News

It's 'Curtains' for North Country Community Theatre, which stages a musical send-up of a backstage murder mystery this and next weekend at Lebanon Opera House, 51 N. Park St.

This happy-go-lucky view of small-town vice and statewide political 'side-stepping' centers on the Chicken Ranch, a long-running brothel whose time is at an end.

Joe Jackson, the singer and songwriter whose signature tunes include 'Is She Really Going Out with Him' and 'Steppin' Out,' will return to The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, for an 8 p.m. show Thursday.

A reception for New Hampshire Institute of Arts' Master of Arts in Arts Education student thesis exhibition runs from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday in the Roger Williams Gallery, 77 Amherst St, Manchester.

A lesson in community building has led to a whole school of fish.

Work by artists Emilie Clark and Margery Mueller will be unveiled at two receptions, one at the Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery, 69 Maple St., Center Sandwich, from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday and the other at The Red Dot Gallery, 74 Drew Hill Road, Alton, on Sunday, also from 5 to 7 p.m.

In a double-bill show as part of their Summer of Living Dangerously tour, Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers take over at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

Catapulted into the national spotlight with a Season 4 win on NBC's 'The Sing-Off' in 2013, the vocal group Home Free returns to the Granite State this month as part of its Timeless World Tour.

The Budweiser Brewery Experience isn't putting the brakes on its trademark brew tours and service, but it's focus will be on a bit of Mustang Mania on Sunday.

Twenty years before Samuel F.B. Morse changed the world with his electric telegraph, he was an itinerant painter in Portsmouth.

North Dakota Most residents had to warm up to depiction of city

Ask folks in Fargo what they first thought about the 1996 movie that made their city famous, and some will tell you they were not fans.

Some residents initially didn't appreciate the Coen brothers' dark humor or were offended by the extreme violence and depiction of Scandinavian culture. Not to mention those heavy accents on "you betcha" and "ya sure."

But the fame and cash it brought Fargo eventually brought the city around. Now, 16 years later, Fargo awaits the debut of a new cable television show by the same name, and many residents here are less apprehensive about how their hometown will be portrayed this time around. Just ask Kristin Rudrud.

"Anything the Coen brothers are going to be involved in is going to be brilliant," said Rudrud, 57, who played a supporting role in the movie. "And they love Fargo. They love this area. So it will be done in a very fun and loving way."

Nashville Country superstar has spent time in retirement

Garth Brooks will spend today looking back when he's inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, touching on some of the greatest moments of the most electric career in country history.

"It's so exciting," Brooks said. "I'm trying to be somewhat professional or somewhat have manners or something, but I'm probably going to be Garth and fall apart."

Unlike most honorees, whose best performances are usually behind them at this point, there's a chance the semi-retired superstar could continue a career that helped country music evolve from a regional sound to an international phenomenon.

Bud and I both have serious cases of electionitis avoidis gravis. In 2008, we spent much of the run-up to the national elections in Australia.

It was delightfully free of political ads as well as fascinating to get the Aussie take on all the hoo-ha. This time around we are in New Hampshire, and sometimes find ourselves wondering if we should just get outta here. Airline JetBlue seems to have similar thoughts, with its new promo "Live Free or Fly"(jetbluelectionprotection.com). The idea is to sign in and vote for your party (sorry, only Republican and Democrat offered) on its website. If your candidate doesn't win, you could win a free ticket out of the country. Come back - or not.

And that got me thinking about the world of expats. Suppose we actually did want to move to another country on a semi-permanent basis?

Expats

Baggage Check

Q: My husband doesn't take good care of his health, so he's always getting sick. And he is such a baby when he is sick. I used to be sympathetic, but now I'm just annoyed. Yes, you will get a cold if you're not good about washing your hands while commuting during flu season. How do I handle this?

A: There's a middle ground here between "Get your own darn soup - it's your fault you're sick!" and "Oh, honey, please continue licking those subway walls - I'll take care of you no matter what!" Arriving at the sick-spouse sweet spot involves getting your points across without increasing his agony when he's already sick. The next time he's recovered, tell him that you worry he's got a couple of habits that are going to keep making him miserable. Being specific and respectful should encourage him to make some small changes.

