GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Continued chance of showers. Low pressure and a cold front are sitting to our south today, which will keep most rain south of us, so for today we get a chance of showers, especially this afternoon, with mostly cloudy skies all day. Highs today will be in the upper 60s, maybe 70 in spots. Meanwhile, though, a low pressure system off to the west will make its way into the region overnight, bringing showers by dawn and more widespread rain for tomorrow. Lows tonight in the mid or upper 50s.
Enfield’s scarecrows are back! Actually, they’ve been back for a bit over a week, when volunteers for the Enfield Village Association began staging 120 of them around town—especially along route 4 and 4A, and Main Street. Linda Szoller sends some examples:
If something ain’t easy, it’s worth not doing. Over in Lost Woods this week, Lydia’s been working hard on her painting and Auk and Eddie—uncharacteristically—stand ready to help. Even more amazingly: They do!
Seeing red. And orange, yellow, even sometimes purple. We’re fully into watermelon and tomato season, and on Edgewater Farm’s CSA blog, Plainfield cookbook author and “Kitchen Sense” newsletter writer Mitchell Davis offers up recipes for watermelon gazpacho, a watermelon feta salad with mint (“the classic combination of watermelon, tomato, feta, and mint is one of the most refreshing salads I know”), and a “starburst” tomato tart, based on a St. Johnsbury version of the French Provençal classic. Meanwhile, judging from Jenny Sprague’s blog entry, we might start seeing some potato recipes next week.
WRJ fire displaces ten people, numerous pets. The fire broke out in the six-unit apartment building on Barnes Avenue yesterday mid-morning, drawing firefighters from Hartford, Lebanon, and Hanover as well as numerous other towns to battle the blaze. Most of the building’s residents were at work, reports Eric Francis for Daybreak, “but one resident was sleeping in the top floor apartment and barely made it out in the nick of time thanks to the efforts of neighbors to wake him.” At least one cat, two snakes and a dog were rescued, but several other pets died in the fire. Eric’s story and plenty of photos—including one unusual rescue—at the burgundy link. The Valley News’s Lukas Dunford spoke with several residents.
Dartmouth gets $15 million dorm pledge from Shonda Rhimes. The legendary producer and screenwriter behind such shows as Grey’s Anatomy and Bridgerton will give both the funding and her name to a five-story residence hall on West Wheelock. It’s due to start construction next year. “Dartmouth wasn’t made in my image, but it is possible to remake it to include my image,” Rhimes says in the college’s press release. “It’s also really beautiful to be able to place some legacy on the building—to give back what was given to me and to leave something behind.”
SPONSORED: Enjoy an Oktoberfest After Dark at the Montshire, just for adults 21+. Next Friday, October 3, bring yourself, a date, a buddy, or a group, for this adults-only, hands-on night out at the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich! We'll have the accordions available, fun with lasers, and Brownsville Butcher + Pantry is serving up Bavarian Style Sausage, Pretzel Knots, Perogies + Farmers Cheese, Apple Strudel, lots of tasty marzens and festbiers, plus cider and more. Please get tickets ahead. No walk-ins accepted. Sponsored by the Montshire Museum of Science.
A graphic novel for kids set in a Maine coastal village modeled on… Norwich. Though the new book by local cartoonist Liniers and writer Angelica del Campo revolves around a haunted lighthouse next to which sisters Cristina and Martha and their dad live for a summer, the library in the town of Wreckers Cove “is inspired by the Norwich Library,” writes Rena Mosteirin in this week’s Enthusiasms, and the bridge into town looks a lot like the Ledyard Bridge. “There are scary moments, heartbreaks, and great loss, yet the story is comforting and warm-hearted,” Rena adds—with the added fun of looking “for the familiar in the artfully created scenes.”
At the new, not-yet-finished Hop, a blend of experiences. In The Dartmouth, Annabelle Zhang reports that the phased reopening of the performing arts center after two years of renovation and renewal—with students and staff back in the building, but the formal grand opening not slated until Oct. 17—“has provoked mixed feelings” from occupants. Working around ongoing construction has been a challenge, the manager of the costume studio tells Zhang, and one member of a student dance group finds issues with dance studio floors. On the other hand, another dancer welcomes the new dance space, and a projectionist is full of praise for the refurbished Spaulding Auditorium.
