Positive Street Art event includes Burns doc preview
By Michael Witthaus mwitthaus@hippopress.com
The role of technology was an important element of Leonardo da Vinci’s genius, and it’s the focus of an upcoming event at Positive Street Art in Nashua. The free session will guide attendees in the use of camera obscura to create drawings. It will also include a 25-minute preview of Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary, Inside the Mind of a Genius. First clearly described in da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus, a 12-volume set that included diagrams of flying machines, camera obscura was a tool that employed the reflection of light through an aperture to make art in perfect perspective. The Dutch master Johannes Vermeer is said to have used it as an aid in his realistic paintings. If an object “is illuminated by the sun and a small hole is drilled in the wall of a room in a building facing this, which is not directly lighted by the sun, then [those objects] will send their images through this aperture and will appear, upside down, on the wall facing the hole,” da Vinci wrote. “You will catch these pictures on a piece of white paper.” Four artists will lead the proceedings: Amara Phelps, Seana McDuffie, Cecilia Ulibarri and Yasamin “Yaz” Safarzadeh. They have diverse backgrounds; Phelps fronts alt-rock band Cozy Throne and is also a freelance writer, McDuffie is an ex-Marine and self-described “vibes stylist,” Ulibarri is Positive Street’s co-founder, and Safarzadeh is a painter, writer and the coordinator of Inspired By Leonardo da Vinci. In a recent phone interview Safarzadeh explained the event, offered in partnership with PBS. It’s part of an ongoing series that aims to spark creativity through “watching a film of the chosen famous artist and/or joining a creative painting session to explore inspiration through the artist’s/culture’s style and history,” according to an ad on the organization’s website. “We’ll be leading them into making these viewfinders, and then having them go find their own setting within this scene, whether it’s people or the geometry of the architecture, so they can really take these tools that scientists and Renaissance men were using, and use them themselves. Maybe these powers of observation can then influence them in their lives.” Safarzadeh looks at camera obscura as a path to creative intersectionality. “People really do themselves a disservice by not pulling the maths and the sciences into their artmaking,” she said. “We could really strengthen our creative economy and our practices by … dispelling some of this.” It’s wrong to call it a cheating tool, she continued. Camera obscura is a means to an end, and the human eye will always capture more than technology can. “You look at the Vermeer, those shadows, those hues, it’s because he looked at it through this camera obscura,” she said. “This breaks down a really scary notion … a crowd of people, a person sitting, or whatever. The audience will capture in their viewfinder, in their little pinhole, break it down into a much simpler structure that they can then document.” This method builds a bridge that goes both ways. It helps artists who are challenged by mathematics, and the more analytical types who are trying to find their way to creativity. For someone who is mathematically inclined, camera obscura can help them find their way to art by understanding the role of their discipline in art. The event continues Positive Street Art’s mission of bringing art to a wide range of people. One reason there are four instructors is to allow groupings; each cluster reflects different outlooks, with no more than a dozen in each. “We serve so many different demographics,” Safarzadeh said. “You need to discover your own voice through the materials … it’s going to be based on the individual, what’s going to come out of it.”
Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci When: Friday, Nov. 8, 6 p.m. Where: Positive Street Art, 48 Bridge St., third floor, Nashua Tickets: Free (donations accepted) at tinyurl.com/3pjsvsbp
Featured image: Camera Obscura Diagram, c. 1646 by Athanasius Kircher (from WikiMedia Commons)
Local fields, bogs and other natural spots for autumn stroll
By Zachary Lewis zlewis@hippopress.com
Looking to spend a few hours in some place calm and full of nature, not screens? Here are a few places to take a refreshing walk in the great outdoors.
New Hampshire Audubon’s Massabesic Center trails
Where: 26 Audubon Way in Auburn
More info: nhaudubon.org/lands/sanctuaries/massabesic-wildlife-sanctuary
Kimberly Whiteman, Massabesic Center Director for New Hampshire Audubon, spoke to the Hippo about the trails at Lake Massabesic as well as other Audubon locations and a couple of other areas around Manchester.
“I am primarily based here in Auburn,” Whiteman said. “I also work out in Concord occasionally with the management team and staff. We’re a big family here at New Hampshire Audubon.”
What are the Massabesic trails like? “We have a network of trails that connect to Manchester Waterworks trails. So on our peninsula there are about 7 miles of walking trails depending on which route you take. New Hampshire Audubon really only stewards directly about a mile of those trails primarily through our field. Our fields and our sanctuary are not dog-friendly and we don’t permit bicycles or motorized vehicles, to help protect the integrity of the wildlife sanctuary, but Manchester Water Works trails do allow bicycles, horses and leash dogs and we let folks use our parking lot to access those trails as long as they hit them from the main road and not through our sanctuary.”
