Daybreak Tuesday, 6/2/26

Warmer, mostly sunny. It’ll be a calm day, with temps getting up to around 70 and more sun than clouds over the course of the day (once any fog clears) as winds from the northwest pick up this morning. Lows tonight in the low or mid 40s.

A rainbow takes shape. On his Tunbridge farm for the past two decades, Rick Scully has been keeping a “FarmCam” livestream and putting up timelapses each day. Last Thursday morning, the camera caught a rainbow forming, which Rick has sped up so that we can watch it appear, brighten, expand, fade, and then disappear all in the course of a minute.

Henry starts his journal. “Today I write my first entry,” he begins in DB Johnson’s Lost Woods this week. And promptly takes a nap.

Born from pandemic silence, Lake Morey Resort’s summer concerts now draw thousands. In its early days, Mark Avery’s dream of music down by the lakeshore as a way of bringing some life back to the property he and his siblings inherited from their dad and grandfather drew a few hundred people. But that was five years ago. Now, writes Duncan Green for Daybreak, the Averys are prepping for their biggest series yet, with Adam Ezra opening June 18 and Collective Soul finishing up August 20. In his profile of the series, Duncan looks at what it’s taken to keep it going as, these days, upwards of six or seven thousand people gather for food, free music, and good cheer.

Tomorrow night, the Lebanon City Council will hear a lot about Jim Vanier. To generations of kids in the city, Vanier—who ran the Carter Community Building Youth Drop-in Center—provided a supervised chance “to learn how to play sports, how to get along, follow basic rules, learn respect for your elders and the other kids who hung out there,” as one longtime resident puts it. Ever since his death last year, community members have been trying to figure out how to honor him. Now, reports Michael Coughlin Jr. in the Valley News, they’ve settled on proposing a memorial bench and possibly renaming the Lebanon Mall. The idea goes before the council tomorrow.

SPONSORED: Dr. Lorissa Segal is accepting new patients in Woodstock, VT. With 20+ years of experience as an internal medicine physician and a Woodstock community member since 2008, Dr. Segal's new MDVIP-affiliated primary care practice is now open. She will provide personalized, preventive care and conveniences not usually available from traditional practices—including advanced screenings and diagnostic tests, and a customized Wellness Plan. Members of her practice can also book same-/next-day appointments and reach Dr. Segal after hours for urgent needs. Learn more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by MDVIP.

From a Cornish “Auction of the Century” to offices in four states and life online, how one Plainfield auction house has evolved. In the VN, Steve Taylor offers a really intriguing look at William Smith Auctions, which got its start when William A. Smith was teaching math at Lebanon High and began running auctions on the side. His big break came in 1971, when he and a group of investors bought the antiques, mansions, and land (including what is now Blow-Me-Down Farm) that had been owned by a wealthy NY businessman, then held two three-day auctions that drew interest from all over the world. The business has changed dramatically since then, and Smith’s son, Bill, tells Taylor how changing tastes and online bidding have transformed it.

Hopkins Center announces new season. The lineup for the 2026-27 season, its first full run in its newly refurbished space, “prizes both tradition and discovery,” the Hop writes in a press release. The Morris Recital Hall will see seven concerts, including Wu Man, Imani Winds, and Sally Pinkas with Apple Hill. There’ll be “a whimsical theatrical inversion of Macbeth” (The 4th Witch) and an evening of Bharatanatyam dance (Ananta, The Eternal). Kronos Quartet, the Ragamala Dance Company, the Julia Keeffe Indigenous Big Band, legendary Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, renowned classical violinist Joshua Bell (with soprano Larissa Martinez), and lots more…

SPONSORED: Cantabile, Music for Women’s Voices presents “Silver Songs.” Celebrate Cantabile’s 25th anniversary June 6 and 7 with a retrospective of the chorus’s first 25 years, featuring favorite sacred pieces alongside folk and gospel literature. Works by JS Bach, Delibes and Mendelssohn as well as songs by Gwyneth Walker, Philip Silvey, Sarah Quartel, and others. 4 pm this Saturday, June 6 at the Norwich Congregational Church, and 4 pm Sunday, June 7 at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. Sponsored by Cantabile.

Large insects only, please. On her Naturally Curious blog, Mary Holland details the unlikely—and not very successful—reproductive strategy of the pink lady’s slipper. Insects have to be strong enough to push through a hairy slit in the flower (ie, bumblebees), which then closes behind them. Discovering there’s no nectar, the bumblebee then has to exit through small openings at the top, where it brushes against the plant’s reproductive parts and pollinates it. Maybe due to the false advertising—”attractive smell, colorful flower but no nectar”—bumblebees don’t visit often, and just five percent of pink lady’s slippers get pollinated each year, Mary writes.

