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Portsmouth Halloween Parade, 10/31/07
 

Portsmouth Halloween Parade, 10/31/07
 

Portsmouth Halloween Parade, 10/31/07
 

Portsmouth Halloween Parade, 10/31/07
 

Portsmouth Halloween Parade, 10/31/07

Margaret, 06-25-08

1502GDD, 08-06-08
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the ultimate alternative sport

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Seacoast Ultimate’s season-ending tournament approaches

Early in a recent ultimate contest between the maroon-shirted Killer and the white-shirted Squalodons of Krill, a maroon player sent the disc soaring deep into the end zone. A player from each team tracked the white orb as it sailed through the dusky sky, jockeying for position as it descended toward Earth. Both players leapt for the disc, but the taller maroon player hauled it in for the score.

The other player appeared to turn an ankle as he landed and crumbled to the ground in pain. Wasting no time to gloat or celebrate, the maroon player quickly pulled his opponent to his feet and helped him limp off the field to a chair on the sideline. The play demonstrated both the athleticism of the game and the good sportsmanship that characterizes the Seacoast Ultimate league.

The summer league consists of 10 teams that meet at Stratham’s Cooperative Middle School for weekly contests on Wednesday evenings. The 2008 season comes to a close with a final tournament on Saturday, Aug. 9.

“The tournament is mostly about having fun,” said league commissioner Mike Arsenault. “We try to promote it as being really friendly.”  
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Mark Wentworth Home reopens; NH gives Bush poor marks on economy

Mark Wentworth Home reopens

The Mark Wentworth Home reopened in Portsmouth last week after an $11.5 million makeover. The senior housing facility now offers 48 assisted living suites and 19 nursing home beds for elderly citizens living in the New Hampshire Seacoast, southern Maine and northern Massachusetts.

Mayor Tom Ferrini attended a grand reopening ceremony on July 30, and Ruth Griffin, Eileen Foley, Evelyn Marconi and Charlie Vaughan served as official ribbon cutters.

Located at 346 Pleasant St., the Wentworth Home closed in April 2007 after mold was found in the building’s walls. Extensive renovations designed by JSA Inc. were already underway when the closure occurred.

The 60,000-square-foot facility consists of three structures: the 1760 Mark Wentworth mansion, a 1920s masonry building and a 1982 addition. One of the goals of the renovation effort was to give the three buildings a visually cohesive appearance, adding clapboards, gables, bay windows and dormers.
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battleground financing

senatorial and congressional races compete for funding in NH

Democrat Jeanne Shaheen’s U.S. Senate campaign announced last month that it had raised more than $1.6 million in the second quarter of 2008, breaking the record for money raised by a federal candidate in New Hampshire.

The former governor says her fundraising success reflects residents’ desire for change. “People are ready for a leader in Washington who puts New Hampshire families, not special interests, first,” she said in a press release.

That statement was a dig at incumbent opponent John Sununu, who Democrats accuse of accepting $45,000 in campaign contributions from Alaskan Sen. Ted Stevens’ Northern Lights Political Action Committee. Following Stevens’ indictment on seven felony counts of filing false financial disclosures, Sununu agreed to return $10,000 that the Northern Lights PAC contributed in the 2008 election cycle. But Democrats feel he should return the remaining $35,000 collected during previous campaigns.

But does campaign funding decide elections? And should voters be concerned about where campaign contributions come from?
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Herbie Hancock plays at the beach; Ameranouche to play Newport

Herbie Hancock plays at the beach

It’s a rare feat for a jazz musician to win a Grammy for Album of the Year, but pianist Herbie Hancock pulled it off with his 2007 release, “River: The Joni Mitchell Letters.” During his five-decade career, Hancock has helped not only to advance the jazz genre, but to pioneer innovations in the realms of hip-hop, R&B, techno, fusion and pop. Hancock will be at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom on Wednesday, Aug. 13, for an 18-plus show beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 to $60.

The Chicago native was performing Mozart piano concertos by the age of 11, but steered toward jazz in high school and college. In 1963, he joined Miles Davis in what would become known as Davis’ second classic quintet, alongside saxophonist Wayne Shorter, drummer Tony Williams and bassist Ron Carter. The group stayed together for five years and recorded a number of classics, including “ESP,” “Nefertiti” and “Sorcerer.” Even after the group disbanded, Hancock continued to collaborate with Davis on such masterpieces as “In a Silent Way,” “Bitches Brew” and “A Tribute to Jack Johnson.” 
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The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

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PG-13

Should there be a moratorium on resurrecting movie franchises after more than five years? “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” makes a compelling case for leaving well enough alone and allowing fondly remembered movie franchises to lie peacefully in their cinematic sarcophagi. Instead, after seven years, Brendan Fraser and crew are dragged from their restive slumber by an ancient Hollywood curse (also known as a contract) for this third mummy-filled outing. This time, there’s some kung-fu fighting between Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, along with a parade of yetis and a three-headed dragon to sweeten the deal. But even with all that hot monster action, “Tomb” feels like it should have been called “The Mummy 3: Contractual Obligation.”