The 49-acre sanctuary was acquired in 1993 and features trail access to Lake Massabesic, as well as a variety of upland habitats including mixed forests and open fields, according to the organization. The fields are managed for grassland nesting birds, while nest boxes are actively managed for tree swallows and eastern bluebirds
It is a common practice to name trails after colors.“We currently have two trails that we really have named, the Yellow Trail and the Red Trail, which you can connect to from the field trails,” she said.
The Massabesic Center is creating a new trail with wheelchair accessibility that should be finished by May 2025. “That’s going to be great because it’s going to provide wheelchair access and stroller access through the field,” Whiteman said. “We’re calling it ‘all persons’ because things that are accessible for folks in a wheelchair are also accessible for folks with strollers or [those who] just need an easy, flat surface for whatever reason. It’s so important to have access to nature.”
There are interesting sights around Massabesic.
“The Red Trail goes through our field here to the lake to a point called Blueberry Point. And it gives you great views over the water,” she said. “You’ll pass an old osprey blind on the way, which is a really cool building that has fun facts about ospreys. It used to overlook an osprey nest that was blown down in a storm several years ago, but it still gives you great views of wildlife on the water.” The whole loop is a manageable size at “about a mile and a half round trip,” according to Whiteman.
“The Yellow Trail goes out to Battery Point, which culminates in a view of the lake, of course, but also there’s an old historical structure … there’s old ruins out there. We have found a few artifacts related to farming. An old horse bit, stuff like that. There’s an eagle nest on Lake Massabesic, so we’ll see them flying over periodically. We have had bobcat sightings here over the past few months,” she said.
Lots of animals, such as otters, are at Massabesic. “We had babies in our pond about two years ago and we had a family of weasels that were living around this building vicinity last summer that our camp kids got to see. So that was really cool,” she said.
Birds are plentiful at the Audubon among the mammals. “We do see a Baltimore oriole nest in this elm tree almost every year. This year there was a really cool tree that had obvious signs of porcupine. Porcupines will eat wood just like beavers do. When you’re hiking the trails and you keep your eyes open you start noticing those little hints of wildlife activity which are really cool to see,” Whiteman said.
It’s a spot for hawk lovers too. “There is a pair of red-shouldered hawks that nest here every year and they tend to stick around in the winter, which is unusual. So we’ll get folks that see the e-bird records and notice there’s red-shouldered hawk sightings and they’ll come in and question us about it because they don’t believe it. I wouldn’t classify it as a rarity, but it’s not common,” she said. Visitors can catch them if they take the Red Trail.
All Persons Trail Base Layer at Massabesic in October 2024. Photo by Lew Shelley.
McLane Center
Where: 84 Silk Farm Road, Concord, 224-9909
More info: nhaudubon.org/lands/sanctuaries/silk-farm-wildlife-sanctuary
The Audubon at the McLane Center has trails at its Silk Farm Wildlife Sanctuary.
“I want to say like three loops, including Wendy’s Loop, their all-persons trail, which was completed about a year ago. They’ve got a good network too, and their trails also connect to trails that aren’t owned by New Hampshire Audubon. You can probably hit up 6 or 7 miles of trails out there as well,” Whiteman said.
In addition to Wendy’s Loop there are the Great Turkey Pond Loop and Field Loop as well as Old Orchard Trail and West End Farm Trail, which is more than 7 miles long. “These trails follow the same kind of stipulation of only foot traffic,” Whiteman said.
“Their all-persons trail was completed a year ago, so they have a mile-long loop that is completely wheelchair-accessible and is also great because it takes you through so many different habitats,” Whiteman said.
One trail of particular interest is the Great Turkey Pond Loop. “That takes you out to the lake [and] is beautiful. So you start in the pollinator meadow and there’s just a smorgasbord of bees and butterflies and meadow birds and great plants out there. You can see the milkweed and sunflowers and then you’ll start going into the understory where you get a mix of forest birds like warblers and not a birder. I know we’ve had wood thrushes out there,” she said.
The extraordinary wildlife sightings continue. “Then you’ll go under an American Chestnut Reforestation Area, which is really neat to see. And then if you hang a right and go off the All Persons Trail, that’ll take you down to Turkey Pond, where you can see wildlife like beavers. We get eagle sightings there,” Whiteman said.
Charismatic megafauna drop by too. “McLane has had a bobcat sighting almost daily for the past week and we actually had a moose, a young bull moose, go through McLane Center about a month ago,” she said.
Ponemah Bog
Where: Rhodora Drive, Amherst
More info: nhaudubon.org/lands/sanctuaries/ponemah-bog
According to NH Audubon, the name “Ponemah” is derived from the Ojibwe language and refers to the “land of the hereafter.” The 75-acre Ponemah Bog Wildlife Sanctuary came under the protection of New Hampshire Audubon in 1979 through Dr. and Mrs. Homer McMurray and local friends of the Sanctuary.
