Posted in Music | Leave a Comment »
Imagine that you could voyage back in time to the late nineteenth century, walk along the streets in your town, hear your ancestors’ stories, and learn about how they felt, what they experienced, and how they lived. The Warner Historical Society has created precisely that opportunity through their film project “This Morning Broke Clear: Warner NH in the Wake of the Civil War 1860-1900.” which premiers Saturday April 19 at 7 p.m. at the Warner Town Hall.
The documentary has been in development for three years and is a community project in every sense of the word with dozens of residents involved in recording voice-over narration for the film.
The film revolves around a fictional character named Jenny played by Warner resident and actress Mary Morris. “Jenny” left Warner in 1900 after living in town for 42 years and returns in 1910 to finish her personal historical memoir. “We chose to have a woman as a narrator because it is difficult to find women’s voice in history during this time period because they were not voting or writing articles for the newspaper. Their voice just isn’t well documented.” Rebecca Courser, Executive Director of the Warner Historical Society explained. “You would find small vignettes talking about their singing or raising houseplants, or domestic concerns. In order to read between the lines and bring out their voice we created a woman narrator for the film.”
Mary Morris: “Jenny is looking back at her life in Warner just prior to the Civil War through 1910,” Mary Morris stated. “The character is a vehicle to talk about the history of Warner. She is a professional woman who does some photography and is also a writer and decides she is going to writer her memoirs about Warner. This fictional character intermingles with real individuals who lived in town.”
“It’s an absolutely beautiful film,” Morris affirmed. “The voice over becomes a natural part of what your experience is. George Packard used photographs, papers, and archival materials and wove them with live action, original music. Sound effects, all kinds of layering to create a history of the town we live in. it truly is a gift to the town.”
“The movie is organized in chronological order,” the film’s writer and director George Packard detailed. “The movie follows what was happening after the civil war ended. There was good news and bad news. When soldiers returned in 1865 things were not going well. We deal with the economic depression of 1873, the boom of manufacturing, agriculture dying, people leaving for the West. Small towns faced a lot of challenges. The federal government required towns to provide a certain number of men for the war effort. Towns paid a bounty which was a salary for soldiers. As the war progressed, fewer people were willing to sign up for the amount offered. By the end of the war the town was paying a $800 bounty per soldier.”
“The town was faced with $60,000 in debt immediately following the Civil War,” Courser added. “The town got loans from private citizens and it took decades to repay.”
“The themes in this movie are both specifically Warner related but also mirror what was happening in the culture, such as the problem of having to reinvent the local economy. Business people had a modern sense of promoting the town and tourism yet resources were very limited and there were political divisions. Taxes were on the rise, school systems had to change, these three decades were amazing times.” Packard expressed. “We spent two years digging for clues and putting them together for this movie. The experience of learning is exactly the same as moving into a new town. It just so happened that the town we moved into was 150 years ago. So we began to learn the situations, events, issues, different characters and build an understanding.”
“We’re consolidating forty years into an hour and fifty minutes,” Courser said. “It’s a monumental task.”
Packard worked through more than fifteen versions of the script and went through months of condensing, revising, and rewriting. In the end over three hours of film was shot, and a painstaking editing process began. “You’re bringing people back to life and give them their voices again. Its one of the hardest things I’ve even done. I have literally three hundred pieces that I could weave into the narrative but I only have room for twenty. How do you figure out what to include that will be significant to everybody?” Packard reflected.
“A project like this takes on a life of its own and becomes a rollercoaster,” Courser noted. “I think the music and images and story is going to be very emotional for people and give them awareness of the community. When people drive down the road past a certain street or a certain house, they’re going to make positive associations with those places. There are parallels with events that were happening then and events that are happening now. There are a lot of stories within the larger stories.”
“The people in this story are not just the prominent people,” Packard stated. “One story we couldn’t fit into the film was about Constantine the Peddler. He was a Greek man who had a business driving a wagon selling goods. There is one picture of him and Rebecca has a diary of a woman who mentions Constantine and she bought something from him. Because her husband wouldn’t let her go to the store to buy a dress, Constantine lent her the money for the dress. This is one of the ten thousand stories we can’t tell in the scope of this movie but still exist. ”
“She had chickens to sell eggs and bought soap in bulk so she could sell soap to neighbors to make money and become just a little more independent,” Courser added.
