2022 measure that was supposed to help "disadvantaged" school districts get more funding without having to raise taxes. But as
Seven Days
' Alison Novak writes in a handy primer on why school districts all over Vermont are prickly this budget season, that measure and other tax boosts stoked by the education funding formula have school officials scrambling, and worried that budgets may be voted down in March.
“You’re handling it, you’re living with it, it’s not just something that sits on the shelf.” In the hands and under the hammer of Ndidi Ekubia, a disc of flat, hard silver is molded and coaxed into organic forms that go way beyond grandma’s candy dish. Ekubia, a contemporary silversmith in Manchester, UK, finds patterns all around, which she transfers onto her pieces. Courtesy of the V&A's short film, we see her work take on a life and shine amidst thousands of others at the museum, much to her delight. “I went in there not so long ago with a friend of mine and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s me … that’s mine!’“Hey, if you see one of these at your bird feeder, definitely get in touch with Daybreak. Squirrels, bear, deer, sure. But then there's this Japanese macaque in Scotland that escaped from a wildlife park and found its way to some nearby homes. "He looked a bit shifty, like he was where he wasn't supposed to be, which was true," says Carl Nagle of Kincraig, Scotland. And then the macaque found its way to the bird feeder...The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
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There's that Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, perfect for long nights by the fire. Plus, of course, fleece vests, hoodies, sweatshirts, even a throw blanket. And hats, mugs, and—once you work up a puzzle-piece sweat—tees. Check it all out at the link!
A bit of a drive away, but how often do you get to go to the opening for a photo exhibit by a guy who had bit parts in four Batman movies? Oh, wait, sorry... ...by a longtime US senator who was an enthusiastic photographer and happened to have a camera handy remarkably often during his nearly five decades in office (and have bit parts in Batman movies)? The Eye of Senator Patrick Leahy: Photographs of a Witness to History opens today starting at 4:30 in the VT Supreme Court Gallery. Leahy and his wife, Marcelle, are expected to be there. Here's Susan Apel's preview.
At 6:30 this evening, the Norwich Historical Society kicks off a five-Thursdays-in-February series of online talks with "Tales from the Schoolhouses". Former Marion Cross teachers Wendy Thompson and Cam Cross will dive into the town's old schoolhouses—there were 20 of them—and how students learned, played, and pranked. Future talks will include Sarah Rooker on cider and beermaking, and xc ski legend John Morton on trails in Norwich and beyond. You'll need to register—it's by donation—to get the Zoom link.
There's another opening this evening at 7: The North American premiere of I'm Fine, performed by Hanover High's Footlighters, directed by longtime Upper Valley theater presence Amanda Rafuse, with original music by singer and songwriter Tommy Crawford performed by a four-member chorus and a rock band, and with the participation as translators and advisors of members of the Upper Valley's Ukrainian and Russian communities. As Alex Hanson wrote in the VN yesterday (see link above), the production—about four Ukrainian teens in the early stages of the Russian invasion—aims to "create a way to put Upper Valley performers and audience members in the shoes of teens going through the upheaval of armed conflict." Runs tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday.
Also at 7 this evening, the Dartmouth Political Union presents a livestreamed discussion by four academics on "Israel and Palestine: The History and The Conflict". The panelists will be UC Berkeley historian Ussama Makdisi, who specializes in Palestinian history; Rachel Fish, who teaches Israeli history and society at George Washington U; Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah who's now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute; and Guy Ziv, a political commentator and prof at American University who teaches course on, among other things, Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
Tonight at 7:30, the Flying Goose Pub in New London brings in the New England Bluegrass Band. Fronted by native Mississippian Cecil Ables, the band "has opened and shared the stages with the giants of the music, including Del McCoury, Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson and many many others," the pub writes. Not many spots left as of yesterday, so act fast.
And today's music...
Sarah Jarosz may have been a teen bluegrass prodigy and "a luminary in acoustic Americana," as the NYT's Jon Pareles put it recently, for her heartfelt songwriting, captivating voice, and work with I'm With Her and Punch Brothers, but it's only now, with the release of her seventh album,
Polaroid Lovers
, that she's busting out of her quieter persona. A series of collaborations with Nashville mainstays, the album hit last week.
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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