SO GREAT TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
Breezy, warmer. High pressure and warm air filtering in... Take some time to bask, because who knows how many more of these we get. Highs in the low or mid-70s, with full-on sun for most of the day, though we'll start seeing some clouds toward evening as low pressure passes to our north and a cold front looms over the western horizon. Winds from the south, down to the mid-50s tonight. The haze at sunset. The sunlight yesterday was filtered through the smoke from western wildfires, and at sunset William Daugherty got his drone up above Plainfield to take a look."A magnet for birds." Photographer Jim Block was out on Campbell Flat Road in Norwich a few days ago. It runs along the Ompomponoosuc and is close to the Connecticut, and it overruns with bird life. He got song sparrows, field sparrows, Savannah sparrows, and a rarer Lincoln's sparrow. There were plenty of warblers, too: Magnolia, Tennessee, and Common Yellowthroat. Also: indigo buntings, a downy woodpecker, a gray catbird, a scarlet tanager (now in yellow plumage), and red-tailed hawk keeping an eye on everything. Recount affirms Prentiss win; Pastor concerned about disqualified absentee ballots. The recount in Concord yesterday of ballots in the close-fought state Senate primary between Leb City Councillor Sue Prentiss and former state Rep. Beatriz Pastor ended almost as it started: with Prentiss holding a 72-vote lead. However, Pastor is mulling a challenge over ballots that went uncounted because town moderators discarded them for arriving late, missing a signature, or other reasons. (VN)Dartmouth writer and prof Terry Osborne dies; edited Noel Perrin. In a letter to the Dartmouth community yesterday, president Phil Hanlon said that Osborne passed away last week after a year-long illness. Popular as a teacher, he was known on campus for his work to connect students to the natural world and the communities around them. Off-campus, he developed a fond and close relationship with Ned Perrin, editing the Thetford writer's Best Person Rural collection of essays in 2006. Here's Osborne's lyrical, detailed remembrance from 2014, a decade after Perrin's death.Dartmouth prof's Aurora Borealis project among NASA finalists. For over a decade, Kristina Lynch, who teaches astronomy and physics, has been using rockets to study the northern and southern lights. Now she and the multi-institution team she leads propose to use a swarm of 32 small "cube satellites" to measure electricity and magnetism as they pass over the northern and southern auroral lights. They've landed $1.25 million to produce a concept study, as have four other proposals. NASA will choose one or two for $250 million multiyear space missions.Five bucks. Arts blogger Susan Apel's got some suggestions for how to spend it. You could, for instance, see the Norwich Historical Society's annual antiques show on Saturday, with vendors and "the Upper Valley’s version of the Antiques Road Show." Or the St. J Athenaeum gallery housing not just the astounding Albert Bierstadt masterwork The Domes of Yosemite but two other Bierstadts and a Renoir, besides. Or, hey: a maple creemee at Mac's in a waffle cone. SPONSORED: The Arts are on at the Hop! The 20/21 Season launches today with over 30 events by passionate artists making work we need now—work that raises critical questions and brings us together despite our distance. The opening-week headliner is comedian and social critic Trevor Noah, who features in a "fireside chat" next Tuesday for Hop members and the Dartmouth community. Tomorrow boasts a free live chat with Oscar-winning animators Phil Lord and Chris Miller ‘97, followed by DJ duo Angel+Dren ‘13 for Thursday Night Live. All Hop@Home events are free for Hop Members. Learn more here.First, you start with 50 pumpkins. That's what Nikki VanVoorhis and Matt Tashjian did when they started decorating the front stoop of their Woodstock home for fall a few years back. That first year, writes Seven Days' Pamela Polston, they went basic orange. The second, it was squash varieties in white and grayish blue. The third, shades of green. VanVoorhis is mum on this year's plan. But what isn't secret is the stoop: It's attracted Instagramming visitors from all over the world. "To be known for your pumpkins — that's probably the coolest way to be known," VanVoorhis says. Croydon grandparents sue state for religious school tuition. In July, the US Supreme Court ruled that states can't disqualify religious schools from subsidies once they subsidize private schools. That prompted Dennis and Cathy Griffin, who've been sending their grandson to a Catholic school since he was in first grade, to sue—Croydon is a tuitioning town. “It’s not fair that we can’t receive the same support that other families in the town receive just because his school is religious," Dennis Griffin says in a press release.Excursion train staffer pushes car off tracks ahead of oncoming train. Kerry Eisenhaur works at the Intervale Scenic Vista rest area, along the Conway Scenic Railway. A few weeks back, reports the Conway Daily Sun, he was weed-whacking when he noticed a gray SUV stopped on the tracks with its flashers blinking...as an excursion train barreled toward it. The car was out of gas. "I told her there was a train coming and she looked at me and said, ‘You’re kidding!’” The two managed to get the car out of the way before the train came by 30 seconds later. Really, acres of time when you think about it.One last plunge into last week's NH primary numbers. And only because of a striking map NHPR's Casey McDermott posted yesterday in his deep dig into absentee-ballot and other trends from the voting. The map is of percentage of local voters casting an absentee ballot, by town for the entire state. It was generally light statewide, but there's one clump of towns that stands out for heavy absentee-use—Orford, Lyme, and Hanover especially. Other useful visuals as well.Today's veto-override day in the NH legislature. In all, Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed 22 bills in the last legislative session, including efforts to create a paid family and medical leave program, boost the minimum wage, strengthen clean energy initiatives, and an omnibus billed that rolled 40 measures into one. House members will gather at UNH's Whittemore Center Arena and senators in the House chambers to try their hand. NH Business Review's Bob Sanders runs down what's at stake.And speaking of vetoes, that's what Phil Scott did yesterday to the Global Warming Solutions Act. The move was expected, given Scott's opposition to allowing residents to sue Vermont for failing to meet emissions-reduction targets, which the measure does. Scott also objects to a climate council created by the bill, saying it creates "unconstitutional separation of powers" issues. The bill passed both houses with enough votes to withstand a veto, and Speaker Mitzi Johnson yesterday vowed "prompt action" on an override.Nothin' worse than wet wood in a wood stove. Which is why Vermont's Dept. of Environmental Conservation has done something unusual: It's partnered with the state's Department of Libraries to launch a moisture-meter loan program through 48 libraries around the state. You can borrow one from the libraries in Bradford, Hartford, Norwich, Randolph, Springfield, or Windsor. Ideal moisture content for your cordwood is 15-20 percent.Brew with a view. TimeOut USA is out with a description of seven breweries around the northeast—including Hill Farmstead and Lawson's Finest—where you can sit outdoors and savor both the beer and the landscape. If you're in the mood for road trips, breweries in MA, NY, and ME come in for some attention as well. Though I'm still puzzling over how this line got past an editor: "You need a tasting room where the outdoor space is as good as the beer—and a gorgeous view of fall foliage doesn't help either."Aaaaand.... It's Snack Week. At Eater, anyway. Did you know that Kellogg’s plugs the “physical, emotional, and societal interconnections” that can be found in Pringles and Cheez-Its? Who knew? Also, a diatribe against kettle chips ("spud shards"), a guide to Chinese supermarket snacks, another to road-trip snacks (pizza-flavored Combos come in for high praise), and a dismissal of the low-fat craze embodied by Snackwells. "The common wisdom about the ’90s low-fat mania is that America’s decadent puritanism found a way to ruin cookies and still avoid eating apples."
Oh, right, the numbers...
NH reported 34 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to 7,748. There were two new deaths, which now stand at 438. The state has 288 current cases in all (down 3), including 9 in Grafton County (up 1), 2 in Sullivan (down 1), and 25 in Merrimack (up 3). There are between 1 and 4 active cases in Lyme, Hanover, Claremont, Charlestown, Piermont, New London, and Newbury.
VT reported 7 new cases yesterday, bringing its total to 1,702, with 120 of those (down 9) still active. Deaths remain at 58 total, and 2 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized. Windsor County remains at 83 all told, with 5 of those coming in the past 14 days; Orange County remains at 22 total, with 2 cases in the past 14 days.
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At 12:30 today, Hood Museum director John Stomberg and teaching specialist Vivian Ladd "will introduce three artists whose innovative work began with a problem [and] share some of the personal and professional benefits gained from thinking like an artist."
Then, this evening the literary world starts hitting its stride again. At 6:30, the Norwich Public Library is hosting Jonathan Beecher Field, a historian at Clemson, for a talk based on his book, Town Hall Meetings and the Death of Deliberation. Field argues that by adopting the form of the traditional town hall meeting but not its purpose, institutional leaders, presidential candidates and other have turned their version into little more than glorified press conferences.
Also at 6:30, the Northshire Bookstore is hosting Edward Melillo, who teaches history and environmental studies at Amherst, talking about his book The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World. Melillo takes a dive through lab science, agriculture, fashion, international cuisine, and history to talk about the ways in which humans depend on insects for entire sectors of the global economy.
Meanwhile, at 7 pm, the Norwich Bookstore hosts poets Cleopatra Mathis and Susan Barba, reading from and talking about their new collections. Mathis founded the creative writing program at Dartmouth; her latest collection, After the Body, is her eighth. Barba is a former student of Mathis's; Geode is her second collection. Email [email protected] for information on joining in.
Also at 7, Vershire writer and former VN reporter Matt Hongoltz-Hetling launches his new book about Grafton, NH, A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears). He'll be hosted online by Gibson's Bookstore in Concord, and will be joined by Gloria Dickie, an environmental journalist whose forthcoming book (in 2021) examines human relationships with the eight bear species of the world.
And finally, Vermont Humanities tonight hosts political cartoonist Jeff Danziger, also at 7 pm. He'll be talking about creating political cartoons in this fraught time in American history. Danziger's work is syndicated around the globe, and he was the only American cartoonist featured in the 2015 French documentary, Cartoonists, Foot Soldiers of Democracy. You can see it here, if you want to prep, as he'll be talking about that, too.
You know, let's just keep the rain thing going for another day. Yesterday it was poetry; today, music and dance.
The song's about a diviner and healer who falsely claims the power to conjur jinns, but it doesn't take much imagination to see this video as an ode to rain. The visuals, filmed in Senegal, stick.
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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