GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, definitely colder. That cold front was a little later arriving yesterday than expected, which led to a fine, balmy day. Just as sunny today — though there'll be clouds around in the afternoon — but the high won't get out of the low 20s. Wind from the west, temps into the minuses overnight.Remember the snow Tuesday evening? Here's guessing Croydon never forgets it. Richard Lee was police chief there for 20 years, until Tuesday night. That's when the selectboard voted to disband the town's one-man police force and shift to coverage by the state police. SB Chair Russell Edwards told Lee to turn in his uniform, gun, and cruiser key immediately, so he went into his office, stripped down to his underwear, a shirt, cap, and boots, and started the seven-mile trek home in the storm. His wife eventually picked him up.$2 million in energy upgrades, contested selectboard seat on docket for Norwich. Voters at town meeting will be considering whether to borrow the money to replace Tracy Hall's heating and lighting systems and install geothermal, in a bid to undo its reliance on fuel oil and propane. The issue has split the two contenders for outgoing SB member John Pepper's seat, IT specialist Rob Gere and investor Doug Wilberding. As in three other towns, voters will also be considering rules changes affecting how police treat people based on suspected immigration status. (VN)Woodstock snow artists win national snow-sculpting contest; NH team 2nd, ME 3rd. The three Woodstock members of the Vermont team, Tony Perham, Katie Runde, and Mugsy Logan, call themselves the “Pour Saps.” Their bid for glory at the U.S. National Snow Sculpting Championship in Wisconsin was a finely detailed piece of a cow jumping over a hollowed-out moon that cradles the man in the moon dozing off while reading a book. Mountain Times has the pics. SPONSORED: Never sat ringside at a prize fight? Here's your chance to mark that off your bucket list. From tomorrow through March 1, Dartmouth Theater is giving the US premiere of The Sweet Science of Bruising, a hit UK play about women boxers in Victorian England (yes, they were a thing). Seating on the Moore stage in Hopkins Center, ringside to the four women who try to box their way out of personal and societal constraints. They'll be trading realistic blows thanks to RVC trainer Jennifer Karr! Sponsored by the Hop.Campus event controversy roils Dartmouth Republicans. The chair and co-vice chair of the College Republicans have resigned after the organization postponed a policy talk with GOP US Senate candidate Bryant “Corky” Messner due to unspecified "security concerns." Conservative news orgs had reported threats of violence; college Democrats say they were unaware of any. One College Republican board member says the resignations stemmed from "communications issues": The campus-wide email advertising the event bore the subject line, "“They’re bringing drugs...”, which ignited a furor.The canopy walk in winter. You can get a sterling bird's-eye view of the treetops and forest floor from a stroll along VINS's new feature. But for a true bird's-eye view, you have to go higher. Which, thanks to her drone, the institute's Emily Johnson did a few weeks ago. Here's a very short look at the canopy walk from high above. Leb airport snags $1.17 million federal grant. The US Dept. of Transportation announced $520 million in airport improvement grants yesterday. Leb's money will go to reconstructing the parking lot, rehabbing the access road, and new snow removal equipment. Manchester got $3.6 million for reconfiguring a taxiway and terminal upgrades, and BTV about $1 million for security upgrades.Winter on the NH roads. Reddit user rabblebowser caught this handmade sign. We could use some of them around heah, too. “The last two were a girl and her father who lived along the old eastern range on the side of a mountain they called the mountain that stands alone.” That's the opening line of The Bear, the new post-apocalyptic novel by Andrew Krivak. You may recognize that label as a loose translation of "monadnock" — Krivak spends part of his year in Jaffrey, and it's the area around Mt. Monadnock, he says, that inspired the descriptions of the natural world that are drawing raves for the book. The link takes you to Slate critic Rebecca Onion's review of Krivak's "mesmerizing fable."Well, that was quick. It took all of 15 minutes of debate yesterday for the NH House to vote down a bill that would have outlawed cat declawing. Supporters argued that it's cruel; opponents, that sometimes the move is necessary if an owner's allergic to cat scratches. Bridging the pet divide, legislators also deep-sixed a bill that would have created criminal penalties for leaving a dog outside without enough food, after opponents contended it would burden owners of police canines and working farm dogs.An NHPR primer on charter schools in the state. With legislators and the Sununu administration still at loggerheads over whether to accept a large federal grant that would double the number of charters, Sarah Gibson is up with a lesson on the workings of charters in NH, from how they accept students (and why that makes gauging demand difficult), to differences in how they operate, to the student populations they serve.And a VPR primer on proposed Act 250 changes. Actually, it's ostensibly a story about polling support for loosening environmental review on downtown development in Vermont. But John Dillon delves at length into the ongoing debate as the legislature considers a 94-page overhaul of the 50-year-old law.Got artistic inclinations, an urge to exercise, and a pair of snowshoes? Up in Island Pond, VT, a guy named John Predom has been stomping out geometric patterns in the snow. Which can only be seen from above. He uses a ball of string tied to a post to keep himself in line, and a single work can take up to six hours to make. "It's a challenge just to snowshoe, so by the time you get done, you're pretty tired. It definitely is like going for a good hike," he tells WCAX. Story and artistry, which is quite amazing, at the link.
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GOT PLANS?
Glaude chairs the African-American Studies Department at Princeton, and is president of the American Academy of Religion. "Trump isn’t some nefarious character unlike anything we have seen before," he wrote back in 2018. "He embodies the hatreds and fears that have been part of America’s politics since its founding and that erupt with every rapid change in our society and world." 4:30 pm in Dartmouth's Filene Auditorium.
"If you want to see what great acting is, watch Alfre Woodard deliver a master class in
Clemency,"
Peter Travers writes in
Rolling Stone.
Woodard plays Bernardine Williams, a rules-driven, emotionally contained prison warden who has overseen 11 executions, is preparing for her 12th, and is struggling internally with the wreckage. "Through Woodard’s transfixing, transcendent performance, a measure is taken of the cost exacted when compassion is by necessity eliminated from the equation," Travers writes. 7:30 pm at the Loew.
The Upper Valley Circus Camp has had a vacation-week stay at CCBA in Lebanon, and tonight's the coaches' chance to show what they can do. Cirque Us aerialist Nina Gershy and her colleague, hand-balancer and straps artist Adam Philyaw; Theatricks clown, stilt-walker, and all-around circus guy Mark Lohr and his kids; and Lebanon High juniors Andrew Duany and Charles Cloud (who are CITs) take to the ring. 6 pm at CCBA.
Harvey, who was born in Germany, spent her early childhood in England, moved with her family to Milwaukee, and now lives in Brooklyn, has four poetry collections under her belt and is in town for the premiere of Taylor Ho Bynum's new oratorio,
The Temp and Mr. Prosper, f
or which she wrote the libretto. This will be only the second of Still North's readings
.
6 pm.
. The band blends world music and electronica into live dance music, blending loops and sequencing with ancient folk melodies. Free, as part of the Hop's Thursday Night Live series. 9 pm at The Onion, the little building on Crosby Street between Memorial Field and the tennis courts.
I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fenceAnd see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like thatThey looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swearShe threw her cane at me and walked off down the street withoutIt...
— From "In Defense of our Overgrown Garden" by Matthea Harvey
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