Featured Content – Page 201

Look around you

by Jeff Rapsis

In London, visitors to St. Paul’s Cathedral who approach the tomb of architect Sir Christopher Wren are greeted with this inscription: “If you seek his monument, look around you.”

The same may be said about Raymond Wieczorek, longtime Manchester politician and businessman, who passed away recently at age 93.

Yes, look around you. Wieczorek, often called “the Wiz,” played a key role in developing much of what we point to today with pride about modern-day Manchester.

Examples abound. The SNHU Arena, which opened in 2001 and prompted a rebirth of the city’s downtown. The “new” terminal at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, christened in 1994 and now a regional economic engine. Zoning changes that led to a vibrant millyard business district.

During his time as mayor of Manchester from 1990 to 2000, Wieczorek’s vision and support made all these things happen.

I remember Ray being most proud, I think, of City Hall Plaza, the downtown office tower across from City Hall that was completed in 1992. At 245 feet, it remains the tallest building in northern New England.

Ray enjoyed following the construction, which he could see happening every day he came to work. To him, it was a tangible sign of good times to come for the city he called home.

All of this is more remarkable when you consider that the early years of Wieczorek’s time as mayor were among the darkest ever to hit the Queen City.

In the late ‘80s, New Hampshire suffered through a prolonged real estate mortgage crisis. One day in October 1991, the FDIC took over eight Granite State banks — five of them headquartered in downtown Manchester.

As a reporter for the Union Leader, I was downtown that day. The sight of the feds arriving, briefcases in hand, had many people convinced that a new Great Depression was underway.

Not Ray. He followed his instincts, honed by decades in the insurance business. He took a conservative business approach to guiding the city through the crisis, both in government and in the community.

The approach worked, although he had to make some hard choices. Members of the school custodian’s union never forgave him for replacing them with a private cleaning service.

But most importantly, the Wiz recognized the value of investing for the future. That’s what made such a difference in the long term.

So if you seek his monument, look around. Or better yet, take a drive on “Raymond Wieczorek Drive,” which connects the F.E. Everett Turnpike to the airport and the development around it.

Live for the season

Step out for a musical December

From big stages to small, national touring acts and regional heroes will fill the nights with mirth and melodies throughout December.

Here’s a taste of what’s coming.

• Bookend the month, and then some, with Recycled Percussion. The junk rockers close out their latest, Redonkulous, at their personal performance venue, The CAKE, with 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. shows (tickets $35 to $110) on two Saturdays, Nov. 26 and Dec. 3, and Sunday, Dec. 4, at 2 p.m. On Wednesday, Dec. 28, they’ll invade Manchester’s Palace Theatre ($35 and up) for a 13-show run that concludes on Jan. 7.

• Over at the Palace’s sister room The Rex Theatre, get festive and international with a week of holiday-themed events. On Saturday, Dec. 10, at 7:30 p.m. Boston-based jazz singer Rich DiMare serves up A Sinatra Christmas($29 and up), followed Sunday, Dec. 11, at 4 p.m. by the Celtic fiddle mastery of A Joyful Christmas with Eileen Ivers ($39). On Wednesday, Dec. 14, Italy takes a jazzy bow with Anthony Nunziata: My Italian Broadway Christmas; the next day, it’s Eric Mintel’s Charlie Brown Jazz Christmas. The Spain Brothers offer a blend of holiday-themed Irish and American folk on Saturday, Dec. 17 (all shows 7 p.m., $29).

• At the state’s largest venue,the SNHU Arena, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra returns for the 21st time since their Manchester debut in 2001, on Saturday, Dec. 10, at 7:30 p.m., as Keith Lockhart conducts the 2022 Holidays Pops Tour. Tickets are $55 and up at ticketmaster.com.

• At Concord’s Bank of NH Stage on Friday, Dec. 2, at 7 p.m., Portland, Maine-based Spencer and the Walrus recreate The Beatles’ studio recordings with astounding accuracy, joined by a six-piece horn section ($38). The theme continues with well-regarded Talking Heads tribute act Start Making Sense on Saturday, Dec. 3. at 8 p.m. ($15 and $30). Tim Reynolds, who rose to fame through his collaboration with Dave Matthews, plays with his TR3 band on Friday, Dec. 16, at 8 p.m. ($36).

• The Capitol Center for the Arts hosts a trio of seasonal shows starting with The Seamus Egan Project’s Celtic Christmas on Saturday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m. ($32 and up). The Capital Jazz Orchestra does its Holiday Pops show on Sunday, Dec. 11, at 4 p.m. ($27.50 and up) and the annual Morning Buzz Christmas Ball happens Thursday, Dec. 15, at 7 p. m. ($45, recommended age 18+)

• Tupelo Music Hall is packed from Day 1, as bluesman Popa Chubby stops by, with local favorite Brooks Young as an opener, on Thursday, Dec. 1, at 8 p.m. ($30). Guitar shredder Gary Hoey, whose Ho! Ho! Hoey! holiday show is synonymous with the season, plays Sunday, Dec. 4, at 7 p.m. ($35 and up). Musicians’ musician Martin Sexton hits Tupelo Friday, Dec. 9, at 8 p.m. ($40 and up), and folk chanteuse Judy Collins offers hits and holiday songs Sunday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m. ($55 and up).

