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Nature has a way of showing the interdependency of things, of bringing to naught man's boasts of innovative triumph and, at the same time, highlighting the need for creative thinking and nobility of human spirit.

And so it happened that an unusually forceful storm roared through a wide swath of the United States earlier this summer, toppling trees, severing branches, damaging homes and cars, and consigning several souls to eternity.

I and mine were lucky. The only thing we lost was electricity. But it was a dysfunction that lasted long enough to highlight the genius and shortcomings of the 2012 Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in hybrid electric car.

The Volt is a midsize four-door hatchback whose front wheels are driven by an electric motor delivering the equivalent of 149 horsepower and 273 foot-pounds of torque. The car can travel at speeds up to 100 mph for 35 to 50 miles - depending on driving style and conditions - on battery power alone.

Concord Suncook Valley Chorale welcomes all for group

While those Granite Staters who fancy themselves shining stars among shower singers may never consider trying out to be the next American Idol star, there is at least one local group that would love to have them.

The Suncook Valley Chorale will be holding a "no-commitment-needed" Open Sing on Monday at 7 p.m. This community chorus is a non-auditioned group, said publicity chairwoman Holly Ares Snyder. The only requirements, she said, are a love of singing, the ability to attend Monday evening rehearsals and the concerts held Jan. 19 and 20.

"We take all comers," said Choral Director Scott Lounsbury. "We start with where they are and bring them further to the best performance we can create."

While some choral directors think that taking anyone at any level of talent is a risky endeavor when it comes to quality, Lounsbury said he couldn't disagree more.

Concord U.S. Marine Band making rare stop

The greatest band in the world is coming to Concord.

On Oct. 12, the William H. Giles Concert Series will present a free concert at the Capitol Center for the Arts by an historical musical group that has no equal: "The President's Own" United States Marine Band.

Established by an act of Congress, signed by John Adams in 1798, the U.S. Marine Band today is the oldest continuously active musical group in our country. Now in its third century the band's primary mission holds true today: to provide music for the president of the United States.

Senior Assistant Director Jason Fettig, a Manchester native, recognizes the importance of that historical role.

"I always hoped that I would be a part of an organization that makes great music, but I never imagined that I would be in an organization where I would witness slices of American history that are so important to our nation," he said.

You can't beat their ease and versatility for a quick, on-the-move breakfast Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Gluten-free muffins

For the first time in I'd rather not say how long, I've joined the back-to-school rush, waking near dawn to take the bus to Boston, where I'm studying the history and future of journalism.

A long commute means breakfasts on the go, and few foods are more portable than muffins. Too often, though, store-bought varieties are packed with sugar, simple carbs and gluten. Homemade muffins, on the other hand, can be the foundation of a healthy breakfast, free of gluten and full of whole grains, fruits and protein.

Muffins are also a good way to ease into gluten-free baking. They tend to cook more consistently than loaves of quick bread, and it's easy to adjust the size of the batch based on your needs. Plus, the possibilities are endless: sweet, savory, common, exotic. For some inspiration, pick up a copy of 150 Best Gluten-Free Muffin Recipes by Camilla V. Saulsbury.

Overall, box office receipts at new low

The Possession occupied the top spot at a nearly comatose box office.

The fright flick with Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing the parents of a girl possessed by a demon earned $9.5 million in its second outing, the lowest grossing weekend for the box office this year and one of the worst weekends at the box office in a decade. It marked the first time since 2008 that no film managed to crack the $10 million mark.

The weekend after Labor Day is typically the slowest of the year, but this weekend's grosses were down 20 percent over last year when Contagion opened in first place with $22.4 million. Total box office revenue is estimated at $67 million, which would make this the worst weekend at the box office since the weekend after 9/11 when revenue was $59.7 million.

I often write about how to get the best possible deal on airfares and other aspects of travel. But sometimes people ask me if we think it's ever worth it to pay for upgraded, luxury or even ultra-luxury, travel. My answer is yes and no - depending upon the amount of money at your disposal for travel, the length and breadth of your travel bucket list and the aspects of travel that really "wow" you.

Club and concierge rooms: Many national and international hotel brands provide opportunities to upgrade to a club or concierge room. These are often larger rooms, sometimes suites, with better views and amenities like free WiFi, pool access and such. The price differential can be 10 to 25 percent, so a $200 room might be bumped up to $220 or $250 and is indeed frequently worth it.

New York / Paris / London

Donna Karan mingled with Miss Piggy, Michael Kors judged karaoke with Debra Messing and Kim Kardashian signed perfume sets as shoppers broke out their stilettos - and their wallets - for the fourth annual Fashion's Night Out.