All of the music in the film was composed or performed by area musicians including local resident Paul Knudson. “George Packard came to a couple of my Tuesday concerts called Music at 11 at the United Church of Warner and that’s how we connected about the film.” Knudson gave Packard some cassette tapes of his compositions “and the rest,” Knudson quipped, “is history.” Among Knudson’s four works that are featured in the film are a sonata for French horn and piano and a sonata for violin and piano that he wrote for his father. Another theme is taken from the “Folk Quintet” which was recorded by the Manchester Chamber Orchestra. “Although the music was not composed specifically for the film, it blends perfectly,” he said. “I’m thrilled that my music won’t be lost.”
DVDs of “This Morning Broke Clear” will be available for purchase at the premiere on April 19 and afterwards from the Warner Historical Society.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Mon, Wed 1 – 5 PM
Tu, Thu 9 -12, 1-8 PM
Sat. 9 AM -2 PM
News from the Pillsbury Free Library
by Nancy Ladd and Sue Matott
Children’s Programs
Toddler/Preschool story time is every Thursday at 10:30 AM. There will be a craft activity on Wed. April 21st: please call Sue to register. This is during school vacation week, so the time will be 1:30 pm. Details and a notice will be coming home from school the week prior.
There will be a special storytime on Saturday, May 15 at 10:30 AM during the “Spring into Warner Arts Festival”.
The themes for our all-ages summer programs will be water-related.
Volunteers to help with programs or offers to present programs are always welcome.
Other Programs:
Rebecca Rule returns to Warner Wednesday, April 14 at 1 PM.
Come to Warner Town Hall to hear NH’s best-loved humorist-storyteller tell Yankee stories; and you may want to share one of your own. “That Reminds Me of a Story” is funded by the NH Humanities Council and sponsored by the Pillsbury Free Library, the Warner Historical Society and the Mountain View Senior Center. Free and handicap accessible.
Seniors can call 938-2104 to arrange transportation.
NH’s Sheep Boom: a talk by former Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Taylor, Thursday, May 13 at 7 PM at Town Hall. Co-sponsored by the Pillsbury Free Library, Warner Historical Society, and Mountain View Senior Center, funded in part by the NH Humanities Council.
Spring into Warner Booksale, 9 AM to 2 PM, Saturday May 15. Pillsbury Free Library. Volunteers welcomed, to set up or sell.
On display now through April will be a collection of Lionel model trains owned by Ron Mingarelli, and acrylic paintings of NH scenes by Dawn Page.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Anyone who has visited a library has discovered a sacred and wondrous place. The library can be a refuge, a resource, a community center, a place that feels comfortable, warm and light. You can find books, music, movies, information, and even a friend. Libraries are places where people are welcomed. Warner’s Pillsbury Free Library is all of this and more – and if you’ve ever ventured into Warner’s library, chances very high that you’ve met and been welcomed by library director Nancy Ladd. Nancy has guided Pillsbury Free Library through expansions and changes in technology and has managed all of the details seamlessly. She has gathered a wealth of information about Warner’s past and present, and has developed a group of dedicated, helpful staff. Under her leadership the library has grown to become a place that is serving more residents every month. Thankfully, Nancy found some time in her eventful schedule to be interviewed for this profile.
How long have you lived in Warner?
I was born in Warner, and then my family moved away when I was three. My parents kept their house in the Mink Hills until I was a teenager, and my Grandparents also had a summer place here since the 30’s, so I became a summer visitor for a while until I moved back to Warner full time in 1978 after graduating from College.
How did you become the Pillsbury Free Library Director?
I had been teaching for a few years but was interested in finding some part-time work closer to home so that my husband and I could focus on building a house. It was pure luck that Mrs. George chose that year (1985) to retire after 30 years at the Library, and so I applied and was fortunate to be chosen as the new Head Librarian, as it was called then. At that time, very few towns in N.H. had Librarians with a Library degree, but the State had a certificate program through the School for Life-long Learning, so I attended classes and completed the Certificate. Over the years, the Library’s hours gradually increased, and the building grew in size and staff, so in 1996 I decided it was time to get more in-depth training. I enrolled at University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (which also offers some classes at UNH- Durham), and took three classes a year, graduating with an MLIS in 2001.
