catching up on local news

Seabrook and Belmont eliminate live dog racing

Greyhound racing may be a thing of the past in New Hampshire, a sport relegated to the archives of state history. The last two remaining tracks that held live races—Seabrook Greyhound Park and The Lodge at Belmont—have both permanently discontinued their live dog races. Another track in Hinsdale closed late last year.

A provision in the new biennial state budget recently approved by the N.H. Legislature enables tracks to cease live racing and still offer wagers on simulcast races from elsewhere. Shortly after the budget passed, the tracks in Seabrook and Belmont applied to drop live racing, and the N.H. Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission quickly approved their applications.

Animal rights groups lauded the development. “This is a victory for everyone in the state who cares about animals, and it ends a sad chapter in New Hampshire’s history,” said Carrey Theil, executive director of Grey2K USA.

not so fast, New Hampshire

In two separate cases, courts last week temporarily froze $119 million critical to the New Hampshire’s brand new state budget. This won’t leave the Granite State to issue IOUs like California has resorted to.  But, it could mean a summer session for the Legislature. And that could mean a second chance for gambling, another go at business and other taxes, or deeper cuts to services.

After much debate last month, the House and Senate narrowly approved—and Gov. John Lynch signed into law on June 30—a two-year budget that counted on transferring surplus money from two accounts into the general fund. But two groups of plaintiffs already had filed lawsuits to prevent the state from tapping into what they say is their money. Now, Superior Court judges have given them a chance to make their case and told the state to hold off on using the money. 

at the Press Room July 1

Dave Gerard jokingly thanked folk legend Tom Rush for opening for him on July 1. Rush had played a show under the tent at the Prescott Park Arts Festival, finishing his set about an hour before Gerard kicked off his solo gig at The Press Room. Gerard regrettably confessed that he did not know any Tom Rush songs and could not pay tribute to the fellow New Hampshire resident. Instead, he dove into a fresh and energetic set of mostly original songs from his new CD, “The Zoomy Trail.”

A veteran Seacoast performer with unmitigated passion for his craft, Gerard meshes blues, rock and bluegrass into a distinctive guitar and singing style. When he’s not gigging as a solo artist, he can often be found fronting his Portsmouth-based rock band Truffle, which has been together since 1986. That experience all comes to bear on “The Zoomy Trail,” his fourth solo album.

by Pink Floyd
1969, Capitol Records

Sub Rosa brings back drive-in theater

Audience members may have felt much like the fugitive teenagers they were watching on the makeshift screen. More than a dozen vehicles congregated under the shroud of darkness at a secret location to view a guerilla screening of the classic 1984 action flick “Red Dawn.” As Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and the rest of the “Wolverines” hid out in the hills of Colorado to resist a dreaded communist takeover, a covert group of moviegoers hid out behind the Bed, Bath and Beyond building to enjoy an old-fashioned drive-in movie.

Yes, it is now safe to reveal the secret location of the second installment of the Sub Rosa Drive-In. That’s because the guerilla theater group will not be returning to that spot for its next clandestine operation. The viewing of “Red Dawn” was cut short by a combination of technical difficulties and an unexpected visit from the Rollinsford Police Department. Still, the film zealots behind Sub Rosa plan to forge ahead with a screening of “The Warriors” at a new secret location on Friday, July 17.

rated R

Director Michael Mann (“Heat,” “Last of the Mohicans”)  has said that his driving goal with “Public Enemies” was not to tell a story about the 1930s, but to actually recreate the experience of living in them. It was an era of fantastic innovation. Automobiles were just learning to roar, commercial air travel was only in its fourth year, long distance phone lines were still being wired across the windblown dustbowl. As magazines and moving pictures presented the nation with its first real collective cultural understanding, America itself walked the wild lands of frontiers sociological, political and technological. As history (or at least the history of the movies) would arguably bear out, frontiers breed the best outlaws. And along comes Johnny: Last American Gunslinger.

A born-and-bred whiskey-fed troublemaker from the Wild Wild Mid-West, John Dillinger earned his first prison term at 21 for knocking over a corner grocery store in his Indiana hometown. The $50 haul won him eight and a half years in a cold cell with a bona fide criminal mastermind—Walter Deitrich. Deitrich had made it his life’s work to perfect the art of bank robbery as small unit military combat.

Almena Films, 1982
starring: Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Edmund Purdom and Ian Sera
directed by: Juan Piquer

Rye launches farmers’ market

The Rye Farmers’ Market has begun its first season with about 10 local establishments offering fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, meat, eggs, cheese, baked goods and seafood at the town parking lot near the Rye Congregational Church.
The market runs from 2:30 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Central and Washington roads every Wednesday through October.

