GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Ummm. Though truth to tell, it's not that bad. There's still a chance of showers all day, but on the whole things are trending dry. Still mostly clouds up there, but you might see them slowly start to dissipate this afternoon. Highs today in the low or mid 50s, winds from the north, down to the low 40s tonight. Hang on!Foxes. Bobcat. Though not together.
Three fox kits checking things out in Dan DeMars's field in Norwich. As he writes, "New season, new life!"
"Seeing a dog’s name redacted was a first for me." The Valley News's Jim Kenyon has been trying to dig into the issues that led to Hartland Town Manager David Ormiston being placed on leave following a late-March selectboard meeting at which town clerk Brian Stroffolino complained about a "toxic" environment in town hall. One point of conflict between the two: Stroffolino's dog, whom he's been taking to the office. The two men say the issues between them go deeper, but won't elaborate. Kenyon has a fine time with his public records requests and the town lawyers' heavy editing pen.Curious about the Hanover Selectboard candidates? Municipal elections are mostly over in the Twin States, but next Tuesday is Town Meeting Day in Hanover, and three candidates are vying for two seats: current chair Peter Christie, Finance Committee member Carey Callaghan, and Bike/Walk Committee member Jennie Chamberlain. A new non-partisan, non-advocacy "voter engagement" initiative at Dartmouth, Dartmouth Civics, is holding a public forum with the candidates today from 4-6 pm in One Wheelock (in the basement of Collis). Burgundy link takes you to candidate statements.SPONSORED: Plan landscaping to reduce your carbon footprint with 3 smart tactics from Rooted Gardens. First, minimize the area of managed landscapes. Second, use electric power tools charged with renewable energy. And finally, make and apply compost to feed the whole soil ecosystem.Private land covers over 80 percent of both Vermont and New Hampshire. Each of us is enacting a climate policy of our own on our own front lawns. Sponsored by Rooted Gardens: (802) 291-2228.Lego Tuesdays, Rubik's Cube races, cat-fact quizzes: a youth librarian's week. The Norwich Public library has a new youth services librarian, Erin Davison, and for his "day in the life" series of posts for his About Norwich newsletter, Demo Sofronas catches up with her. There's a lot of hubbub Monday-Wednesday, she tells him: after-school, storytime, kids everywhere, and "inevitable, awesome chaos." Thursdays and Fridays she gets to regroup, plan new activities, order books, clean her desk, find the occasional mini-doughnut machine in a cupboard and put it to good use...“Part of my pitch was, 'I’m already here and plan to stay.'” Ever since the 2014 retirement of longtime Chandler Center for the Arts director Becky McMeekin, the venerable Randolph performing and visual arts venue has seen a revolving cast of leaders. So Barnard's Chloe Powell knew her audience when she was applying for the job. But then, as Alex Hanson points out in the VN, she should: She ran the music program at BarnArts' Feast and Field for years, making "a niche out of bringing the world to her small town." Now, she says, she's in a position to bring in bigger acts and work with other venues.SPONSORED: LOL @ LOH. Ali Siddiq—writer and stand-up comedian—will take the stage at the Lebanon Opera House June 4 for a fundraiser to support Hartford Dismas House (HDH). Siddiq’s stand-up career began behind the walls of incarceration, an incubator for interesting experiences and good stories. His humor helps us relate to the struggles—and successes—of HDH residents. By providing housing to those who are much more than the worst moment of their lives, HDH reconciles formerly incarcerated people with the community, and the community with its residents. Tix here. Sponsored by HDH.Ever tried to fix a pothole in 14 inches of snow? In May? Because that's what's been going on up near the top of the Mt. Washington Auto Road, where several sections of road about a mile and a half below the summit washed out in melting snow and spring rains. "Photos from Tuesday showed crews in bucket loaders with chains on their tires trying to fill in the holes in near-blizzard conditions," writes David Brooks in the Monitor. It's not clear how long it'll take to fix the road, but it's still scheduled to open May 13 for self-driving to the summit. And don't worry: Observatory crew changed shifts via the Cog Railway.At NH Exec Council meeting, two take offense at new historic marker. The sign remembering labor organizer and civil liberties activist Elizabeth Gurley Brown went up Monday in Concord; yesterday, councillors Joe Kenney and David Wheeler called for its removal. “Wonderful, we are recognizing and honoring someone who joined the Communist Party and died a Soviet,” Kenney commented in an email. Cultural resources commr. Sarah Stewart responded, “The purpose of [the markers] is not to