What has been the most exciting development during your tenure at the library?
One of the best things about working in a library is that there are always new technologies to try or services to add, but the biggest development would have to be the completion of the building’s addition in 1994, which more than tripled the space available. This created enough space for computers, children’s programming, tutoring for adults, and a good-sized collection of books, magazines and audio-video materials. Before the addition we were so tight for space there were books in the basement boiler room, and we had to turn sideways to squeeze between some of the furniture. As the population of Warner and the collection continue to grow, the new space is beginning to feel tighter, but we are still more fortunate than many other N.H. towns.
What are some lesser-known aspects of the library that residents should be aware of?
I think more people could be taking advantage of our home delivery service, which is offered to anyone who cannot get to the library, for whatever reason. I know New Englanders hate to ask for favors, but they should remember it makes the librarians and volunteers feel good to be asked! Surprisingly, not everyone realizes that we do more than lend books: they can also borrow magazines, videos on VHS tape and DVD, books on tape and CD, and our newest service is free downloadable audio books – over 1600 titles are available online. We also help people learn to use computers, give homework help, and have a free tutoring program for adults who want to learn to read, or to pass an exam such as the G.E.D. Some parents and grandparents don’t realize that even children as young as 4 months can enjoy the music, books and story times that we have available in the Children’s room. Modern-day children’s library spaces are not the “shushed”, boring places they used to be!
Tell us about PFL being named Library of the Year for 2006.
Each year the N.H. Library Trustees’ Association chooses a winner from nominated NH libraries, basing their decision on evidence of strong community support, improved or expanded services, and cooperation with Town organizations and Town Government. We are very proud of the support the Pillsbury Free Library has from all sectors of the community, and were happy that the NHLTA Awards committee recognized this great community relationship as well as the level of services that Warner supports, by picking Warner in 2007 to receive the 2006 award.
What new directions do you for see for the library over the next few years?
Technology will certainly continue to change how society communicates and gathers information, so we will be adapting to each new phase. For example, we plan to add at least two webcams for use on the public computers, which will be especially useful for people who want to use sign language when in chat rooms or instant messaging. MP3 format downloadable audio and eventually video will be added to the existing materials available, and the library web page will be upgraded to include more interactive features such as a blog, RSS feed, and perhaps live chat with a librarian. People still read books for pleasure in our community, so that will continue to be a major part of our collection, but we have seen a shift towards more video and audio items, so those collections will continue to expand faster. More and more people tend to do their research on the Internet, but when home finances get tight, we see more people using our computers, when they cancel Internet access at home, or their computers and printers don’t get replaced as quickly. We may need to increase the number of public computers, possibly with some wireless laptops. The N.H. State Library also helps to make online databases available to us. A new direction we are currently working on is a family literacy initiative, working with the local schools and Doctors’ office to get more books into all homes, and to encourage people of all ages to improve their reading skills.
What makes Warner a unique community?
Many, many people volunteer or belong to community groups even if they have full time jobs. There is a wonderful mixture of people of different ages, skills, and backgrounds, all working in a variety of ways to keep town traditions going. At the same time Warner residents are not afraid to grab new opportunities or try forward-looking innovations such as a recycling station (the first in our area), actively conserving farm and forest land, or starting an Energy Committee or an art festival.
What hobbies, activities and interests do you pursue when not at work?
Besides reading? (Just kidding). I coordinate the Warner Food Coop and am a member of the Warner Woman’s Club. I help a little with Warner 4-H Club. When I have time, I love to garden, hike, canoe or do anything outdoors, and I love to travel, especially with my family. I’d like to have time to do art, and more volunteering.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Music Review: The Decembrists – The Hazards of Love
If anyone were to create a rock opera influenced by British folk, it would be the Decemberists. Even for a band known and loved for their “olde-fashioned” descriptive narratives involving suicide, war, and/or forbidden love, completing and offering such an epic and structured album comes with significant risk. Many of today’s music listeners have grown up with programmable cds, and one-song mp3s. The Hazards of Love hearkens back to the 1960’s and 70’s when LPs demanded to be listened to in their entirety and in their original sequence, when rock operas such as The Who’s Tommy commanded one’s attention span with lofty payoffs of brilliant stories and musical progression. Can it work in 2009?
