GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Okay, I'm just going to stop believing predictions of sunshine. The weather folks allege we're going to start the morning out sunny then see clouds pile in as it goes on. Early signs are promising, but guess we'll find out. Meanwhile, warm air is moving in from the south, bringing us the first of four days of warmer-than-normal temps: Highs today look to get into the upper 60s or maybe even hit 70, while lows will drop only into the lower 50s overnight.Dawn's early light.
Here's the view from Bridgewater as light broke yesterday morning, from Bob Wagner;
And on Lake Sunapee the other day, as the Sunapee Rowing Club got out on the water, from Brenda Balenger, who swears the photo is unretouched.
That I-91 closure between Wells River and Bradford? Starts tonight. You might have noticed that, contrary to VTrans' earlier declaration, I-91 southbound did not shut down between exits 17 and 16 on Monday evening. Instead, the agency said in a press release yesterday, the four-night, 6 pm - 7 am closure for bridge repairs is set to begin this evening. Again, the detour between the two exits will run along Route 5.DHMC now offering Covid boosters. The hospital, which had been offering them only to employees, opened them to the public Monday afternoon. So far, they have Moderna only, and "a limited supply at this time," says spokesperson Cassidy Smith. Appointments are required and can be made via myDH for existing patients, or by calling the hotline Monday-Friday from 7 am-5 pm (closed holidays): 603-650-1818.In new report, Dartmouth student group details Irving Institute ties to oil industry. In addition to $80 million in initial funding from the Canadian oil giant and members of the Irving family, the report notes, a third of the institute's advisory board consists of people who "work directly in the fossil fuel industry or in financial institutions or law firms" tied to the industry. The problem, co-author Kate Yeo, a founder of Fossil Free Dartmouth, tells Cloe Logan of Canada's National Observer, is that it "presents a fundamental conflict of interest for clean energy research and programs." In a comment to NHPR, the college's Diana Lawrence responds, "No donor directs the operations or administration of the institute." Report here.On NH side, towns get tough on property tax exemptions for nonprofits. When it comes to religious organizations, schools, and veterans' groups, writes Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News, state law clearly helps the nonprofit; but towns are cracking down on paperwork regs and on what constitutes a "charitable" organization. Canaan, for instance, just voided exempt status for six groups—four because they were late on paperwork, two because their work isn't clearly charitable. Same deal in Hanover for Friends of Hanover Crew, whose bylaws contain no clear charitable purpose. Sauchelli explains what's going on.Two new murals coming to Leb tunnel. They're the result of a call to artists in August from Leb Artways and AVA Gallery, Susan Apel writes in Artful, and they're going up in the bike/pedestrian tunnel that connects the Northern Rail Trail and the Mascoma Greenway this week. Judging from the photos Susan includes, any tunnel anywhere would be proud to host the works—by John Garoutte in one case and Todd Matte and Kirsha Frye-Matte in the other.With GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo "leans into her talent for catchy hooks and sarcastic lyrics." This week's Enthusiasms introduces a new writer to the lineup: Thetford Academy senior Leo Downey. In his debut writeup, he dives into the former-teen-actor-turned-pop-superstar's sophomore album, from relationships she can't quite get over to a reflection on fame at the age of 20. "Nobody is doing it like her right now," Leo writes. "From ordinary songwriting fodder and generic pop sounds she pulls a spectacular performance." Also of note: Good-bye and a heartfelt thank-you!!! to Enthusiasms regular Bill Craig, who's moving on to other writing commitments.As Hop renovations continue, Hanover gets a new theater. The Theater on Currier—at 4 Currier Place—was carved out of old office space by Dartmouth's theater department. “It’s a legit little black box theater,” Hop managing director Joshua Price Kol tells Dartmouth News's Aimee Minbiole: a highly versatile, intimate space with room for 65 seats and lots of experimentation. It will host theater department productions—including Lost Girl starting on Friday—as well as upcoming Hop productions, like the Sandglass puppet theater in March.Burlington High principal, formerly of Hanover High, put on leave after pulling school fire alarm. The leave announcement came five days after Debra Beaupre pulled the alarm in an attempt to get