It may be fall, but you can plant bulbs until the ground freezes

Between cleaning up the garden and raking leaves, there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the fall for anything else. If you can find the time though, a few extra hours of work can pay off by giving you months of colorful surprises in your garden next spring. Can you possibly squeeze a few more spring flowering bulbs into your landscape?

I add a big bag of odd colored daffodils every fall and love the unique bouquets I can pick from them each spring. By planting early, mid-season, and late blooming varieties of bulbs you can stretch the show into summer, so put down your rake and pick up a trowel. Local garden centers have been promoting bulbs front and center since August and hopefully they have some interesting ones left.

Holiday's true risks aren't the ones parents usually focus on

Hey mom and dad: Halloween's not really all that scary - except when it comes to traffic safety.

Despite warnings about tainted candy, candle fires and even child abductions, real Halloween headlines are rarely about any of those things. Instead, tragedies related to the holiday typically involve trick-or-treaters hit by cars. Fortunately even those accidents are relatively few in number.

And here's something that might surprise you. A study published in 2010 in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found that the most emergency room visits involving children around Halloween are related to sports.

The report stated nearly 18 percent of injuries on Halloween were to the finger and hand, and a third of those were lacerations, with some likely resulting from pumpkin-carving.

It was a tough choice, but someone had to make it; forgoing donuts to head to The Works

It's time to choose. I've thought about it, weighed my options and considered the differences. Time's up. This decision I make may be the most important of my lifetime. My future hinges in the balance, and its importance cannot be overstated. What's it gonna be? Bagels or donuts?

I choose bagels. I know - everyone loves donuts! Donuts are fun! Donuts are frosted! Donuts come in round and stick shapes! But just like that first kiss with your sixth-grade girlfriend in your neighbor's basement, the first bite of a jelly donut is a brief moment of bliss followed by hours of guilt, regret and lies.

Bagels are more like your college girlfriend who writes in a journal, throws a Frisbee with skill and has friends with goatees who don't own sneakers. Bagels will fill you up with lots of things, but regret isn't one of them.

Meredith New England scenes join images from India

Virtually anybody who lives in New England can relate to Noboru Murakami's painting titled "Snow Blower and Me." The blurred figure who's all but engulfed in great blotchy swirls of snow is emblematic not just of anyone who's wrestled with this particular piece of machinery - though that alone describes a significant portion of the population - but anyone who's done battle with winter.

In the adjoining room of the Lakes Gallery at Chi-Lin in Meredith, paintings, photographs and textiles from the other side of the globe provide a striking contrast to Murakami's everyday New England scenes. And yet, just as there are hints of the exotic in Murakami's choice of color and in the descriptions he's written to accompany the pieces, there are universal human emotions embedded in the faraway scenes and unfamiliar styles of this exhibit.

TV Review

The first season of American Horror Story gave us men in rubber bondage suits, teenage murderers, ghost housekeepers with extremely active libidos, very creepy pregnancies and nosy neighbor Jessica Lange repeatedly gnawing on every corner of crown-molded scenery in the haunted house next door. Along with AMC's The Walking Dead, it confirmed that TV audiences crave a quality, borderline-R-rated fright.

But after the American Horror Story finale aired last December, something really weird happened: Executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk announced that Season 2 would be a complete reboot. The setting would change. The narrative would be new. And while some of the actors might return, the characters would be completely different.

Cookbook author's latest focuses on gluten-free, sugar free baked goods

After years building his career and credibility on carbs, award-winning baking instructor and bread cookbook author Peter Reinhart was an unlikely candidate to become an ambassador for low-carb, gluten-free living.

And yet his just-released The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking puts him squarely at the top of the heap of writers, bloggers, bakers and chefs clamoring to satiate America's hunger for a life - or at least a dinner or two - lived with fewer carbohydrates and less of that pesky, yet ubiquitous wheat protein known as gluten.

He has his carb-derived cred to thank for it.

Reinhart has long been considered one of the nation's premier bakers. His gorgeous, painstakingly researched books blend textbook-worthy detail with a gentle voice that masterfully leads readers through the science and romance of transforming carbs and gluten into deliciousness.

So why change?