GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunnier, warmer... but things remain unsettled. It should be pretty nice out for a chunk of time this morning and early afternoon, but there's still a central band of low pressure around which various little systems are cavorting, so everything depends on when they happen to pass through. The long and short: chance of showers this afternoon and tonight, highs in the mid-50s today, upper 30s tonight.Elegant despite the rain. Happening upon hooded mergansers on a small pond in Plainfield on Monday, Carol Majewski spent 45 minutes taking photos—in the rain. She got thoroughly wet, but writes, "I thought it was time well spent."Two school-visiting dental programs back after pandemic, staffing problems. APD's Upper Valley Smiles will head out to 11 schools in Lebanon, Enfield, Canaan, Hartford and Hartland, reports the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr, while South Royalton's HealthHub aims to reach a dozen schools in the White River Valley. "Oral health always pops up as one of the top community needs,” APD's Liz Swanton tells Doyle-Burr, and the programs aim to help kids who can't get regular dental care—which, for those who are having tooth problems, can affect school performance and nutrition."Music is community and community is music." Tonight at 6, as on most Wednesday evenings for the past five years, Upper Valley fiddlers, guitarists, banjo players, and music aficionados will drop by The Filling Station in WRJ for the regular acoustic jam session. Leigh Smith, a student in Sophie Crane's Dartmouth podcasting class, did it earlier this year and spent the evening talking to the musicians about how it works and why they come. She returned the following week with her guitar. "When you’re listening to the music you feel lucky to hear all these talented musicians," she says. "When you’re playing with them, you feel like a tiny part of something important."And speaking of music in unexpected places... The other evening, Randy Leavitt stopped by Thornton and Jenn Hayslett's place in Tunbridge while Thornton was prepping to plant potatoes. Leavitt had his fiddle along and decided to offer up a tune to set the digging tempo. He got dinner out of the deal. "I had a great time," he writes. "And I enjoyed the dinner, too." Here's guessing he could get a sideline going in gardens all over the Upper Valley.SPONSORED: Starting this weekend, Jarvis Green takes the JAG stage for the first time. White River Junction's own JAG Productions presents EVERY BRILLIANT THING by Duncan Macmillan with Johnny Donahoe, a solo comedy starring JAG founder Jarvis Antonio Green! It's a heartwarming, immersive solo comedy about joy, parental depression, and every brilliant reason to hope. Running April 27 to May 14 at Briggs Opera House in WRJ. Buy tickets now at bit.ly/JAGEveryBrilliantThing. Sponsored by JAG.Have wolves "become a cultural shorthand for anything frightening?" That's one of the questions that writer Erica Berry sets out to "poke at, relentlessly," in her new book Wolfish, writes the Norwich Bookstore's Sam Kaas in this week's Enthusiasms. Though it'll inevitably be classified as "nature writing," it's much more than that, Sam insists: "a unique mix of hard science, literary criticism, sociology and personal memoir." And an exploration of our seesawing views of wolves as predators or symbols of freedom. "Wolfish explores largely uncharted territory in a remarkable way," Sam writes.Sour grapes? Nah. A prose writer ponders National Poetry Month. In her new "Realish" column for the Rutland Herald and Times Argus, WRJ writer Joni Cole does nod to poetry's ability to make us feel—but also points out its ability to make us scratch our heads. "You don’t see my people telling our readers it’s OK if they’re left wondering, What in the hell was that all about?" she writes, on her way to noting that prose writers don't get a national month. In April no less. Which also happens to be National Humor Month. "Let’s be honest here," she writes, "poets aren’t exactly known for their sense of humor." Duck, Joni!If you happened to be over near the Lakes Region yesterday around 9:49 am, yep, that was an earthquake. Centered in Sandwich, at the northern end of Squam Lake, it registered 2.9—large enough to be noticeable, but not damaging. WMUR meteorologist Matt Hoenig explains that while NH doesn't sit on any major faults, there are small fault lines within the larger plate underlying this part of the world, and they can produce "intraplate" quakes. The largest recorded were two magnitude 5.6 near Ossipee in 1940, but in 1638, the Concord area was struck with what geologists now estimate as a 7.0 quake.“We have been a week away from a recession for the past 18 months. That’s been the narrative." But, the NH Business & Industry Association's Mike Skelton tells the Globe's Amanda Gokee, "The reality is when you look at economic indicators, we have a red hot job market. Demand is really high. Unemployment is really low.” In fact, in one key indicator, reservations at NH restaurants are 10 percent higher than before the pandemic. The state's biggest issues, he says in the full version of their interview (paywall), are a shortfall of workers to meet employers' demand, and the cost of energy.