Jack Gleason Memorial Viewing Platform at Ponemah Bog. Photo courtesy of NH Audubon Archives.
The Ponemah Bog Wildlife Sanctuary features a 3-acre pond surrounded by a floating sphagnum moss mat and encircled by upland oak-pine woods, according to The Nature Conservancy.
“It is a prime example of a bog,” Whiteman said. “Your typical New Hampshire bog. So the boardwalk is not wheelchair-friendly but it is flat. It’s just two boards that are next to each other across the bog mat. But they’ve got wonderful examples of carnivorous sundews, and we do have the same stipulation there that we have at all of our sanctuaries. We ask folks to just use their eyes and leave no trace … when they’re visiting and not disturb wildlife, which is also why we don’t permit dogs.”
Evidence of critters is easily found. “You can probably see, you know, fox scat on that boardwalk, especially in the wintertime when the tracks are really visible, the scat’s visible, you’ll get raccoons and foxes up on the boardwalk at Ponemah,” she said.
Nature is never closed.
“The McLane and Massabesic are open year-round. Our buildings have hours Wednesday through Saturday from 11 to five.The trails of all of our sanctuaries are open every single day of the year from sunrise to sunset. We’re all free to visit,” Whitemand said. “We have another center in Hebron, the Newfound Center, which is seasonal from about Memorial Day to Labor Day.”
Manchester Cedar Swamp
Where: Hackett Hill section of Manchester, on the west side of the Merrimack River; the public parking lot is on Countryside Boulevard.
More info: nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/manchester-cedar-swamp-preserve
The Manchester Cedar Swamp Preserve is 640 acres and is the largest conservation area in the city, according to The Nature Conservancy.
There are 1.8 miles of trails. That includes the universally accessible Cedar Swamp All Persons Trail. Visitors can encounter shady hemlock groves, giant rhododendron patches and “the globally rare Atlantic white cedar swamps that are the preserve’s namesake,” with some trees that are more than 450 years old.
“[The Nature Conservancy] installed that trail,” Whiteman said. “We have taken field trips out there with our staff because it’s a beautiful trail. It was done with a big budget and as much as we can learn from that trail and implement those ideas into our trail, we’re all meeting the same goal with providing access to nature.”
The trail contains tidbits of historical information along the way. “So they’ve got some really great signage, interpretive signage about the history of the land and how it relates to indigenous features and the wildlife. Their trail’s a lot longer than ours are. They’ve got great bridges and benches.”
Other little but practical touches make the Manchester Cedar Swamp Preserve a nifty adventure. “One of the things I really love about the Nature Conservancy’s trail at Cedar Swamp is that they have a boot scrubber as you’re entering their trail and some signage about protecting the property from invasive plant species, seeds that can travel in on your shoes. They encourage people to scrub their shoes before they hit the trails, which is really neat.”
Livingston Park
Where: 244 Hooksett Road, Manchester
More info: manchesternh.gov/Departments/Parks-and-Recreation/Parks-Facilities/Parks/Livingston-Park
Livingston Park comprises 131 acres in Manchester’s North End and is a great option for those with furry friends or all-person access. “That’s something that I like to tell people,” Whiteman said. “When they’re looking for all-persons access in the area, and they have dogs.”
The park includes a playground and athletic fields, as well as Dorrs Pond, which is where the walking trail is. The trail loops around Dorrs Pond and offers a small sampling of wildlife.
“The unpaved walking and running trail loops around Dorrs Pond [are] approximately 10 feet wide and 0.9 miles long. The trail includes elevated boardwalks through wetlands and access to fishing and boating,” according to the City website.
“It’s really busy with people there. My observations have primarily been like waterfowl and small rodents like squirrels, chipmunks, things like that that are really well-adapted to people,” Whiteman said.
Whiteman hopes Granite Staters go to as many trails as possible. “If somebody hasn’t come out to hike them, come on out and hike all of those trails, you know, not just New Hampshire Audubon’s, but it’s good to get a feel of different wildlife in your community. What you’re going to see at Livingston is going to be different from what you’re going to see here [at Massabesic] and what you’re going to see in Concord.”
“It’s crazy just how much wildlife you can see in the heart of Manchester. You don’t expect to think that there’s otters or beavers right in your backyard,” she said.
Along the Derry Rail Trail. Photo by Zachary Lewis.
Beaver Brook Association
Where: 117 Ridge Road, Hollis
More info: 465-7787, beaverbrook.org
Brandon Rackliffe has been the Natural Resource Manager at Beaver Brook for about 11 years.
