Features
Put some spring in your summer with calla lilies
By HENRY HOMEYER
If you’re home from work and champing at the bit to do something, planting bulbs now for summer blossoms might be just your ticket. I recently got some calla lilies and sword lily rhizomes at Gardeners Supply in Lebanon and planted them in pots. I...
Academic publishers thrive after closing of University Press of New England
By SARAH EARLE
On a visit to Brandeis University Press a few months ago, Doug Tifft, former production coordinator for University Press of New England, made a heart-warming discovery: The entire UPNE archive was on display in the new director’s office and all up and...
Upper Valley author tells a fuller story in new book
By ALEX HANSON
Stories don’t always follow an easy trajectory from beginning to middle to end. Life doubles back on itself and what might look like a conclusion turns out to be just another plot point.Here’s an example: In October 2016, Jeff Sharlet was in a small...
Couple serves hot coffee warmly at Bradford, Vt., drive-thru
By SARAH EARLE
It might not be the most telling metric in their database as fledgling small business owners, but there’s one number that Kendall and Travis Gendron are especially proud of: 14. That’s the number of customers in the record pay-it-forward streak at...
Adam Sandler revelled in working with the Safdie brothers
By JAKE COYLE
TORONTO — Adam Sandler was waiting to be thrown into a midtown fountain on Sixth Avenue for a scene in Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems when he noticed a familiar face on the sidewalk.The Safdies like to capture as much authentic New York energy as...
Norwich farm moves to new owners
By SARAH EARLE
When Jake Guest arrived at the old Norwich farmhouse where Valerie Woodhouse and Eli Hersh were planning their spring crops last Thursday morning, he did something that still feels a bit strange to him: He knocked on the door.For nearly 40 years,...
Dartmouth alumni bring their recent work in film back to Hanover
By SARAH EARLE
In the new Netflix movie, Dolemite Is My Name, inspiration strikes the young black comedian Rudy Ray Moore, played by Eddie Murphy, while he’s watching a movie in the theater. It’s not that the film sparks his imagination. Quite the opposite. It bores...
Highlights: Peter and Paul soldier on with Mary in mind
By DAVID CORRIVEAU
The surviving members of Peter, Paul and Mary knew that they could never replace the voice of their longtime partner in folk singing after Mary Travers died in 2009.Instead, Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey are keeping Travers’ spirit alive in part...
A grouse by any other name
By LAURIE MORRISSEY
On spring evenings, just before dark, I used to hear a faint drumroll coming from somewhere off in the wooded hills. It sounded to me like an old tractor starting up, although it seemed like an odd time for a farmer to start work. I later learned that...
Essay: How New Hampshire adopted its famous motto
By PETER T. GLENSHAW
How did “Live Free or Die” become the New Hampshire state motto? You might think it has something to do with our Revolutionary War roots and stingy political culture, but the historical record says otherwise. To understand this strange tale, let’s...
Art Notes: Center for Cartoon Studies explains our embattled democracy
By ALEX HANSON
It is a measure of how far comics have risen in stature that they are now being used to teach schoolchildren and adults alike how American democracy is supposed to function.Or is it a measure of how diminished our government is that cartooning has to...
Highlights: A busy musician eases back on performing
By DAVID CORRIVEAU
Jim Yeager is shuffling the deck of his life as a working musician, with relief and regret in equal measure.Take the Wednesday-night open mic at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland. After five years as host of the Skunk’s venerable weekly gathering of...
A Broadway career leads to the family feel of Upper Valley theater
By DAN MACKIE
“The show must go on” is a tried-and-true slogan in show business, where all good things come to an end, and flops end even faster. For Dorothy Stanley, the shows have gone on and on. And there’s still more ahead. Stanley, now in her 60s and settled...
Tokyo street food you can make at home
By DANIEL NEMAN
Just west of Tokyo’s Shinjuku station, the busiest train station in the world, the air is said to be heavy with the irresistible aroma of chicken cooking on charcoal grills.This is Yakitori Alley (though it also has a less appealing name), perhaps the...
Auto roads make peaks accessible
By ERNIE KOHLSAAT and ELEANOR KOHLSAAT
Years ago, we used to plan ambitious hikes that involved 40-pound backpacks, many nights in a tent and significant climbs. One of our goals was to get above treeline, to break out from the forest and into the sun and — if we were lucky — take in a...
Romance novelist Helen Hoang writes about love on the autism spectrum
By LISA BONOS
SAN DIEGO — When Helen Hoang was 12 years old, she skipped lunch for an entire week, hoarding her lunch money so she could buy something more delicious than a midday meal: her first romance novel.Hoang soon realized love stories would feed her in a...
Homemade cheeses are simple and delicious
By DANIEL NEMAN
Sure, you could craft your own block of cheddar cheese, create some Havarti or whip up a batch of gorgonzola. But why would you want to? Most cheeses require rennet, an enzyme found in the stomach of cows, sheep and goats. Rennet is what gives...
A writer whose restlessness comes through in his stories
By EMMAJEAN HOLLEY
The world may have lost a future lawyer the day Peter Orner, then studying to become a criminal defense attorney at Northeastern University, first tuned out his professor’s lecture and worked on some creative writing instead. But the world also gained...
When Norwich cadets marched on Hanover
By TERESA ODEN
On a summer afternoon in the 1830s, Capt. Alden Partridge, founder of Norwich University, looked over the troops assembled before him. Even though the captain’s uniform jacket had grown a little tight over the years, he was still an impressive sight,...
Eulogy for a farmer: David Ainsworth had a way about him
By COREY CHAPMAN
After Sunday’s service for Royalton farmer and former state Rep. David Ainsworth, Corey Chapman’s moving eulogy for his friend and mentor started to pop up on social media. Ainsworth died May 31 at age 64. Chapman, a military veteran who now farms in...
