GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
There's a change coming, but not quite yet. Yesterday's lovely high pressure is still with us for part of the day, and we'll start out with partly sunny skies. But there's a warm front with weather attached headed our way, so clouds will build in over the course of the day. Highs in the upper 30s today, and very little dip tonight as the front arrives with rain and snow, turning to all rain. Winds today from the south, the low is actually this evening, in the mid-30s.What you can find on a walk in the woods...
Like, for instance, a "ladder" of shelf fungi near the Union Village Dam in Thetford, from Robin Osborne;
And what for all the world look like contour lines in a patch of ice in the northeast corner of Hanover, from Peter Spiegel.
Supply chain, worker issues at Haverhill's Upper Valley Press have newspapers looking for alternatives. The Rutland Herald and the Times-Argus, corporate sibs, are both printed there, as is the Stowe Reporter, and all have been chafing under production delays, reports Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days. The Herald and Times-Argus are looking into a return to printing their own—and other papers, too. Meanwhile, Upper Valley Press is "coming up with a plan," says VP Janice Heathman. Covid, a key part stuck in transit, and staff shortages have all contributed to its struggles, she explains.An "opportunity for job growth" or "basically a drug store"? Hartford held a forum on retail cannabis Monday evening as part of a bid to educate voters ahead of an anticipated townwide vote next March on whether to allow cannabis sales in town. Reports John Lippman in the Valley News, "there was little agreement, even on the facts, among experts on the panel"—though there was plenty of fervent argument in the room. Advocates argued the economic benefits; opponents questioned the data and wondered about social costs and underage use.Haverhill board drops school mask requirement. The 3-2 vote reverses a previous school board policy requiring masks in schools after a positive Covid case has been identified. It came, writes the VN's Nora Doyle-Burr, "as hospitals are overwhelmed by the current surge of COVID-19 patients" and just after the board held a moment of silence to honor former school board member Wayne Fortier, who died after contracting Covid earlier this month. “Let the parents decide what’s best for their kids,” said board member Michael Aremburg, who backed the change. “Don’t parent for them.”SPONSORED: Giving another Amazon gift card? You can do better than that! Here’s how. First, head over to Lebanon for a hot drink at Lucky’s Coffee Garage or a glass of prosecco at Three Tomatoes. Then, a holiday market is waiting for you at AVA Gallery and Art Center—just off the square at 11 Bank Street—where you’ll find all sorts of gifts to look at, play with, and treasure. The Wennberg desk calendar is a $25 gift that keeps giving for all of 2022; all proceeds from its sale benefit AVA. Learn more about the holiday exhibition and sale at the maroon link. Sponsored by Friends of AVA Gallery.One more and it's a trend. If you've had a hankering for a roasted chicken sandwich with yellow curry and bananas, you can now get one in Randolph, writes Sally Pollak in Seven Days. Since February, Kuya's Sandwiches + Kitchen has been serving both the usuals, like a French dip, and Filipino-inflected sandwiches and rice bowls—joining St. J's Pica Pica as only the second spot in VT where you can find those flavors. The people behind it are Patty and Travis Burns—she moved to the US from the Philippines in 2006, he went to Randolph Union, they met at a restaurant in SF."No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below." You may remember this from Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven—it's the start of "an incomplete list" of things that no longer exist in the world of her post-apocalyptic novel. Yankee Bookshop co-owner Kari Meutsch opens the book to that single-page chapter and tells prospective buyers to read it; invariably, they go home with the book. Next week, HBO comes out with an adaptation. Because St. John Mandel (who's seen it) is excited about it, so, Kari writes in this week's Enthusiasms, is she. More at the link."A way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds.” Those words about music, from a speech former Boston Conservatory music director Karl Paulnack gave to the parents of incoming freshmen, introduce Patricia Norton's latest A Breath of Song podcast. In this episode, she teaches her own song, "Drifting Dark." It came to her earlier this month, she says, as she was reflecting on the bittersweetness of the season for many people, "the mix of dark and pinpoints of light, and the beauty of the heartbreaking combination." Artwork by Patty Piotrowski.Seven years and $19 million later, maybe the Balsams re-do might finally get going. It's been a long trip