“We’re a nonprofit and privately run,” Rackliffe said. “It’s just all open for the general public to come and hike. We do have classes here as well, so you can join and take part in classes as well as summer camp and home-school programs”
He estimates the trail mileage there at “roughly, we’ve always said about 35 miles.”
Rackliffe oversees trail maintenance at Beaver Brook. “Everything is well-defined and easily accessible,” he noted. “Nothing is too bad that you have to be an expert to hike it.”
You can pick your starting point. “We have seven or eight parking lots that you can park at, different trailheads. I highly recommend picking up a map before you come or before you start a hike and definitely planning ahead. That way you don’t take the wrong turn or anything like that. Everything is well-marked.”
Depending on the trail, visitors could bring a bike or even their horse.
“We do have hiking-only trails as well as multi-use trails, which entail biking and horses as well, but we don’t allow anything motorized, including e-bikes,” Rackliffe said. “Every trail has a name. They’re marked in either yellow triangles or blue rectangles that indicate either multi-use or hiking only, and everything also has trail plaques.”
With all the trail options, plenty of maintenance work is called for. “We have a wonderful group of volunteers that take over and take ownership of certain trails to maintain and monitor. And those volunteers are the heart and soul of Beaver Brook. They really put in their time and effort to help maintain some of the trails to an extent,” he said.
“Quite a few of our trails are popular, our parking lots pretty much always have somebody in them any time of day. … our main campus, where our office is, the Cow Lane is probably one of the premier trails that we have here.” Portions of Cow Lane, Wildflower Trail and Lower Meadow Trail allow for wheelchair access.
Visitors are offered a glimpse into the state’s past. “A lot of our trails are old wood roads, you know, historical wood roads back in the day when Hollis was a much smaller town. So you can see evidence of old cellar holes and things like that, old bridge crossings or anything of that nature.”
Wildlife is varied here, Rackliffe said, “anything from deer to bear to moose, along with the small mammals and birds and things like that. We have all kinds of frogs, blue herons. I’ve seen all kinds of ducks. I’ve seen rare ducks in some of our ponds, plenty of bobcat. I’ve seen those plenty of times kicking around.”
According to Rackliffe, every trail offers something of interest, “which would be why we made the trail there in the first place. There’s a Jeff Smith trail that runs nine miles from Pepperell all the way up to Beaverbrook. We own the last third or half of the trail. And that runs through many other organizations. Everything is protected under easement.”
Gardens are also open at Beaver Brook. The Maple Hill Gardens are at the main campus, and tours and presentations are available with a reservation. These are 13 themed gardens, a natural play area, a demonstration compost court, picnic areas and a wildflower trail, according to the organization.
Mine Falls Park trail. Photo by Zachary Lewis.
Mine Falls Park
Where: There are multiple parking lots at and near the park, with one entry at Whipple Street
More info: nashuanh.gov/491/Mine-Falls-Park 589-3370
According to the City of Nashua, the park’s name came from an island underneath the waterfalls that allegedly contained a lead mine in the 18th century.
The park trails were added to the New Hampshire Heritage Trail system, which is 130 miles and follows the Merrimack River from Massachusetts to Canada.
There are six color-coded trails that vary in length around the park. The longest is the Blue Trail at 2.94 miles and the shortest is the Orange, which comes in at 0.38 miles. The Green is 1.96 miles long and the Red Trail is 1.40 miles. The Purple and Yellow Trails are both under a mile.
Patty Bernard and her husband Alan are frequent visitors to the trails at Mine Falls Park. “We like coming here because they have a lot of paved trails. It’s great because he has his motor scooter now,” she said. “So it gets him out and about. This is nice scenery. You’ve got the river, and then sometimes we go to the dam, the picnic table’s there, and we’ll pack a lunch, sit by and watch people kayak, canoe, boating, just to change the scenery.”
Wildlife is a part of that scenery. “We see turtles, beavers, nothing major now,” she said.
The paths take you straight through Nashua. “They put the first high school up and that’s what started everything and made it all connected. One in North Nashua, so you can actually walk from one to the other if you had to,” Alan said. “It’s a good distance.”
Multiple entrances add ease of access as well. “There’s different entrances to the park, which is nice. You can get access from downtown Nashua; over by the high school, Nashua South; over by Hannaford — that’s where we pulled in, over by Hannaford,” Patty said.
Mine Falls Park has many options for getting outside. “Great for dog walkers.We used to bike the trails, which was pretty cool,” she said.
“It’s a fun place to go. I mean, we’re still doing it,” Alan said.
“Every chance we get,” Patty added.
Rail Trail in Derry
Where: Hood Park, 4 Rollins St., Derry
The Rail Trail criss-crosses all across New Hampshire, and Derry contains a 3.6-mile paved chunk of it that crosses through trees and wetlands, according to Trail Link at traillink.com.