That’s not to say contractual fulfillments can’t be at least a little fun, and “Tomb” has big, stupid mummy glee to spare. Picking up more than a decade after the events of “The Mummy Returns,” “Tomb” finds adventurers Rick and Evelyn O’Connell (Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello) living in semi-retirement in the English countryside.
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The Ugly

Essential Films, 1997

starring: Paolo Rotondo, Rebecca Hobbs, Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Vanessa Byrnes

written and directed by: Scott Reynolds


the plot: Simon Cartwright (Rotondo) is a notorious serial killer who has spent the last five years locked up in an asylum while awaiting trial. Simon isn’t like most serial murderers, however. There’s no rhyme or reason to his choice of victims, no pattern to his crimes. That mystery draws psychiatrist Karen Schumaker (Hobbs) to take on Simon’s case. In a series of tense interviews, Simon tells the doctor of his past—the abuse he suffered at the hands of his controlling, alcoholic mother (Ward-Lealand) and the indignities he faced from bullies at school and, later, in the workplace. Through it all, Simon maintains that beings he calls the Visitors, apparitions of his victims, drive him to murder, even though he fights against them. As Simon relives his past, Schumaker is drawn deeper into his psyche and  begins to see visions of Simon’s victims and glimpses of the Ugly. When Simon tells the doctor of how he reconnected with a childhood friend (Byrnes), Schumaker learns that Simon’s fantasies about the Ugly might just be terrifyingly real.
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the B team

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Cinema Suicide blogs on the best of bad films

If you’re into cult movies, there are some exciting developments on the horizon. A “Friday the 13th” remake is in the works, reinventing iconic killer Jason Voorhees. Director Sam Raimi has alluded to a long-awaited fourth installment of “Evil Dead,” thrilling Bruce Campbell fans everywhere with a long-awaited ray of hope. There is even talk of an updated remake of 1979’s “Rock ’n’ Roll High School.”

“Wow, that sounds like a great idea,” said David White, his voice oozing with sarcasm. “I wonder if The Ramones will be in it.”

David is in charge of marketing for Cinema Suicide, a blog dedicated to film reviews and news about cult, exploitation and horror movies. His brother Bryan White started the site at www.cinema-suicide.com last summer as a way to turn his life-long love of horror movies into a useful tool for like-minded people.

“I’ve been a ridiculous fan of horror movies since I was like 7 years old,” Bryan said. “It’s always movies that nobody’s ever heard of except for me and a bunch of obsessive weirdoes on the Internet.”
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taste the Seacoast

N.H. Eat Local Week is underway

Ingredients: Garden fresh vegetables in heirloom varieties, local duck eggs and organic spice mix.

This was just one item of many to be found in the potluck dishes at Slow Food Seacoast’s bimonthly meeting on Sunday evening, Aug. 3. The food brought to share was prepared with as many local ingredients as members could find, and dinner was followed by a homemade cake with ripe Maine blueberries that one member said “taste like flowers.”

The meeting and dinner kicked off the state’s Eat Local Week at the historic Stoodley’s Tavern at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth. N.H. Eat Local Week, as officially designated by Gov. John Lynch, runs through Saturday, Aug. 9.

The week-long campaign was organized in part by Seacoast Eat Local to celebrate food that is grown and raised in the state. It’s an opportunity to support the local farming community, encourage food self-reliance and have a positive relationship with the environment. Participants are encouraged to challenge themselves to eat local every day this week, whether it’s every meal or just a side dish once a day.
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live free and lie?

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Rebecca Rule tells New Hampshire tales in new book

Rebecca Rule is a storyteller, a self-proclaimed professional liar.

When she speaks of long-winded town meetings, late night moose sightings, dead-end roads and self-reliant farmers, it all sounds a little familiar. Maybe that’s why so many people tell her the same stories, claiming them as their own and insisting that they really happened.  

Rule’s latest book, “Live Free and Eat Pie: A Storyteller’s Guide to New Hampshire,” is a compilation of stories, traditions and attractions unique to the state. As a New Hampshire native, meaning her family goes back at least five generations in the state, Rule is entitled to speak with authority about the stories that she has been told over the years.

“My family has always lived in New Hampshire, all the way back to, well, whenever,” she said. “I don’t know of anybody in my family who’s ever moved away.”
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only a memory

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stills of pre-earthquake China on display in Portsmouth Library

It started out strictly business but became a pleasure over the five years Barrington resident John Cafasso regularly traveled to China as a manufacturing engineer for Pratt & Whitney, a technologies company based in North Berwick, Maine.

Cafasso worked in Chengdu, China, a large city where one of the company’s factories is located. He started to venture out into the countryside over time, making friends, buying souvenirs, eating traditional cuisine and taking photographs.

He traveled through the city of Dujiangyan and into the mountains to visit the birthplace of Chinese Taoism at Mt. Qing Cheng. The mountains, including almost 40 peaks and 20 caves, are heavily forested. The architecture blends with nature, with towering cypress and gingko trees forming a dark canopy over the stone-paved paths. Monks lived and worked in the shops and tea houses, serving visitors from the nearby city of Chengdu.
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