GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Quiet weather again today. Probably some fog and clouds to start, eventually getting sunnier, highs in the mid- or upper 60s, winds from the south but picking up a little bit as the next system heads our way. There's a slight chance of rain overnight, with temps down to around 50.Upper Valley loses a musical pillar. Dave Clark, a mainstay of the region's music scene both as a performer and an organizer, died at home in Quechee last Thursday after several years of illness. He was 67. Though he was most widely known for his roots and Americana appearances in countless venues on both sides of the river, he also made his mark as a tireless promoter of local bands, theater, art, and dance in the area, especially through Yellow House Media, the calendar and website he named for his house on Quechee Main St.Woodstock officials "extremely concerned" about maskless wedding at inn. A photo making the social media rounds shows about 40 people "wearing dresses and suits sitting shoulder to shoulder in white folding chairs outside" at the Woodstock Inn, reports the VN's Nora Doyle-Burr. The photo's aftermath brought Inn administrators into a meeting with town officials yesterday "to review protocols." A spokesman for the state says, “No further action is being taken at this time.” Hartland Diner owner Nicole Bartner is not pleased, as she makes clear in this Facebook post. Here's a view you don't get very often. Quechee Gorge yesterday toward sunset, but from beyond and above Route 4 as it crosses the gorge, so that you see the full length of the river as it passes through far below. By Reddit user ahorowitz1.Did you know there's a lichen called British soldier lichen? Me neither, but once you see its fruiting bodies, you'll get it. It's the first week of October, and Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast is finding all sorts of stuff out in the woods. Hair cap moss, closed gentian (which—this will stun you—doesn't open, and relies on bumblebees' brute force to get pollinated), wolf's milk slime mold, which looks like a little button mushroom but isn't. And up in a tree, an adolescent bald eagle.“Publishers have a duty to champion the ideas they believe in even if they are very unpopular.... Are you going to engage in intellectual debate or say, ‘shut up’?” That's Margo Baldwin, head of publisher Chelsea Green in WRJ, talking to Publisher's Weekly about the press's plan to release Naomi Wolf's new book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love on Friday. Houghton Mifflin axed it after controversy over some factual errors, which Baldwin says have been cleaned up. The article also looks at Baldwin's taste for controversial books. "We challenge orthodoxy," she says. Speaking of controversy: "The Review is not a bunch of women-hating bigots." That's The Dartmouth Review's Rachel Gambee, who writes, "If they were, I would not have stayed and I certainly could not have risen to be the Editor-in Chief." You may remember that back in July, students, alums and others petitioned to have the college's name removed from the conservative publication's title. Gambee writes that the Review is wholly independent of the college, its staff is diverse, and most of its "truly objectionable articles" date to before the parents of its younger staffers even "started elementary school."Bob Slater's Hill. That's a watercolor of a hill in South Royalton by none other than Edward Hopper, hanging in the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia. Hopper's been in the news recently (some of his earliest works were copies), and Artful blogger Susan Apel takes the chance to write about the months he and his wife Jo stayed at Wagon Wheels Farm in SoRo with Bob and Irene Slater. "His time there seems to have freed Hopper’s artistic expression," wrote Bonnie Clause in her book about the Hoppers' sojourn. Warren Republican Sen. Bob Giuda says he fell victim to extortion scheme. During the pandemic, he said in a statement released yesterday, he began a relationship with a woman through an internet chat site; his wife is in a "vegetative state" in a southern NH facility, he wrote. He eventually broke the relationship off, after which the woman began threatening violence against him and members of his family unless he provided “significant sums of money.” Giuda said the FBI is investigating. Drought got you spooked for your well? There's really no way to know how it's doing water-wise until it's too late, but you can at least figure out whether it's deep or shallow. Turns out that both VT and NH require well companies to report the basic figures (including depth), which the states keep in a database. VT's is here—enter your address in the search field and then click on the "data" tab. NH's is here—scroll to "Water Well" and take it from there. (Thanks JF!)NH to use $12 million of CARES Act fund to shore up performance venues. At a press conference yesterday, Gov. Chris Sununu and economic recovery director Taylor Caswell announced that performing arts and sports venues can apply for up to $1.5 million each in funds. “Live performance venues are the lifeblood of many communities and serve as an economic engine that drives tourism to help sustain main street businesses, restaurants, and hotels," Sununu said. LOH's Joe Clifford says they'll be applying (and in the meantime, have just announced four free digital events).Rapid antigen tests begin arriving in NH, boost positive numbers. NHPR's Todd Bookman reports that the state is due to receive 400,000 of the test kits over the next few months—at the moment they're being used at Convenient MD and ClearChoice MD urgent care facilities—and the state has started reporting their results. Up to now, a positive antigen test was considered "presumed" and led to a slower PCR test for confirmation. Antigen tests can take just 15 minutes to get results.VT reports Covid outbreak at Champlain Orchards in Shoreham. So far, 26 farmworkers there have tested positive. All are from Jamaica and were living in the same dorm at the orchard. They in the state on Sept. 14 and went through a mandatory two-week quarantine; one of their number felt ill the day after quarantine ended, and tested positive. The orchard closed to the public over the weekend and shifted its bakery crew from making pies for visitors to making meals for workers.Phil Scott vetoes Act 250 modernization bill. The move came yesterday evening, and had been widely expected. After years of effort on an initially ambitious plan to update and rework Vermont's landmark land use law, the measure that made it to Scott's desk was far more modest than either Scott or lawmakers had hoped—though it did include "key protections for forests and wildlife and regulatory clarity for trail networks," notes Seven Days' Kevin McCallum. Scott argued the bill "created more regulatory uncertainty, not less.”Even if you could have a home like this, don't try this at home. Bicycle ballet, that is. Viola Brand is a world-class German "artistic cyclist" working on a custom fixed-gear bike, and even though a couple of her moves are a little shaky, they're shaky because they're basically impossible and she manages to do them anyway. Can you imagine if she'd hit that chandelier? Or the mirrors?
