GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Last chance!!! As you know, Daybreak's taking an extended break for recharging and refurbishing, and today's the last issue until CoffeeBreak returns Monday, August 18. But it won't be completely silent: You can sign up at the headline link for Daybreak Diversions, a quick, thrice-weekly hit of some of the most beguiling items and music from the past, plus Wordbreak, Lost Woods, and more. It starts up Monday.And before we go any further: Sadly, this brings to an end Duncan Green's stint as Daybreak's first summer reporter. He's off to other adventures after bringing his zest, wide-ranging curiosity, and ace skills as a writer and reporter to the job. Over the course of the last few weeks, he's brought us the Megasaurus, a tale of Lyme's slave-owning past, The VAULT and Chad Free's movie-going paradise in Springfield, profiles of Black Magic Mexican and the refurbished Filling Station, and more. I'll miss his energy and enthusiasm, and I hope you'll join me in thanking him for setting such a high bar for the future.Mostly sunny, but possible showers and thunderstorms. There's all sorts of cool stuff passing through overhead: low pressure, a cold front, vorticity... The result is that while the morning should be pretty calm, rain with embedded thunderstorms (and a slight chance that they could be severe, possibly with hail) may show up in the late morning or afternoon. Highs in the mid 80s, lows in the mid 50s.A fox, a hawk, and some stunning rainbows. In other words, a grab bag as we head out the door.
This gray fox comes from Liza Bernard in S. Pomfret, who caught just a fleeting video as she looked out her window.
The hawk is actually a nest of Cooper's Hawks, big and little, that Jim Block was able to photograph in Cornish as parents flew back and forth and chicks grew—and set out to explore.
And the rainbows? Well, if you were out on Tuesday evening, you know what that sky was like. Enough photos came piling in that I just had to create an album. Thanks to everyone!
The VT State Police team, Hanover's dive team, local police and fire, lifeguards, and multiple onlookers all joined the search yesterday afternoon for a missing 14-year-old who was visiting the area from Burlington, reports Emma Roth-Wells in the
Valley News
. Around 5:30 pm, the VSP team "recovered the body less than 100 feet offshore between the docks and a yellow floating raft," Roth-Wells writes. The call for help had gone out not long after noon, and bystanders organized a grid search before police cleared the water.
You may remember that back in April, federal Judge Samantha Elliott ordered the Dept. of Homeland Security to maintain the legal status of computer science PhD student Xiaotian Liu, after he'd abruptly been told has status had been withdrawn. Now, reports Jeremy Margolis in the
Concord Monitor
, the feds' move appears to reopen the issue, though they provided no basis for the appeal "and it was not immediately clear whether the government’s appeal signals it is resuming its efforts to remove the legal status of international students across the country."
SPONSORED: Don't wait to get tickets for Opera North's The Marriage of Figaro! There are just a few seats left for Wednesday, July 16 and Friday, July 18. Sunday, July 13 is sold out! Downton Abbey meets Upstairs Downstairs in this 1920s take on Mozart's tale of love at all ages. Sung in Italian with English supertitles and the full Opera North Orchestra. Come early for a free chat with National Park Service rangers about the history of Blow-Me-Down Farm and the Cornish Art Colony. Bring a picnic! Food trucks each night. Tickets at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Opera North.Mechanic, concierge, mediator, emergency medical tech and human Lonely Planet guide. Add in the actual cycling part, and that pretty much sums up the job of leading bike tours, writes Steve Goldstein in Seven Days. With touring season in full swing, he checked in with the pros about "how they roll with everything from challenging clients to weather disruptions"—talking to Rich First of Woodstock's Discovery Bicycle Tours, Hanover's Dave Dostal (who leads tours for Discovery), and others. And they dish: about wayward riders, a griping client brought up short by the flooded White River in Bethel...Speaking of the open road... Demo Sofronas is a curious guy, and if something's happening in Norwich, he checks it out. Which is how he came to chat up a group of motorcyclists who'd stopped to refuel at Dan & Whit's—only to discover they were in the middle of a 2,000-mile ride from Caribou, ME through NH and VT and back. A busted muffler, rain pants on backwards (turns out, you don't want to do that when it's raining)—one of them, Jeff Robertson, fills Demo in for his About Norwich blog. Just a reminder that passers-through usually have a story.Claremont's Eagle Times stops publishing. Technically, the newspaper's suspending operations, and it's not a complete surprise, given that it stopped printing three weeks ago after several key employees left. In a terse notice on the paper's website, it cites "business results [that were not] sufficient to make the paper financially viable" and says it's calling a halt pending "a full review of our operations and future options. As we move forward we will keep you informed as to our future direction." Letter at the burgundy link, VN story here.SPONSORED: Marion Cross/HHS grad launches new word game! Yoink is a word game your kids will love, but that you'll keep playing long after they go to bed. It adapts to all abilities, is highly interactive, and rewards a good vocabulary. It's a game with moments of ecstatic triumph! From founder Jacon Mayer: "I spent most of 2001 in the computer lab of the old Richmond School playing a math game called Green Globs. That's about when I started thinking that games were a good—maybe the best—way to learn. Please consider supporting Yoink on Kickstarter." Sponsored by Jacon Mayer and Yoink. The