TOP O' THE MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Because, despite a frosty start to the morning, we're talkin' mid-60s today, people! We've got high pressure settled in for... well, most of today, anyway. It's going to be sunny through the better part of the day, highs reaching 65-ish by mid-afternoon, winds from the west. At some point, though, a warm front will move in, accompanied by rain. Chance of showers starting in the evening, and it'll likely be raining by the time you wake up in the morning. Lows only in the mid-40s, though.Boy, give a guy a new toy... Chad Finer's still playing around with his new drone, and on Tuesday was at Union Village, by the Thetford/Norwich line, taking off from the schoolhouse by the Methodist church there and rising high for sweeping views of the village, the hills, the Ompompanoosuc, the dam, the bright blue landing pad, the blades of grass where the drone actually lands...
Coming back down to earth...
NH announced 63 new positive test results yesterday and 1,912 specimens tested, bringing its total reported cases to 3,299. Of those, 1,236 have recovered (up 2) and 150 have died (up 8), yielding a total current caseload of 1,913. Grafton County is back up one to 58 all told; Sullivan remains at 14. Merrimack County is at 256 (up 4). Hanover, Lebanon, Enfield, Claremont, Newport, and New London remain at between 1 and 4 current cases.
VT reported two new cases yesterday (one of them in Windsor County), putting its total at 929, with 789 people recovered (up 2). Of the known active cases, 5 remain hospitalized. Deaths still stand at 53 all told. Windsor County's now at 46 reported cases all told, Orange still at 8. The state reported 414 new tests yesterday, bringing the total to 21,676.
Hartford second-home family with NY plates told they're unwelcome; incident draws Phil Scott's attention. Chris Brown and his family live in NYC, where he teaches at Columbia University; they also have a home in Hartford. He and his son were looking for a Mother's Day gift when they were flagged down by a guy who yelled, "We can’t have people like you here." Brown, who's African-American, tells VPR the incident felt racist, and yesterday at his press conference, Scott addressed the case. "This virus cannot be used as an excuse for hate, bigotry or division, of any type, for any reason," he said. The state police and Hartford PD are investigating.Food distribution planned for Thetford; Bookstock cancelled. The 12th annual literary festival in Woodstock, which had been scheduled for July 31-Aug. 2, will take a break this year. "Authors are being notified and Bookstock organizers are hopeful that some individual events might be held later in the year if the coronavirus outbreak subsides," the VN reports. At the same link, news that the VT National Guard will be distributing milk, meat, produce, cheese, and MREs a week from today, Thursday, May 21, at Thetford Academy from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pull up, open your trunk, and the food will be loaded in.Dartmouth to begin shipping students' stuff home. It's been bedeviling college officials since students left campus in mid-March: What to do with all the belongings they left behind? Dean Kathryn Lively announced the answer yesterday: Starting with seniors' rooms, professional packers will pack all items, and students can choose whether to have them stored, shipped to them at Dartmouth's expense, or prepped for a "structured pickup" in July. Appliances, flammable and hazardous materials, electronics, bicycles, plants, and artwork will not be eligible for shipping. There. Now you know.
"My assets are 800 people in that theater and the ability to make magic on stage. It's what people need now, it's just not what they can have." That's Joe Clifford, who runs Lebanon Opera House, talking about the tough spot performing arts venues find themselves in right now. In a new Daybreak Interview, he talks about what it's been like dealing with the pandemic, trying to adjust to a dark theater, and what the future might hold. It's not just LOH. Performing arts venues in general have taken it on the chin and still have no idea when they might reopen. Woodstock's Pentangle Arts was planning a $100K production of "Elf" over Wassail Weekend; now exec director Alisa Wilson's trying to get back the $8,000 licensing fee. “Large indoor mass gatherings will be probably the very last thing to be allowable," says Karen Mittelman of the VT Council on the Arts. “Yet they are critical economic drivers for many of Vermont’s downtowns.” VTDigger reports."We function as a touchstone...We asked ourselves, ‘How can we replicate that?’” That's Mindy Atwood, director of Sunapee's Abbott Library, talking to the VN's Liz Sauchelli about how the library has strived to remain a community anchor during the pandemic. Sauchelli surveys libraries around the region, which have helped patrons master new technology, undertaken book delivery, recorded story times, filmed how-to and activity videos, organized game gatherings, helped patrons navigate unemployment payments...As NH reopens, some pushback surfaces. Yesterday, the NH Science and Public Health Task Force filed a right-to-know request asking health commissioner Lori Shibinette and Gov. Chris Sununu to release data on the state’s response to the pandemic. “Last week Governor Sununu suggested that he was basing early reopening decisions on a downward case trend he was seeing, when in fact the cases were not trending downwards,” the task force said in a news release. Sununu "is starting an early reopening using data that is not available to the public,"adds task force member Michael Dowe, MD.
