GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still cool, still cloudy, chance of scattered showers. Scant comfort, but the weather folks call this a "fairly unusual weather pattern for this time of year." It's all thanks to low pressure being drawn this way from Ontario, and today the result is mostly cloudy skies, temps reaching the low 60s at best, and rain showers popping off here and there, especially this afternoon. Winds from the northwest, low around 50 tonight.Who needs social media? Monday's item about towns closing over-popular roads to tourists in the fall brought in a reminder from Peter Burghardt: "There's so much to see [in the Upper Valley] beyond the Instagram hot spots...." Here are a couple of cases in point from his wanderings this summer. But hey, don't re-post these where just anyone can see them, okay?
Chelsea, Tunbridge school administrators take to the streets to find teachers. In particular, reports VT Public's Lola Duffort, First Branch principal Janet Cash and assistant principal Dan Rivers were in Barre City—"popping into shops, posting pamphlets on bulletin boards and chatting with just about anyone friendly enough to listen about the job openings in [the] district." VT's teacher shortage is acute—and when Duffort checked back in with Cash the other day, it hadn't improved; her foray to Barre yielded no results. That's meant "difficult conversations with staff about what that will mean for their workloads."Stop and gaze: Artists at work. Remember yesterday's advisory from Leb about artists setting up in the downtown tunnel? Well, WCAX's Adam Sullivan stopped by for a look—and to talk to Charlestown's John Garoutte about his large mural, "Patchwork"—"sort of an homage to the textile industry, formerly of Lebanon and New England, of course." It's all part of Lebanon Artways' efforts to raise the city's profile. “Certainly, as White River has made a splash on the Vermont side of the Upper Valley, Lebanon wants to do the same on the New Hampshire side," says rec and arts director Paul Coats.Turnover at the top of two Dartmouth professional schools. The college Monday announced that Duane Compton, dean of the Geisel School of Medicine, will step down next June to return to teaching and research, while Thayer School of Engineering Dean Alexis Abramson will head off after the fall term to run the Columbia U Climate School. A search for Compton's replacement will begin this fall, and one for Abramson's in the new year; in the meantime, engineering prof Doug Van Citters will serve as interim dean.
SPONSORED: Make music at UVMC! Looking to learn a new instrument, join an ensemble, pick up an old instrument, or sing in a group? Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon, NH, offers classes, ensembles, workshops, and lessons for all ages and all abilities. Fall 2024-2025 registration is now open! Take a look at Music Together classes for children up to age 5 or share your voice in the Community Chorus at UVMC. Sponsored by Upper Valley Music Center.At the corner of Elm and Madeleine. From the window of Left Bank Books in Hanover, Rena Mosteirin used to be able to look out at the DeWitt Elm, the grand old tree that got cut down about a month ago. Its shade lives on in her memory—and reminds her of the master novelist of memory, Marcel Proust. In this week's Enthusiasms, Rena gives examples of Proust's "poetic and gorgeous" writing, his sense of humor, the human truths he traced in a sentence or two. In translation even a century later, she writes, "the prose sings off the page."A new Indian restaurant opens its doors. Turmeric Kitchen, writes Susan Apel in Artful, "held a grand opening last week at its location in the space formerly occupied by China Station on the Miracle Mile in Lebanon." Never one to shrink from exploring new restaurants, and in the throes of a takeout binge, Susan stopped by Monday for lunch. The restaurant is still working some things out—sit-down service isn't quite ready, or at least wasn't a couple of days ago—but the food, she reports, is excellent. "We will happily return, and soon."In Woodstock, "I want people to experience a little gem off the beaten path." That's Zoë Zilian, who opened Au Comptoir a couple of years ago. She explains to Happy Vermont's Erica Houskeeper that she wanted her cocktail bar to feel "as if you had just stepped into an Old World, European village bar." In a post last week, Erica explores cocktail bars around the state, including Devil Takes a Holiday in Burlington, The Left Bank in Weston, and Kipling's Tavern in Brattleboro. No Wolf Tree in WRJ, but maybe that'll be for next time.In N. Thetford, "good pickings for those who appreciate antiques." Not long ago, Dave Celone stopped in at Fox Hollow Antiques & Trading Post, in what used to be the general store that houses the post office along Route 5. Owned and run by Mark Harper and Beth Low, it showcases decades of finds by Harper, a longtime hunting and fishing guide as well as an antiques "picker." "I appreciated the uncluttered nature of the shop," Dave writes. "An intentional effort, I was told, to ensure visitors didn’t feel overwhelmed by too many things." Still, a glance at his photos suggests there's no shortage of things.Really? Like taking off a sock? That's how writer Susan Shea once described a snake shedding its skin, and in Northern Woodlands' "This Week in the Woods", Elise Tillinghast picks up the quote as she—and Shea—explain how a very cool-looking snake skin wound up on a woodpile. Also out there this week: a silver-spotted skipper caterpillar. Meanwhile, in case you missed last week in the woods, there was a robin chick crash-landing on its first flight attempt (it did just fine on the next go-round), plus jagged ambush bugs. "If they were blown up to the size of a car, they would put a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to shame."An intriguing tie between white-tailed deer and bats. "Over 100 species of internal or external parasites, including protozoans, flukes, nematodes, tapeworms, and arthropods affect [deer]," writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog. "In particular, horse flies and deer flies deliver painful bites that can fester and transmit