GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sun again, even warmer. In fact, above-normal temps will be with us through Friday, as high pressure moves east and allows southerly winds to pay a call. Though things start off around 10 degrees this morning, they'll be reaching toward 40 by mid-afternoon under sunny skies. That warmer air and some cloud cover tonight will keep things in the low or mid 20s overnight.Picture-perfect falling snow. It's been hard to come by this winter, but up in Waits River, VT Saturday, Diahann Tanke got this beautiful, evocative shot.Dartmouth to move forward with plans for apartment-style undergrad housing on West Wheelock. At the moment, says the college's communications office, the one-acre lot on the north side of the approach to Hanover holds three two-story apartment buildings. They'll be razed to make way for a single, five-story structure with some 290 beds spread among a mix of units, all with kitchen, living room, and storage space. The building will be net carbon-neutral. The first step in the approval process in Hanover will come March 5, when the town planning board holds an informal review of the project.Fairlee to hold special town meeting to reconsider short-term rental ordinance. The measure, put in place by the selectboard last fall, requires owners who are renting out their places for fewer than 32 days to apply for a permit and approval from the town’s Development Review Board, writes Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News. But a Fairlee resident who argues it should have had townwide discussion collected enough signatures to put it before a special town meeting, which will take place on Saturday. The ordinance, says selectboard chair Lance Mills, is aimed at helping town officials get a grasp on what's going on in town, especially as people buy with the sole aim of renting.New London Hospital CEO to become DHMC's COO. Tom Manion, who took over at New London four years ago, will take on his new role in early April. "The decision to leave behind an organization as dynamic and dedicated as ours was not an easy one," he wrote in an email to the NLH community yesterday. "I take comfort knowing New London is still home for me and my family..." In hiring him, DH kept it within the family: Both hospitals are part of the Dartmouth Health network. "We believe he is the right person at the right time for Dartmouth Health's academic medical center," DH's COO said in a release.With attention to women coaches and emphasis on safety, Buddy Teevens left a legacy for the NFL and college football. That's the theme of Sarah Barshop's piece yesterday for ESPN. The legendary Dartmouth coach, she writes, "never worked directly in the NFL but [his] efforts to make the game safer and more inclusive have been replicated across the professional level." NFL director of diversity Samantha Rapoport tells Barshop about Teevens' efforts to make sure women felt comfortable coaching; three of the women he hired for Dartmouth are now working in the NFL. And other former colleagues recount how Teevens remade attitudes about safety in practices."I discover[ed] that the biggest joy I was getting out of playing music was in situations when I was working with friends." The renowned violinist Johnny Gandelsman is a visiting artist at the Hopkins Center this year, during the course of which he's performing the entire sprawling anthology of works he and other musicians created to reflect the times, This is America. About two weeks ago, Gandelsman and Kojiro Umezaki sat down at a sold-out performance in Hanover for a conversation with VT Public's Mikaela Lefrak. It ran Monday on Vermont Edition—there's no transcript, but you'd want to listen anyway because it's shot through with music from the project.“My heart is full, my heart is breaking, and I badly want to stand still a while.” So writes Patrick Bringley in All the Beauty in the World about how the death of his brother led him to become a guard at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book, writes Jared Jenisch in this week's Enthusiasms, masterfully interweaves a look at the mechanics of running the Met with a profile of the veritable UN that is the museum's guard corps and a tour of the art itself. It's "a window onto the art, onto the world behind the art, and onto the millions of visitors who stream through the galleries each year," Jared writes.To reach fallen hiker on Mt. Washington, rescuers Saturday had to worry about gelling fuel and fight 90 mph winds. The fuel is used by the Cog Railway's diesel engine, which in turn was being used by rescue teams to reach a point where they could reach Cole Matthes, the 22-year-old Portsmouth man who'd fallen into a ravine and called for help. The AP's Nick Perry reconstructs what happened, talking to Matthes—who says he "made poor decisions and was underprepared for this hike"—and to rescuers, who had to "leapfrog" from cairn to cairn in frigid temperatures because visibility was so poor. NH Fish & Game hasn't yet decided whether to charge Matthes.In NH legislature, school meals on the menu. A bipartisan bill making its way through the Senate would dramatically expand public school meals, writes Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin, among other things boosting the number of schools offering breakfast and making it easier for parents to apply for free and reduced-price meals. That's at the burgundy link. At the same time, Amanda Gokee reports in the Globe (paywall), NH last week just snuck under the wire to get federal funds for summer meals for schoolkids—but needs money to administer the program, and that depends on the Senate bill, too.Four fall through ice on Lake Memphremagog; 3-year-old in hospital. The four—two adults and two children—were riding an ATV on the ice late Saturday afternoon when they plunged into the water. When Newport police arrived, they said in a statement, the four had made it out of the water and three people "ran toward officers while pulling a black sled, in which a man was administering chest compressions" to the three-year-old. He was transferred