• At Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club, guitarist and legendary side man Larry Carlton digs into Steely Dan’s catalog — that’s him wailing on 1976’s “Kid Charlemagne” — and plays other hits Saturday, Dec. 3, at 7 and 9:30 p.m. ($35 to $115). Singer-songwriter Dar Williams serves up erudite folk songs Thursday, Dec. 8, at 7:30 p.m. ($10 to $60), while British Blues Hall of Fame guitarist Matt Schofield plays Saturday, Dec. 17, at 7:30 p.m. ($15 to $55).

• At the nearby newly renovated Music Hall Lounge, the utterly charming Antje Duvekot appears Thursday, Dec. 8, at 7:30 p.m. ($37 and up), and Thanks to Gravity, a band key to the early ’90s Seacoast scene chronicled in the 2012 documentary In Danger of Being Discovered, plays two shows, Saturday, Dec. 10, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 11, at 8 p.m. ($28 and up).

• 3S Artspace has a few live music events, including free ones like Mission of Burma’s Roger Clark Miller playing from his boundary-stretching album, Eight Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble, on Friday, Dec. 2, at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. Small Pond tops a Saturday, Dec. 3, 7 p.m. show with Hello Shark and Sneaky Miles ($15). The headliners began in Portsmouth doing DIY shows, later opening for national acts like The Ballroom Thieves and Haley Heynderickx. Their sound is described as “swingy, laid-back indie rock with big hooks and undeniably catchy lyrics.” Boston emo stalwarts Piebald plays a 3S date on Wednesday, Dec. 28, at 8 p.m. ($25).

Venues
Bank of NH Stage 16 S. Main St., Concord; ccanh.com
The CAKE Theatre 12 Veterans Square, Laconia; thecaketheatre.com
Chubb Theatre (Capitol Center for the Arts) 44 S. Main St., Concord; ccanh.com
Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club 135 Congress St., Portsmouth; jimmysoncongress.com
Music Hall Lounge 131 Congress St., Portsmouth; themusichall.org
Palace Theatre 80 Hanover St., Manchester; palacetheatre.org
Rex Theatre 23 Amherst St., Manchester; palacetheatre.org
SNHU Arena 555 Elm St., Manchester; snhuarena.com
3S Artspace 319 Vaughan St, Portsmouth; 3sarts.org

Featured photo: Recycled Percussion. Courtesy photo.

She Said (R)

New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor investigate reports of sexual harassment and assault by Harvey Weinstein in She Said, a movie based on the real-life investigation and the subsequent book by the same name.

When we first meet Twohey (Carey Mulligan) she’s investigating allegations against then candidate Donald Trump — while also going to OB appointments as her pregnancy progresses. Kantor (Zoe Kazan) is covering refugees, while also juggling her two girls’ schedules with her husband, who is also a reporter. Kantor gets a tip about allegations of sexual misconduct, possibly years of misconduct, by Weinstein and starts looking into it, making calls and finding women with stories who can’t talk or won’t talk on the record out of fear of damaging their careers or because of non-disclosure agreements signed years ago. Twohey joins her on the investigation when she returns to work from maternity leave, still sort of reeling from what the movie depicts as postpartum depression.

The paper’s editors — including Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson) and Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher) — believe in the story but know that hefty on-the-record corroboration is needed. Twohey and Kantor chip away at the process of finding documents to back up the stories about settlements, charges that are dropped, HR complaints and the many non-disclosures. They also search for women with a story to tell about Weinstein, hoping they can find at least one who will go on the record, talking to the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Rose McGowan and Ashely Judd (who appears in the movie as herself). They also talk to former assistants who have spent years carrying the trauma of their interactions with Weinstein. The more they investigate, the more Twohey and Kantor are told that Weinstein himself will be coming for them, having shut down all previous attempts to tell these stories.

I almost feel like She Said isn’t quite about what it seems to be about. The trailer sells the idea that the movie is some John Grisham-meets-All the President’s Men high-pressure race to get Weinstein and go after the “whole system” or something — the trailer sort of feels like it’s just one explosion short of a Michael Bay movie. And there are moments in the movie itself where we get some real TV-exposition-style lines of the “what? Sexual harassers getting away with it?” variety that feel kind of silly coming from fully grown women in 2016 and 2017 who work in national media.