Upper Valley fireworks picture: Leb won't have them, other towns will, but tariffs are taking a bite. In the Valley News, Liz Sauchelli rounds up what's happening out there this weekend. Lebanon cancelled its annual display (last year it was a laser show) because of budget straits. Hartford's will go on as planned tomorrow, as will Fairlee, Hartland, and Woodsville/Wells River—while some other towns are Saturday or, in Woodstock's case, Sunday. Meanwhile, Sauchelli reports, the combination of pre-tariff contracts with towns but post-tariff costs for Northstar and other presenters means fewer fireworks per show.Bethel company's rising-waters app: "We're entering a phase in our society where it's going to be more incumbent on people to look out for each other." You may remember a story back in January about RiverAware, an app created by Stephen Farrington and his firm, Transcend Engineering. Yesterday, Seven Days' Ken Picard went up with a behind-the-scenes look at how the effort to get people real-time river-flow data (ahead of flooding) came about, how it works, and some of the challenges it's facing: most notably, a threat to funding for federal stream-gauging stations.Coming soon to WRJ and beyond: a celebration of dance. As Marion Umpleby writes in the VN, Corinth-based choreographer Elizabeth Kurylo launched the Junction Dance Festival as a three-day event in WRJ three years ago, and it's been "steadily gaining steam." This year's version starts up July 12 (more below) and takes place in WRJ, Lebanon, Norwich, and Barre. Umpleby lays out some of the highlights, including workshops, and performances like Vermont Dance Alliance resident artist (and Hop staffer) Michael Bodel's “The Institute for Folding", surely the rare dance performance featuring cardboard.How can one small plant have so many great names? It's one-flowered wintergreen, writes Northern Woodlands' Jack Saul, but also shy maiden, wax flower, single delight, star of Bethlehem, frog’s reading lamp (honest!), and wood nymph. Whatever, they were everywhere this week in a Topsham pine stand. Also out in this woods this first week of July: milkweed, scaly inky cap, ghost pipe (not a fungus, though they look like one and draw nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi), and a goldenrod crab spider, which "can turn from white to yellow and back in order to match their perch plant’s color."NH National Guard copter plucks injured climber from Mt. Washington. The man, from New Orleans, was climbing in the area of Pinnacle Buttress in Huntington Ravine, when two other climbers saw him fall about 60 feet, reports WMUR's Imani Fleming. They made their way to him, and called in what turned out to be severe injuries. NH Fish & Game's Sgt. Matthew Holmes tells Fleming the area "is very high up on Mount Washington, extremely hard to get to," and the chopper crew was "able to hoist the climber from the headwall of Huntington Ravine without having to land." The climber was taken to DHMC.Feds withhold $26 million in funds for VT public schools. The move is part of a nationwide freeze totaling more than $6 billion for after-school and summer programs and English language instruction. The money was supposed to be sent out on Tuesday, but in a press release yesterday, the state's Agency of Education said it was notified Monday evening the funds wouldn't be arriving. The move "disrupts districts’ ability to staff critical positions and provide a wide range of programming, including efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism and improve literacy outcomes," VT Ed. Secy. Zoie Saunders says in the release.At the center of the VT legislature's education-bill sausage-making: independent schools. There were plenty of issues dividing the various players in the reform debate, write Hannah Bassett and Alison Novak for Seven Days, but "the biggest stumbling block to agreement"—especially as House and Senate conferees tried to find compromises at the end—"stemmed from the long-standing debate over how Vermont's independent schools should be integrated within the state's public education system." Bassett and Novak go deep into how the issue got handled, starting even before the session began."Obviously, 'What class are you?' is a pretty offensive question." And yet radio producer Erica Heilman keeps asking it because it "goes in so many different directions, and almost all of them are interesting," she tells Vermont Edition's Mikaela Lefrak. Erica's got a new set of class episodes up this week, including Sharon Plumb talking about watching her contemporaries' parents give them a leg up and feeling "defeated a little bit by not having the same opportunities"; and defense attorney Dan Sedon on how wealth and power matter when it comes to the justice system.Touring a house where “every one of your senses in engaged.” Open Space's filmmakers bring us "Inside Fallingwater: Frank Lloyd Wright's Architectural Genius in Pennsylvania". Built in 1935 and based in the fundamentals of nature, it “reinvented what we think of as a house,” says narrator and site director Justin Gunther. Wright based the design, colors, and motifs on the natural world. He put the most dramatic bit of the landscape, the waterfall, underneath: integral but not continually in view, and never boring. Gunther calls it “fantasy architecture of a floating house.” See for yourself.Fireworks. But not as you've ever seen them. That's because photographer Bryan Szucs has mastered the technique of moving his camera's focus ring in and out during a fireworks explosion, which lets him produce remarkable—and colorful—abstract photos. “It’s about embracing the chaos, letting the fireworks dance in their own unpredictable way," he tells PetaPixel. His gallery's at the burgundy link.Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
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The "powerhouse collective" of Haitian roots musicians are F&F favorites. As always, gates and food at 5:30, music starts up around 6.