control of an altercation in the school cafeteria by evacuating the building, writes Seven Days' Alison Novak. Beaupre took the job in May, leaving her position as associate principal at HHS; she'd been principal at Cavendish Elementary before that. The Burlington School District, writes Novak, "would not confirm whether Beaupre's leave was tied to the fire alarm incident."Manchester, NH-based biotech initiative—with Dartmouth as a member—named federal "Tech Hub". The "ReGen Valley" project, which also includes Nashua, "is primed to accelerate the effort launched six years ago by inventor Dean Kamen to make the Manchester Millyard and Southern New Hampshire a global headquarters for the production of human cells, tissues and organs," writes NH Business Review's Mike Cote. Says Kamen: "We have 190 some-odd companies and universities... We are developing virtually all the critical resources you need—from scratch—to create a whole new industry.”In Concord, cannabis study commission "grinding away at plans that might gain traction next year." So writes Steven Porter in the Globe Morning Report newsletter (no paywall). Of course, there's a long history of legalization dying in the state Senate, but Dartmouth researcher Jacob Borodovsky tells Porter the current approach of balancing legalization with protecting public health may be the right one. “There’s no correct answer," he says. "There’s only trade-offs"—which depend on the values of the community making the decision. Porter looks at where things stand, with a report due Dec. 1.But hey, here's a crop NH farmers could try right now: Tartary buckwheat. That, at least, is what UNH researchers are suggesting, after working to find a crop that can be a nutritious diet staple with "price premiums" for farmers and can withstand the region's increasingly unpredictable weather. The relative of common buckwheat is barely grown in the US, writes Nicholas Gosling for UNH Today, but is common in southern China and other parts of Asia. It does fine in poor-quality soil, and, says researcher Iago Hale, tolerates both temperature extremes and "extreme moisture regimes (drought and saturation).""I didn't go into emergency medicine to watch my colleagues get stabbed by a patient with kitchen shears." UVM Health—like hospitals all over the country—faces an epidemic of violence, especially in the emergency room. In a stark, black-and-white NYT Opinion video (gift link), a group of UVM health workers—nurses, docs, technicians—face the camera and describe what they've been dealing with. The video—a plea to "end the silence on health care violence" produced by UVM Health—accompanies an essay by an NYC emergency physician laying out the alarming stats and toll on health workers.So make of this what you will: WalletHub calls VT safest state in the US, followed by ME and NH. And, for that matter, MA, CT, and RI, all in the top ten. The personal finance site used a range of 52 metrics, everything from traffic fatalities to shootings and assaults to the incidence of bullying to unemployment, workplace safety, and climate disasters.Vermonter's musical about the suffrage movement heads to Broadway. Remember Shaina Taub, who did the music and lyrics for this summer’s Northern Stage teen intensive production of Twelfth Night? Now, the Waitsfield native is looking ahead to a first night... on Broadway, writes Brent Hallenbeck in the Free Press. Her musical Suffs will move there in April, with support from co-producers Hillary Clinton and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. Taub’s had Broadway on her mind for years. “My mom got me the Chorus Line cast album for Hanukkah when I was seven years old,” she wrote on Instagram.The world’s largest photo competition is sure to draw some of the world’s most beautiful photos. German photo company CEWE sponsors the event, which included 509,612 contenders from around the world. The winner: Dikye Ariani’s Indonesian card game, frozen in a moment of … triumph? Frustration? Jessica Stewart has the highlights on My Modern Met: a prism of people and glass atop New York’s Summit, the gentle grasp of a monkey in Uganda, flaming peaks in Iceland. For every photo submitted, CEWE made a donation to SOS Children’s Village, a nonprofit in Austria.The Wednesday Vordle. 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Today at 5:15 pm, Upper Valley Music Center presents a one-time workshop with renowned fiddler April Verch, who's in town for the next few days (she's giving a concert Friday). Verch, who lives in North Carolina now, is best known for her command of traditional tunes from her native Ottawa Valley in Canada, but she's a virtuoso bluegrass, country, and Americana musician as well. She'll be teaching a waltz accessible to all levels. At Upper Valley Music Center.
