GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, warmer. Today we're getting into the mid-to-high 70s, calm winds from the south to southwest, barely a cloud in the sky. Down into the high 40s tonight.
Hmmm...
NH announced 149 new positive test results yesterday and 1,739 specimens tested, bringing its total reported cases to 3,868. Of those, 1,388 have recovered and 190 have died (up 8), yielding a total current caseload of 2,290. Grafton County is up one to 64 all told; Sullivan remains at 16. Merrimack County is at 290 (up 7). Hanover, Lebanon, Enfield, Claremont, Newport, and New London remain at between 1 and 4 current cases.
VT reported no new cases yesterday, leaving its total at 944, with 824 people recovered (up 4). Of the known active cases, 3 remain hospitalized. Deaths still stand at 54. Windsor and Orange counties remain at 48 and 8 reported cases, respectively. The state tallied 467 new tests, bringing the total to 25,058.
Wanna geek out? Esri, the spatial analytics firm whose software underlies a lot of the maps you've seen during the pandemic, has come up with its own set of maps to chart the progress of reopening. Using the Johns Hopkins dataset, it tracks cases at the county level across the US. One map classifies them on a scale from emergent early cases to epidemic to no new cases. Another shows how many days it's been since a county's last confirmed case. You can also track recent outbreaks and mortality rates and more. (Thanks, JF!)Looking for energy and fresh thinking about how small towns can improve themselves? You should tune into Windsor, VT. Two of its young selectboard members, Chris Goulet (who was elected in March) and James Reed (elected last year) have begun hosting a Thursday lunchtime livestream and Thursday evening podcast, and as blogger Kerry Clifford writes, "If you decide to trust them with some of your time, they’ll take you on some fascinating deep dives." Everything from how schools are dealing with the pandemic to the Strong Towns movement and "placemaking." Norwich Historical Society produces history comic book, kid-friendly driving tour. The comic book is the work of Emily Zea, a recent Center for Cartoon Studies grad who grew up in one of the houses on the driving tour, Historical Society director Sarah Rooker, and former third-grade teacher Wendy Thompson. It covers the march of early town history, from the Abenaki to settlement on Meeting House Hill to the move down to Burton's Plain. The tour, covering the town's early settlement sites, is narrated by Bill Hammond and Romanay Granizo-McKenzie.Hartford Selectboard opts to pay for masks for businesses, customers. The board voted unanimously Tuesday to spend up to $3,000 on reusable face masks for businesses to distribute to employees and patrons. It has yet to decide where the money and the masks will come from, the VN's Anna Merriman reports. Board members also discussed allowing the town's revolving loan fund for businesses to make much smaller loans than usual. “Relatively small loans could make the difference between a business going under... and a business being able to make it through,” SB member Simon Dennis said.D-H joins study of drug to prevent Covid from worsening. The question is whether lenzilumab can alleviate the immune-system overreaction known as a "cytokine storm" in patients with Covid-induced pneumonia and reduce the need for ventilators. "We have the option of remdesivir as an antiviral," explains principal researcher Richard Zuckerman, an infectious disease specialist, "but this will not prevent many cases of progression to more severe disease from COVID-19 that is driven by immune activation, which is the part of this infection that makes people very sick." The hope is that lenzilumab will.Speaking of research, Dartmouth labs will reopen next Tuesday. They'll start small: labs with research requiring in-person work can designate one person to be on campus at any given time. Why start there? "By starting slowly and starting small with a very limited on-campus operation," Provost Joe Helble said at yesterday's weekly community conversation, "we can examine, evaluate, and learn as we move forward. All of this will help us to plan for the in-person teaching, in-person learning, and in-person living that we hope to do." Pier 1 in W. Leb to close. Actually, Pier 1 all over to close. The chain that began as a single store in San Mateo, CA in 1962 announced Tuesday that it's been unable to find a buyer to take it out of bankruptcy, and will go out of business. Ironically, it will hold going-out-of-business sales once stores are allowed to reopen.Music center's Sing & Play Festival moves online... and into the streets. Every year, the Upper Valley Music Center brings musicians of all ages together to play for and entertain one another and a wide audience of community members. Last weekend, they kicked off an online version, with musical challenges, virtual recitals, a slow jam, a Zoom circle-sing, and more. It all culminates at noon on Saturday, June 6, when they invite everybody to go outside and "make music all together, all over the Upper Valley."