commemorate heroes. The purpose is to provide a snapshot that the local community feels is of historic value.”New transmission line proposed for Quebec hydropower through VT, NH. The idea's been knocking about in some form for years, and as Hadley Barndollar writes in NH Bulletin, the latest—a $2 billion partnership between National Grid, Citizens Energy Corp., and the Northeastern VT Development Association—comes shortly after a jury in ME ruled a project there can proceed. The new Twin States Clean Energy Link, which yesterday got the backing of NH Gov. Chris Sununu, would travel underground from the border to Lunenberg VT, cross the CT River to Dalton NH, continue underground to Monroe, then use existing corridors to Londonderry. Barndollar has the details.Staffing challenges put NH State Police on track to more than double their overtime budget. In yesterday's Globe Morning Report, Steven Porter writes that the agency has already spent more than $1.4 million; it had budgeted $750K for overtime this fiscal year. Driving the overtime needs, a Dept. of Safety spokesperson says: vacancies within the traffic bureau, officers on leave due to injury or military service, and difficulty recruiting troopers.In the NH House, "the sting of empty seats." It's being felt by both parties, write Beatrice Burack and Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, especially in cases where one or two votes might have changed the course of key pieces of legislation. "Every legislator who shows up can change policy in one direction or another,” says Anna Brown, director of research and analysis at Citizens Count. While average roll call vote participation this session has been about 93 percent, the highest it’s been in two decades, write Burack and Timmins, nine reps have participated in fewer than half the votes. They look into the reasons.A Covid check-in: Hospitalizations in VT drop to lowest level since summer of 2021. There were 10 hospital admissions for the disease in the past week, reports VTDigger's Erin Petenko, giving the state the lowest hospitalization rate in the country (per NYT data from the CDC, a daily average of 2 admissions; NH has a daily average of 8). Moreover, Petenko writes, "The percent of [emergency room] visits for Covid-like illnesses remains lower than at this point in 2020, 2021 or 2022," according to the state health department.With VT's pandemic-era motel housing program coming to an end, "There will be a lot of folks without a place to go very soon." That's Sue Minter, who runs Capstone Community Action, talking to Seven Days' Kevin McCallum. Advocates for the roughly 2,800 people who got a roof over their heads thanks to the program are predicting that many will be out on the streets just as homeless support services are "under intense pressure," McCallum writes. At the same time, lawmakers seem seem to have accepted the idea the state can't afford to keep the program running. McCallum details the debate.Ghost writer. Can’t a person give away a hundred bucks anymore? Apparently not to the (would-be) prize-winning writer who slipped into the Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro, tossed off the best ghost story in the annual "T.P. James' Write Like the Dickens" contest, then left without giving his name. Contest organizers Cynthia and Rolf Parker-Houghton got him on camera, Derek Brouwer notes in Seven Days, so if you have an inkling of his identity, let them know. They’d like to give credit—and cash—where credit—and cash—are due.Star Wars trivia, this is. So... Happy Star Wars Day! In honor of everyone's favorite unofficial holiday dedicated to sprawling money-making space opera franchises (May the Fourth...), here are three factoids you can share if you need to up your SW trivia cred: 1. Darth Vader was a bit player in early drafts of the Episode IV script. 2. The Dark Side of the Force was initially called the Bogan. 3. We often don't think about it, but Jabba the Hutt and Han Solo are both aliens. Han just doesn't look like one because he's more dashing (depending on how you feel about Hutts) and less mucousy.But hey, if you really want to be on the cutting edge... Here's the brand-new, minute-long, AI-aided fake trailer for The Galactic Menagerie—or Star Wars as if it were directed by Wes Anderson. Brought to you by the "bunch of goofballs" at Curious Refuge. (Yeah, I didn't know there was a site dedicated to helping people create online courses, either.)The Thursday Vordle. With a fine word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Today at 5:30, VINS presents an online-only talk by conservation biologist Neil Paprocki, "The Rough-legged Hawk Project: 10 Years of Research on an Understudied Raptor." Rough-legged hawks breed in the arctic, then over-winter in northern New York, Vermont, other northern states, and southern Canada. Over the last decade, Paprocki has been studying their migration patterns and behavior, and will be talking about some of his study's preliminary findings.
