GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Becoming sunnier. We're in for a bout of high pressure, which arrives later today and will keep things pretty nice out there for the next few days. The day will start out moderately cloudy but clear as the day goes on, with temps getting up into the higher 20s. Cloudless skies tonight, though, will send things down into the minus single digits. Winds from the northwest.And here are some stunning daybreaks in...
Orford, NH yesterday morning, with Mt. Cube through the pastel haze, from Paul Goundrey;
And W. Newbury, VT last Friday, with a brilliant sky reflected in the snowy fields below, from Amy Perry.
Dartmouth unveils plan for $75 million Hopkins Center expansion. It will work with the NYC office of the international design firm Snøhetta, which is based in Oslo and designed, among other things, Europe's first underwater restaurant and the SF Museum of Modern Art expansion. According to the college's press release, the Hop project aims to create three new recital halls and teaching studios, enhance the center's acoustics—including more soundproofing in auditoriums—upgrade rehearsal space, incorporate new recording and communication technologies, and redo the entryway. Hartford board skeptical of sewer extension to Norwich, but leaves door open. As you may remember, the Norwich School Board has asked Hartford to extend its sewer line up Route 5 and to the school to help it deal with a failed septic system. Hartford's public works director wants a flat-out "No," as do others in town, but at a Hartford Selectboard meeting Tuesday, members remained noncommittal, reports the Valley News's Tim Camerato. If an extension were to be approved, the Co-op Service Center, King Arthur, and other Route 5 businesses would likely connect.After state review, Springfield Hospital to add second vaccine refrigerator. VTDigger's Amanda Gokee reports that a team from the VT health department found that those 860 doses that set off alarms last month were, indeed, at slightly too high a temperature—possibly because repeated opening and closing of the refrigerator door raised the interior temp. The state has also replaced the thermometer it uses to keep track with a digital version that sends real-time alerts if there are any problems. The doses were determined by Moderna to be safe and most have been administered, the hospital says.SPONSORED: For art that will warm your heart. Find unique gifts by VT and NH artists at Long River Gallery—including handmade mugs of every description (some with hearts), beautiful bowls and serving pieces, artwork to enliven those four walls, cookbooks, and nature books to get you outdoors. Hours are Wednesday–Saturday 11-5 or by appointment. Visit the gallery at 49 S. Main Street in White River Junction, shop online, or for a personal shopping service email [email protected]. Sponsored by Long River Gallery."A bird with the gift of gab." In Thetford early yesterday morning, writer and naturalist Ted Levin saw four ravens headed east, their call "the sweetest sound of the morning," he writes. Ravens have "at least seventy-nine distinct calls, twenty of known meaning. Some learn calls from their mates, others from same-sexed neighbors up to ten miles away. So varied the raven's vocal range, the species repertoire may be limitless. Dialects. Accents. Individually recognizable voices." And they're born mimics, from dogs to slamming doors.A tribute to Ammonoosuc avalanche victim Ian Forgays. "Skiin' Ian," as he was known, was based in Lincoln, VT, worked as a lift operator at Mad River Glen, and lived for backcountry skiing. He often headed off-trail in the Whites, the Chic Chocs "and other high alpine terrain around the Northeast," writes Lisa Lynn in VT Ski + Ride. He knew what he was doing. And avalanche danger was rated low the day he headed up Ammonoosuc Ravine. But he triggered a small slide into a terrain trap formed by a cliff, and was buried. Lynn recounts Forgays' life and meticulously stitches together what's known of his death."This was our first time doing the ice thing. Probably won’t do it again." You get why. Brandon Gilcreast took his ATV onto ice for the first time last Saturday night, on Squam Lake. He and his cousin were near the shoreline when they fell through. Each time Gilcreast tried to crawl onto the ice, it broke; his cousin eventually hauled him out. They were wet and freezing, their truck was over a mile away, the keys were in the sunken ATVs.... "We often refer to the NH House as 'family.' We have a problem in our family and we have a duty to deal with it." Last month, ten Jewish state reps—including locals Rich Abel and Laurel Stavis—sent Speaker Sherman Packard a letter taking him to task for downplaying anti-semitic social media posts by two members of the GOP caucus and asking him to sanction them. Packard met with the organizer, Rep. Paul Berch. "It was very cordial," says Berch. "But he wasn't budging on anything." So yesterday, the group made the letter public. Leaving the issue festering "will only make it worse," they write.Sununu to propose merging higher ed systems. The governor gives his two-year-budget address today, and the Union Leader's Kevin Landrigan reports that it will include a proposal to create a single system containing the state's two-year and four-year public colleges. The move comes as demographic forecasts show declining enrollments in the two current systems. Trustees in the two systems are signaling their approval, Landrigan writes, but the legislature will have to sign on before anything happens. (Paywall alert)NH Lottery takes $3 million bath on Super Bowl. The lottery system was part of the "house" in gambling on the game handled by DraftKings, and with so many Granite Staters putting so many wagers on Tampa Bay (or, really, on Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, and Antonio Brown), writes NH Business Review's Michael Kitch, the state actually lost money. DraftKings, which had the betting in Kansas City to even things out, no doubt did just fine.VT makes identity-protection services available in data breach. The step comes in the wake of a snafu in which the state labor department mailed out faulty 1099s to some 45,000 unemployment recipients. The forms contained other people's social security numbers, and the fear, of course, is that some of them might "open the door," as VTDigger's Anne Wallace Allen puts it, to fraud and identity theft. Recipients of the forms will get instructions on how to sign up for fraud protection in coming days.Here's a question wedding planners never figured on: How many hand-sanitizing stations do you need per square foot of event space? In Seven Days, Ken Picard looks at VT's hard-hit wedding industry—"if someone were to design the perfect super-spreader event," he writes, "a wedding would fit the bill"—and how it's adapting. Some couples are planning weddings for later this year, but once they resume there'll be changes: no passed hors d'oeuvres, no self-serve dessert stations, premixed cocktails in cups with lids—and if it's outdoors, for pete's sake spring for a tent in case the weather goes south.Hockney does Normandy. With museums shuttered, Susan Apel writes on her Artful blog, there's another option: "Go to art galleries, which for some reason (perhaps because they are businesses) are permitted to remain open." La Galerie Lelong in Paris is featuring the pandemic-era works of Hockney, who set up shop in Normandy and decided to ride things out in his farmhouse there. Susan links to a brief tour of his work: "It will be the best minute and 37 seconds you’ll spend today," she writes.Okay, sure it's stunning at daybreak here. But have you checked out sunset in Hanksville, UT? Or the northern lights over the Kola Peninsula in Russia? Or the Ijen or Bromo volcanoes on Java? In tenderly, editor Jack Shepherd pulls together 30 of the winners of the International Landscape Photographer of the Year awards. Some serious atmospherics out there...