“I fired off a text to the sales team to check their figures. It was obviously some sort of mistake.” It wasn't. In one of the most interesting and thorough looks at King Arthur Flour and its sudden national place in pandemic comfort-making, Boston-based science writer David Freedman went up yesterday with a look at the company's history, how it was perfectly placed to benefit from Americans' turn to home baking, and how it scrambled to deal when, as co-CEO Karen Colburg's quote above suggests, grocery-store sales catapulted 600 percent almost overnight, online sales skyrocketed, and bakers grew desperate for advice. Barnard state rep decides not to seek re-election. Randall Szott, who represents Barnard, Pomfret, West Hartford, and part of Quechee, announced in a listserv post that he'll be stepping down after his first term ends, reports the VN's John Gregg. Szott, a Democrat, cast a key vote in February to uphold Gov. Phil Scott's veto of a paid family leave bill. So far, two candidates to replace him have surfaced: Barnard organic farmer Heather Surprenant, and Hartford disabilities advocate Havah Walther. There are plenty of images of the economic dislocation wrought by the pandemic, but almost none of the health crisis. "There aren't images of people on ventilators. There aren't images of people dying in their hospital rooms or sick in their hospital rooms," CNN correspondent Jake Tapper tells The Dartmouth in a wide-ranging interview. "And I think that's one of the reasons why the public in some ways is having a difficult time figuring out how much of a crisis this is, because there's so little actual visual evidence of the crisis going around, the health crisis."Teaching and learning online are hard. Now imagine you're a special ed teacher or student. "I feel mostly exhausted,” one student tells NHPR. “I’m burnt out from the amount of stuff I have to do to try and keep up with remote learning.” Some 30,000 students in the state have learning disabilities, and though some are thriving at home, school districts are struggling to figure out how to meet others' needs. Some kids aren't getting the 1:1 videoconferencing they need; others—and their parents—have packed Zoom schedules.NH entertainment venues struggle with uncertainty. The governor's reopening task force just recommended reopening guidelines for museums and galleries, but places like the Lebanon Opera House and Capitol Center for the Arts are still on hold. They've rescheduled spring shows, and are trying to figure out what to do about summer tours; some venues, like the New London Barn Playhouse, have cancelled their summer seasons. One bright note: artists are re-routing tours around virus hotspots, which may work to NH's benefit.VT restaurants can reopen for outdoor seating Friday. But there are a lot of restrictions. Customers have to make reservations or call ahead, so there aren't groups waiting for tables. Tables have to be spaced 10 feet apart. No more than 10 people at a table, and there can be at most two different families at a table. Disposable menus only, cashless transactions preferred, as is remote (phone, online) ordering. Ditto takeout, rather than waitstaff delivering to tables.Scott unveils $400 million relief package. At his regular Wednesday press conference, he detailed a first, $310 million phase "to help businesses survive." It includes grants to the food, tourism, retail, and agricultural sectors; cash payments to dairy farmers and processors; loans and grants for small businesses and nonprofits; assistance to landlords whose tenants have been unable to pay rent; and housing rehab funds to make more housing available for homeless families."You're going to see lots of your community arts organizations struggle to get through this." That's Jody Fried, who runs Catamount Arts in St. J and chairs the VT Creative Network, warning that without help from private and public donors, arts orgs may go under. Vermont got about $700K in federal arts relief funds; the state's museums, libraries, performing arts venues and others, though, are projecting at least $26.7 million in losses through the end of the year, Seven Days' Margaret Grayson reports. Says one presenter, "The things we don't know are what are terrifying and frustrating.""You get stuck in your house, and you're looking out the window, and there's stuff going on out there." Bridget Butler, a naturalist who calls herself the "bird diva," is one of a large group of Vermont birders who have found plenty of interest in their more-than-a-pastime of late. "I think what's happened through this pandemic is, it's really shown the depth of what you can notice right outside your door, no matter where you are," she says. And birding, says UVM environmental studies prof Brendan Fisher, "is really a gateway into connection with nature." Speaking of birding, there was a Common Gallinule in Norwich yesterday. It's apparently not common to see their striking-looking beaks in eastern Vermont, and Jim Block happened to get some shots.