But the actual story, the meat of the movie, is more about the unglamorous work of investigating — a lot of phone calls and searching for documents and showing up at the doors of people who don’t want to talk — paired with the pushing-a-boulder-up-a-mountain quality of trying to work while parenting. Specifically, I think, of trying to work while being the mother of in Megan’s case a new baby and in Jodi’s case two young kids. The limitations, the constant sense of being behind and running late and keeping it all together with tape. At one point Jodi gets a pivotal call and, to get the time and quiet to have the conversation, she essentially bribes her daughter with Netflix time. That moment felt incredibly well done and true to life, as do scenes where Megan tries to find her work self again while swimming through her postpartum struggles. It captures the “backwards and in heels” aspect of what was involved for these two specific reporters to work this investigation and goes to the movie’s larger themes about women, the situations they have to deal with and the choices they make.

When the movie just lets itself be about this, about the work and Jodi and Megan and the way they try to honestly foster relationships with the women hurt by Weinstein without over-promising or being false about their motivations, She Said is absolutely riveting. The core duo of Mulligan and Kazan bring a lot that is unsaid to their characters, with facial expressions and little moments that fill their characters out and make them people. Mulligan even gets one really good explosion, a “had it with All Of This” moment, that is just a chef’s kiss. Clarkson is also solid; I wish she’d had even more to do.

She Said occasionally seems to get tangled up in the needs of a conventional movie versus the still-developing story that its characters are enmeshed in. But when it works, when its elements all come together, it’s thoroughly captivating.

Featured photo: She Said.

Coffee, cocktails and community

Café la Reine opens second spot in Manchester’s North End

Nearly a decade after Saint Anselm College alum Alex Horton opened Café la Reine on Elm Street in Manchester, she and her team have expanded to a second location built on quality eats, great coffee and community. Café la Reine – North End, which arrived in the space of the former Blake’s Restaurant last month, is more than three times the size of its downtown counterpart, introducing a full-service breakfast and lunch dining experience in addition to craft cocktails.

It was March 2013 when Horton, a Methuen, Mass., native who has lived in the Queen City since her college days, opened the original Café la Reine. At the time, there were not a lot of places around like it, and Horton herself recalls as a student always looking for a place where she could order a cup of coffee and comfortably sit down and do her homework.

Over the years, the spot has added everything from sandwiches and salads to avocado toasts, oatmeal bowls and açaí bowls to its menu, and has become known for its live “Java Jams.”

Even pre-pandemic, Horton said she had been looking for a potential second location. She happens to also live in the North End neighborhood where Blake’s closed its Hooksett Road restaurant in early January 2021, a spot that had been open for nearly four decades.

“When Blake’s closed, I knew that it was going to be kind of a loss for our neighborhood,” she said. “I mean, my husband and I went here on the weekends for breakfast forever, or we’d walk the dogs down [here] and get ice cream from the window. We frequented this place a lot.”

Soon after the property went on the market, Horton — along with her general manager, Dominique Gibson — decided to inquire about potentially taking it over.

“I really wanted a second location that had parking, and I wanted to expand on my menu, because you can only offer so much in a 1,000-square-foot space downtown. It’s so small and our kitchen is so tiny,” Horton said. “And so, I wanted a spot that had a bigger kitchen so that we could possibly make things for both locations out of this kitchen here.”

A few aesthetics, such as the tables and the blue-colored booths, have been kept and may be familiar to those who frequented Blake’s. But Horton and her team still spent the last several months revamping the space, even recruiting Alexis Clark and Nicole Rocha of The Terracotta Room on Elm Street to help install the plants you see along most of the booths.

As you walk inside, you can immediately turn to your right and order coffee or food to go from a counter, or you can be seated at a booth or table. Horton said her team plans to utilize the takeout window for online orders.

With the exception of the açaí and oatmeal bowls, just about everything on the menu downtown is available at Café la Reine – North End. But that’s not to say that the new eatery’s menu is a carbon copy of its predecessor. A wide variety of items are exclusively available at this space, from pancakes and Belgian waffles to eggs Benedicts and hash brown bowls.

“We have a bunch of starters, like loaded fries with eggs and hollandaise on top, which is so good,” Horton said. “We have wings, boneless [and] bone-in, and then we have huge breakfast sandwiches … and your classic big breakfast where you get everything. … For lunch, we have tuna melts, avocado BLTs and then some burgers and salads, so it’s a pretty full menu here.”

Café la Reine – North End also differs from the downtown location in that there is a full bar, from which you can order mimosas, bloody marys, and what Horton calls Above Average Joes.

“They are our boozy coffee cocktails that we serve in a pint glass. They’re so good,” she said.

Horton said she soon hopes to host either open mic or weekend live music events at her new space. A side room directly to the left of where you walk in has also already been used for larger parties and gatherings, or for those who want to go and work where it’s a little bit quieter.

