WELCOME TO DAYBREAK DIVERSIONS, UPPER VALLEY!
How Beethoven transformed darkness into the luminous “Ode to Joy.” It was the centerpiece of his ninth—and final—symphony, but one could say Beethoven had waited his whole life to write “Ode to Joy.” The inimitable Maria Popova of The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) tells the story of how the legendary composer, inspired as a boy by Friedrich Schiller’s poem of the same name, took “the transcendent torment of his creative life,” including his hearing loss, and created “something superhuman”—and widely considered his masterwork. It’s a story of resilience, redemption, and hope.You can totally try this at home. Just make sure your parents aren't around. So, some sibs in Oregon went viral a few months ago with videos of themselves playing "balloon league"—you know the deal because you've done it yourself: Keep the balloon from hitting the floor. Well, Barcelona soccer star Gerard Pique gets wind of the idea and suddenly, 32 international teams are competing in Spain in a mock living room that happens to have a VW in it. Here are last year's finals, when Peru's Francesco de la Cruz held off Germany's Jan Spiess for the win. Three minutes of riveting action.From 25,000 feet up, without a parachute, into a net you can't even see from up there. Let's stipulate three things: 1) This is a 2019 video; 2) about a 2016 event; 3) the guy's nuts. But hey, there's a reason 30 million people have checked it out: The Australian YouTuber behind the "Wonder World" channel pulls together behind-the scenes, training, and day-of footage to explain skydiver extraordinaire Luke Aikins' record-setting jump from 25,000 feet above Simi Valley, CA, with neither parachute nor wingsuit. Unreal.The Friday Vordle. With a word from the news. Vordlers, if you've signed up for the weekend Vordle reminder, you'll get that tomorrow. If you haven't, but would like to get it, go here.And as we head into the weekend... Ayub Ogada was a Kenyan singer and master of the nyatiti, an eight-stringed Kenyan lyre. He was also an actor—in Out of Africa and The Kitchen Toto—but it was his pure singing voice and talent on the nyatiti, nurtured by busking in Underground stations in London (where he came to Peter Gabriel's attention), that brought him global notice. He died in 2019, and you can get a sense of what a huge loss it was here, with the hauntingly beautiful "Obiero" from 1995.See you Monday, as we start the second week of Daybreak Diversions.
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