RABBIT RABBIT, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny, cold. The first of two Arctic fronts arrived yesterday, cooling things down, but temps will remain mild compared to what's ahead Friday and Saturday. For today, a high in the low 20s, more clouds in the afternoon than in the morning, and winds shifting from the west to the southwest, which will warm things up a bit for tomorrow. Single digits tonight.A paddling of mallards. That's one of the splendid collective nouns for ducks when they're on the water (you could also use "raft" or "puddling") and the title of Peter Bloch's latest drone video (he did those below-and-above-the-surface videos of area ponds last fall). Every year, he and a friend count the ducks over-wintering on a creek between Clark and Messer Ponds in New London. This year, they tallied 196. They look very cool from above."I struggle with cookbooks." That's because Still North Books & Bar's Allie Levy is a recipe-tweaker, "prone to eyeballing and improvising." So even after a fellow bookseller recommended Ali Slagle's I Dream of Dinner (So You Don't Have To), it took her a while to check it out. Now, she writes in this week's Enthusiasms, "I feel comfortable describing [it] as life-changing." The recipes are clever and delicious, and even better, thought through carefully. Slagle "dreams of dinner—ponders it, pours love into it, perfects it—when you aren’t able to," Allie writes."Heart-wrenching, heartwarming and hilarious, and very, very human." It's fair to say that theater critic Jim Lowe really likes 'Bov Water, Celeste Jennings's play at Northern Stage that features three actors playing ten characters over four generations of a single family. Writ large, it's a search for roots, Lowe writes in the Rutland Herald, with stories told over a single clothesline in North Carolina but ranging through the eras from the Civil War to contemporary New York—with a "unique style of storytelling where the many pieces, sometimes seemingly disparate, finally reveal a deep truth."SPONSORED: Coming Feb. 18 — Cirque Cabaret! Get ready for an elegant evening of indulgent fun, as the vaguely mysterious and extremely delicious Cirque Cabaret comes to Northern Stage's Barrette Center in a benefit for Upper Valley Circus Camp! This is a show people will be talking about long afterward, featuring a lineup of remarkably talented up-and-coming artists from all corners of the circus world. See the future of the circus arts in a small, intimate setting...all for a good cause! Pre-show champagne reception by Brownsville Butcher & Pantry. Sponsored by UVCC, suitable for all ages.Under "divisive concepts" law, only one complaint against a teacher "has met basic legal requirement for moving forward." So reports Rick Green in the Keene Sentinel, following a public records request by the newspaper. The 19-month-old law restricts what public school teachers can say about discrimination and allows members of the public to file a complaint alleging a violation. The director of the state Commission for Human Rights tells Green she doesn't know how many claims against teachers have failed to meet the test for further investigation. The law is being challenged in court.NH looking for residents' thoughts on what aging in the state is—and should be—like. It's aimed at informing the next "State Plan on Aging," which focuses on helping older residents stay active and healthy, encouraging communities that make it easier for them to age at home, and connecting them to housing, health care, and other services. There's an online "listening session" tonight at 6 to gather feedback, as well as an online survey; links are in Annmarie Timmins' NH Bulletin story on the effort.NH's youth center abuse scandal continues to fester. "It's been six years since David Meehan told police he was brutally beaten and raped as a child at New Hampshire’s youth detention center," writes the AP's Holly Ramer, and in that time, hundreds of people have filed lawsuits alleging decades of abuse at the center. Trials, Ramer reports, are "months, if not years, in the future," while the attorney general's office is both prosecuting former workers and maneuvering to defend the state against over 700 lawsuits. Meanwhile, legislators are trying to figure out how to close and then replace the center.In VT's far north, man dies after fight at middle-school basketball game. The VT State Police reported early this morning that they were called last night to a school in Alburgh for a reported fight "involving multiple spectators" during a 7th-8th grade boys basketball game between St. Albans and Alburgh. The "melee ended before troopers arrived on scene, and some participants had departed the school," the VSP says in its press release. One of the participants then needed medical attention and was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The VSP is investigating.VT education officials push stronger school safety regs. Among other things, they've asked the legislature to pass provisions requiring schools to lock doors and require additional safety drills, reports Peter D'Auria in VTDigger. The recommendations behind the proposals were made four years