GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly cloudy—and still cool. Today's the coldest day of the week, in fact—though if we keep things in perspective, at a high in the upper 40s it's still a walk in the park compared to winter. Things will start out mostly cloudy and get cloudier, before skies (yep, remembered the "e" today) clear overnight. Winds today from the west, low tonight in the upper 20s.Hanging out along the river. That's what birds and Jim Block have been doing this spring. In a new blog post, Jim checks in with photos of nearly 30 species he's photographed in recent weeks on both sides of the river, from a Bald Eagle to lots of highly photogenic Wood Ducks. With stops along the way for a belted kingfisher, buffleheads, hawks, merlins, kestrels, an osprey, and some wigeons passing through.Buddy Teevens lost his right leg after Florida crash. In a message posted yesterday evening on the Dartmouth Athletics page, the longtime football coach's wife, Kirsten, wrote in a thank-you note for the "incredible outpouring of love and support" that "as a result of the accident, Buddy's right leg was amputated due to the severity of the injury." She added, "Spinal cord injuries are challenging." The two were bicycling home from dinner last month in St. Augustine when Teevens tried to cross a busy coastal road and was hit by a Ford F-150 pickup doing about 50 mph, according to the police report.Federal jury convicts man in 2019 kidnapping. Everett Simpson, who'd been out on bail when he escaped the Valley Vista treatment center in Bradford in 2019, was charged with stealing a car, abducting a New Hampshire woman and her son at the Mall of New Hampshire, then driving to WRJ, where he is alleged to have sexually assaulted her. Yesterday, a jury in Burlington found him guilty of car theft and kidnapping—which carries a maximum life sentence. Simpson had defended himself in court. As VTDigger's Alan J. Keays writes, he still faces a state trial in WRJ on the sexual assault charge.WRJ fire raises questions about mobile shelters. The December fire destroyed one of the mobile shelters built by the WRJ nonprofit Doorways Into Good Shelter and sent its occupant, Keith Gokey, to the hospital with severe burns. Gokey blamed a cigarette setting his sleeping bag on fire, but investigators said they found indications of a leak in the unit's propane system. DIGS founder Simon Dennis rejects that notion. VT Public's Liam Elder-Connors takes a thoroughgoing look at the fire, DIGS, its efforts to create emergency shelters, and Hartford's struggles to come to terms with them.Enfield Selectboard chooses special election dates to fill seat vacated by state rep after assault. The board has requested that the NH Exec Council approve an Aug. 15 primary and a general election Oct. 3, reports Liz Sauchelli in the VN. The seat became vacant after Democrat Joshua Adjutant, a DH security officer, was badly injured in an assault by a psychiatric patient. Adjutant tells Sauchelli that he is "still not well" and remains unable to work.SPONSORED: Plan landscaping to reduce your carbon footprint with 3 smart tactics from Rooted Gardens. First, minimize the area of managed landscapes. Second, use electric power tools charged with renewable energy. And finally, make and apply compost to feed the whole soil ecosystem.Private land covers over 80 percent of both Vermont and New Hampshire. Each of us is enacting a climate policy of our own on our own front lawns. Sponsored by Rooted Gardens: (802) 291-2228.The Tao Te Ching meets Oh! The Places You’ll Go. Unlikely as it seems, writes the Yankee Bookshop's Kristian Preylowski in this week's Enthusiasms, that's what super-producer Rick Rubin (he co-founded Def Jam from his college dorm) has pulled off with his new book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. With epigrams and encouragement, Kristian writes, the book "can read like a daily meditation guide or creative calendar, to spark something for the day. It’s there to remind and encourage you that there is an artist inside each of us." And if you hit a wall, "Rubin will remind you that...you make your own door.""I’m enjoying learning some new skills, such as how to look awake." Speaking of Enthusiasms, regular contributor Peter Orner, who chairs Dartmouth's English and Creative Writing Department, tells About Norwich's Demo Sofronas that lately he's "been to more meetings than I've ever been to in my life." Demo has launched a new "day in the life" series, and Peter's doesn't sound half bad, meetings aside: wake up early, read a lot, write as he can, praise the book shed at the Norwich dump, walk the dog, teach, try to figure out the squirrel-and-bat problem in Sanborn Hall...SPONSORED: South African jazz icon and distinguished pianist Abdullah Ibrahim brings his distinctive sound to the Hop April 26 at Rollins Chapel. He and his six-person ensemble, Ekaya, deliver rhapsodic melodies and effervescent sets. Born in Cape Town, Ibrahim was exposed to a melting pot of cultural influences, and his work blends the traditional African songs and Ragas of his childhood with post-bop and other Western styles from his time in Europe and New York. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.Arriving soon near you: portraits of Upper Valley farmers who are addressing climate change. The portraits, created by regional artists, are paired with quotes from farmers, audio interviews, and a companion website highlighting climate-friendly farms. The exhibit, organized by Vital Communities and Tunbridge illustrator Cecily Anderson, includes works about Cedar Circle Farm, Sweetland Farm, Silloway Maple, and others. It's currently at the BALE Commons in S. Royalton before moving on to other spots around VT, including King Arthur. The project will add more farmers and portraits for its next phase.Defamation lawsuit against NHPR is dismissed. A lawsuit filed last fall by Eric Spofford against several reporters and producers at NHPR was dismissed Monday by Rockingham Superior Court Judge Dan St. Hilaire. NHPR had reported on sexual misconduct allegations against Spofford, the founder and former owner of Granite Recovery Centers, who sued. In dismissing the suit, the judge ruled that “Spofford voluntarily stepped into the midst of an ongoing controversy and assumed the risk of public discourse” and that NHPR’s sources and reporting fell “far short of actual malice.”With Senate passage of legislation, VT poised to let non-residents use aid in dying law. Senators yesterday gave preliminary approval to a measure—which has passed the House—removing the requirement that only terminally ill patients who are Vermont residents can be prescribed the drug cocktail that would bring about their own deaths. The measure would require out-of-staters to follow the same multi-step process with physicians that Vermont's current law mandates. The Senate will take it up for final approval today, reports VT Public's Peter Hirschfeld. Gov. Phil Scott has said he is "okay" with the move.Tracking VT legislators' potential conflicts of interest has been near impossible. It just got easier. That's because VTDigger's reporters have done what most ordinary people would not: unearthed the often illegible, often offline or hard-to-find financial disclosure forms legislators and legislative candidates are required to file. In a series that kicked off yesterday, Sarah Mearhoff writes that forms differ between chambers, in the questions they ask, and in how diligently legislators answer those questions. She explains it all at the link.
