GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Rinse, repeat. Apparently, something called a "subsidence inversion" set up over the region yesterday, with air descending from on high and trapping moisture—in the form of clouds—above us. The result is these lowering skies, which will be with us almost all day today, as well—along with some flurries first thing. Things might start breaking up late in the day, but I'll believe it when I see it. High around 29, low tonight about 20, winds from the north.Winter starts to limber up... Norwich photographer Brenda Petrella was in the Greens last week, wandering around the Breadloaf area. She's got a thing for flowing water, and "the forecast of snow was spot on, and I discovered this hidden gem of a waterfall," she writes.Those Hanover Terrace v. Hanover numbers. Several sharp-eyed readers have noticed that the outbreak at Hanover Terrace (76 as of yesterday, including 53 of 74 residents) far exceeds the state-reported number for Hanover. "Suffice it to say the numbers are disjointed, tend not to agree, and the state website always lags," Hanover Town Manager Julia Griffin explains in an email. "What is important to know is that, no matter the specific number, the infection is spreading within the facility and among staff." Full email at the link.Dartmouth delays undergrad return to campus. In a community-wide email yesterday, Provost Joe Helble said that instead of Jan. 5-6, students will arrive on campus Jan. 15-16, though classes will begin Jan. 7 as planned and remain fully online until Jan. 26, when any in-person classes can start up. The college has shortened the quarantine period (with a negative test) to eight days, and will be testing students and on-campus staff twice a week. Helble, college Dean Kathryn Lively, and the college's two Covid-19 task force chairs will lay out more details about the upcoming term in tomorrow's "community conversation."VLS mulls move to Burlington. Though officials at Vermont Law School are working on a restructuring that would keep it in South Royalton, they're also exploring a shift of all operations to Burlington, reports the Valley News's John Gregg. “VLS, like other law schools, is looking at options to improve its financial health, and the law school is looking at essentially all options that are available to it,” board chair Glenn Berger, of Barnard, tells Gregg. Berger said planning along both lines is expected to continue for at least six months.SPONSORED: Looking for some light in your life? St. Thomas Episcopal Church Hanover invites you to experience faith, hope, and love this Advent. We offer interactive services via ZOOM, including Sung Compline on Tuesdays, and Sunday worship throughout Advent to lead you deeper into the mysteries of this season. Find out more at the maroon link. Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church.Covered Bridges Half Marathon weighs 2021 options. Ordinarily, reports the VN's Greg Fennell, co-organizer Mike Silverman would have spent the first Monday night in December by the phone and watching the computer, as slots filled up. But with the 2020 race delayed for a year, all was calm. Silverman and other organizers haven't decided yet whether the 2021 race will be in-person or virtual, but they're determined to hold it. Last year's registrants who've held onto their spaces get first dibs, but any available slots will be opened to the public on April 19.Covid creeps into Sununu's office. In a press release yesterday, the NH guv's office said that a staff member has tested positive, and has been isolating since last Wednesday. S/he had close contact with one other staffer, who is quarantining, but not with Sununu, who is not quarantining.NH Veterans Home, hit hard by coronavirus, pleads with public to apply for work there. As of this weekend, 35 staff members and 13 part-time staff were out after testing positive, reports the Monitor's Teddy Rosenbluth, and the facility is looking to fill slots for everything from security officers to RNs and licensed nursing assistants. "The call for help," Rosenbluth writes, "comes as the facility is reeling with a deadly COVID outbreak, which has already claimed the lives of about one-sixth of the total number of residents at the Tilton home."Study finds small-scale solar saved NH $83 million in recent years. The study, by the research firm Synapse Energy Economics, looked at so-called behind-the-meter solar around New England from 2014-2019 and calculated the savings it produced for electric utilities and in terms of lower emissions and enhanced public health. Savings per NH resident, reports NHPR's Annie Ropeik, were about $20 per year. Over the same time period, BTM solar produced savings of $79 million in VT...and $513 million in MA.“Now that I think back, he was just writing his own rules because that’s the type of person he is.” That's Toby Fox's middle-school music teacher reflecting back on a fugue Fox once wrote that did not adhere to fugue rules. Fox, who's 29, is the creator of the pathbreaking video game Undertale, which launched about five years ago and has amassed a huge and devoted following. Fox grew up in Manchester, NH, and Union Leader columnist Mark Hayward got curious about him. Fox wouldn't talk to him, his mom told Hayward, who lives nearby Fox's childhood home—but other people did.What happens when water shows up where it's not supposed to be? Every year, NH's Coastal Adaptation Workgroup holds a "King Tide Contest" aimed at making visible what is often abstract except to the people who live on the coast: the effects of sea-level rise. It's just announced the winners, which make pretty clear what happens when plain, ordinary high tides get higher and higher. (h/t to David Brooks's Granite Geek blog for pointing it out.)VT lawmakers plan early move to allow mail-in balloting for town meeting. They hope to pass the proposed legislation soon after convening in January, reports VTDigger's Xander Landen. The bill would also allow towns to reschedule town meeting for later in the spring, if they wish to hold it in-person and outdoors, and would give the same flexibility to balloting for school budgets. Gov. Phil Scott is also considering including funds for Town Meeting Day mail-in ballots in his upcoming budget proposal.