VT now offering free virus tests to anyone who wants one. Without a referral. Appointments are required, but anyone—whether or not they have symptoms—can schedule one. They'll be done at daylong testing clinics around the state from May 14 to May 23. The first one locally is on Saturday, at the Upper Valley Aquatic Center, though all slots except the 10:30 am one are taken, and that one has a wait list. There will also be one on Friday, May 22, in Springfield, location to be announced.Vermont issues rules for reopening child care centers, stores, and drive-ins. Stores are limited to 25 percent occupancy, one customer per 200 square feet; or 10 total customers and staff combined, whichever is greater. Drive-ins must space cars six feet apart, and no gatherings outside cars will be allowed. Child care facilities will be allowed no more than 25 children and staff in a single room, and must carry out daily health checks. In addition, the state clarified guidance for libraries, which can reopen for curbside pickup only. What will VT look like after the pandemic? Seven Days asked 15 people around the state, including Bradford's Monique Priestley, to look forward. There are some striking interviews. Says the founder of S. Burlington's Higher Ground: "I think we're also going to see an incredible wellspring of creative talent. We've just shut artists in their houses for seven weeks." And a UVM agronomist: "We've set up a system that doesn't necessarily feed families. It feeds restaurants. It feeds wholesale markets....It's just too bad it took a pandemic to get people to turn around and go to their local farmer for food."Let's run with that for a moment: Could Vermont farms actually feed the whole state? That's what a listener asked VPR's Brave Little State, and with their usual thoroughness and panache, they tackle the question. The short answer: Yes. And no. And why talk only about Vermont, rather than, as someone says, "Could we start to think about what it would take to grow, raise, catch, manufacture more of the food that we want and need from within New England to feed New Englanders?” A lot depends on whether buying local food is just a pandemic fad.
Lyme debates blinking light. The town's decision to install the light at the crosswalk across Route 10 between the Lyme School and the library has aroused the ire of some residents, the VN's Tim Camerato reports. “I would like to see a community forum where everybody comes together and looks at the big picture for pedestrian safety in the area," says one. The state DOT reports about 2,900 cars a day through that section of state highway. Despite the fuss, Camerato says, the selectboard plans to forge ahead. (VN, sub reqd)In first Dem debate, Holcombe, Zuckerman trade jabs over vaccinations. Monday night's debate among Vermont's Democratic gubernatorial candidates did veer into issues like universal broadband and school district mergers. But it was dominated by Rebecca Holcombe's attack on David Zuckerman for disputing an end to the state's "philosophical exemption" for vaccinations in 2015, a change designed to protect child care workers and others. Zuckerman accused her of "distorting" his views.NH State Police stop overweight truck. We're not just talking a pound here or there. We're talking 54,000 pounds. Extra. The truck and the excavator it was hauling along Route 101 in Exeter were permitted for 80,000 pounds; it was stopped by a state trooper for not using its retractable axle, and found to weigh in at 134,400 pounds.Has it been unusually windy of late? It's seemed that way to a lot of people, so Granite Geek David Brooks put the question to the National Weather Service in Gray, ME. The short answer: In Concord, at least, March was less windy than normal, April was about average, and May so far has been windier. Charts at the maroon link. On the other hand, as E&E News reported via Scientific American last year, global wind speeds are up... (Thanks, LH!)Speaking of wind... South cove of Lake Willoughby yesterday, whitecaps in the distance...No two ways about it: Those are some weird-looking trees. Tortoise Media, a UK news startup dedicated to "a slower, wiser news," has an intriguing photo essay about baobab trees. They originated in Madagascar and have spread as far as Australia. They're prodigious water-storers, and pretty much every part of them can be used, for everything from food to brewing beer to shelter. And over the last couple of decades, baobabs in southern Africa have started to die off.Oh, and David Lynch is doing weather reports. He did this ten years ago, then stopped, and just started up again on Monday. It's in Los Angeles, so we're not talking high drama, but there's something oddly compelling about the director of Twin Peaks staring appraisingly up and out the window and delivering a straight-up report on what's going on in the skies.... Hmm. Maybe Daybreak should get itself a YouTube channel? Nah.