Meanwhile, if you want to dig for yourself, here's Digger's new database, built by data guru Erin Petenko.
And editor Paul Heintz's story behind how the Digger team got it all. Even Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas struggled to find information on her own office's website, he writes. And Petenko tells him that penmanship and spelling were definitely a problem: “There were some nasty ones... There were some that misspelled 'Vermont,' 'health,' 'UVM.'”
The pond up in West Danville, VT (along with Winnipesaukee, of course) has kind of become the arbiter of when spring has finally arrived, and the cement block there fell and stopped the clock at 10:18 pm Monday.
Do fence me in—as long as there’s a gate. With 42,000 votes, a sweet hand-carved gem in Ynys Llanddwyn, Wales, pretty much has a lock on the title of world’s best gate. That’s according to the Gate Appreciation Society (yes, it's a thing), a Facebook group whose 118,000 members—roughly the population of, oh, Billings or Berkeley—post examples and choose their favorites. The Guardian has photos and tongue-in-cheek notes about the workmanship and the competition: “Really any gate that manages to elevate humdrum functionality by means of individualism and artistry could have won.”Music aflame. Well, actually, the flames come from what's known as a standing wave flame tube or Rubens tube, named for German physicist Heinrich Rubens, who figured out a way to illustrate the relationship between sound waves and sound pressure. It's kind of a primitive oscilloscope, only way cooler. As this trumpeter demonstrates. You'll want the sound on.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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Today at noon, the VT Historical Society's director of collections, Amanda Kay Gustin, will give an online talk about Bradford farmer James Wilson, who in 1810 became the first person in the US to offer globes for sale. "With little formal schooling and no real scientific background, he had made an object of astonishing detail and incredible beauty," the Society writes. "His globes made their way into classrooms and homes across America for the next fifty years, a less expensive alternative to imported English globes and an education phenomenon."
At 5 pm, Dartmouth is presenting a screening of Oscar-winning director Volker Schlöndorff's 1991 English-language film, Voyager, starring Sam Shepard and Julie Delpy. Things start off with the renowned director himself introducing the film—then, once the screening ends, there will be a reception out in the foyer. In Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall, open to the public at no charge.
At 6 this evening, Rivendell Academy in Orford is hosting an in-person presentation by DH Community Health, "How to Talk so Kids Will Listen When it Comes to Vaping, Cannabis, and Alcohol." The session is focused on helping parents and caregivers of young people—as well as anyone who works with youth—to learn how to take action to prevent underage drinking, vaping, and other substance use. In the multi-purpose room.
Also at 6, you can just hang out for some of the best informal music in the region when the regular Wednesday evening acoustic jam settles in at The Filling Station in WRJ. Led by Here in the Valley's Jakob Breitbach with an ace collection of regulars and newcomers.
And at 7 this evening, The Center at Eastman hosts writer and documentary producer John Gfroerer in a New Hampshire Humanities presentation, "The History of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary." Gfroerer will cover the primary's evolution from its origins during the Progressive era of the early twentieth century to its status as, NH Humanities assures us, "the most important step toward being elected President of the United States." He'll be interspersing his comments with clips of major primary moments from his documentary, The Premier Primary, New Hampshire and Presidential Elections.
In case you were planning to go see the Upper Valley Chamber Orchestra at the Lebanon Opera House tonight at 7:30, it's had to be postponed. No word yet on a new date.
And to start us off today...
We'll turn to Ahmad Jamal, the incomparable and vastly influential jazz pianist who died on Sunday at 92. "He was an ingenious improviser, as sophisticated and audacious in his musical choices as were the bebop pioneers who were his contemporaries,"
"He conceived his improvisations as journeys through musical landscapes, and, like a modern painter, he understood the power of blank spaces: he was as eloquent with dramatic silences and suspended phrases as in torrential outpourings of sound." You can see all this at work in two performances:
from 1959, and
—different every time he performed it, and in this instance showing off a warm musical conversation on stage.
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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