GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny (once the fog clears), cool, patchy frost tonight. The cold front that came through yesterday will keep temps below normal for the next few days. Highs today stay in the upper 50s and we’ll see lows tonight in the mid 30s, lower in the usual hollows. If you’ve got anything sensitive already in the ground, you might want to keep an eye on the forecast as the day goes on.
A heron rookery, loon life, beaver home improvement… Up around Newbury, VT, photographer Ian Clark has been out chronicling the doings on area ponds, from great blue herons nesting to returning loons (including a new mate for one male, after his partner last year was chased off the pond by another female challenging her for territory) to a busy flock of swallows, an equally busy beaver, falcons, flickers, killdeer… and a stray croc.
It’s time for Dear Daybreak! This week’s collection of observations from around the Upper Valley kicks off with a stunning early-morning photo of Mt. Ascutney a few years back by Neal Bastas, then moves on to Robin Dellabough’s experience typing up (yep, on an old manual) on-the-spot poems on Indie Bookstore Day recently outside Cover to COVER Books in WRJ; Mark Boutwell poetically savors evening from a front porch; and Perry Allison works through just how hard the loss of a dog can hit. And hey, Dear Daybreak needs submissions! If you’ve got something to share, please send it in!
DNA testing identifies skull of Weathersfield man who went missing 25 years ago in Hartland. Back in 2001, Brian Cranfield and Terry Brinegar, of Mount Holly, were fishing on the Connecticut at Sumner Falls in Hartland. Their boat overturned and both were swept into the water. Brinegar’s body was found a few weeks later at the Bellows Falls Dam, but Cranfield’s disappeared. Yesterday, the VT State Police announced that a skull found in 2006 by CT State Police along the river in Haddam, CT, has been identified through DNA testing as Cranfield’s. “This incident is not considered suspicious, and the Vermont State Police case is now closed,” the VSP writes.
Hanover bans parking along Occom Ridge Road. That’s the road that runs along the western side of Occom Pond from the old golf course to Clement Road. It’s an immensely popular walking route for students and community members—and also, former government prof Linda Fowler tells The Dartmouth’s Max Hubbard, has become a popular parking lane for “a group of faculty and then graduate students [who] discovered that this was a very pretty neighborhood to park in for free,” creating a hazard for pedestrians, Hanover police say. At its meeting Monday, Hubbard reports, the selectboard voted unanimously to ban parking there.
SPONSORED: A mom in recovery shouldn't have to worry about food on top of everything else. Since 2017, Upper Valley Haven staff and volunteers have stocked the Dartmouth Health Moms in Recovery clinic in Lebanon with groceries and prepared meals twice a week. "Staying sober is basically the only way I can picture being a good mom," says Chantelle, a program participant. This Mother's Day, an anonymous donor is matching every gift up to $30,000 through May 12. Give today at the burgundy link. Sponsored by the Upper Valley Haven.
NHPR and the Hop announce new collaboration. It’s called The Hop Sessions: Concerts and Conversations from the Hopkins Center for the Arts, and for those of us in the Hop’s back yard (and, obviously, elsewhere), it’s a chance either to revisit recent concerts or to hear them for the first time. This Friday, it’s pianist Jason Moran, who back in January performed a solo tribute to Duke Ellington in Morris Recital Hall and then took the Spaulding stage with his band The Bandwagon. Coming up the rest of this month: Elisapie, Kishi Bashi, and Sunny Jain. More at the link.
From an after-school job making bagels to head pastry chef for NYC’s Plaza Hotel to Upper Valley bagel mainstay. Chris Calvin makes much more than bagels, as you know if you visit his Baker’s Studio stand at the Norwich or Woodstock farmers markets. But around Dartmouth, he’s known as the guy who supplies Collis with bagels—which, Saanvi Goyal writes in The Dartmouth, sell out quickly. In a profile, Goyal details Calvin’s career, attention to detail (changes in temperature, humidity, and flour quality can keep him up at night), and 10- to 12-hour days making 1,200 bagels (each day) to deliver as Best Bagels to the Co-op, Lucky’s, and elsewhere.
