Partly sunny, still colder than normal. It'll be pretty much like yesterday, only without the little flurries (unless you're up north). Clouds this morning giving way to sunshine, temps reaching the high 30s, winds from the southwest. Upper teens overnight.

Two little points of light in a dark night. Erin Donahue's latest video starts with a grey fox marking territory, but like the fox, pay attention to the eyes that suddenly appear. Ted Levin writes, "Eyeshine. A reflecting layer of cells behind the retina, the tapetum lucidum (Latin for bright tapestry), adds dimension to dark nights. Nocturnal animals, particularly predators, have more light-sensitive rods than color-sensitive cones in their retinas. Eyeshine recycles light and improves night vision . . . and, for us, makes night worth knowing."

So, if body double twins are our opposites, then are Eddie and Auk's twins their good or their evil versions? Things are getting downright metaphysical in Lost Woods, and Henry and Lydia try to sort things out. Though not quite as much as Henry would like. As he does every week in this spot, Lebanon writer and illustrator DB Johnson chronicles the doings in his favorite patch of forest—and on his blog this week, he pitches syndication...with a strip.

Tractor-trailer crash spills 40,000 pounds of plastic beanbag pellets. It happened late Tuesday on the I-89 median in WRJ, but snow that night and Wednesday delayed cleanup efforts. So yesterday, Valley News photographer James Patterson was on the scene as Hartford-based truck-wreck cleanup specialists Sabil & Sons went about their work—which included bringing in a property service company to vacuum up the pellets.

"I’d had about enough of 50 people screaming in my face. They wanted blood.” There's been some coverage of the doings in Chelsea that led to the resignations of most of the road crew and most of the selectboard. Now, though, Darren Marcy pieces together events for The Herald, taking us through the heated selectboard hearing at which road foreman Rick Ackerman resigned, correcting misinformation and misunderstanding that's flowed through online forums, and talking to former board chair Levar Cole and former selectboard member Mark Whitney about events.

Enfield lifts boil-water order. It's been almost two weeks since the town imposed one after a sample site tested positive for E. coli. Yesterday afternoon, the town lifted it—advising residents who connect to the town's system to flush pipes by running all faucets on full for five minutes, dump ice from ice makers, replace the water in all hot water tanks, and replace water filters.

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Exit 19 northbound on-ramp to reopen this afternoon. NHDOT put out a pre-storm release earlier this week saying crews were close to finishing up work on the northbound on-ramp to I-89 from Mechanic Street in Lebanon. And despite Wednesday's storm, spokesman Richard Arcand confirms workers are still on track to be done today. The ramp should reopen "before the end of the day," he writes in an email.

Twin Pines aims to convert empty WRJ hotel into affordable housing. You may remember that last month, the Hartford Selectboard approved a zoning change that would allow for mixed-use residential and commercial development up in the hotel-ville area across Route 5 from the VA. That, writes Patrick Adrian in the VN, was in part to make possible a project to convert the 67-room former Fairfield Inn and Suites into a 40-unit apartment. Wednesday, the Hartford Zoning Board approved Twin Pines' application; the units would open to individuals or families with incomes 60 percent or less of the area median.

As if Randolph Union High School hasn't dealt with enough... Now it's been forced to close by a failed heating pipe. Without heat or hot water, both the high school and neighboring Technical Career Center have been shuttered this week as the schools await parts so the pipe to the boiler that serves both buildings can be repaired. The final repair, Tim Calabro reports in The Herald, might not be able to happen until January. The district needs the state board of ed's permission to hold classes remotely, but the board doesn't meet until February. So school officials are looking for class space around town.

Spiral into “Blind Spot,” a new art exhibition in WRJ. Kishka Gallery and Library presents a mixed-media collection—with a touch of the psychedelic—by Brooklyn-based artist Jana Flynn. Each piece is an arrangement of silk-screened concentric circles sewn together with string—forming “unorthodox polygons [that] have a roguish appeal,” writes Seven Days’ Pamela Polston. But they signify more than “visual gyrations.” Flynn says the collages are part of a healing process: deep anxiety through the pandemic forced her to examine “blind spots,” and with that darkness to create art.

Meanwhile, at Colby-Sawyer, works that whisper across the gallery. Both Sana Musasama and Jenny Swanson work in ceramic, though Musasama's pieces also make use of mixed media—and the two are friends and colleagues, arts correspondent Eric Sutphin writes in the VN. Their show at Colby-Sawyer's fine art gallery, Conversations, joins Musasama's topical work—the pandemic, the maltreatment of girls in Sierra Leone—with Swanson's lighter subjects, which are "attuned to nature in a particularly sensitive way," Sutphin writes. Yet the works all treat "notions of...texture, soft-versus-hard, flatness and space."