The celebrity-studded night on Thursday was designed to lure shoppers into stores for celebrity spotting, music, giveaways, food and drinks, and, of course, shopping. By early evening in New York, the basement beauty floor of Bergdorf Goodman was packed.

Madeleine Russell of Manhattan, wearing her FNO shirt from last year, got her nails done ahead of a long line. She attends FNO events every year.

"I'm inspired by all the fashion around me and I get my own ideas," she said.

The event - launched in 2009 in New York by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour - has proven so popular that it's now a fixture in some 19 countries, over three weeks involving tens of thousands of shoppers.

Adding late bloomers now can bring new life to your waning flower beds Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Auturmn blooms Auturmn blooms Auturmn blooms

It has been a wacky gardening season. An early spring got things up and blooming much sooner than usual, and many perennials blossomed far ahead of schedule, leaving very little now to keep the garden colorful until frost. The plants we usually depend on to carry us into fall have come and gone. Luckily, September is a great planting month. Cooler temperatures, warm soil, frequent rainfall and more time make for less stress on the plants and on us. If your perennial garden has pooped out, look for some of these late bloomers to add a last blast of color to your fall garden.

Oregon Northwestern wine country produces the best on earth

Driving southwest from Portland an hour or so through the suburbs, you hit the heart of Oregon's wine country rather suddenly. Here the mountainous Coast Range slopes to the Willamette Valley floor, which is smothered with vineyards that produce some of the best pinot noir on earth.

Almost too quickly, you're far from Portland and into lush, green farmland where white-on-blue signs - often several to a post, flipping past like roadside ads for Burma Shave - point up quiet, twisty roads toward small, family-run wineries.

Oregon is home to some 500 wineries. After California, which produces 90 percent of U.S. wine, it is one of the top three wine-producing states, along with Washington and New York.

Baggage Check

Q: Do you think a relationship can work as long-distance when it hasn't become serious yet? A guy I've been dating for three months is taking a job transfer to Boston. Part of me is wondering if I should expend my emotional energy trying to keep something going with him. He talks about how cheap the flights are, but I don't know that I'm there yet.

A: It seems your real question is, "How can I get more serious with someone I'm not interested in getting more serious with?"

Throwing a long-distance angle into a new relationship is tough, and careful deliberations are imperative. But I'm sensing a major "meh" on your part.

You've been dating for three months, not three days - motivation should be higher. When you're into someone, your instinct is to think of ways to make it work, rather than trying to get a random psychologist to convince you.

What you post on the internet stays there, if not forever then at least for a very long time. So what may seem like a moment of merriment can turn out to be an embarrassment that hangs around far longer than you ever imagined.

For the record, I am not lecturing careless, renegade tweens and teens who have heard this diatribe countless times over sexting, inappropriate posts and other online bad behavior. No, this time the screed is directed at parents who post videos of their children online in the hopes that their child's adorable, brilliant, engaging antics will go viral.

While we sat outside waiting for a table at the School House Cafe in Warner, a white-haired, bearded gentleman in a khaki cap with "Jesus" across its front, stopped to pass the time of day with us. He told us how good his breakfast had been; he admonished my granddaughter's boyfriend on healthy eating and what he should and shouldn't eat or drink. The man didn't mention his name but did let drop that he had a drivers' education school and that he lived in Salisbury before trotting on his way.

"Why didn't I get his name?" I muttered. "He'd be a fun column."

My much more computer-oriented granddaughter said, "You know he has a driving school, probably in Salisbury. Go home and Google driving schools and hopefully you'll find one in Salisbury."

Canada Time travel, gritty crime fuel 'Looper'

Emily Blunt wants to head back to the 1960s or maybe the 1920s. Joseph Gordon-Levitt would prefer to visit the future.

So does Rian Johnson, their director on the time-travel adventure Looper, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival yesterday ahead of its Sept. 28 theatrical premiere.

The sci-fi thriller features Gordon-Levitt as a hitman in the year 2044, his victims being sent by mobsters back from 30 years in the future, when it's become virtually impossible to dispose of a body and get away with murder. Bruce Willis co-stars as Gordon-Levitt's latest victim - his own self three decades older.

Gordon-Levitt said he might like to visit the very distant past to see how language developed among humans, but he's generally forward-thinking on his time-travel destinations.

Listen to local bands, munch on local food and reconnect local farmland

It's a feel-good event if ever there was one: A picturesque farm, wholesome local food, music by local bands, all blanketed in that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you're supporting a good cause. If you've got something better to do than the Harvest Festival on Saturday evening, you should be prepared to defend your definition of "better."

"It's just a nice chance for a great evening out in the fresh air," said Jay Haines, director of the Five Rivers Conservation Trust, which helped plan the event, together with the Green Concord business alliance.