The view from atop Brag Hill. Chad Finer was out in the sunshine in the middle of a field on Norwich's Bragg Hill with his drone yesterday. Plenty of fields, houses, and trees, but also views over to Hanover and, off in the distance, Smarts, Cube, even Moosilauke. Okay, have we reached peak lockdown? This CBC reporter in Vancouver has created a Twitter thread categorizing every Disney song. With compilations demonstrating the 18—that's eighteen—types. There are the "This is the movie" songs, which summarize the theme; there are the "I want" songs, sung by the main character and the "I'm the villain" songs that come immediately after, sung by... well, every villain except Cruella De Vil; there are the "Here's my deal" and the "Here's our deal" and the "Here's their deal" songs... And a mere handful of "We won!" songs, three of them from Winnie the Pooh. With clips of each type. (You'll need to hit "Show this thread.")
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Staying Connected
The Space on Main in Bradford has launched a Word Geek series, and tonight it's "Bad Raybury" (you'll get it: look at the visual of an astronaut on a red planet—thank goodness they didn't go with book-burning). Short story readings to "take a break from your day-to-day, and to feel a little less lonely while inside the comfort of your own home." Entry by donation, which benefits the Space on Main.
The Hop's got Pico Iyer, the essayist, world traveler, and upcoming Montgomery Fellow, in conversation with Ranee and Apama Ramaswamy, co-artistic directors of the Ragamala Dance Company, the Minneapolis-based troupe that builds contemporary dance on a base of the South Indian classical dance form of bharatanatyam. Ragamala carried out two residencies this past fall and winter as they develop a new work co-commissioned by the Hop.
Speaking of conversations, you could also catch NYT food writer and newsletter icon Sam Sifton holding "happy hour" with NYT Cooking contributor Yewande Komolafe, author of Essential Nigerian Recipes. They'll be talking about cooking under lockdown, favorite foods, ingredients they miss, recipe development, food styling, restaurants and no doubt plenty more. Starts at 6.
There's a new, Zoom-boxed production ofGeorge Bernard Shaw's 1894 comedy Candida, part of the #StarsInTheHouse series that brings together the theater world. The cast is led by Renée Elise Goldsberry, Santino Fontana and Andrew Keenan-Bolger, a clergyman, his wife, and the young poet who threatens their marriage. It's only available for the next three days.
Listening Deeper
Pretty much everywhere you turn, the Johns Hopkins Covid-19 dashboard is the go-to resource for data on the disease's prevalence and spread both here and around the world. Esri, the map people, have a podcast discussion with Dr. Lauren Gardner, engineering professor and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, about how they developed the dashboard and how it evolved into the globally used tool it's become.
Okay,
this
is over the top: a four-minute video of
the triumphant finale of
Hairspray
, bringing together 150 actors, dancers and musicians—many of them alums from various
Hairspray
productions—contributing from home. It starts with Ricki Lake and Marissa Jaret Winokur, who originated Tracy, and eventually includes (among many,
many
others) Harvey Fierstein, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Jackie Hoffman, Billy Eichner, Kristin Chenoweth, Teri Hatcher, and songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.
You can't stop an avalancheAs it races down the hillYou can try to stop the seasons, girlBut you know you never will...
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