SPONSORED: Opera North brings three new productions to Blow-Me-Down Farm in Cornish. Celebrating its 44th season and America’s 250th, Opera North brings “epic journeys” to its idyllic setting on the banks of the Connecticut. Bring a picnic and enjoy Rossini’s La Cenerentola (June 26, 28, Jul 1), The Ballad of Baby Doe (July 12, 15, 17) and the much-loved Fiddler on the Roof (July 23, 24, 25, 26). More details at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Opera North.

Today’s your last day to change party registration in NH ahead of the September primary. You might think you’re all set, but if you were an undeclared voter and then cast a ballot in a recent state primary, you’re now registered with that party unless you changed back to undeclared afterward, notes NHPR’s Josh Rogers. You can check current status here. You can register at your town clerk’s office, a supervisor of the checklist meeting, or at the polls on primary day. As of May 4, Rogers reports, NH had 265,183 Democrats (or 28 percent of all voters), 314,005 Republicans (33 percent), and 377,158 undeclared (39 percent).

Younger working-age adults drive NH’s population gains. But they’re also leaving. It’s an interesting set of takeaways from a study of federal tax-filing data by the NH Fiscal Policy Institute’s Jess Williams. On the one hand, people aged 26-44 represented more than half of the state’s net growth in 2022 and 2023 (a lot of them from MA); on the other hand, a net of nearly 1,000 tax filers under age 26 left the state. Recent surveys, Williams writes, have found that housing costs, child care affordability, health-care access, and career opportunities are among the biggest concerns for those younger adults, who also cite quality of education and social life as issues.

The writing process. Sunday was the final deadline day for sportscaster Andrew Cotter’s latest writing project and “this is mostly how it has been written,” he says of the help offered by Olive and Mabel. “Really couldn't have done it without their boundless energy and support.”

The Tuesday Mini Crossword. It’s a milestone for ace constructor Laura Braunstein’s puzzle today—and, if you’ve been doing them, for you, too.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
UVAC throws a Nighthawks meet-and-greet. As the Upper Valley Aquatics Center writes, “Bring your friends, your fan gear, and your game-day excitement as we welcome the Nighthawks baseball team to the community and kick off a summer of baseball and local pride!” It’s a chance to meet the local college-league team, get selfies and autographs, and get an early start on the season. 4:30 to 5:30 pm.

Stephen Kiernan and M.T. Anderson talk about Pollock’s Last Lover at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock. Kiernan is a longtime reporter-turned-novelist whose newest work, set in the 1950s and the 2000s, tells the story of two women who collide over what may or may not be Jackson Pollock’s last painting. He’ll be talking it over with the prolific Anderson, author of Feed, Nicked, the Octavian Nothing series, and lots more. 6 pm.

At the Howe Library, cartoonist Marek Bennett and “Drawing the Revolution: Local History and Storytelling through Zines.” Bennett, based in NH, is widely known in the cartooning world for his history-based work, as well as for helping edit The Most Costly Journey, which told the stories of VT farmworkers in cartoons. He’ll be talking about how he uses archival documents, photographs, oral histories, and other primary sources “to craft visually compelling and historically grounded comics about local events and people.” 6:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.

The Thetford Arthouse Cinema launches its fifth season. The twice-weekly screening of classic films debuts tonight in the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy with Cabaret, Bob Fosse’s memorable 1972 film set in just-pre-war Berlin. Writes organizer Art Kahn, “Seeing it now on the big screen will be a revelation. Promise.” It’s paired this week with Inglorious Basterds, which will screen Saturday, not the usual Friday. 7 pm.

At the Hop, “Entangled Ecologies” digital arts fashion show. As they write, “Entangled Ecologies is a runway show where fashion meets technology. Organized by the Digital Arts program and the DALI lab, we explore how clothing can move, sense and respond, to express the complexities of our bodies, technologies and environments.” Pre-show reception at 7 pm at the Top of the Hop, runway show at 8 pm in the Roth Studio Theater. Tix are sold out, but after 7:45 pm remaining spots will open up for as long there’s capacity.

The Tuesday poem.

Inventing a horse is not easy.
One must not only think of the horse.
One must dig fence posts around him.
One must include a place where horses like to live;

or do when they live with humans like you.
Slowly, you must walk him in the cold;
feed him bran mash, apples;
accustom him to the harness;

holding in mind even when you are tired
harnesses and tack cloths and saddle oil
to keep the saddle clean as a face in the sun;
one must imagine teaching him to run

among the knuckles of tree roots,
not to be skittish at first sight of timber wolves,
and not to grow thin in the city,
where at some point you will have to live;

and one must imagine the absence of money.
Most of all, though: the living weight,
the sound of his feet on the needles,
and, since he is heavy, and real,

and sometimes tired after a run
down the river with a light whip at his side,
one must imagine love
in the mind that does not know love,

an animal mind, a love that does not depend
on your image of it,
your understanding of it;
indifferent to all that it lacks:

a muzzle and two black eyes
looking the day away, a field empty
of everything but witchgrass, fluent trees,
and some piles of hay.

— “Inventing a Horse” by Meghan O’Rourke, from her debut collection, Halflife.

See you tomorrow.

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