ago by a state advisory group, and would apply to both public and private schools. The state teachers union has raised concerns about increased stress and anxiety caused by the drills and the prospect of behavioral threat assessment leading to profiling. Officials say the law will ensure equal security in all schools.After sheriffs' office scandals, VT legislature zeroes in on reform. The cases involve outgoing sheriffs, one of whom has been charged with sexual assault, another who's spent considerable time since the pandemic out of state, a third who gave himself and his department a total $400K in bonuses, and a state police investigation into the finances of the Franklin County department and its new incoming sheriff. All of this, reports Tiffany Tan in VTDigger, has led legislators to propose a constitutional amendment that would let them set qualifications for sheriffs and impose other accountability measures.For a guy who runs a botanical garden, John Curtis has a lot of enemies. In the Guardian, Mark O'Connell digs into the kerfuffle at the Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight, where locals, gardeners, and American interloper (and Dartmouth grad) Curtis are duking it out. He bought the garden when the island’s council could no longer run it, and has pretty much let it go to seed since then. Locals, gardeners, and former donors are furious; Curtis argues artificially pampering plants is environmentally unsustainable. Has there been this much drama in a garden since Eden?Meanwhile, on Mars, a bear. No, really. Or at least, a bear face, revealed after the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over last month. The face—or as those killjoys at the University of Arizona who operate the high-res camera put it, "a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head)"—is about 2 km wide. The only possible explanation, writes Andrew McLemore on Explorer's Web, is "a galaxy-spanning civilization of space bears."The Wednesday Vordle. If you're new to Daybreak, this is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word chosen from an item in the previous day's Daybreak.
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At 6:30 this evening, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center kicks off two consecutive evenings devoted to the 1971 Attica prison uprising and its impact. Tonight in the Loew Auditorium, there's a screening of documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson's 2021 Oscar-nominated film, Attica—which, Variety wrote at the time, is "an essential film that can now stand as a definitive vision of that epochal event. Drawing from a staggering array of footage that has never been seen before, Nelson puts the event together, moment by moment, day by day, with a clarifying view of its place in history and an empathy that extends to every person onscreen." Nelson will be at the screening (he and author Heather Ann Thompson will be speaking tomorrow evening), and a Q&A will follow.
At 7 pm, Vermont Humanities takes its First Wednesdays talks online: Author and tv host Raffi Andonian will try to lower the temperature around monument debates by outlining four simple questions for communities to consider as they evaluate historic sites, famous figures, and public monuments; Minnesota State U history prof Steven Hoffbeck will talk about haymaking and its place not just in farm life, but in the lives of farm families; journalist and essayist Lori Yearwood will talk about journalism that keeps trauma experienced by its subjects in mind; and members of Migrant Justice will talk about the organization's Milk With Dignity campaign and where it stands.
Also at 7 and also online, the John Hay Estate at the Fells in Newbury, NH presents Deborah Anne Goss, appearing as Abby Hutchinson Patton in “Abby Hutchinson’s Sweet Freedom Songs," in which she talks about mid-19th-century U.S. and New Hampshire history and performs "rousing anthems, heartfelt ballads, and humorous ditties sung during anti-slavery and early women's rights struggles." Register for the link at [email protected].
This evening at 7:30, the Howe Library in Hanover hosts a conversation between artists at Northern Stage and Houston's Ensemble Theatre, "Spot On: Black Women Creators." The discussion pairs 'Bov Water playwright Celeste Jennings and director abigail jean-baptiste with Ensemble artistic director Eileen Morris and actor/playwright Crystal Rae in a conversation about new plays by Black women creators, moderated by Northern Stage's Carol Dunne. Ensemble will be livestreaming a 'Bov Water performance later this month. Tonight's conversation is in person in the Howe's Mayer Room and online via Zoom.
And this evening's sold-out 8 pm performance by Kings Return, presented by the Hop in Rollins Chapel, has had to be rescheduled due to weather in Texas. They'll be here a week from today, which may open up some tix.
Well heck, then...
on YouTube, from the 1800s to the present with an emphasis on the last couple of decades. Not in a stairwell, but they still sound pretty darn great.
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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