With seventeen tracks and nearly an hour of music, The Hazards of Love walks the line of over-indulgence carefully, offering a twisted, bizarre cast of characters in an equally eccentric story of a woman named Margaret, her shape-shifting lover, and the jealous Forest Queen. Fortunately, while the convoluted tale might be daunting to some, the songs also stand well enough on their own to make the album worth digging into.
The album is meant to be listened through all together and in sequence, and the music is especially gripping when consumed as a whole if you bother to listen closely. Thematic arrangements wind their way through the album, often appearing in suites and lacing things together in a way that enhances and underlines the lyrical narration. Musically, the record splits its time between acoustic folk balladry and rock riffs, often in the same song. The Hazards of Love is not a record I expect everybody to love, but I’m having a great time listening to it and I suspect I’m not the only one. The album is endlessly fascinating and very entertaining. The Decemberists have expanded their sound and stretched themselves, a gamble that has produced something entirely fresh and remarkably satisfying. Here’s to taking chances.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Former Warner resident Brad Marion has recently written his third book of poetry titled The Forest for the Trees. Marion’s writing embodies a crisp, classical style. He explores a range of topics with a New Englander’s soul, from the seasons and snow to love and our relationship with God.
The Forest for the Trees is organized into six parts: “The Ardor and the Appetites”, “Magdalen’s Hair”, “The Forest for the Trees”, “The Well”, “The Trick to Falling” and “Soup du Jour”. As carefully crafted as his book is, one can enjoy the poems reading them at random.
Brad Marion writes in the liner notes “Sometimes one needs to pull back in order to see more. We were not designed to be technological beings. We were meant to live in the natural world, just as trees are. We may wish to pass through the world with such a footprint. That way involves ‘seeing the forest’ and becoming the forest, for the lofty pines and oaks were designed to root into the land and to spar, to breathe, to bear fruit, to sway in the wind, to give homes to creatures of this earth, to lay down again and give their gift of life in a process that perpetrates a living forest.”
Even with all of the forest as metaphor thoughts that Marion expresses, the vast majority of writing in The Forest for the Trees mentions neither forests nor trees. Much of the book chronicles Marion’s meditations on living a contemplative life, balancing his inner journeys with daily routines and experiences. In the poem “Morning and Mists Walk” he writes “I am a man who has been baptized / By many sacred mornings, who listened / Hearing what I could a dreaming / Blessed in the dreams rising from this earth.” Yet in “A Familiar Phrase” he traverses territory we have all experienced – having a song stuck in your head that you can not get rid of. “Just as a joke I’d put on one of those / Stupid pop jingles that’ll drive you crazy, rattling around / Reminding you of how empty your thoughts really are.”
Poetry is just as relevant to our daily lives in 2010 as it was 50, 100 and 1,000 years ago. Poetry is an invitation to express the inexpressible, to capture small moments or grand truths on the page. Brad Marion is a folk poet and reminds us that words are gifts and tools, that we can’t leave poetry to the ivory tower world of academics or scholarship, it is meant to be a living presence in our daily lives. The Forest for the Trees is published by Dudley Laufman’s Wind In The Timothy Press and is available from www.windinthetimothypress.com.
If Intertown Record readers would like to share poetry for review or inclusion in the Warner Neighbors blog, please email me.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
The 40th anniversary passed virtually unnoticed but it was four decades ago that the legendary Pumpkinstock festival took place in Fred Yasgur’s fields. It was billed as three days of tractors, pumpkins and outhouses but it went down as an event that may never be equaled in Warner history. “I don’t remember any of it,” mused selectman Mary Hartman, “so I guess that’s proof I was there.” Vehicles were backed up on the interstate as far south as the Bedford toll booth, and most festival goers walked or hitchhiked in from as far away as Concord.