“Right now, in December, we’re doing January-February-March numbers. So what is March going to look like?” That's the owner of Sweetwaters bistro in Burlington talking to VTDigger's Katya Schwenk about the grim restaurant winter ahead. Workers at restaurants that are still open for in-person service say it's pretty obvious when patrons are flouting the rules and face sharply lower weekly pay and unemployment benefits; owners are barely hanging on and aren't sure what to do when federal PPP checks end after this month.VT launches new "buy local" holiday shopping site. More than 400 businesses around the state, including in the Upper Valley, applied to be included in the guide, which lets shoppers filter by in-person or online shopping. The directory, which aims to encourage shoppers in the region to spend locally, offers up VT retailers and VT-made gifts in six categories: wearables, craft beverages, specialty food, home goods, personal care, and toys and books."The intimate, private voice, which public utterance can sometimes augment or extend, but never replace.” That's how former VT state poet Louise Glück describes what the Nobel Prize she's just received is honoring. Glück chose to avoid hoopla and received the award at home yesterday, before posting her remarks online. "In art of the kind to which I was drawn, the voice or judgment of the collective is dangerous," she writes. "The precariousness of intimate speech adds to its power and the power of the reader..."Parhelion. This intriguing email landed in Daybreak's inbox yesterday. "I'm a local musician and I’ve got a new musical project I’ve just released, but I’m keeping it as anonymous as I can," it read. "I don’t want any preconceived notions to taint the project, if that makes sense." It's a "synthwave" project—electronica influenced by '80s genre films, video games, art, and dance music. The musician, who signed the email "Parhelion," is looking "to work [their] way into people's eardrums," as they put it. Also, feedback (thru the site).So let's say you hit a steel barrier doing 137 mph, your car tears in half and explodes in a fireball... and you walk away from it all. How'd that happen? About a century's worth of scientific advances, writes Rachel Lance in Wired as she looks at the ghastly Nov. 29 Formula One crash involving driver Romain Grosjean in Bahrain. It's a gripping tale that comes down to advances in impact protection, head/neck support, racing harnesses, and the materials science going into body suits. Lance walks us through it all gracefully, including a conversation with Dupont's Thermal Protective Testing Technology Guardian.
And the numbers...
NH crosses two lines: It reported 1,045 new cases yesterday (second only to the 1,157 reported Dec. 2) and passed the 25K total mark, hitting 25,816. There were 2 new deaths, which now total 566, and 185 people are hospitalized (up 16). The current active caseload stands at 5,386 (up 732). Grafton County is at 157 active cases (up 38), Sullivan has 56 (up 10), and Merrimack has 703 (up 80). In town-by-town numbers, the state says Hanover has 36 active cases (up 7), Newport has 18 (up 2), Lebanon has 16 (up 5), Claremont and Canaan are both at 11 (up 4 for each), New London has 8 (up 3), Enfield has 6 (up at least 2), and Newbury remains at 5. Haverhill, Piermont, Warren, Orford, Wentworth, Plainfield, Grantham, Croydon, Charlestown, Grafton, and Springfield are all in the 1-4 category. Sunapee is off the list.
VT reported 65 new cases yesterday, bringing its official total to 5,080, with 2,003 of those active (up 18). There were 2 new deaths, which now stand at 81, and 26 people with confirmed cases (up 4) are hospitalized. Windsor County gained 3 cases (68 over the past 14 days) to stand at 254 for the pandemic. Orange County gained 8 cases (with 78 over the past 14 days) and is now at 258 cumulatively.
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Today's the day Northern Stage starts streaming its radio-play version of It's a Wonderful Life. Here's hoping you don't need a plot synopsis. The production's based on Joe Landry's radio adaptation fro 2006, uses radio spots from WRJ companies in the 1930s (including Miller Cadillac, whose former building now houses Northern Stage's offices), and brought the actors together in person (though at a distance) to rehearse; music by the Hanover High jazz combo. "We wanted it to feel like home — ‘Our Town’ for the holidays,” director (and cast member) Carol Dunne tells the Rutland Herald's Jim Lowe. You can stream it at any time through Jan. 3 with a ticket, or hear it free on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 3 pm on VPR.
This evening at 6 pm, the Lebanon Opera House is hosting Dartmouth history prof Matthew Delmont in an author talk based on The Nicest Kids in Town, his deeply researched portrait of American Bandstand and its place in American culture as the forces of segregation, Civil Rights, rock 'n' roll, and televised youth culture gathered strength in the '50s and '60s. He'll be interviewed by documentary film producer John Gfroerer, a documentary film producer based in Concord. "In speaking to Matt and John recently," LOH director Joe Clifford writes, "it’s clear this conversation about a TV show which started airing in the ‘50s still holds relevance today." Free, but you'll need to register.
And at 6:30, Vital Communities hosts a discussion on how local farms have adapted to the pandemic and what it might mean for the future of our local food supply. With Amy Richardson of Hartland's Richardson Farm, Jenny Sprague of Plainfield's Edgewater Farm, Lisa Davis of Sweet Doe Dairy in Chelsea, and Shona Sanford-Long of Royalton's Luna Bleu Farm. Free via Zoom, but you'll need to register.
I think continually of those who were truly great.Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s historyThrough corridors of light, where the hours are suns,Endless and singing....
Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,See how these names are fêted by the waving grassAnd by the streamers of white cloudAnd whispers of wind in the listening sky.The names of those who in their lives fought for life,Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sunAnd left the vivid air signed with their honour.-- From "The Truly Great," by Stephen Spender.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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