GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Warming trend! Well, we'll get into the 40s, anyway, as yesterday's low pressure continues its eastward jaunt, setting us up for a dry and mostly sunny day, with winds from the northwest (kinda gusty first thing), highs reaching the low or mid 40s, and lows once again in the low 20s tonight.Patchwork season.
Of course, you could definitely call it mud season, based on the "Japanese landscape" in the back of a pickup in S. Strafford that caught Pat Donaldson's eye the other day.
But in the contrasting colors of Scribner Fauver's dawn photo in Meriden the other morning you get a sense of the season's true patchwork nature.
In last summer's drowning, a lens on Dartmouth's frat culture. That's the focus in Susan Zalkind's full-on feature in Boston mag on the alcohol-fueled drowning death of Won Jang after a frat hazing ritual followed by a riverside party. Zalkind begins with the hazing's "ritual degradation"—Jang, who'd moved to the US eight years before, "was worried that not participating in fraternity life would make him seem socially inept"—then moves on to detail the hold Greek life retains on campus. She writes, "Not even the death of Jang seems to be prompting the changes many feel the system needs"—including Jang's parents.Muriel Maville, Leb's doyenne of donuts, dies at 87. The longtime owner of Muriel's Donuts died on Sunday after a respiratory infection, reports Marion Umpleby in the Valley News. She and her husband, Francis, first opened the shop in 1967, and over the years its "simple menu of plain and cinnamon sugar doughnuts, crullers and jelly sticks" earned it a passionate following in the Upper Valley and far beyond, as well as a passel of awards. “She’s an icon,” one customer told Umpleby. Maville's son, Chris, was back behind the counter yesterday. “Come hell or high water, I’m going to keep going,” he said.
At Hanover hearing on new tax-increment financing district, some doubts. The proposal to create a TIF district along South Main and West Wheelock streets is on the ballot May 13, aimed at using development to raise the funds needed for basic infrastructure—including widening sidewalks, running utilities underground, and upgrading sewer lines and water mains, reports The Dartmouth's Teo Steverlynck-Horne. At a Monday hearing, several school board members worried about the impact on property taxes, while Hanover Haircutters' Ryan Romano criticized the potential loss of diagonal parking.SPONSORED: You know American ads, but have you met their British cousins? Full of whimsy, romance, swagger and laughs, the British Arrows Awards is a compilation of the year's best UK-made adverts, including a mix of mini-documentaries, sci-fi spoofs, animation, and more. The Hop will screen this year’s reel—featuring everything from Olivia Colman as an oil baron to Salma Hayek crashing a party—at the Loew Auditorium on Saturday, April 19. Get your tickets today! Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.A "demon on a motorcycle [who] admits to being scared silent at art-world parties." That's Reno, the single-named protagonist of Rachel Kushner's 2013 novel, The Flamethrowers. And in this week's Enthusiasms, Kate Oden writes that the novel offers "a lot to love: Flamethrowers tries hard to be cool and succeeds, in a deliciously deadpan way, the way anything worthwhile takes both effort and knowing when to quit." Reno spends much of her time in the male-dominated art and motorcycle-racing worlds, "a creature of glitz and daring" who is also "the ultimate outsider insider," Kate writes.In Randolph, steakhouse-inspired, "finer dining but still comfortable" Oak & Iron opens. West Hartford residents and food industry veterans Nate Aldrich and Katie Hanscom chose the name in a nod to its wine and whiskey selections and the skillets that give birth to its dishes, writes Jordan Barry in Seven Days. In their spot on Merchants Row, where Black Krim once sat, they offer entrées such as roast duck, filet mignon, Delmonico steak, lobster mac and cheese—as well as a lower-priced "comfort food" option. The restaurant opened last week.SPONSORED: Looking for a place of calm and pure golf this summer? Montcalm Golf Club is accepting new members for the 2025 season, which begins April 26. The home of Dartmouth Golf, we were named in the Top 10 Best New Private Courses in the country by Golf Digest. Start at our driving range facing Whaleback, practice at two short ranges, play our pristine 18-hole course, and stay for the sunset over Mt. Ascutney. Our friendly staff, outdoor bar, and homemade sandwiches are better than a birdie! Contact Tracy by email or at (603) 448-5665. Sponsored by Montcalm Golf Club.Former All-America Dartmouth skier dies in Tahoe resort accident. Ellie Curtis, who was 26 and grew up in Waitsfield, VT, was skiing with friends on an unmarked trail at Palisades Tahoe Saturday when the accident occurred. A Powder mag editor with the group wrote, “Ski patrol responded to the scene within two minutes...but [she] ultimately passed away from her injuries." John Dwyer, Curtis' coach at Dartmouth, tells Boston Globe (burgundy link, paywall) reporter Camilo Fonseca, "She was an amazing person, on and off the snow... She did not hold back on anything she did.”Remembering Catamount's days as a craft brewing pioneer. When Catamount Brewing set up in downtown WRJ in 1984, it was Vermont's "first indigenous brewer since before Prohibition," writes Steve Taylor in the VN. Said co-founder Steve Mason at the time, "It’s not