Coming to a home near you... and other November marvels. Those visitors, writes Jason Hill in the Vermont Center for Ecostudies' "Field Guide to November," would be Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs, which have a habit of congregating on walls, along windows, or near a warm lightbulb about this time of year. Also out there: northern shrikes have been arriving from, fittingly, up north; ferns may still be out there; and weasels, snowshoe hares and other small mammals are turning white. Plus, why putting leaf litter under your trees to over-winter is a fine idea.

Hiking Close to Home: Spruce Mountain in Plainfield, VT. Similar to Gile Mountain in Norwich, Spruce Mountain is an out-and-back trail leading to a fire tower that provides gorgeous 360-degree views. But unlike Gile Mountain, says the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, the hike is a couple of miles one way and a bit strenuous, becoming rockier and steeper the farther you go. If you love Gile and are looking for a more challenging hike with just as sweet of a reward, this one is worth trying.

Been paying attention to Daybreak this week? Because the Upper Valley News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, how many DUI arrests did the Lebanon PD make last week? And what's the name of that plant that hadn't been seen since 1908 that was just discovered on Mt. Mansfield? And, oh right, the name of that new breakfast/lunch spot in Bradford VT is...? You'll find those and other questions at the burgundy link.

But wait! How closely were you following VT and NH?

• Because Seven Days wants to know if you know what's been going on around the state this week.
• And NHPR's got a whole set of questions about doings in the Granite State.

Think the uncertainty about the NH House could get any greater? Because now, writes NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee, a Manchester race that was flipped from Republican to Democrat by a single vote on Monday needs to be re-re-counted, after the secretary of state's office found a discrepancy between how many ballots were counted during the recount and the final number reported by ward officials in Manchester. The secretary of state also announced yesterday that another recount, also completed Monday, seems to have left out 27 absentee ballots; since the race was decided by 15 votes, it matters.

NH House Democrats choose younger leadership. With a closely divided chamber a certainty, the caucus yesterday picked 40-year-old Matt Wilhelm of Manchester over former Speaker Steve Shurtleff, 108-85, reports Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin. Wilhelm told reporters that electric rates and rent would be two key issues for his party next session. Republicans, meanwhile, again picked Speaker Sherm Packard as their leader. Which man will actually get to hold the gavel could come down to a Ballot Law Commission meeting next Monday, where members may reject some challenged ballots in close contests.

The power of a good gerrymander. "Good," of course, is in the eye of the beholder, as David Brooks lays out in the Monitor. Exhibit A: NH's Executive Council. Overall, Democrats won a sliver over half of the votes cast in Exec Council races statewide—but lost four of the five seats. That's largely because the GOP legislature shaped Democrat Cinde Warmington's District 2 so that it "tippy-toes from one Democratic stronghold to another across the entire state, looking positively salamander-like." The result? Lots of Dem votes that couldn't get cast in other districts. Same deal in the state Senate.

Rare parasitic disease mostly found in Europe shows up in... Vermont. A team led by UVM infectious disease specialist Louis Polish reported yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine that alveolar echinococcosis, caused by the European strain of a small tapeworm that infects canines, has shown up in two humans in the state—and two red foxes in Virginia. It can take 10-15 years for symptoms to develop, Polish tells HealthDay News's Amy Norton, making it tough to pin down how it was contracted. The VT cases are the first in the US, though Alberta, Canada has seen 20 over the last decade.

Retail cannabis may be arriving in VT, but don't expect a flood of advertising. In fact, maybe don't expect any advertising at all, writes Sasha Goldstein in Seven Days. That's because the state regs are so strict that small retailers are thinking they might have to rely on word of mouth—posing a challenge not just for them, but for the Cannabis Control Board, "which is trying to create a market without losing businesses that might choose to skip the...headaches and operate illegally; and for media outlets that don't want to miss out on a new source of ad revenue," Goldstein reports.

On VT's roads: "The visual evidence of rage is phenomenal out there right now. It’s frightening. There's a frustration that is so deep." That's Northeast Kingdom photographer John Miller talking to independent radio producer Erica Heilman for her VT Public series on "class." Heilman is really using the term to get people to talk to her about cultural and other divisions, and they do. Her series, which ran all week, is collected at the link: a store clerk, a photographer, a farmer, a logger and builder who listens to public radio... They all open up—though some don't see much hope for overcoming division.