The resort's summertime Thursday night concert series continues with the Australian-born country star, who's had his fair share of time in the tabloids. Gates at 6, music at 8, food trucks everywhere. Rain or shine.
, where Ascutney Outdoors celebrates its 10th anniversary by hosting music by the
Fire House Dixie Land Band, food trucks, and fireworks.And in Claremont, where food, vendors, and the band MV19 get going at 6 pm, while fireworks start up at 9:30 pm.
The rest of July 4th weekend
There's no shortage of festivities and fireworks all weekend long.
Here's the Valley News's town-by-town listings of celebrations and fireworks, most of them tomorrow, but Sunapee and Vershire will be on Saturday and Woodstock on Sunday.
VTDigger has a long listing of events and fireworks for Vermont, alphabetized by town. Links mostly but not always helpful.
And New Hampshire mag does the same for the Granite State, with more reliable (but you may have to do some extra clicking) links.
On Saturday:
of Frederick Douglass's "What to the Slave..." 11 am on the Quechee Green.
for "Tap, Rhythm, and Roll" at Blow-Me-Down-Farm in Cornish, 5 pm.
On Sunday:
. Court Street Arts presents step-dancing, bluegrass, American folk and more from "America’s premier youth fiddling show band from Saline, Michigan." 4 pm on the Common.
And some things to keep in mind while Daybreak's away...
Tuesdays in Fairlee:
Wednesdays in S. Pomfret:
Thursdays in Barnard:
.
Thursdays at the Lake Morey Resort:
. Amos Lee, The Record Company, Grace Bowers, and lots more.
Fridays in Woodstock starting July 11:
. Live music (including Tuck & Patti, Lakou Mizik, and others) in East End Park.
Sundays in Lyme:
with live music at Loch Lyme Lodge.
July 9:
Featuring Ivan Renta and His Caribbean Sextet along with the Upper Valley Jazz All Stars. 7 pm.
Starting July 10:
(including The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai with director W.D. Richter in person on July 18, and Ken Burns' The American Revolution with Burns in person July 25, though you'll need to call to see if anyone's given up their tix).
July 10, 17, 24:
. Canaan's venerable series pairs a poet and a prose writer.
July 11-13:
.
July 12:
.
July 12-20:
. See above.
July 16, 18:
. As you saw above, there aren't many tickets left (7/13 is sold out).
July 16-Aug. 3:
.
July 18-20:
, with piano trios by both Fanny and Felix. In Lebanon, WRJ, Windsor, and Haverhill.
July 19:
. At the First Congregational Church with "In the Good Old Summertime: American Popular Songs of the Gilded Age". 7 pm.
July 23:
. Her solo show with multiple characters about walking the 540 miles of Spain's Camino de Santiago.
July 24-27:
As they say, "One of the most enduring and popular musicals ever written." At Blow-Me-Down Farm in Cornish.
July 26-27:
—a weekend of workshops, jams, dancing, and performances.
.
July 26:
. Seven Stars Arts brings in Jakob Breitbach, Christopher Billiau and Kit Creeger, rain or shine.
July 29-Aug. 3:
. It's this year's performances by the budding stars of the Summer Musical Theater Intensive.
Aug. 2:
On the Oak Hill XC trail system and into the Trescott Trails in Hanover.
Aug. 5:
. With
Hunter's Heart Ridge
, the mystery sequel to
Agony Hill
.
Aug. 6-Aug. 17:
.
Aug. 7-10:
. Rides, the midway, live music, the ever-popular dunk tank, all on the Marion Cross School green.
Aug. 9-10:
hosts the North Country Chamber Players on the 9th in Alumni Hall, Brooks Hubbard on the 10th on the Common.
Aug. 9-16:
. The Dali Quartet, string sextets, mostly at the Chandler, but an Aug. 10 Dali encore in Woodstock.
Aug. 15-16:
.
Aug. 15-17:
. You know the deal: Rides, livestock, music, food, and so much more.
And let's go out with a brass band.
Though probably not what you were imagining. In truth, you have to see the Balkan Paradise Orchestra live and in person to get their full joyfulness and brio—let's just say that the crowd at their first Montreal jazz festival show last weekend was large and wildly enthusiastic, but the crowd at their performance two hours later, after word of mouth got out, was more so on all fronts. The band—10 women, most on brass but a couple on winds and two on percussion—got its start as Barcelona street musicians 10 years ago playing Balkan brass (
), and in the years since then they've morphed, adding choreography (
you
try dancing while playing a tuba) and a sound that draws equally from the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. Video doesn't really capture it, but this one will do.
Full screen helps.
Okay, that first link way up top wasn't your absolute last chance.
This
is your last chance: If you want Daybreak Diversions,
And whether you do or not, you'll take care of yourselves over the next six weeks, right? See you right back here around 9:45 am on Monday, Aug. 18.
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.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on the Daybreak Facebook page
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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