The trail quickly enters into a wooded area and eventually crosses Beaver Brook over a stone arch bridge. The middle of the bridge is known as Lover’s Leap, although the origin for that name is unknown.
The paved section of trail ends in Hood Park and its pond contains multiple species of fish and is stocked annually with brook trout and rainbow trout. The trail along the west side of Hood Pond continues on a dirt path for another 0.3 mile until the path ends.
The Derry Rail Trail connects to the Windham Rail Trail on its south side and in the future will connect with the Londonderry Rail Trail, according to the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission.
Hikers can park at Hood Park or at the Merchants Row lot in Derry, which has two-hour free parking and is more accessible for those using mobility aids or strollers.
Douglas Lowney, a resident of Methuen, is a big fan of the Derry Rail Trail. “Look at the beauty,” he said in reference to the lake and woodland covered path around him. “It’s like this the whole time. It doesn’t matter what time of year you’re here. It’s lovely. … I try to come three or four days a week. It’s like heaven.”
Lowney rides what he calls “a stand-up bike. I ride this about 20 miles I guess. It’s paved all the way. It goes all the way to Salem. And then it goes all the way down [Route] 28 past Walmart.”
Wildlife abounds as well. “See the beaver down there?” he asked.
The trail is perfect for those looking for the tranquility as well as the awesomeness of nature. “There’s all sorts of beautiful things here. In the fall, this is spectacular. It’s like it’s on fire,” Lowney said. The leaves “come tumbling down into the waters like it’s snowing. It’s beautiful. And the folks that take care of this trail do a good job,” he said.
No matter how Lowney is feeling, the Derry Rail Trail is restorative for him. “Even when I don’t feel good, I’m actually good when I come here. It’s very therapeutic.”
White Park
Where: 1 White St., Concord
More info: concordnh.gov/Facilities/Facility/Details/White-Park-21
According to the the City of Concord, White Park came to life in 1884 when the land it sits on was conveyed to the city by Armenia White for her late husband Nathaniel, who was a founder of The American Express Co., and the park itself was designed by architect Charles Elliott in 1888.
The Park extends from Eastman Baseball Field to the Monkey Around Playground, with various walking paths and a big loop around White Park Pond, which is filled with lots of ducks, koi fish, and frogs. The Pond becomes an outdoor skating rink during the winter months.
The Monkey Around Playground is the largest in Concord. It’s a giant wooden castle structure that is a lot of fun for little Granite Staters.
A couple of Franklin Pierce School of Law employees, Rachael Lefurge and Alexa Bobinski, were enjoying the park on a gray November weekday.
“I really enjoy walking around. It’s a nice break from my work day. There’s always a lot of people walking around. It’s really nice to work with the pond on a beautiful day,” Lefurge said.
“Yeah, I feel like it’s very beautiful no matter what season it is. It’s always very pretty. There’s always a lot of people here and wildlife,” Bobinski added.
“I usually see ducks,” Lefurge said. Even when the ducks eventually leave the Pond, the trails will still be filled with dogs and squirrels.
“It’s nice to get up and walk around a little bit and have some nice scenery just in the middle of Concord,” Bobinksi said.
Manchester’s police chief, Allen Aldenberg, who recently announced his plan to retire in November, has been named chief military and veterans officer for Easterseals NH & VT, according to a release from the organization. “In this new role, Aldenberg will oversee the operations of the Easterseals New Hampshire Military and Veterans Campus now under development in Franklin, New Hampshire, and expected to open in summer 2025,” according to the press release. In addition to serving in local law enforcement since 1998 (first with Goffstown and then in Manchester), Aldenbreg “has served in the Army National Guard for over 30 years, and he currently holds the rank of Colonel,” the release said. About the Franklin campus, Easterseals NH said “the campus will provide affordable housing; a retreat center which includes a hub of services of veteran service organizations, 22 hotel-style rental bedrooms, and a rentable conference center … and recreation activities for service members, veterans, and their families as well as first responders.” See eastersealsnh.org.
Nominate all-stars
Steven Abraham, previous head football coach at Salem High School, and Kip Jackson, head coach at Merrimack High School, will be the Team East and Team West coaches respectively in the 2025 Dartmouth Health Children’s New Hampshire East-West High School All-Star Football Game on Friday, June 27, at 6 p.m. at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, according to a press release. More than 80 of the state’s top high school football players play in the fundraising game, tickets for which go on sale in February. Chelsea Dennis, director at East Celebrity Elite Londonderry and coach at Londonderry High School; Jada Belt, head coach at Souhegan High School, and Karissa Edelstein, Windham High School coach, will coach the All-Star Cheerleading Team. See chadallstarfootball.org for updates. High school coaches in the state can also submit football player and cheerleader nominations to the website, with players drafted in early December, the release said.