to an ambulance; the other three, who appeared to have hypothermia, were also taken to the hospital. The three-year-old remained in critical condition yesterday, reports the AP.In VT, EMS providers struggle as volunteers dwindle. Throughout the state, reports VTDigger's Babette Stolk, organizations have professionalized as their volunteer lists have shrunk, but with burgeoning call loads and unreliable funding, they've been pushed "to the point of crisis," according to a recent report. Calls may not be reimbursed, Stolk writes, and when they are, the money may not cover costs. “We are asking EMS agencies with these modern challenges to try to do it with the budget that worked in 1960 and that is not reasonable,” the state's deputy commissioner of public safety tells legislators."You can mix anything into ice cream. So, it’s a really nice palette." And in the case of Bethlehem, NH's Kristina Zontini, "anything" can include ingredients like butternut squash. Zontini owns Super Secret Ice Cream and is up for a James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker. WCAX's Cat Viglienzoni recently paid her a visit. The ingredients, including the maple sugar used to sweeten the base, are mostly local: “We don’t want it to be fancy but we definitely want people to have good quality ingredients," says Zontini, who tells Viglienzoni that she learned about the nomination from her customers.Guess what! It's officially Zoozve now! Okay, you remember Latif Nasser's lovely piece back at the end of January about how the Radiolab host tracked down a quasi-moon of Venus that he misread as Zoozve—but was actually called 2002VE? Well, on Feb. 5, Radiolab announced the little orb has been renamed Zoozve by the International Astronomical Union. On Space.com, Monisha Ravisetti tells the whole story. And hey, you do you on how it's pronounced. "All pronunciations are welcome," Nasser says. "This is, like, this is a made up thing. Everyone's welcome to the party." (Thanks, KD & HHC!)A young man in his 20s is sitting on a piece of cloud in the sky reading a book. You've probably been reading about Sora, which brings AI to the small screen. It can produce pretty much any short film from user prompts (which OpenAI solicited from the public), astonishingly evident in Evan Furniss's compilation of Sora videos. Ask for a rainy Tokyo street at night, and ta-da! “Photorealistic closeup video of two pirate ships battling each other as they sail inside a cup of coffee” reads one prompt; “historical footage of California during the gold rush” another. Background, weaknesses, and tech insights are here.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. A word game—but local!
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There's a Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, perfect for long nights by the fire. Plus, of course, fleece vests, hoodies, sweatshirts, even a throw blanket. And hats, mugs, and—once you work up a puzzle-piece sweat—tees. Check it all out at the link!
Today at noon, the local group Difficult Conversations About Race will screen Sam Pollard's (MLK/FBI) 2023 documentary, The League, in the Howe Library's Mayer Room. The film tells the story of Negro League Baseball, using archival footage and experts, RogerEbert.com's Brian Tallerico wrote last year, to frame The League "as a story of triumph—neighborhoods getting together to watch the best athletes in their region in a way that felt almost like a party." Followed by discussion. (No link.)
At 1:30 pm today in Dartmouth's Sudikoff 143, Mexican bassoonist Maribel Alonso will give a lecture and performance of "New Bassoon Music by Mexican Women Composers". Alonso, who's performed all over the world, as a member of TSUNAMI (Mexican Women Musicians Network) and half of the duo Big Bambi (electric bass and bassoon); her solo project Nomad Bassoon "brings music and various workshops to distant communities, migrant shelters, girls' shelters and centers for persons with autism."
At 4:30 today, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center presents a talk on "Gun Violence in America" by federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives director Steven Dettelbach, who's also a member of Dartmouth's Class of 1988. Dettelbach will talk about what the stats say "and how we as a nation can reverse the trends." The event will be hosted by Emma Wolfe, the college's VP of Government and Community Relations. In person in Filene Auditorium as well as livestreamed (registration recommended).
Also at 4:30, the college's Comp Lit Department presents two poets on "Poetic Witnessing of War". Doug Anderson was a combat medic in Vietnam who moved on to writing both poetry and nonfiction about his experiences. Jehanne Dubrow teaches at the University of North Texas, and grew up in Yugoslavia, Zaire, Poland, Belgium, Austria, and the US, and was a military spouse—which features in both her poetry and nonfiction. Via Zoom, you'll need to email [email protected] for the link.
Put on your swamp boots, baby. We goin' for a ride...
You just sort of have to sit back and let Robert Finley take you along with him. Finley, who turned 70 last week, grew up in Bernice, Louisiana, a bump on the map not far from the Arkansas border. His family was poor and Black in the deep South—Finley, who'd grown up on gospel and begun playing guitar when he was 11 or so, escaped into the Army, then returned to work as a carpenter. He played here and there—fish fries, nursing homes, wherever—until, when he was 60, he lost his vision and his job to glaucoma. So he returned to music, played blues on the street, got noticed, cut his first album at 62—called
Age Don't Mean a Thing
—and
that
caught the attention of Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach, who also owns and runs Easy Eye Sound in Nashville. Since then, Finley has become a breakout star. His newest album,
Black Bayou
, came out a few months ago. Its last track, "Alligator Bait", is autobiographical—and the title's literal.
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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