Hey, you try keeping your composure. One of the great joys of modern life is watching TV reporters try to keep their cool while behind them, something happens. Like the other day, when Kenya Broadcasting Corporation journalist Alvin Kaunda was reporting on a baby elephant orphanage during a drought...(Thanks, SL!)

The Friday Vordle. If you're new to Vordle, you should know that fresh ones appear on weekends using words from the Friday Daybreak, and you can get a reminder email each weekend morning. If you'd like that, sign up here.

Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:

• This evening at 7 pm, and again tomorrow at the same time, Artistree in S. Pomfret presents Vulture Sister Song, dancer Ellen Smith Ahearn's "wild interdisciplinary performance explor[ing] human and more-than-human relationship through story, song, sculpture and dance." She workshopped it at Open Door back in the spring (you can see that here, thanks to JAM). Now it's got live storytelling, folk music, and ambulatory lanterns, all tinged with humor.
• Also at 7, pianist Annemieke McLane will be giving a solo concert at the United Church of Strafford (no link) with a program that includes sonatas by Haydn, Handel, and Scarlatti, as well as Schubert's last sonata, Opus 960. Masks requested. By donation.
• And also at 7, at Seven Stars Arts in Sharon, the monthly "McCaffrey & Rooney Present" showcase of musical talent features multi-instrumentalist and longtime trad musician Colin McCaffrey himself, along with singer, songwriter, guitarist, and flautist Patti Casey. As of last night there was just a handful of tix left, so move fast.
• And at 7:30 pm, though a bit of a drive away, Putney's Next Stage Arts brings in QWANQWA. The band, which is on its debut US tour, pulls from the music of Ethiopia, Somalia, and elsewhere in east Africa. It was founded by American violinist Kaethe Hostetter (who now lives in Addis Ababa), and as Next Stage describes it, "With swirling masinko (one-stringed fiddle), wah-wah-violin, bass krar boom, and the unstoppable rhythm of heavy kebero (goat-skin drum) beats, powerful traditional lead African diva vocals, QWANQWA keeps people wrapped in celebratory attention."
• Tomorrow at 10:30 am and again at 6 pm, the Thetford Center Community Assn building (3923 Route 113) hosts a one-woman show by Effie Cummings, "A Pilgrim in Thetford." She plays Goodwife Elizabeth Hopkins, who came to New England on the Mayflower. Cummings pitches her morning show to families with kids 6 and up as she talks about early settlers' life in New England; the evening show, for adults and kids 13 and up, ranges from domestic to political life in the early colony. No link.
• At 2 pm tomorrow, in case you missed the Balourdet Quartet at UVMC last week, they'll be at Billings Farm in Woodstock for "Music at the Museum" for a roughly one-hour performance. The program includes Haydn's “Sunrise” Quartet, Hugo Wolf's Italian Serenade, and Mendelssohn's Quartet in E minor. In the Billings theater.
• At 6 pm tomorrow, JAG takes over the Cornerstone Community Center in Wilder for its annual Juke Joint fundraising gala. Heads up: tix are not cheap. But if you go, you'll get a 1920s-themed night of musical theater, tap dance, poetry, and opera, emceed by burlesque performer The Maine Attraction; a live auction; a dinner of southern fried chicken, potato salad with sweet pickles and garlic, and other South Carolina soul food prepared by JAG founder Jarvis Green's mom, Peggy Ware; and a ceremony honoring several members of the "extended JAG family" for their contributions to American theater.
• At 7:30 pm tomorrow, the Raqs Salaam Dance Theater Showcase is back in person after two years of virtual shows, taking over the Mascoma Community Auditorium at Mascoma High in Canaan with a concert of Egyptian dance, from traditional belly dance to modern Cairo street dance and stops in between. Appropriate for audiences young and old. Masks requested.
• Also at 7:30, the Main Street Museum in WRJ brings in unbridled and impossible-to-pin-down operatic singer Joseph Keckler, whom the NYT's Stephen Holden once described as possessing "the sensibility of a magician, a trickster’s dark humor and a formidable musical and literary erudition." He'll be joined by Bim Tyler and Time Life Magazines for what the MSM calls "a night of operatic storytelling, pop culture, and cosmic punk." They add, "There hasn’t been a night quite like this at The Main Street Museum ever."
• Finally, starting at 9 pm tomorrow (doors open at 8), the Conniption Fits rock the stage part of Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover. Stevens Blanchard with vocals and guitar, Shawn Snyder on drums, and bass player Jamie Hosley will have you on your feet from the get-go.

Written and published by Rob Gurwitt         Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter    Poetry editor: Michael Lipson  
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