The event is a fundraiser for the organization's Triacca Fields

conservation easement project, which is seeking to reconnect 24 acres of farmland to Dimond Hill Farm. The transaction, which will be completed in cooperation with the Concord Conservation Commission, will help ease operating costs for the farm while preserving a beautiful parcel of land, Haines explained.

Singer releases 12th studio album

At 51, Melissa Etheridge isn't coasting on her accomplishments. Take her guitar work.

The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, whose 12th studio album has been released this week, challenged herself to play all the guitar parts this time around for the first time.

"I kind of thought when I was 30, that you're as good as your going to get. And that's not true," she says. "I have gotten so much better and I'm celebrating it on this album."

The album, 4th Street Feeling, has a dozen songs that mostly look backward - to her parents, childhood and breakups. It's named after a street in Etheridge's hometown of Leavenworth, Kan.

"I'm exploring being 51. I'm exploring the maturity, the wisdom that just comes from having gone around the sun 50 times," she says. "My experience is, 'Oh, I'm never really going to get it right. I'm never going to get it done. But that's not the point here.' The point is the journey."

North Carolina Tracy Reese creation showed off first lady's arms

First lady Michelle Obama got rave reviews for the custom-made Tracy Reese pink and copper dress she wore while giving a tribute to her husband at the Democratic National Convention.

The sleeveless dress showed off the first lady's famously toned arms and the length modestly skirted her knees. She paired the dress with pink pumps from J. Crew and her fingernails were painted a trendy blue-gray.

Reese described the dress as a "silk jacquard in an abstract baroque wallpaper pattern" with a bodice in hot pink woven with rust and copper. It's not the first time Obama chose a design by Reese, an African-American designer who is showing a new collection Sunday during New York Fashion Week.

In an email, Reese said the first lady "looked incredible and spoke beautifully; I am so honored that she chose to wear one of my designs for such a memorable occasion."

New York Music icon to play 87 shows this year

Fifty years into his career as a recording artist and a week away from release of an extraordinary new CD, Bob Dylan spent his Tuesday evening where he seems to feel most comfortable - on a stage.

In this case, he marked the grand reopening of a refurbished theater in Port Chester, a gritty village 35 miles northeast of New York City.

At 71, the renowned songwriter is a road warrior. Tuesday was his 50th gig out of 87 scheduled this year, a schedule that has seen him play a brewery in Missoula, Mont.; a baseball field in Fort Wayne, Ind.; and an amphitheater built on the site of the first Woodstock concert in Bethel, N.Y.

In the past 20 years, Dylan has played more than 2,000 concerts, said Bill Pagel of the Boblinks website, who meticulously logs every song he performs.

Early September is the height of tomato season in New Hampshire Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Home Plate

The end of August and early September are tomato season in our part of New Hampshire. The nights aren't yet cold enough to turn tomato flesh mealy, and the days are still long and warm enough to coax long-season heirlooms into multi-pound plumpness and brilliant hues.

I planted my tomatoes a little late this year, so I haven't had so many tomatoes to contend with (yet) that I've begun putting them by for winter. When that day comes, I'll probably slow roast most of them, which concentrates their flavor and collapses them into a more manageable size for freezing. In winter, their intense sweetness will find its way into soups, stew and sauces.

For now, though, I'm eating my tomatoes vine-ripe and sun-warmed, mostly with just a sprinkle of salt, and maybe a drizzle of olive oil and vinegar.

Philadelphia 'Made In America' to be documentary

Jay-Z's entrance said it all: He bounced up and down on top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, mimicking Rocky before he took the stage in front of nearly 50,000. His song Made In America played in the background.

Jay-Z, like Rocky Balboa, has a rags-to-riches American dream story, and the 42-year-old entertainer - who grew up in the Brooklyn projects and released his debut album in 1996 - shared some of that through songs in his 90-minute set Saturday night at the Budweiser Made In America festival.

He entered from the back of the stage after running down the steps to perform Public Service Announcement. That was followed with the night's first cameo: a prerecorded video with President Obama.

Obama urged the crowd to vote this fall. He also said Jay-Z's story is "what Made In America means" and added that he enjoys listening to the rapper's music on his iPod.

Studio executives expected their biggest summer ever this year as they loaded their lineup with huge action movies and superhero franchises.

What they got were two colossal blockbusters - The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises - a handful of backup hits and plenty of duds that just didn't deliver, resulting in what may prove the lowest summer movie attendance in 20 years.

While domestic revenue is projected to come in as the second-best ever, the number of tickets sold shrank to about 532 million from the first weekend in May through Labor Day, down 4 percent from summer 2011, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. If that holds by the time final ticket sales are counted through today, that would be the smallest audiences Hollywood has packed in for its busiest season dating back to 1993, the earliest summer revenue data maintained by Hollywood.com.