disease." Recent research, though, suggests that bats help out during the summer: They're attracted to deer by all the bugs surrounding them. "This prey bonanza saves the bats much time and energy and provides some relief for the deer."NH AG argues that Granite Staters visiting Massachusetts should be able to carry guns there without a MA permit. On Monday, John Formella filed a brief with MA's Supreme Judicial Court backing a lower court ruling that the Bay State can't prosecute two NH men for illegally carrying guns if they were legally entitled to carry them in their home state. "We are affirming that constitutional freedoms should not be undermined by inconsistent and overly burdensome regulations,” Formella explains in a press release. MA prosecutors argue that rationale would undermine their right to enforce state laws equally.Fall's coming. Health insurance rates in VT must be going up. It's the third year in a row that MVP and BCBS are imposing hefty rate increases: 14-20 percent for individuals (vs. about 7 percent in many other states), and 11-23 percent for many small businesses. Individuals who buy insurance directly (not through an employer) may get some federal subsidies next year, which will help; small businesses are on their own. VT Public's Mikaela Lefrak on Monday talked it all over with health reporter Lexi Krupp, the chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, and the state's healthcare advocate.VT Secretary of State's office delays certifying primary election results by a day due to software glitch. Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas had planned to certify the results of last week's voting yesterday—"typically a sleepy affair," as VTDigger's Sarah Mearhoff writes. But a problem with the software that summarizes the town-by-town results knocked things off track. Hanzas went to pains yesterday to emphasize that the issue is with the summary, not the results themselves. "The underlying data—the data that has been input by town and city clerks that corresponds to the ballots that Vermonters cast—is working. It’s accurate. It’s safe and secure," she told Mearhoff.VT's Butterworks Farm sold to NH businessman. The farm, with its 76 Jerseys, 400 acres of pastureland, and processing facility that churns out yogurts, kefir, heavy cream, and buttermilk products, has been in the Lazor family for nearly 50 years. Now, reports Seven Days' Melissa Pasanen, it's been bought up for $1.4 million by Sanbornville businessman and consultant Anthony Calderaro, his wife, Ania Kuniej, and his brother, Joseph Calderaro. The deal allows Anne Lazor, who co-founded the farm with her husband, Jack, in 1976, to live there for the rest of her life. Jack died in 2020.Maple Soul over in Rochester, VT ranks 46th in the nation among restaurants on Yelp. You can argue with the crowd-sourced review site, and lots of people do, but as Will Solomon notes in Seven Days, that ranking "is still an impressive achievement for a 65-seat restaurant in a small town in rural central Vermont." It's not just that 85 percent of the restaurant's food is locally sourced, or that locals "speak reverently" about the spot. It's also "a testament to the superb food, familiar atmosphere and deep community connections that owners Jim and Jen Huntington have cultivated," Solomon writes.“She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.” So goes the grand prize winner in the 2024 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which calls for dreadful opening sentences to imaginary novels. It drew worthy competitors in every category: Crime and detective (“She was poured into the red latex dress like Jello poured into a balloon”); Romance ("If broken hearts were made of simple syrup, and shattered dreams were made from white rum, and agony and despair came from ¾ ounce of lime juice…”); even Vile Puns (“‘I do enjoy turning a prophet,’ said Torquemada, as he roasted the heretic seer on a spit.”) Happy reading!Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
we
know what's good! Strong Rabbit's Morgan Brophy has come up with the perfect design for "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Plus you'll find the Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, as well as sweatshirts, tees, a fleece hoodie, and, as always, the fits-every-hand-perfectly Daybreak mug. Check it all out at the link!
The Barnard-based trio of keyboard/vocal, flute, and acoustic bass plays jazz standards, pop, blues, and more. 6:30 pm at Artistree, across from Saskadena Six. In the Hayloft if the weather gets rainy.
Fox's debut (and semi-autobiographical) graphic novel,
Let's Go, Coco!
, follows 11-year-old Coco as she navigates the challenges of middle school after her best friend moves away: basketball, team drama, crushes... Fox, originally from Indiana and a graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies, will sit down with CCS co-founder James Sturm to talk about it all. 7 pm.
The Canaan Historical Society hosts Steve Taylor on the electrification of rural NH. The writer and Upper Valley historian will trace the coming of electricity to the state's rural towns and villages as a result of the New Deal and efforts in the '30s by farmers and others to create the NH Electric Cooperative. The results transformed homes, workplaces, and lives, and he'll be talking about that, too. 7 pm at the Canaan Meetinghouse.
(No link)
From iconic board game to mid-'80s film to, now, the stage, it opens at a dinner party that soon becomes a crime scene as six color-coded characters (
Quick! Name them all!)
and an ensemble of others try to sort things out. 7:30 this evening, runs thru Sept. 1.
Jennifer Baichwal's 2022 documentary charts the efforts by agrochemical giant Monsanto to bury or deny evidence of the carcinogenic qualities of its herbicide, Roundup, and the lawsuits from cancer patients that followed. It focuses in particular on one of those suits, by a Northern California groundskeeper. Streaming through Friday.
And let's just croon our way into the day...
With singer and drummer Willie Ray Moore, Jr., on tour with Postmodern Jukebox and
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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