So...
NH reported 374 new cases yesterday for a cumulative total of 69,247. There were 7 new deaths, bringing the total to 1,116. Meanwhile, 142 people are hospitalized (down 17). The current active caseload stands at 3,142 (down 28). The state reports 192 active cases in Grafton County (up 1), 88 in Sullivan (down 12), and 266 in Merrimack (down 7). In town-by-town numbers, the state says Claremont has 47 active cases (down 5), Newport has 15 (down 4), Hanover has 12 (down 1), Lebanon has 12 (up 3), Rumney has 9 (no change), Charlestown has 8 (no change), Canaan has 7 (no change), Haverhill has 7 (no change), Grantham has 5 (no change). Warren, Wentworth, Dorchester, Enfield, Plainfield, Cornish, Sunapee, Unity, and Newbury have 1-4.
VT reported 62 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 13,122. There was 1 new death, which now number 187 all told. Meanwhile, 54 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (up 1). Windsor County gained 3 new cases to stand at 927 for the pandemic (with 123 over the past 14 days). Orange County actually had a case reassigned, so is now down 1 to 447 cumulatively (with 37 cases over the past 14 days).
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At 6:30 this evening, the Norwich Historical Society continues its series of presentations with a twist, with a program featuring Steve Flanders, Nick Krembs, and Gerry Plummer, all members of the town's trails committee, and Brie Swenson, the town recreation director, talking about winter hiking, snowshoeing, and xc skiing on the trails in town. As with last week, the registration fee if you sign up today for tonight's event will go to support the Haven—but you can also order in advance for next week's event and reserve dinner from Carpenter & Main.
This evening at 7, the Enfield Shaker Museum kicks off a "Weather-Wise" series of lectures with Kenneth Noe, who teaches history of the South at Auburn, talking about how weather and climate shaped the course of the Civil War. Not just in the outcomes of battles, he contends, but by affecting southerners' food supplies while northern armies, with better logistics, were able to withstand the South's extreme climate.
Also at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts Thetford's John Morton, the now-legendary nordic skier, Olympic biathlete and coach, and cross-country ski-trail designer. He's got a new book out, Celebrate Winter: An Olympian's Stories of a Life in Nordic Skiing, filled with insights and anecdotes about skiing, training, coaching, competing, and making the most of winter.
Starting today, Billings Farm's film series continues with Life in Synchro, Angela Pinaglia's 2020 documentary about synchronized skating—which you may never have heard of but has been around since 1956 and has competitive teams all over the world. "If a single figure skater is a marvel, a team of figure skaters is practically a miracle," says the director of DC's Independent Film Festival.
Finally, you don't have to travel to Concord to catch the Capitol Center for the Arts' new Mud Season Sampler Virtual Series. Starting tonight and running into April, they're bringing a series of concerts to home screens. Today and tonight it's Darlingside, the Boston-based indie folk-pop band, and Trampled By Turtles, a Duluth-based bluegrass and folk-rock band. Tomorrow it's singer, pianist, and radio host Jim Brickman, next week there's Ivan Neville and Jon Cleary, down the road there's the Broadway cast of Hadestown getting back together... Tix at various prices.
A slight change of pace today. "Nile Rodgers doesn't just enter a room, he glows into it," NPR once said of the veteran guitarist, producer, chief creative advisor to Abbey Road Studios, and songwriter ("We Are Family" for Sister Sledge and "I'm Coming Out" for Diana Ross, among lots else). A few months back, the people at Fender asked him to sit down and tell a story from his career.
to work on an album, and how his noodling around with Bowie's original idea for "Let's Dance" turned it into the 1983 monster hit it became. There's music theory and gentle trash talk and a master showing what he can do with a Stratocaster in his hands.
(Thanks, AS!)
See you tomorrow.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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