Fair for the trades
The New Hampshire Bringing Back the Trades & Tradeapalooza Career Fair will take place Friday, Nov. 15, at NHTI-Concord’s Community College, according to a press release from Merrimack County Saving Bank, a sponsor of the event. A free career fair will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and “offer the opportunity to speak to companies in many different trades from construction to automotive to manufacturing and more,” according to nhbringingbackthetrades.org. The day will also feature an interview with Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe; see the website for the ticket options for that position of the event.
Donate from home
Goodwill Northern New England will offer donation pickups in New Hampshire starting with people near stores in the Amherst, Concord, Hooksett, Hudson and Manchester areas, according to a press release. ReSupply will offer a fee-based pickup service to donors and will take any items Goodwill cannot take to other charities, the release said. Clothing and household items can also be brought to Goodwill stores for donation for free. Visit goodwillnne.org/donate or call 361-264-1467 to schedule a donation pickup and ReSupply will reach out to coordinate the pickup within 24 to 48 hours, the release said.
Historic spots
The New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places has 10 new properties on its list, according to a press release from the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources.
The new spots are the Upper Deerfield Road Causeway and Culvert from 1777 in Deerfield; the Ashuelot Manufacturing Company Boarding House in Winchester built in two phases in the 1800s; Eaton Center Church built in 1879; First Universalist Church in Jaffrey from 1845; West Milan Methodist Church from 1897; District 4 School/Lockehaven Schoolhouse from the early 1800s and Enfield Center School from 1851, both in Enfield, and properties in Randolph, the release said. See nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov for the register and for information on how to nominate a property.
Gleaning
United Way of Greater Nashua and Hillsborough Country Gleaners held the third annual “Gleaning United” to harvest fresh produce for 26 sites such as food pantries, senior centers, shelters and other locations in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, according to a press release. The United Way of Greater Nashua reported that 74 volunteers collected 5,780 pounds of apples and 2,600 pounds of pumpkins from Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell, Mass. For more on the United Way’s hunger relief programs, see volunteergreaternashua.org.
Craft fair season
Multiple craft fairs have been scheduled for this weekend. Check out the Arts listings on page 14 for a rundown of some fairs. Know of an upcoming craft fair? Let us know at adiaz@hippopress.com.
The Business and Industry Association will hold BIA’s 2024 New Hampshire Energy Symposium on Thursday, Nov. 7, 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the Grappone Conference Center (70 Constitution Ave. in Concord). Admission costs $150 in advance at biaofnh.com or $175 at the door if there is availability.
The Peterborough Town Library will host presentations about Medicare and other benefits available to seniors in the Monadnock Region by Home Healthcare, Hospice and Community Services — “Know Your Benefits: Options for Care and Reimbursement” at the library (2 Concord St. in Peterborough) on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at noon and 5:30 p.m. Go to peterboroughtownlibrary.org or call 924-8040 to register.
A ribbon cutting and grand opening for 75 Canal, a residential apartment community at 75 Canal St. in Manchester, was slated for Wednesday, Nov. 6.
Milford’s Veterans Day Parade will commence at 10:45 a.m. and begin and end at the American Legion, 15 Cottage Street, traveling to the Milford Oval and then to the World War I, World War II and Korean War memorials, according to milford.nh.gov.
Ethan Tapper will discuss and sign copies of his new book How to Love a Forest at Balin Books (375 Amherst St. in Nashua; balinbooks.com) on Friday, Nov. 8, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Find more about the Vermont-based forester and author at ethantapper.com.
Cirque du Soleil’s The Beatles Love, which closed last July after 18 years in Las Vegas, was both a musical revue and a hallucinatory spectacle. It was also the introduction to the Fab Four for a young Harry Springer, and it left a lasting impression. When he returned from the show, Springer convinced his parents to buy him a guitar.
Though it didn’t come up in a recent phone interview, it’s a safe bet Springer, who performs as Moon Walker, was partial to John Lennon. His music is a heady hybrid of glam rock and dreamy pop, which is appropriate for a guy who also cites Marc Bolan as a guiding light. He’s also fond of psychedelia stalwarts like Jellyfish and Supergrass.
In Lennon-esque fashion, Springer uses music as a platform for his politics. On TikTok, he stitches his songs to examples of hypocrisy, such as videos that tout tough parenting, parochial thinking and petty prejudices. It’s a winning formula, as his posts have garnered 16 million likes, and his @moonwalkerband account currently has nearly 400,000 followers.
“Give the People What They Want,” from 2023’s Apocalypticism, casts a wary eye at consumerism, “We want … houses we can’t pay for, jobs we can’t stay awake for,” Springer sings. Lately, he’s lambasting religion, on songs like “Regular People” and his latest, “New God,” a bracing track punctuated by shredding guitar and spacey, layered vocals.
