GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, warm, slight chance of thunderstorms. Mostly, we get a somewhat warmer repeat of yesterday, with temps reaching the mid 70s under mostly sunny skies. The exception might be this afternoon, when a disturbance passes through overhead, bringing the faint possibility of rain and some thunder. Though the Weather Service writes that it isn't "overly enthused at our chances for boomers"—which I think we have to take as a comment on weather, not age ranges. Partly cloudy tonight, low around 50.No arguing with spring.
Especially not when it brings back ruby-throated hummingbirds after a 2,000-mile journey—here in Quechee, from Lisa Lacasse;
Or when it produces apple blossoms like these, in the Pompanoosuc section of Norwich, from Lisa Johnson;
Or when it reminds us just how puny we are, as when these clouds piled in toward Wilder from the east, from Rob Grimaldi.
"Obviously, it's time for a changing of the guard." So said longtime Hanover Selectboard chair Peter Christie late Tuesday night after the results of that day's voting were announced at the town's floor meeting: Christie had been unseated after two newcomers to the board, Carey Callaghan and Jennie Chamberlain, drew more votes. The Valley News's Patrick Adrian was there. “I have learned so much from Peter about how to appropriately govern, how to appropriately lead and how to appropriately conduct business in a fair and orderly manner,” Selectboard vice chair Athos Rassias said.Has your jaw dropped after getting a Liberty Utilities bill? You're not alone. Like, take the case of Leb's Rory Gawler, who's general manager of the Dartmouth Outing Club, has a solar array at his home, and in the last two months has gotten bills totaling nearly $6,000 with no explanation. Before the utility switched its customer service system, writes Damien Fisher in InDepthNH, Gawler'd been facing $250 bills—before being paid back the power his panels had generated. Now, he can't get information on how much power he's allegedly using, let alone whether he's getting credit for his solar.SPONSORED: Emmy-nominated actor Paul Reiser coming to Lebanon Opera House! On Saturday, May 20, Reiser takes to the LOH stage for an evening of comedy about marriage, parenting, and aging gracefully. Best known for the ‘90s smash sitcom Mad About You, Reiser has been discovered by a new generation of fans via streaming series like Netflix’s Stranger Things and The Kominsky Method—for which he earned an Emmy nomination. His big-screen credits include Diner, Aliens, Whiplash, and the Beverly Hills Cop films. Tickets and info here and at the burgundy link. Sponsored by LOH."The greatest things about living where we live are also the things which make practicing medicine here the most difficult." On the NPR business show Marketplace yesterday, host Kai Ryssdal talked over rural healthcare delivery with DHMC orthopedic oncology surgeon Eric Henderson. “As my former boss said, 85 percent of people in the U.S. live within five minutes of a CVS,” Henderson told him, “and we care for the other 15 percent.” They talk over DH's extreme staffing shortage, its embrace of telemedicine—and why it's impossible to leave the job at the office.“What I like is every painting, every sculpture has a rhythm and a form, and when it’s done, things fall into place. It’s the same with a play.” Ria Blaas is best known in these parts as a puppeteer and visual artist. But this evening, her latest work will be on stage, when Parish Players mount a four-day run of two Bertolt Brecht plays she directed (more below in Heads Up). The VN's Alex Hanson talks to Blaas about the plays—which involve trials and, more broadly, justice and, as one play's subtitle puts it, “The provability of any and every contention"—and their staging.Running a long race in warm weather? Or in the cold? Your physique may matter. If you're a guy, anyway. In a study of triathletes published yesterday, Dartmouth researchers led by evolutionary biologist Ryan Calsbeek found that lean male runners with long limbs tended to fare better in races in warmer regions, while stockier athletes had an edge in colder climates. “I think it’s neat that the same ecological patterns that help us understand the way species are distributed around the globe, they also inform something about the way athletes work,” Calsbeek tells the Washington Post's Kasha Patel (gift link).SPONSORED: Do you want to go solar but can’t because your home or business site is too shady? Or too small to cover your electric needs? Or maybe you live in a rental house or apartment or condo? Norwich Solar is offering the chance to go solar for people who would otherwise not be able to participate in renewable energy! Join our new community solar array and sign up for the amount of clean energy you need through net metering. This offer is available for residential and business customers in the Green Mountain Power service area. Contact us for more info. Sponsored by Norwich Solar.With arguments in one NH education lawsuit finished, another is teeing up. Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff is a busy man. After three weeks of testimony, the lawsuit by the ConVal School District against the state over what constitutes an adequate education wrapped up on Friday—with the district's attorney arguing the state's funding formula doesn't come close to the reality of running schools, and the state saying the issue's up to the legislature. As Ruoff ponders, he's also gearing up for a case challenging the entire school funding system. The Granite State News Collaborative's David Solomon runs through the history of the suits, the arguments, and a possible way forward.New twists in the debate over who is Abenaki. As you may remember, members of Odanak First Nation, an Abenaki community in Quebec, insist that members of the four state-recognized tribes in VT have failed to prove their lineage—a charge Vermont Abenaki dispute. Now, VT Public's Elodie Reed reports, the Odanak have asked the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in Burlington to remove an 1894 photo of an Abenaki family from a new exhibit, "Abenaki: The First People"—an exhibit curated