SPONSORED: Celebrate music making in the Upper Valley by singing, playing, or applauding at Sing & Play Festival, May 16 & 17! Sing & Play Festival is an annual celebration of music in our community. Make music at events that are free for everyone: raise your voice at the Big Sing or musical theater sing-along, drop into a trad or jazz jam session, busk at Lucky’s, get hands-on at the instrument petting zoo, and enjoy performances by students from Upper Valley Music Center. There’s something for all ages and abilities: Whether you’ve played for years or are just getting started, this is a chance to make music together! Sponsored by Upper Valley Music Center.
“Personally and selfishly, what I’m drawn to in a gallery or museum is work where I don’t know what I’m looking at.” That’s Brooklyn artist Michael Hambouz, whose nine-piece exhibition “Like Literally Figuratively” is currently on the walls at Kishka Gallery in WRJ. Each piece, writes Pamela Polston in Seven Days, is enigmatic—but even if you can’t figure them out, “that’s OK; the exploration alone is pleasantly discombobulating.” She works through several of them, with images, and urges visitors “to examine not only the fronts but also the sides of Hambouz’s constructions; he extends the paintings onto the frames, usually including delightful surprises.”
“America still contains pockets of irregular life, if you’re willing to slow down, take the exit, and look.” That’s a former museum director describing the work of Cornish’s Ted Degener, who owned the Hanover store Folk for 40 years and for even more decades—since the ‘70s—has been roaming the country with his cameras and very definitely slowing down, stopping, and taking a look. Last year he published one collection, American Celebration. Now he’s got a second volume coming out on storefronts and homemade signs. As Susan Apel writes on her Substack, he’ll be talking about it at AVA tomorrow. (More on that in this afternoon’s Weekend Heads Up).
Speaking of photographs: Tuesday’s storm aftermath. It took out power to over 1,000 people in Hartford and surrounding towns, knocked down power lines, and caused minor damage. Valley News photographer James M. Patterson got out to two spots: Enfield, where a tree fell and crushed an underground propane tank, drawing a response from area fire departments; and Airport Road in West Leb, where a falling tree sparked a fire when it fell on electrical wires.
NH Exec Council tables $1.2 million child care contract extension over DEI language. The extension would have boosted a program run by the national Pyramid Model Consortium aimed at improving school readiness in children under 5, reports NH Bulletin’s Maya Mitchell; it would have expanded freeprofessional development for childcare providers. The hitch yesterday came when Councilor David Wheeler “raised concerns that one of Pyramid Model Consortium’s strategic priorities is to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Mitchell writes. He told colleagues he needed to ensure the curriculum has no “politically correct teachings” before he’d support the contract.
VTDigger gets a new CEO. Brendan Kinney, who spent 16 years helping run VPR and then Vermont Public, including a stint as interim CEO, will take over as CEO of the Vermont Journalism Trust, which runs Digger, in mid-June, the organization announced yesterday. Kinney, who grew up in Randolph, replaces outgoing CEO Sky Barsch in the wake of turmoil related especially to union negotiations that was marked by both Barsch and editor-in-chief Geeta Anand announcing their departures. As VT Public’s Mark Davis reports, the organization has also been losing money. “I’ve gotten used to navigating existential challenges,” Kinney tells him. “That’s my day job.”
Pack your duffle … it’s time for (Cursor) Camp! The latest getaway from game designer Neal Agarwal at Neal.Fun has campers from around the world (note the flags) doing dang near everything anyone would want to do over the summer. You move your cursor from beach to boat to river, searching for seashells (click to collect), jumping into a soccer game, floating down a river, watching a movie. Tips: keep the sound on—the music changes to other sounds as you wander the property—and click whenever your cursor become a pointer. That lets you collect badges or enter cabins, caves, and tents. You can regain control of your cursor any time by clicking the esc button.