Like the Beatle who wrote, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain,” Springer is sharp in his critiques, but it’s not in response to the way he was raised. It’s just the way he sees the world. “A lot of the things that get me worked up politically boil down almost exclusively to religion,” he said. “Sometimes, I don’t recognize that it’s going to bother people … until it does; and it always bothers the right people.”
Springer puts his faith in music, and he’s a relentless student. A conversation on influences veers from prog industrialists Can to Curtis Mayfield, who wrote “Superfly” and “People Get Ready,” to the proto-nerdcore Modern Lovers, a Boston group that included a future member of Talking Heads, a band he positively reveres.
“The funny thing is I discovered all three of those at the same time, so in my mind they’re strangely linked,” he said. This was during the beginning of the pandemic, a time when Springer had moved from Colorado to Los Angeles with his band Midnight Club to make a name for itself on the club circuit, only to end up in quarantine.
With no gigs to play and time on his hands, Springer began writing songs for Moon Walker and in October 2021 released Truth To Power, collaborating in the studio with drummer Sean McCarthy. A second album, The Attack of Mirrors, came a year later, followed by Apocalypticism last October.
This year he’s released several singles, including the antiwar “Genocide Money” in July. Considering his studio prowess, it wouldn’t be surprising if Moon Walker hit the road as a duo; Springer, McCarthy, and a looping machine packed with samples. That’s not what’s happening, however.
For a Concord show with fellow indie rockers Moon City Masters opening, Moon Walker will perform as a trio. Springer will work with a different drummer; McCarthy will be back in SoCal, but will rejoin Nov. 13 for a tour that will hit California, Oregon and Washington.
Like the many musicians Springer admires, most of whom had their heyday before MTV hit the airwaves, Moon Walker is old-school onstage.
“We don’t do tracks, so there are certain songs we can’t really play, but it’s kind of freeing — there’s no pressure to match the record because it’s physically not possible,” he said, adding, “I love the energy of a live show. There’s something that moves you when a band is in the moment and playing well together. I think it makes for a relatively unique experience. It’s going to be entirely different every night.”
Moon Walker w/ Moon City Masters When: Friday, Nov. 1, 8 p.m. Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord Tickets: $19 and $31 at ccanh.com
Popular purveyor serves food at Pembroke City Limits
For Kelly Sue Leblanc, a turning point in the direction her life was headed came in the form of a vegan cooking class.
Leblanc, who goes by KSL, was curious about plant-based foods, but was frustrated by how limited her dinner choices seemed to be. “I was definitely a carnivore,” she said. “I’d been eating that way my whole life. I honestly was like, ‘OK, I made a stir-fry and a salad and some pasta and now I’ve run out of vegetable things to cook for myself. Am I just going to be stuck eating pasta and salad and stir-fry for the rest of my life?’ I didn’t know how to cook without butter or dairy.”
A cooking class led KSL to a deeper understanding of how food is constructed — why certain ingredients go together, and what the elements were that made some dishes work, and some crash and burn. Learning about food became fascinating to her, which, in short order, led to buying a food truck.
“We bought the truck in June of ’22,” KSL said, “and that first season we kind of stuck around Manchester because of the crazy amount of different health licenses that are in the 16 self-governed towns of New Hampshire. Being a mobile food truck in New Hampshire is a very strange kind of gig because of the way that we [New Hampshire towns] manage our health licenses.” Limited by the cooking space in a food truck, she did the lion’s share of cooking in a commercial kitchen in Manchester and then finished each order on site.
She named the truck The Sleazy Vegan.
“The Sleazy Vegan got its name in a couple of different ways,” KSL said. ”I plan on living on a sailboat at some point, and I was playing with business names that began with S-V, and that came into my mind, and worked for me in that way, but it also worked because of the philosophy of food.” She remembered that when she first switched to a plant-based diet she felt like she was being judged. “I went to a couple of different places that were vegan restaurants, and I was made to feel very, very uncomfortable because I was wearing leather shoes or had a leather handbag. And the penny hadn’t dropped on me about what the word ‘vegan’ really meant and how fully loaded it could be. And Sleazy Vegan is sort of my acceptance of being an imperfect vegan and wanting to just make sure that everybody knows that about the food and about what we’re doing before they get there. The name Sleazy Vegan kind of ties together our whole concept of being a vegan food provider.”
Earlier this year The Sleazy Vegan became the food provider at Pembroke City Limits (134 Main St., Suncook, 210-2409, pembrokecitylimits.com), a multi-use entertainment venue. KSL said cooking in the new space is not too different from working from her food truck.