Reed's, Inc.

How can you not immediately fall for a beverage that lists Szechuan Peony Root as its third ingredient? Cassia Bark, Raw Cane Sugar, Nutmeg, Oils of Lemon, Cloves, oo la la! It is, in fact, written into our charter here at the Small Foods Laboratories to consume all the Szechuan Peony Root-based snacks we can.

After the initial thrill of discovery, though, reality sets back in. China Cola is a bit flat and a bit heavy, more like a thin ginger beer than a cola. It’s not bad, but it’s not delicious either, not tremendously fun. It’s a solid, healthy cola alternative (with Szechuan Peony Root!) for those who prefer to drink their sodas from the strange springs along the road less traveled.
 

‘Brooklyn’
by Colm Tóibín
262 pages, 2009 Scribner
 
and

‘Let the Great World Spin’
by Colum McCann
350 pages, 2009 Random House

The City that Never Sleeps. Gotham. The Big Apple. The Capital of the World. The Empire City. Whatever you call it, New York is one of the most historically and culturally important cities on the planet. Every year, dozens of movies and television shows and hundreds of books are based in NYC. And while it was beginning to seem like an old hat to use NYC as a setting, two Irish authors have recently written such remarkable novels about a particular time in the city’s history that it seems impossible to doubt that it will ever go out of fashion. Both bring NYC to life not only as a place but as a character itself.

Prescott Park opens annual art exhibit

The Sheafe Warehouse was made of heavy timbers fastened with wooden pegs in 1705 and has since been preserved as an example of the waterfront structures once used by merchants to store goods.

For 35 years, the New Hampshire Art Association has coordinated exhibitions in the warehouse in conjunction with the Prescott Park Arts Festival. This year’s theme of water is an obvious one for the park’s riverside setting, yet the area’s talented artists continue to surprise with new and different work. In this case, water also works as an often used metaphor for renewal.

Currier puts the spotlight on N.H. artists Gary Haven Smith and Gerald Auten

Although they use vastly different media expressions, the body of work by artists Gary Haven Smith and Gerald Auten at the Currier Museum of Art’s “Spotlight on New England” exhibit evinces a compatible camaraderie of abstraction.

“We chose to pair these two artists because we were intrigued by the affinities of form, pattern, and texture among the works,” says Andrew Spahr, curator of the Manchester gallery. “On one hand, the artists share a commitment to minimal abstract forms, and on the other hand, a dedication to a creative process that is spontaneous and intuitive. Both artists use techniques that produce work with sensuous surfaces that bare the marks of the creative process and the history of the object’s making.”

‘Gypsy’ at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre

“Gypsy” is a show that has an extraordinary number of familiar songs (“Everything’s Coming up Roses,” “All I Need is the Girl,” “Together Wherever We Go”) and even a time-honored punch-line (“How do you like them egg rolls, Mr. Goldstone?”).  It’s about the childhood of burlesque dancer/actress/writer Gypsy Rose Lee (Christine Dulong), known to her family as Louise, and her overbearing mother Rose (Shannon Lee Jones).

Rose is anyone’s worst nightmare of a stage mother. She takes advice from talking cows that appear to her in dreams and guide her to one hideous act after another. Her efforts are initially fixated on Baby June (Elle Shaheen), who has a singing, dancing vaudeville act with Baby Louise (Ally Foy). Things start looking up when candy salesman Herbie (Ed Batchelder, adorably well suited for this role) agrees to return to his former profession and represent the girls in their act. When Teen June (Marissa Sheltra), age 13, elopes with a boy from the act (largely to escape Rose’s smothering grip and start a legitimate acting career on her own), Rose turns her attention to Louise.

the Ring kicks off Late Night series with “Evening Broadcasts II”

The Players’ Ring in Portsmouth will launch its 2009 Late Night summer season with a one-weekend staging of “Evening Broadcasts II” from Friday to Sunday, July 10 to 12. The production promises bullet wounds, plane crashes and blunt instrument damage, but it’s not as violent as it sounds.

The play, a follow-up to last year’s “Evening Broadcasts,” includes three short works for two characters and a corpse. Director G. Matthew Gaskell shared writing duties with fellow local playwrights Jacquelyn Benson and Michael Kimball. Gaskell instructed each writer to come up with a story involving two men and one woman—with the stipulation that one of the characters had to be dead.