Developer proposes 261 more units for Mount Support complex. Saxon Partners, which built the 250-unit Marek South in 2023 and has the 200-unit Marek North under construction, told the Lebanon Planning Board on Monday that the new, three-building complex would cover about 6 acres—with half of the back section of the lot reserved as a permanent wildlife corridor, reports the VN’s Clare Shanahan. The complex “caters to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center employees,” Shanahan writes; they rent about 60 percent of Marek South’s units. The new project will require blasting before construction, and about 12,000 square feet of wetlands will be affected.
Amtrak’s Vermonter makes Travel + Leisure. It’s the perfect way to see fall foliage, writes Lydia Mansel—especially, as Amtrak PR manager Jason Abrams tells her, “Both sides of the train give great access to some of the best views in New England.” Though Mansel recommends business class (“an assigned seat (so you don’t have to search for a seat in a panic when you board) as well as footrests”), pretty much any seat will do, Abrams says. He also outlines where to get off: “Montpelier-Berlin…for a dramatic landscape view of fall foliage,” WRJ for “views between the southern Green Mountains and the Connecticut River Valley,“ and Randolph for “farmland scenery.”
In NH, Gov. Kelly Ayotte bans all open fires. Monday’s proclamation includes burning debris, smoking in or near woodlands or public trails, and any campfires that are not in fire-resistant rings at public or private campgrounds with permanent staff members on site, reports WMUR’s Maria Wilson. The ban is in place indefinitely. “With the drought conditions we will need multiple rain events to reduce the wildfire risk,” Chief Steven Sherman of the NH Forest Protection Bureau tells NHPR’s Josh Rogers. “We may not see the wildfire risk reduced through the fall.” The White Mountain National Forest has also imposed restrictions.
“The gap between what households earn and what homes cost in New Hampshire has never been wider.” That was New Hampshire Housing’s Heather McCann at a conference last week. As NH Bulletin’s Ethan DeWitt writes, the median home price in the state in 1998 was 2.8 times more expensive than the median income could afford; today, it’s 5.5 times more expensive. A family would need to earn $182,000 a year to spend no more than the recommended 30 percent a year on mortgage payments; median income in the state, though it’s been rising, is $95,628. DeWitt digs into what the numbers say and what new laws are trying to do about them.
Could this be? The semicolon’s going the way of the pilcrow and the percontation point? As USA Today’s Kim Hjelmgaard and Veronica Bravo write, those last two are now-obsolete punctuation marks (one marked a new paragraph, the other a rhetorical question), and the semicolon may be headed in the same direction. The language software company Babbel looked at its use over time: semicolons appeared once every 110 words in the 1800s; every 187 words in the early 2000s; but only every 378 words now. Even though “they’re elegant and you can use them to nestle two complete ideas together in the same sentence without clunking it up,” says a journalism prof, they’re just not part of mass communication. Like, say, 😃…
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Monday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
Ben Clark and The Long Shadows at Artistree. It’s the last Music on the Hill Wednesday night concert at the S. Pomfret venue. The NYC-based Clark, originally from southern Indiana, has performed all over, scored films, composed two musicals, and won the Kennedy Center National Musical Theatre Award for The Circus in Winter. 6:30 pm.
An Evening with William Ogmundson at Eastman. It’s the first “Center Presents” program of the new season, featuring the NH-based pianist and composer. He’ll be performing classics, early jazz, audience favorites, and improvising with input from the crowd. 7 pm in the Draper Room.
And for today...
You definitely don’t see quartets for kora, cello, accordion, and sax very often. Or, really, ever. But here it is: The duos of Ballaké Sissoko (kora) and Vincent Segal (cello) and Vincent Peirani (accordion) and Émile Parisien (sax) join forces. As critic and historian Ted Gioia writes, “this is no world fusion gimmick—the compositions are built with love and care for the tiniest details. It sounds like a new kind of chamber music, made for the open air and not the concert hall.”
See you tomorrow.
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