Reflecting on the last decade, Horton said she never thought she would eventually expand to this degree, but has nonetheless enjoyed the experience and the response from the community.

“I was so young when I opened downtown, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll be OK with this,’” she said. “But then, I guess it’s just been the excitement and adventure of opening new businesses, especially with people that you love to work with. I feel like it’s all of our projects because we all had a hand in it, and that kind of reflects in everything from the menu to the way it’s decorated.”

Café la Reine – North End
Where: 53 Hooksett Road, Unit 6, Manchester
Hours: Thursday through Tuesday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed on Wednesdays.
More info: Visit toasttab.com/cafelareinenorthend, find them on Facebook and Instagram @cafelareine.northend or call 782-5367

Featured photo: Photo by Ethos & Able Creative, eacreative.co.

Art runs in the family

Sarah Larson, her mom and aunt talk about their family history as artists

By Katelyn Sahagian

ksahagian@hippopress.com

Some things are genetic, like hair and eye color. In this family, it seems that art is also a genetic link. With familial love and creativity comes a system that leads to support and healing.

Sara Larson, Liz Winchester-Larson and Harriet Winchester Kuzdrall are all professional artists in the Nashua area. They are also all related. Larson is Winchester-Larson’s daughter and Winchester Kuzdrall’s niece.

“Most of what I have learned [is] from my parents and my Aunt Harriet,” Larson said. “I’m following the family footsteps.”

The women are currently presenting their artworks at St. Joseph Hospital as part of the gallery Healing Through the Arts. They’ve had shows together before, with their current exhibition being the most recent while they prepare for more of the series “Art in the Family.”

The art on display at the hospital’s show is primarily nature-based, said Larson-Winchester. All three women grew up in New Hampshire, with Larson-Winchester and Winchester Kuzdrall hailing from Hollis and New Ipswich, and Larson raised in suburbs outside Keene.

Larson said that she loves having her aunt and mother to support her passion for art. She grew up watching her mother and aunt paint and sketch and draw as a way to remember hikes and vacations they’d gone on. They painted en plein air, out in nature at the scene, or they’d snap a photograph and bring it home to their studio.

All three women use different media, even if they have similar tastes in subjects and styles. Larson uses traditional oil paints, Winchester-Larson favors colored pencils, and Winchester Kuzdrall has recently made the switch to oil paints that wash out with water after doing 20 years of work with pastels.

“When I was doing pastel, I really like painting marshes, because in the spring and fall if you paint a marsh with maybe a few Mount Monadnocks, you can use all the pastels in the box ’cause it’s so rich in color,” said Winchester Kuzdrall. She said that the dust from the chalk had become too much for her lungs. “I still enjoy painting those native New Hampshire scenes.”

Painting New England nature is a favorite for all three women, said Larson-Winchester. Larson said that the scenery in New England was what kept her sane during the pandemic, even though she was close to 1,000 miles away from the Granite State.

During the pandemic, Larson was living in Lansing, Michigan. At the height of the pandemic, she said, she couldn’t leave her house to do the nature walks that gave her inspiration for her paintings. Then, her mother and aunt stepped in to help.

“I’m on the phone just about tearing my hair out, crying to both Mom and Aunt Harriet,” Larson said. “They got together a series of really neat photographs and Harriet sent a whole packet and said, ‘Paint these things.’”

It was ultimately this series of paintings that Larson did that brought her back to New Hampshire, and back to painting with her family.

During some research for a 2021 art show, the women discovered there had been professional painters in their family for at least a century.

Even though they hadn’t been aware of the depth of family history in fine arts, Winchester-Larson and Winchester Kuzdrall both remember growing up being encouraged by their own mother to continue their artistic pursuits.

“You can run across families where for generations everybody has been a teacher or nurses and things like that,” said Winchester-Larson. “So it’s not a unique idea … that there’s generations [of artists] in the family.”

Healing Through The Arts
Where: Inside and leading up to the Atrium at St. Joseph Hospital, 172 Kinsley St., Nashua
When: On display through Saturday, Jan. 7
Visit: stjosephhospital.com

Bringing the Holiday Fun

Your Guide to the 2022 Season of Festive Events

Welcome to Hippo’s Holiday Guide — our annual listing of fun happening from Drinksgiving (a.k.a. the night before Thanksgiving) through New Year’s Day.

Looking for parades, tree lightings, Nutcracker productions or cookie-related events to get you in the seasonal mood? We’ve got that as well as Turkey Day road races, holiday comedy, arts markets and so much more.

Know of a bit of holiday cheer we missed? Let us know at news@hippopress.com. Now get out your calendar and start filling your season with fun!

There’s so much to do this season it won’t all fit into one post. Link to the stories here:

Festive parades and lights