like starting a variety store where you can talk to a dozen people in the area who have done that.” Its first bottles hit the market in 1987, "and retailers soon were being besieged with buyers looking for the new product," Taylor writes. But in the late '90s, it pulled out of WRJ, built a large facility in Windsor—and went under. Taylor tells the story.NH and VT may be left in the cold after judge blocks federal health funding clawback. That's because in a letter to states on Monday, the federal Health and Human Services Dept. said that the temporary restraining order on the administration's effort to reclaim $11.4 billion in public health dollars, including $80 million granted to NH, would apply only to the 23 states that sued—which include CT, MA, ME, and RI, but not NH or VT. In the Globe's Morning Report (no paywall), Steven Porter and Amanda Gokee report that NH's attorney general's office argues the judge's order applies to all states.NH House budget plan won't raise taxes. Fees on residents, on the other hand... The spending proposal, reports NHPR's Josh Rogers, "hikes [fees] by the dozen, and across the board." All in all, House budget writers hope to raise some $60 million by raising the cost of: vanity license plates; burials in the state veterans' cemetery; registering cars, trucks, motorbikes, and mopeds; getting a drivers license; filing a lawsuit; getting a fishing license; getting an elevator inspected; registering a cement mixer (who knew?); and more.Planned Parenthood will close its St. Johnsbury clinic in June. The move comes as Planned Parenthood of Northern New England faces severe financial strains—and the St. J clinic, writes Colin Flanders in Seven Days, sees "far fewer patients" than other clinics and has flooded repeatedly, "resulting in costly building maintenance." “We felt like this was the best decision for our long-term sustainability,” says the group's VP of public affairs. Planned Parenthood still has six health centers in VT, including in WRJ, and four in central and southern NH; the St. J clinic was the only one serving the North Country.It's dam v. dam as VT looks to take on beavers. Seriously, don't you wish you could have been at last night's hearing in Montpelier, where the Agency of Natural Resources outlined how new dam safety rules conflict with what beavers like to do—which, apparently, is to build dams near state-owned dams. Roughly a quarter of the state's 100-odd dams face impacts from beaver dams, the agency says, including restricted spillway capacity (a problem during floods) and elevated reservoirs. Which may mean removing or modifying the beavers' work. There's another hearing tomorrow in Middlebury.The need for speed.
Like this POV of Czech bike rider Tomáš Slavík's winning urban downhill run in a Red Bull race in Valparaiso, Chile last month, careening through alleyways, down flights of stairs, over rooftops, and... looks again... through a house.
And this 27-second GoPro vid by Jimmi Ryan of his winning run in a Wyoming horse-pulled skijoring competition.
This week's Throughlines. Did you follow along up above? The game starts with a grid of 16 words. Your job is to find the three sets of four words that share items in today's Daybreak. But beware: those extra four words are decoys, so don't get faked out.The Wednesday Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak. If you're new to Daybreak, this is a puzzle along the lines of the NYT's Wordle—only different, because it's not just some random word snatched out of the ether, but a word that actually appeared here yesterday.
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Nisancioglu, who teaches climate dynamics at the University of Bergen in Norway, will talk about Greenland's ice melt, fjord changes, coastal impacts, and the concerns of local communities around hunting grounds, their fishing culture, and the growing tourism industry. 4:30 pm in Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
Ines Johnson-Spain's 2019 "autobiographical essay film" traces her life beginning in 1960s East Berlin, where her white parents told her that her dark skin color was "accidental and of no significance," rather than the result of a liaison between a married East German woman and a Togolese student. Johnson-Spain eventually learned the truth, and mines her past through interviews, travel to Togo and Benin, and more. 6 pm in the Loew, and Johnson-Spain will be on hand afterward.
The novelist and historian has become an expert on the enigmatic Newport NH-area private hunting preserve known these days as Corbin Park. Her talk for the Shaker Museum and Enfield Library will focus on its birth as a 22,000-acre wildlife game preserve stocked with boar, bison, bighorn sheep, antelope, and other imported animals, and about the Gilded Age robber baron who created it. 6 pm.
The November trip was aimed at raising money for research and awareness for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy; she'll describe her journey and experiences, including photography from her adventure. 6:30 pm at Trumbull Hall.
The region's own improv troupe is back underground at 8 pm.
What the heck, let's just keep the theme going one more day.
Yesterday it was Béla Fleck on banjo. Today it's Scottish accordionist Ruairidh Maclean, who performs as RuMac,
And if you're inclined to scoff, you can't be nearly as dismissive as the judges on Britain's Got Talent back in February—until, that is,
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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