At 6 pm, the Dartmouth Political Union, Dickey Center, and Rockefeller Center continue their "Democracy Summit" lecture series with a talk by political philosopher Nancy Fraser, "Can democratic socialism work?" Fraser, who's a visiting professor at the college, is the author of the 2022 book, Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet and What We Can Do About It. In-person in Filene Auditorium, as well as livestreamed.
This evening at 6:30, the Etna Library hosts author and historian Christopher Daley for his lecture on "Haunted New England." Over the past few decades, Daley has made a sideline—he's also a history teacher—of giving presentations on everything from crime in Boston to the Lizzie Borden case. He'll be talking about mysteries surrounding the Borden house in Fall River, the case of a tubercular "vampire" in RI, alleged ghosts at the Mt. Washington Hotel, and more. In Trumbull Hall.
This evening at 7, via Zoom, Good Beginnings of the Upper Valley hosts pediatrician and neonatologist Betty Vohr, talking about "Early Childhood & Technology: When to Say Yes or No." She'll be discussing the latest stats on the impact of technology on young children and offering guidance on what's appropriate by age: FaceTime with family, for instance, as opposed to using an iPad as a babysitter. She'll also be addressing the impact of exercise and time outdoors vs. screen time.
Also at 7, the Norwich Bookstore brings in Center for Cartoon Studies co-founder James Sturm for a conversation about his two most recent books: the graphic novel adaptation of Watership Down and Adventures in Cartooning: Create a World. The latter, the third in a series Sturm began back in 2009, uses storytelling to teach the basics—as Kirkus put it back at the beginning, "Even the most reluctant artist may be inspired to pick up a pencil and give it a shot." The former, of course, is Sturm's just-published version with illustrator Joe Sutphin of the classic Richard Adams novel, a book that took shape after Adams's daughters chose the pair for the project.
And also at 7, Still North Books & Bar in Hanover hosts retired UVM English prof Nancy Welch (who lives in Hanover), reading from and talking about her collection of short stories, Ten More Things About Us. As the publicity runs: "'There’s no such thing as society,' Margaret Thatcher famously—and cruelly—proclaimed. 'There are individual men and women and there are families.' Through three stories...Welch illuminates the consequences of this philosophy-writ-policy in the very particular lives of women who labor to care for family."
This evening at 7:30, poetry returns to Salt Hill-Lebanon's Galway Room. Local poets Taylor Mardis Katz and Phillip Mulligan will give a reading that, Mulligan writes, will "balance catharsis and humor in an engaging performance of poems that will talk about family, place, and living in these times." (No link.)
And at 8 tonight, the Dartmouth College Gospel Choir shakes the rafters of Rollins Chapel with its fall concert. Under the direction of guest conductor Knoelle Higginson and with the addition of several of Higginson's colleagues from NYC's gospel world, the chorus of students and community members will sing both gospel standards and non-gospel tunes that could be gospel tunes.
And to start us off today...
We'll put ourselves in the hands of two absolute masters: Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé at the 1976 Grammys. Tormé sets things up by asking, "But Ella, how do you explain to people what jazz
is
?" Fitzgerald responds, "Well, the only thing I can think of, I have a way, maybe we could try..." And cue a joyful two-minute scat duo that lifted the spirits of everyone in the Hollywood Palladium that night—and will do the same for you. Here they are, recorded off tv so nothing's perfect:
,
.
See you tomorrow.
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.
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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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