GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, a little cooler. There's actually a weak disturbance moving through today that might leave a little snow on the higher mountains, but for most of us we're looking at part sun, part clouds, highs around 50. Mostly cloudy tonight, down to around or below freezing.That slant of light...
"Sometimes the light just makes us stop and look," writes Lebanon's Nancie Severs, who fortunately had her cellphone handy as the skies threatened and the sun hit a golden tree just right the other day.
Meanwhile, as Janice Fischel writes, it was "still colorful at the Howe on Halloween." Seriously colorful.
Bears, Huskies, Maroon Crush, Hawks, Trailblazers. Tomorrow, the Hanover High Council will reveal which one of those five possibilities staff and students have chosen as the high school's new mascot. It's been a year-long process, writes Benjamin Rosenberg in the Valley News—first, deciding to jettison the Marauder as the school's symbol for its historic association with "sexual violence, destruction of communities, and the slave trade and colonialism," as Rosenberg writes; and then coming up with alternatives. Rosenberg details the history of the change.1,500 new customers, 1,400 miles of cable altogether. ECFiber has issued its annual report, and in Sidenote, Nick Clark parses what it contains. For one thing, the fiber-optic telecom is "easily a year behind where we'd hoped to be by now," thanks to a tough labor market, tech changes that took more staff time than they'd planned, and other issues. On the other hand, it's focused on building out its network in its original 23 towns and then quickly moving to the 8 towns that joined last year. It also hopes, at some point, "to institute private lines to Boston and Albany where we can buy bandwidth more cheaply."SPONSORED: See yourself at TA! Thetford Academy invites you to our Admissions Open House events this Sunday, Nov. 7. Explore TA’s beautiful campus and discover exciting opportunities in academics, the arts, athletics, and the outdoors. Middle School event starts at 1pm; High School at 3pm. Can’t make it in person? Join us for our Virtual Open House on Nov. 11 at 6:30pm. Register now for either in-person or virtual at the maroon link. We can’t wait to share our school with you! Sponsored by Thetford Academy.In the market for a hovercraft? Because the Hanover Fire Dept's got one on auction (current price: $4,350). It was a gift a few years ago from some residents, and the HFD had hoped to use it for water rescues, especially on iffy ice on the river. But, says Deputy Chief Michael Gilbert, "It didn't do what we thought or hoped." Turns out it was hard to train to use; it's "like a helicopter" in that it's loud and blows air on the victim when it slides up alongside, making communication tough; and it kept breaking down. So the department's back to relying on a rubber raft, a rescue sled, and its members' skills at ice rescues."Our mission is to bring more compassion, empathy, and love into the world..." Down in Raleigh, NC, the North Carolina Theatre is about to open Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill directed by JAG Productions' Jarvis Green. His WRJ version was a standout production in 2018, and, ahead of the NC opening, Broadway World-Raleigh interviews Green on how he got started in theater, what JAG's all about, and what it's like getting back into the theater at this moment. "Theatre-making shouldn't feel like just a job," he says. "Storytelling and theatre-making reflects humanity. It's spirit work."Aphids in waxy white tutus. Woolly alder aphids, to be precise, which despite the name depend on both silver maples and alders, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast. If you see a mass of white fluff on an alder, that's what you might be looking at. Also out there in the woods this first week of November: pleurotus mushrooms, arrow arum in wetlands around the region, common yarrow, purple finches (the NH state bird), and red efts. Whose coloring, by the way, is a reminder to would-be predators that they contain a highly potent neurotoxin.In the mood for a stick-season cocoon hunt? Now that the leaves are going they're a little easier to find, writes Julia Pupko on the VT Center for Ecostudies' "Field Guide to November." The Vermont Atlas of Life has launched a "Cocoon Watch" for this month, looking for photographs of the five giant silk worm varieties found in the state: Luna Moth, Cecropia, Promethea, Polyphemus Moth, and Columbia Moth. Plenty of photos to help you identify what you're seeing. Also, a seriously eye-catching pic of garter snakes just below. Plus, red-tailed hawks, deer, and a brief discourse on tree bark.In NH’s woods, old ways of hunting are on the uptick. Granite Geek’s David Brooks trains his sights (ahem) on the resurgent popularity of more traditional methods of bagging a deer. Seeking a challenge (and a way to extend the season), some hunters are opting for bow and arrow or a muzzleloader — ”where the powder and bullet must be pushed down the barrel with a ramrod” — over a rifle’s modern-day ease and accuracy. Although, Brooks clarifies, the technology has changed: a rudimentary longbow of millennia ago is far less likely than a compound bow or a crossbow firing an arrow 400 feet per second.“Probably not a big deal to Anthem. Kind of a big deal to me.” A few weeks ago, the NH Hospital Association reported that Anthem, the country's second-largest insurer, owed hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars in delayed payments. Now, reports NHPR's Todd Bookman, it turns out the company's behind on paying mental health providers. Providers "around the state say they have faced delays and errors in recent months in seeking reimbursement from Anthem after treating patients," Bookman reports, and some are considering ditching the insurer.Though a lot of restrictions will be gone, ski season will still look a bit like last winter. Killington hasn't announced an opening date yet, but Stowe Mtn. Resort's set Nov. 19 and Stratton's going for Nov. 24. Most resorts are ditching outdoor masking unless the state winds up requiring it (indoors is another matter), but VTDigger's Grace Benninghoff reports that there'll still be some leftovers at some mountains, like selling tickets online and lift changes to get people to the top faster. "Operators say those measures actually made the resort more functional and provided a better experience for skiers," she writes.Talk about a grudge match... The Winooski and Enosburg Falls boys soccer teams face off in a state playoff semifinal this afternoon, and the VT Principals Association has "taken the unprecedented step of banning spectators and members of the media" from watching in person, reports Seven Days' Alison Novak. You may remember that back in September, Winooski officials accused three Enosburg players of using racial slurs on the field, and an Enosburg player filed a police complaint against a Winooski player for head-butting him. The state press association has objected to the ban.How the kayak is like a finely tuned instrument. A Welshman named Mike Morgan has spent decades mastering the ancient craft of the skin boat, better known to us as a kayak. As Simon Morris writes in Craftsmanship Quarterly, Morgan, also an instrument maker, has his ear trained to the quality of a kayak’s pliable, wood-framed construction. “When the thing is flexing underneath you, you can feel the resonances,” says Morgan. “If you give a good old thump, it rings.” And in this practice of “experimental archaeology,” Morgan honors the indigenous people whose tradition he borrows.Some things you just can't un-see. Talk about an inter-...um, whatever... crossover. A few days ago, the robotics company Boston Dynamics and the Rolling Stones released a video of BD's robotic dogs—they're called Spot—mimicking the Stones on their 1981 video for "Start Me Up." It's called "Spot Me Up," and though it's both a hoot and kind of unnerving, you know whoever programmed the Jagger Spot had a very fine time.