“I’m 93 years old. I’m the oldest person in the House. I mean, what is anybody going to do to me?” That's Joe Guthrie, a Republican from Hampstead, NH, brushing off a question about whether he's worried about retaliation from GOP colleagues because he opposes the proposed "parental bill of rights." As Steven Porter writes in the Globe (paywall; 30-day free trial here), Guthrie's stance matters because the full House is about to take up the measure after a committee yesterday split 10-10 and reported it to the floor without recommendation. The GOP holds a 201-197 majority, and the vote on the intensely controversial bill will be a white-knuckler. It's passed the Senate.Tepid support in VT legislature for program that pays people to move to the state. The program to pay relocation expenses for remote workers looking to make the state their home has been in place since 2018, but now, with rental vacancy rates low, home prices skyrocketing, and employers struggling to fill jobs because prospects can't find housing, legislators are questioning the program's relevance, reports Lola Duffort in VTDigger. “We feel that that money is better spent trying to keep Vermonters here," says GOP Rep. Michael Marcotte, who chairs his chamber's economic development committee. For what it’s worth. If Nicholas Lowry’s wild suits make you swoon, if you have the mantra “don’t refinish it!” etched over your mantle, if you already know that your paintings could benefit from a professional cleaning, then you are probably an Antiques Roadshow buff. The iconic PBS show made its first visit to Vermont last summer, setting up camp at Shelburne Museum. As the three resulting shows begin to air, Vermont Public has a behind-the-scenes-look at the process, the appraisers, and the verdicts. And yes, there’s a $100,000 “oh my gosh!”We may have had clouds, but other parts of the country didn't. As you may know, a powerful geomagnetic storm hit the Earth Sunday night into Monday, triggering some pretty darn great aurora displays all over the globe. It was clear over the northern Plains and parts of the Midwest, and USA Today's Camille Fine has pulled together a collection of videos, photos, and social media posts of the skies at their shimmering best.A little soy sauce, a little wasabi... and don't forget the Lego! Those colorful blocks are good for more than construction projects. In the hands of a stop-motion animator with knife-wielding skills, they morph into dinner.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.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
There's more for spring/summer on its way, but in the meantime, t-shirts, mugs, long-sleeved tees, and sweatshirts are there for you. Check out what's available and wear it (or drink from it) proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
At 4 pm today, Woodstock's Norman Williams Public Library and the Woodstock Garden Club host writer and former NYT reporter Martha Leb Molnar, talking about her new book, Playing God in the Meadow: How I Learned to Admire My Weeds. The weeds in question took over an old apple orchard that Molnar and her husband were determined to turn into a meadow and haven for boblinks. Along the way, she found herself delving into history, botany, environmental science, locals' stories—and the deep question, "What is a weed?"
Today at 4:30, Dartmouth's Montgomery Fellows Program hosts Lebanese novelist and writer Hoda Barakat for a conversation on "Writing From the Borderlands" with Middle Eastern studies colleagues Tarek El-Ariss and Ezzedine Fishere. She will, the program writes, reflect on "the role of literature in times of historical and political turmoil, engaging with the following questions: Where does writing come from? How can one write in an age of great uncertainty? What is the new landscape of writing?" In Filene Auditorium.
At 5:30 today, Left Bank Books in Hanover hosts "An evening of Ukrainian literary translation" with three Ukrainian scholars who've found a home—at least, for now—at Dartmouth: Lada Kolomiyets, a visiting comparative literature prof; Veronika Yadukha, a comp lit grad student, translator, and specialist in the poetry of the Beat Generation; and Hanna Leliv, a translator of both fiction and non-fiction who brought Hemingway and Ishiguro into Ukrainian and now promotes Ukrainian literature abroad.
At 7 this evening, online only, the Howe hosts novelist Rachel Barenbaum for the next in her "Check This Out!" series of conversations. Tonight, she sits down with Claire Jiménez to talk about What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez, Jiménez' debut novel about the tough, spirited women of a Puerto Rican family on Staten Island and their search for a long-missing sister. "I really wanted to think about what we owe each other as sisters and how you grow up when you grow up with each other,” Jiménez—who grew up with sisters on Staten Island and now teaches at the University of South Carolina—told Shondaland last month.
Tonight's 8 pm performance at Rollins Chapel by South African jazz superstar Abdullah Ibrahim and his ensemble, Ekaya, looks to be sold out. But as usual, you can check in with the Hop box office at 603.646.2422 to see if any tix have opened up.
And at 8 pm, the stage at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover hosts a stand-up comedy night, headlined by NYC performer Will Purpura and Brooklynite/Vermonter Matt Vita.
And to start us off today...
"The internet can be beautiful sometimes." Those words open a new video from Icelandic composer and pianist Ólafur Arnalds. Like lots of musicians, Arnalds likes to noodle at the piano before concerts; unlike most of them, he travels with a videographer. After a concert in Portugal, he put a random improvisation out on social media, where lots of people reacted with comments and emojis—but singer-songwriter Ella McRobb, in London, began coming up with words. "This was just something I couldn’t really ignore, is the only way I could put it," she said later. "I didn’t care if zero people saw it or 100 million people saw it. The song gave me the feeling of when your heart is breaking and you’ve got to accept that it isn’t going to work out." She put the song out online, Arnalds found it—and, as he writes, "Before we knew it she was on a plane to Iceland."
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.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on the Daybreak Facebook page
, or if you're a committed non-FB user,
.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! Subscribe at no cost at:
Thank you!