WELCOME TO WEEK 2 OF DAYBREAK DIVERSIONS, UPPER VALLEY!
While the cat’s away, the mice will … tidy up your mess with such resolve that you'll be embarrassed at your own sloth. In Wales, retired postman Rodney Holbrook was—let’s just say it—none too fastidious in clearing up the workbench in his shed at the end of the day. Yet when morning came, he'd find it done. He set up a night-vision camera and waited patiently. Seems a certain mouse believed that everything has a place, and that place is a tray on the workbench, into which the little guy put the clothespins, caps, plastic lids, and rods Holbrook had left scattered about. Video thanks to The Guardian. The first transit map? Technically, it was the London Underground map of 1933. But a map showing you how to travel? That, graphic designer Jeremy Shuback says in this delightful Aeon video, would be the Tabula Peutingeriana, a 13-inch-tall, 22-foot long (yep) map of the Roman Empire's roadways. From Spain to India. "This thing is a daft shape!" UNC prof Richard Talbert tells Shuback. "What are you going to do that for?" Its idiosyncracies—like, it makes seas look like rivers, and includes cities that didn't exist at the same time—hold a clue, Talbert believes. It was made not for travel or for history, but to brag.SPONSORED: Help someone who needs a hand right now! Hearts You Hold is an Upper Valley nonprofit that supports immigrants, migrants, and refugees across the US by asking them what they need. It can range from baby clothes to work gear to laptops for people trying to establish themselves and their families in their lives here. At the link you'll find people in both New Hampshire and Vermont, but there are newcomers all over the country—from all over the world—who need something as simple as a car seat or baby shampoo. You can make a difference! Sponsored by Hearts You Hold.SPMWPLCM&DT. What, you don't know what that means? It stands for the Sue Pasco Memorial Williston Precision Lawn Chair March & Drill Team, which gathers once a year for the July 4 parade in Williston, VT, and does just what the name suggests. Ten days ago, Seven Days writer Chelsea Edgar embedded with the team to report on its history and on what it's like to prepare and then perform "an esoteric routine that involves marching in formation with lawn chairs, something no one ever needs to do in the course of normal life and that therefore simply must be done." And not just any lawn chair will do, either.The Monday Jigsaw. "Try this jigsaw of a 1913 map of the region within a five-mile radius of Dartmouth College," writes the Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross. "Zoom in to locate old schoolhouses, defunct or rerouted roads, long-gone mill ponds, and even a thankfully re-named island. A surprising amount has changed since this map was drawn." Here's the original.Today's Wordbreak. With a word from the regional news.
Hey! Time to get up and moving! Some years back, I linked to a version of Astor Piazzolla's "Libertango" as done by the Swingle Singers. And then, when I felt like hearing it again, I came across this: the Swingles and the Ayoub Sisters meeting down in what looks like a large drainage pipe. With fantastic acoustics.See you Wednesday.
Daybreak is written and published by Rob Gurwitt About Rob
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