The numbers...Daybreak reports Covid numbers on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Numbers are rising a little at Dartmouth, which is reporting 9 undergrad cases, 0 among grad and professional students, and 5 among faculty/staff. 12 students and 9 faculty/staff are in isolation.
NH is starting to catch back up with its numbers, but its data from the last 10 days or so remains spotty, so it's impossible to do a day-by-day report. Let's just start fresh. Yesterday, it announced 336 cases, bringing the total to 136,775. There have been 5 deaths since Friday, bringing the total to 1,568, and at the moment the state reports 3,948 active cases and 193 hospitalizations. It's reporting 196 active cases in Grafton County, 170 in Sullivan, and 469 in Merrimack. In town-by-town numbers, the state says Claremont has 74, Newport has 40, Charlestown has 30, Lebanon has 20, Hanover has 17, Haverhill has 12, New London has 10, Sunapee and Wilmot have 8, Newbury has 7, Enfield has 5, and Piermont, Orford, Wentworth, Rumney, Lyme, Dorchester, Canaan, Grafton, Plainfield, Grantham, Springfield, Cornish, Croydon, and Unity have 1-4 each.
VT reported 255 new cases on Friday, 175 Saturday, 280 Sunday, and 163 yesterday. It now stands at 40,340 for the pandemic. There were 8 new deaths during that time; they now number 368. As of yesterday, 47 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized (-10). Windsor County has seen 51 new cases reported since Thursday, for a total of 2,805 for the pandemic, with 218 new cases over the past two weeks; Orange County gained 55 cases during the same time, with 152 over the past two weeks for a total of 1,380 for the pandemic. In town-by-town numbers posted Friday, Springfield gained 37 cases over the week before, Randolph +29, Hartford +23, Bradford +20, Bethel +10, Tunbridge +8, Royalton, Thetford, and Windsor +7, Weathersfield +6, Hartland and Killington +3, Bridgewater, Cavendish, Sharon, and Woodstock +2, and Chelsea, Corinth, Fairlee, Newbury, and Vershire +1 apiece.
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At noon today, Beata Javorcik, Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will give an online and in-person talk, hosted by Dartmouth, on "Globalization after the Trade War and Covid-19: Business as Usual, or Not?" Register at the link.
At 5 pm, Norwich's Nicholas Christakis, who teaches social and natural science at Yale, will give a lecture on "The Rise and Fall of the Covid-19 Pandemic," hosted by Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center. "Using up-to-the-moment information, and drawing on epidemiology, sociology, medicine, public health, history, virology, and other fields, this talk explores what it means to live in a time of plague," the Center writes. Christakis will explore both the course of the pandemic and how, eventually, it will wind down. Both in-person and livestreamed.
At 7 pm, the NH Poetry Society hosts poet Midge Goldberg leading an online conversation about the art of writing dramatic monologues in poetry—how to create characters with their own voices, use dialogue, and what makes a dramatic monologue a poem, rather than fiction.
This evening at 7:30, the Etna Library hosts nonfiction writer Mary Roach, who spent part of her childhood in Hanover and Etna and is author of wildly popular books like Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and most recently, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. The online talk will cover lots of stuff, including her books, her childhood, and questions from the audience. Via Zoom.
Also at 7:30, the Hop presents the Dartmouth Wind Ensemble performing Holst's Second Suite, the world premiere of The Dove in the Ash Grove by Keane Southard, Yukiko Nishimura's Sparkleberry. and Roma, by Valerie Coleman. In Spaulding.
And anytime, you can check out CATV's highlights for the week, including the season premiere of Amanda Rafuse's local arts and culture show SPARK, featuring Claremont native Melissa Richmond talking about the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts; Bill McKibben talking climate change as part of Osher's Summer Lecture Series; and three dance performances from this summer's Junction Dance Festival.
At a coneflower’s seed-making center,hundreds of tiny dark florets—each stiff and sharp—take turns oozingtheir flashes of pollen.A flagrantbee-stopping show.Making a bright circle,the outermost spiky blossomsopen first to then fade.Shrinking day by day,the ring of yellow flamemoves inward.That heart—what’s atthe flower’s very core—blazes last.—
"Why the Aging Poet Continues to Write," by
. Coneflowers include Echinacea, and
that gives you a sense (stick around until the end) of what she's talking about.
See you tomorrow.
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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