“The space that we have at Pembroke City Limits is smaller than what’s on my truck,” she said. She and her head cook, Trafton Hanscom, who describes himself as a “Sleaze Wrangler,” still do all their preliminary cooking at her commercial kitchen, then finish each dish to order at the brick-and-mortar restaurant. “What we have been doing at Pembroke City Limits is introducing things that we’ve done in the food truck,” she said. “I am an unruly cook because I am constantly making new items. But that’s, I mean, that’s why I’m doing this, right? If I look at our current menu — between our snacks and apps, bigger bites, drinks and sweets — we are doing over 30 items from that tiny little kitchen.”
KSL sees her new restaurant as the next stage in an evolving story.
“Being that my history is in tech,” she said, “I view everything as a prototype. We’re prototyping this idea that we can put in something that would cost about the same as a food truck or less into a small establishment and be able to run Sleazy Vegan as a busy vegan kitchen, so that maybe we can grow this idea up and repeat it.”
The Sleazy Vegan Where: 134 Main St., Pembroke Hours: Open Wednesday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Thursday and Friday, 4 to 10 p.m., Saturday, 2 to 10 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Info: 233-5078, thesleazyvegan.com The menu is available online, as well as links to The Sleazy Vegan’s social media accounts. The Sleazy Vegan can cater occasions from weddings to corporate events.
Marina Forbes is an award-winning artist, master iconographer and art historian whose focus is on traditional Russian art forms and culture.
Forbes will give a presentation on “Traditional Matryoshka Nested Doll Making: From Russia to New Hampshire” on Thursday, Nov. 7, at Gafney Library in Sanbornville. She is native of St. Petersburg, Russia.
“As a traditional artist, I love to do traditional art inspired by the thousand years of tradition. I teach how to actually paint nested dolls as well,” Forbes said. “I work as an art historian and I also work as an artist.”
Forbes is with New Hampshire State Council on the Arts as a traditional artist and contributes in categories like health care and education. “I’ve been doing programs for the last 30 years. I came to America 30 years ago. I’ve been doing programs with New Hampshire Humanities and I have a series of programs,” she said.
Her Matryoshka Nested Doll presentation involves just as much history as art. “As an art historian, I love to talk about art’s history and culture and their interconnection. In my presentation, we will start with the history of nested dolls, which has lots of legends, and then we’ll just examine the tapestry of rich folk tradition,” she said.
More contemporary historical events have influenced this old art form. “The collapse of the Soviet Union, early 1990s, people used nested dolls as a venue to search for identity, to explore new ideas. That’s why it’s such a creative process,” Forbes said.
The old and the new are used by Forbes to illuminate the story of this craft. “I’m going to use some of my exhibits as well so people can understand the connection between the 150-year art form and icons, which is more than 1,000 years of tradition, because nothing comes from nowhere — everything is built on a tradition.”
One aspect of the interconnection of art’s history and culture in her presentation relates to why nested dolls look the way they do.
“Nested dolls traditionally depict a woman, so it’s very interesting to talk about women through their lens of history and their dress and fashion and what it took to be beautiful, because in every culture it’s different, ‘what does it mean to be beautiful?’ and we’ll talk about what it is to be beautiful in Imperial Russia,” Forbes said.
How big is a typical nested doll? “Normally the nested dolls have one piece inside, three, five, seven, 10, 11, and everything with more than 11 pieces inside is considered to be a kind of custom-made piece. People, artists, work on whatever size of doll which is convenient for them.”
“The final piece in a set of 11 can be just smaller than the size of your fingernail. …. The big doll can be 10 inches, 15 inches, 7 inches, but it’s all about what’s inside, because when you open one it reveals a smaller one, and the smallest can be really very small. And if you’re curious, the craftsmanship is all about how many dolls you can nest in a certain shape,” she said.
Nested dolls glowed with a springlike joy when they were first created in the late 19th century. “Siberia, minus 40 degrees outside, everything is covered with snow, that’s why the concept of a nested doll is a wonderful toy with bright happy colors with fabulous flowers like from paradise to cheer yourself up.”
The dolls had six distinct versions, she said. “We had six factories all over Siberia, and every factory had its own style. Probably the best way to understand it is McDonald’s. You go there, you know what to expect, and it’s kind of different from Burger King. So that’s why each factory had a distinctive style but still it was a nested doll.”
Nested Doll events Traditional Matryoshka Nested Doll Making: From Russia to New Hampshire When: Thursday, Nov. 7, at 6 p.m. Where: Gafney Library, 14 High St., Sanbornville, 522-3401
Matryoshka Nested Doll Painting: Storytelling and Hands-on Workshop When: Saturday, Nov. 16, 10 a.m to 1 p.m. Where: New England Language Center, Rochester To register: email marina@marinaforbes.com or call 332-2255