At 7 this evening, JAM in WRJ hosts Dartmouth historian and author Annelise Orleck for a screening of the new documentary based on her book, Storming Caesars Palace. Orleck's book, published in 2005, followed the lives of the handful of black women in Las Vegas who in the early 1970s founded Operation Life, an antipoverty program that focused first on welfare rights, turned to community development, and wound up—in the person of the group's leader, Ruby Duncan—advising the Carter White House. The documentary, which premiered on PBS in March, recounts Duncan's life, and focuses on the group's effort in 1971 to shut down the Vegas strip to protest Nevada's draconian welfare policies. A Q&A with Orleck follows.
Also at 7, Artistree's Grange Theater kicks off its two-weekend run of The Twelfth Night Show. As the publicity for it runs, "Four of New York City’s finest underemployed actors/musicians/self-proclaimed Shakespeare experts attempt to put on a one-of-a-kind production of the bard’s beloved mistaken identity, romantic comedy, Twelfth Night – but doing Shakespeare’s a lot harder than everyone says it is." With book by Megumi Nakamura and music and lyrics by Jacob Brandt—the two also make up half the cast/band, with some help from puppets—the show is more about trying to put on the show than it is Twelfth Night. Here's Sharon Groblicki's writeup about it in the Standard.
And also at 7, as part of its "Asian Diaspora on Screen" series, Hop Film screens Revenge, director Ermek Shinarbaev and Korean-Russian writer Anatoli Kim's 1989 Kazakh film, which begins in 17-century Korea before shifting to an early 20th-century setting in Korea, China, and the Soviet Union and a decades-spanning tale of, as the title suggests, vengeance. At the Loew.
And also at 7 pm, the Fairlee Library hosts Vermont Center for Ecostudies bee expert Spencer Hardy for a talk on attracting and aiding native bees and bumble bees. He'll be offering practical advice on ways to improve native bee habitat, as well as talking about the findings of the Vermont Wild Bee Survey.
And also at 7, the Thetford Historical Society winds up its spring lecture series with a Vermont Humanities-sponsored talk by historian Jill Mudgett, "Murder in the Vermont Woods—A Story of Race, Class, and Gender in the 19th Century." Mudgett will be telling the story of murder in central Vermont in the late 19th century—the victim a Native American who moved there from southern New England. At the NEFOC Center (formerly the United Church of North Thetford), 5470 US Rt 5.
Finally, JAG's performances of Every Brilliant Thing have been cancelled this week due to "a covid illness in our company," managing director Jason Schumacher said in an email yesterday. They expect to reopen next Wednesday, and finish the show's run through Sunday, May 14.
Whew. That's a lot at 7 pm.
So if you're just overwhelmed by your choices, play
this
at 7 pm. Or 7 am. Or, really, any time you feel like it: Ben l'Oncle Soul, who grew up in Tours, France, listening (thanks to his mom) to Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and other greats—and, not surprisingly, got discovered by Motown France eventually—
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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