And the numbers...
NH reported 35 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to 8,680. There was one new death; they now stand at 444. The state has 490 current cases in all (down 2), including 16 in Grafton County (up 1), 6 in Sullivan (down 1), and 43 in Merrimack (down 2). There are between 1 and 4 active cases each in Lyme, Hanover, Lebanon, Plainfield, Grafton, Grantham, Claremont, New London, Newbury, Sunapee, and Haverhill.
VT reported 33 new cases yesterday, the largest single-day jump since June 3. 26 of them are associated with the Champlain Orchards outbreak reported above. Its official total now stands at 1,817, with 134 of those still active (up 29). Deaths remain at 58 total, and 1 person with a confirmed case is hospitalized. Windsor County remains at a total of 92 cases over the course of the pandemic, with 9 cases in the past 14 days. Orange County remains at 25 cumulative cases, with 1 of those in the past 14 days.
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This evening at 7, you could join mystery writers Archer Mayor and Sarah Stewart Taylor as they talk over Mayor's new Joe Gunther novel (his 31st), hosted by the Norwich Bookstore. The Orphan's Guilt is set in and around Burlington as Gunther dives deep into a family's tangled, dark past. Email [email protected] for info on how to get on.
At 7:30 pm, it's the second live panel discussion hosted by White River Indie Films as part of its "Race and US Elections" film series. This evening, Dartmouth political scientist Michael Herron and his guests tackle voter suppression and the pitched battle taking place across the country to make sure people can vote. Panelists include Laverne Berry, producer and one of the key figures in Capturing the Flag, about three voter-protection volunteers who travel to Cumberland County, NC, in the days before the 2016 election and discover the suppression ground-game up close; the film's director, Anne De Mare; the NC Dems' regional voter protection director, Othniel Harris; journalist David Daley; and Virginia law prof Rebecca Green.
Today and tomorrow, you can also catch two films as part of the Hop's Film On Demand series: Sibyl, Justine Triet's 2020 film in which Virginie Efira (leading a cast of great European actors) plays a psychologist who's decided to abandon the field to turn to writing, and finds inspiration—and details—in the tumultuous love triangle of a young actress who becomes her patient; and The Fight (co-produced by Scandal's Kerry Washington), a rousing documentary about a team of ACLU lawyers taking on the Trump administration over the last few years on the Muslim ban, reproductive rights, voting rights, and LGBT rights. Tix are $8, free to Hop members.
And finally, this one you have to get out for. You even have to leave the Upper Valley for it. But it's not a chance you get often: to see Hogpen Hills Farm, the sculpture park in Litchfield County, CT, maintained by data visualization guru Edward Tufte. Turns out he doesn't only work with computers: He's also spent years building huge, whimsical sculptures in metal and stone, over 100 of them by now, all on his 234-acre farm. He's opening it to the public Fridays-Mondays this month. A Daybreak reader writes, "The grounds are in fine form. There are newly fabricated Feynman diagram sculptures on the inside wall of the new Red Barn structure as well. Since there are 234 acres and entry to the grounds are controlled by ticket, this is a socially distanced art experience to the nth degree."(Thanks, DC!)
This would normally be a poetry day, but the best way to remember Dave Clark is through his music. Yesterday, his wife Helen
, from an album he finished up just before he died. "He began writing it while in a cafe in SoRo after the first of what would be many medical appointments. That day we had no idea what was coming our way but the sun was shining and we were happy together." Dave Clark on lead vocals and guitar, Jed Dickinson on harmonica and back-up vocals, Jeff Stedman on bass and back-up vocals, Jack Snyder on drums, Jakob Breitbach on violin, Michael Zsoldos on sax, and Helen Clark, Sam Haas, and Nicole Gottsegen on back-up vocals.
(Thanks, HM!)
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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