The Thursday Crossword. It’s puzzle constructor Laura Braunstein’s “midi” — more than a nibble, less than a full meal.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center hosts Jeff Rosen for “The Pursuit of Happiness, Virtue, and Our Nation's Founding”. Rosen, who ran the National Constitution Center, will talk with Dartmouth history chair Darrin McMahon about the historical context and original intention of the phrase "the pursuit of happiness" and how it has evolved since the writing of the Declaration of Independence. 5 pm in Rocky 003 and livestreamed.
Eliana Ramage reads from and talks about To the Moon and Back. The 2013 Dartmouth grad’s 2025 coming-of-age novel follows a young Cherokee woman obsessed with becoming an astronaut as she navigates a mom determined to steep her kids in Cherokee history and culture, being queer in a small Oklahoma town, and becoming an astronaut in training. It’s “a dazzling debut,” says the Southern Review of Books. 5 pm in Sanborn Hall’s Wren Room.
At the Hood Museum, “Colored Dust: The Search for Beautiful and Everlasting Pigments”. Rebekah Compton, who teaches art history at the College of Charleston, will give a talk “that dives into the virtues and vices of pigments in the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy, looking at the trade, circulation, and value of the sources of color.” 5 pm in the Hood’s Gilman Auditorium.
At the Howe Library, Dartmouth anthropologist Laura Ogden on “Darwin, Colonialism, and the Lost Tribes of the Fuegian Archipelago”. Ogden, who focuses on “understanding the politics of environmental change and conservation” and has spent decades studying southernmost Chile in work with ranchers, conservation organizations, and the Yagán Indigenous community, will talk about Darwin’s legacy there and how his depictions of Indigenous people there still shape the present. 6:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.
The Waverly Gallery opens at Shaker Bridge Theatre. Kenneth Lonergan’s play, which drew raves when it opened both Off Broaday in 2000 and on Broadway in 2018, focuses on Gladys, an octogenarian kibitzer and former lawyer who now runs an art gallery of debatable quality as she tries to hold onto her world in the face of a family and a world that doubts she still has what it takes. At the Briggs in WRJ, 7 pm “Pay What You Can” tonight, runs Thurs-Sun through May 24.
Lebanon Opera House shows Cabaret. Yep, Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and a thoroughly memorable Joel Grey in Bob Fosse’s 1972 film about 1931 Berlin and a love triangle in the shadow of what’s clearly coming. Part of the Come As You Are film series, no tix needed though registration’s appreciated. 7 pm.
Yannick Murphy and Victoria Redel at the Norwich Bookstore. Murphy’s Things That Are Funny on a Submarine but Not Really follows David Sterling—nicknamed “Dead Man”—from his time as a submariner based on Guam through his first year of college during the pandemic; Redel’s I Am You is “a meditation on gender, an ode to artistic creation, and an unforgettable love story that reimagines the life of renowned still life painter Maria van Oosterwijck during the Dutch Golden Age.” 7 pm.
Hop Film streams A Thousand Cuts. Ramona S. Diaz’s 2020 documentary follows Phillipines journalist (and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner) Maria Ressa and her team at Rappler, the country’s leading news website, as they try to cover the government-sanctioned violent aftermath of Rodrigo Duterte’s election as president in 2016, and contend with both repression and disinformation. 7:30 pm in the Loew.
And anytime, JAM’s got highlights: landscape designer Judy Reeve offers gardening insights, advice, and reflections on the changes the Upper Valley’s seen since the 1970s (along with her daughter, JAM’s own Samantha Davidson Green); the New England School of the Arts’ recent “Follow Your Art” showcase at LOH; and WRIF Emerging Filmmaker Shengyue Chen’s film Bear (screened at WRIF earlier this year) following a long-distance college couple and their nervousness about bears along a dark highway.
And for today...
We’re going to go back a bit, to the astounding Mills Brothers and Louis Armstrong’s “Caravan”. The video quality’s less than decent, but you don’t really need it to appreciate what they could do.
See you tomorrow.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt