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Staying Connected
Well, for one thing, you could check in on tonight's live chat with Aisha Tyler, Dartmouth '92, who voices Lana Kane on F/X's animated comedy Archer, was a regular (and two-time director) on Criminal Minds, the first longstanding African-American actor on Friends, hosts the CW's Whose Line Is It Anyway?, sells a line of bottled cocktails, and voices various video games. The Hop's #SmallScreenFun at 8 pm.
Or head for the Hop@Home at 9 for a jam session with fiddler Patrick Ross, blending live and recorded music to re-create his band, Atlas Key.
At 7 pm, Bradford's Space on Main is hosting a "silent reading party," modeled on a similar event created by Seattle's alt-biweekly The Stranger. Don Sinclair and Jenn Grossi play instrumental music, while you pull up your most comfortable chair and read. Signup at the link.
You might also want to prep for tomorrow's "Play Date" at Northern Stage. This week it's Top Girls, Caryl Churchill's 1982 play about the experience of women in the early Thatcher years in England. This week's discussion will be hosted by Lisa McNulty and Tamilla Woodard of the WP Theater in NYC.
Or if you want to see some actual theater in England, National Theatre Live is launching a week's run of Barber Shop Chronicles, Inua Ellams’ vibrant, world-spanning little explosion of a play about barbers and customers and families in London, Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Uganda. It was a hit in London in 2017, NYC last December, and pretty much everywhere else it stopped on its tour. Starts at 2 pm today, runs until next Thursday.
Or there's some actual theater in New York... and North Carolina... and San Diego... but really in your own home. Tonight's the premier of the irrepressible, multi-talented actor and clown Bill Irwin's new ten-minute play, In-Zoom, about a video call between two characters who've been asked to record inspirational passages. Irwin will be in his Manhattan apartment, co-actor Christopher Fitzgerald in NC, and it'll be on the website of San Diego's Old Globe Theater. "We’re trying to look at what theatrical possibilities exist, and even physical possibilities, with this little window frame," Irwin tells the NYT.
Or maybe a serious music lineup. The Jazz Foundation's presenting a livestream Covid-19 Musicians' Emergency Fund concert with Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Angélique Kidjo, Ivan Neville, Milton Nascimiento, and various other artists. Starts at 8, east coast time.
Finally, this doesn't start until tomorrow, but you'll want to prep yourself. You know how Mountainfilm on Tour comes to the Hop every year? Well, obviously, this year it can't. Instead, it's offering online access to the entire festival for ten days starting tomorrow. Over 100 documentaries on climbing, bicycling, adventure, environmental issues, politics, social justice... Passes aren't cheap, $75, but they're doing their best to make it like being at the actual festival, with a symposium, conversations with artists and athletes and others, and the films themselves. (Thanks, JH!)
Reading Deeper
I know, The Atlantic again, but this is fascinating. Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, had been researching the protest movement in Hong Kong when the coronavirus hit. She wasn't able to go back, but she was curious about how a dense city of 7 million managed to avoid being hit hard--and to beat back a second wave, too, brought in by imported cases. Turns out it wasn't the leadership, which was feckless. It was the protest movement, which had built up a citizen-led infrastructure, both in-person and online, which was able to put out straightforward information about hot spots and safe behavior, mobilize to distribute masks, install and keep refilling hand sanitizer stations, and force the government to put public health first.
Seems like a day to be lyrical. Here's Ana Alcaide, the Spanish singer and
Viola de Teclas
player,
one of the classical Sephardic songs she's made part of her repertoire.
See you tomorrow.
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