by a VT-based Abenaki nonprofit. Meanwhile, state-recognized tribes are taking UVM to task for excluding them from two presentations at which Odanak members spoke.Scott signs laws protecting VT doctors who provide reproductive or gender-affirming services. The two measures, writes Sarah Mearhoff in VTDigger, are the legislature's answer to efforts elsewhere to crack down in both realms. One bill protects doctors in the state from being compelled to cooperate with out-of-state investigators. The other bars medical malpractice insurance companies from boosting rates for reproductive care providers and offers other professional protections—including for providing mifepristone, whose future is up before a federal appeals court next week."I've spent 30 years in professional kitchens...and this is as severe and appalling as anything I've heard in those environments." That's VT state Rep. Matt Birong talking to Seven Days' Kevin McCallum—not about chefs' crass language, but Franklin County State's Attorney John Lavoie's. He and the county's newly elected sheriff, John Grismore, are both targets of a looming impeachment process in the legislature—Lavoie over allegations of racist and sexist language, Grismore after being caught on camera kicking a suspect. McCallum explains the drama ahead.End of an era. You've got to think VTDigger's Erin Petenko is heaving a sigh of relief. Not only did she provide steady Covid reporting through the pandemic, but she's been doggedly updating VT's Covid trends even as the state health department has gradually pulled back on actually providing data. With the CDC ending county-level reporting as of today, Digger's decided its weekly report can come to an end, too. As Petenko writes, "We want to make sure our reporting resources are focused on bigger stories and broader trends—not incremental reports on data that has grown increasingly incomplete."“That was probably not OSHA-approved.” That’s Micah Plante describing the challenges of finishing guitars in his apartment bathroom, before he opened Plante Guitar in Bristol, VT. Seven Days writes about Vermont’s thriving stringed-instrument-making scene, influenced in no small measure by Charles Fox’s 1970’s S. Strafford school for guitar building. The Upper Valley has more than its share of talented luthiers, including Marit Danielson at W. Leb’s Vermont Violins, George Morris at Vermont Instruments in Post Mills, and Michael Millard at Froggy Bottom Guitars in Chelsea. Though Millard avoids using "luthier." "We make guitars," he says.Well, what don’t you know? A lot, as it happens. Like how frogs’ tongues stick to their prey, or why golfers and darts players get the yips. But take comfort in knowing that even the greatest minds are as stumped as you are, according to Wikenigma. On Big Think, Jonny Thomson calls it “Wikipedia’s evil twin. Rather than give answers, it raises questions. Rather than explaining things, it tells you just how little we know about them.” Should you happen to have some insight into hoarding disorder or why zebras have stripes, you can contribute. Or propose your own enigmas. Like maybe, why is this called the Upper Valley?The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Today at 5 pm, Dartmouth's Dickey Center hosts the UN's Special Representative for the Horn of Africa, Hanna Tetteh, for a talk on challenges in the region. With conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, and Ethiopia, plus, of course, ongoing issues in Somalia, there's no shortage of ground to cover. Tetteh will also talk about efforts to build a partnership between the UN and the African Union. In Room 003 at Rocky, as well as livestreamed.
At 6:30, both in-person at the Howe Library in Hanover and via livestream, writer and writing teacher Joni Cole will offer advice on the unnerving challenge of how to craft a compelling and effective query letter to book publishers. Open to the public and all aspiring authors.
At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore brings in novelist Cynthia Newberry Martin and poet/publisher Dede Cummings. Martin will be reading from and talking about her novel, Love Like This; Cummings, who runs Green Writers Press in Brattleboro, will focus on her 2020 collection of poems, The Meeting Place.
And at 7:30, the Parish Players launch their lone weekend of performances of two one-act plays by Bertolt Brecht, The Elephant Calf and The Trial of Lucullus. Directed by artist and puppeteer Ria Blaas—this time working mostly with human performers—the two rarely staged plays both concern trials: one staged by a troupe of actors putting a baby elephant in the dock; the other revolving around a Roman general meeting judgment in the underworld—from a jury of civilians who were the victims of war. At the Grange Theater on Thetford Hill. Tomorrow and Saturday also at 7:30, Sunday at 3 pm.
Also at 7:30, Jarvis Green picks up where he left off before he got Covid, with Any Brilliant Thing at the Briggs Opera House in WRJ. This is the final stretch of performances of the highly immersive solo comedy about joy, depression, uncertainty, heartbreak, and all the little things that can make life worth living. Runs through Sunday.
Meanwhile, any time, you can check out JAM's highlights for the week, including: Former NH Supreme Court Justice John Broderick's talk at Dartmouth on how to recognize and respond to signs of mental illness; Surgeon Gen. Vivek Murthy's conversation with US Sen. Bernie Sanders about teen mental health issues (mental health, Murthy says, "is the defining public health crisis of our time"); and Dartmouth Health Chaplain Gary Shapiro and medical social worker Wendy Benedict on the help available for hospice patients, their families, and their caregivers. Also, Tuesday night's Hanover Town Meeting.
Okay, do not try this at home...
Traditional tight wire is hard enough. A slack wire, because it adds another plane of movement, can be even tougher. So, what if you make it a line with flexible ends on a structure that itself moves? You get something as close to meditation or dance as to circus,
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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