for Les Otten and his bid to get the famed Dixville Notch resort back up and running. As Larry Edelman writes in the Globe, "the obstacles [have been] many, including financing setbacks, a painstaking environmental review, and, more recently, the pandemic." Now Otten's struck a deal with a Louisiana non-profit that helps arrange low-cost financing for community projects. It will sell up to $125 million in tax-exempt debt to back a new hotel project; Coos County's commissioners are on board.Horizon extends expiration date on VT dairy contracts. Back in August, the organic milk giant sent letters to 89 Northeast dairy farmers (28 in VT) to inform them that their contracts would be ending next year. As VTDigger’s Emma Cotton writes, Horizon’s parent company, Danone, says “servicing farms in the Northeast is difficult and expensive”—but the decision to stop buying their milk puts them in real peril. So Danone is offering to “ease the impact” with six-month contract extensions, additional payments, and other assistance. Rep. Peter Welch isn’t satisfied: “Many of our farmers will still be left in the dark.”This has to be some kind of breakthrough... Craft brews in Vermont get named for all sorts of things, from the off-beat (what is a "focal banger"?) to a brewer's ancestors (Hill Farmstead's suite of Edward, Arthur, and Anna). Now, along comes Lawson's Finest, naming a beer for... a public radio show. VPR's Brave Little State, to be exact. A portion of Brave Little State Pale Ale sales will go to VPR and "independent journalism throughout the region." The beer will be on sale only at Lawson's tap room and retailers in VT.22 states. 22 rivers. 22 months. That's what it took adventurer Neal Moore to paddle his canoe across the United States (with some long stretches of portaging in between rivers). He started in Oregon in February, 2020—yes, right before the pandemic—and wound his way across the northern tier out west, down to the Gulf of Mexico, then back up to Lake Erie, before finishing yesterday in Manhattan, writes Martin Walsh for Explorer's Web. Moore finished with a flourish, paddling around the Statue of Liberty.Here's how a Steinway grand piano is built…and why it costs so much. This mini-doc from Business Insider hits you with some breathtaking numbers: It takes 200 people 11 months to create one Steinway grand that retails for close to $200K. If you know pianos, that might all make perfect sense. For the rest of us, this intimate look at each piano’s scrupulous construction is an eye-opener. So much depends on the wood they use—namely, Alaskan Sitka spruce, which the piano’s soundboard is made of. But how’s this for high standards: Steinway accepts only half of the spruce it sources.
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This evening at 6 online, North Branch Nature Center and Vermont Audubon are hosting field biologist Tyler Hoar of the Finch Research Network. Every year, the network issues a "winter finch forecast" for the various species, and Hoar will dive into it, giving an overview of each winter finch species, their current movements, and where and when they're expected o show up in the Northeast this season.
At 6:30, Interplay is hosting a "Jazz Holiday Jam Session" at the Briggs Opera House in WRJ. Bring your festive holiday tunes, they say, as well as any jazz tunes you want to stretch out on. Masks (except for musicians when they're playing), fully vaccinated required.
And at 7 pm, the Black Heritage Trail of NH presents an online reading and discussion of four poems by Black writers, hosted by UNH prof Reginald Wilburn and Phillips Exeter Academy prof Courtney Marshall. "The Race for STEM" is the second installment in a three-part series highlighting African American poets and poetry, with tonight's poems revolving around science, technology, and imagination. Here's Marshall's conversation with NHPR's Rick Ganley about the project and some of those poems.
A bit of a departure today. Back at the beginning of his career on the comedy circuit, Jamie Foxx would do impressions—Mike Tyson, Ronald Reagan—to much acclaim. The stakes, though, got a whole lot higher when he took on the part of Ray Charles for Taylor Hackford's 2004 biopic
Ray
. Especially since Charles wasn't just still around—he was at the next piano over as Foxx tried for the part. "All of a sudden out of nowhere he moves into Thelonious Monk and I'm trying to catch on to the lick," Foxx told an interviewer after the film came out. "I hit a note and Ray stops playing, says, 'Now why the hell would you hit that note?' You feel him testing you, like, 'OK, I'm in the band and it's the gig on Friday night in Poughkeepsie and I hit a bad note and he heard it, so he's on me.'"
—including the two of them jamming and Charles' delight when Foxx showed his chops, plus plenty of conversation.
(Thanks, DG!)
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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