Pumpkinstock was infamous for half-clothed, euphoric bohemians hopped up on an intoxicating blend of folk music and local flora. “There was a great deal of excitement because Peter, Paul and Mary were going to be playing guitars and singing,” long-time resident Johnny B. Goode recalled. “It turned out it was Peter Paul and Mary Smith who lived up on Pumpkin Hill Road but we had a good time anyway. Pete Seeger came by and brought a battery operated record player, and he turned us on to some Woody Guthrie songs and I think he played a Burl Ives record too.”
Fred Yasgur III , whom we interviewed while sheering sheep in the family barn, was only 10 years old when his family farm was transformed into a sea of humanity. “Everyone was carving pumpkins. We had millions of them! That’s what started the jack-o-lantern craze in Warner and it’s been happening every Halloween since. I remember my mom cooking breakfast in bed for everyone. I had to keep fetching eggs from the hens. That was a busy day.”
Mary Hartman’s twin sister, Mary Hartman, remembered the event a different way. “The boys had long hippie hair and walked around all sweaty without any shirts on. Some of them tried to persuade us to go skinny dipping with them. We’d never seen anything like it in town.”
“Everything you hear about that weekend is a lie,” retired NH State Trooper Richard ‘The Brick’ Hardchest explained. “No one swam naked in the river, everyone was well behaved and there wasn’t even a drop of jimson weed on the premises. But there were plenty of delicious pumpkin pies Mrs. Yasger baked and no one went hungry. Sure, we ran out of ice cream but it was just like having 400,000 of your friends over for a 4-H meeting.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
In 1968, known for psychedelic forays with the UK group “Them” and a handful of Top 40 pop gems, Morrison went into the studio to record what would ultimately become his least commercial and accessible LP, Astral Weeks. On Astral Weeks, Morrison poured out stream-of-consciousness lyrics about love, rebirth, and a pain that passes all understanding, in an impressionistic folk-jazz-blues idiom that transcended all known rock conventions of the time. Only a handful of luminaries bought the record at the time it was released. A decade later, Lester Bangs called Astral Weeks “a mystical document.”
On the original LP, a 23-year-old Morrison howls, hollers and grabs hold of the inexpressible and caresses its edges, bending and reshaping it like a virtuoso. Guitarist Jay Berliner, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Connie Kay create an improvisatory space for Morrison’s haunted freeform meditations. Larry Fallon’s overdubs added strings, woodwinds, and harpsichord.
Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl was culled from a pair of concerts held last year at the Hollywood in Los Angeles, honoring Van’s legendary effort. Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl is also a cd honoring the shows that honored that legendary album. Astral Weeks was released 40 years ago almost to the day before Van Morrison performed the whole set live two straight nights last November. “We did the songs and took them somewhere else. Transcended the originals, if you know what I mean.” He stated to the Associated Press recently. The shows featured guitarist Berliner from the 1968 sessions, along with other previous Morrison collaborators and a full string section. They were generally well-reviewed by audiences. As recorded on Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl, the performances retain the improvisatory approach from the record, right down to changing the song order.
Astral Weeks was Morrison’s first great solo work—an amazingly unified-sounding meditation on the mystery, joy and insecurity of love, as well as poetic evocation of the quiet moments and places that transform the mundane into the sublime. These songs are still vibrant today. Forty years from now, Astral Weeks will still hold up, and our descendants will be fortunate to chance upon music that is truly timeless.
Posted in Music | Leave a Comment »
Please feel free to send essays, photos, comments, musings, articles, poems, community events and anything else for consideration to singinggrove@conknet.com
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
1
I already know how to migrate inward
into my ethereal body.
I know that everything is interdependent.
I’m neither half awake or half asleep.
I am fully conscious.
I know all of my inner selves –
their truths, their shadows – how to breathe
& watch for their slightest movements.
2
I’ve learned to become still as a tree,
to exist within the changing foliage of attentiveness.
This is my season, the palate of orange gold emerging
upon the mountainside, deciduous leaves bathed in blue light.
This is the mountain Donald Hall spoke of – Kearsarge.
Ke-ar-sar-ge. Notched place of pines according to the Abnaki.
This is where gravity keeps me earthed
at the precipice of the space-time continuum.
This is where I walk. This is where I soar.
3
In the morning the tree-line will crackle with yellow.
All will be as it is. Ever the same. Ever alive. Ever changing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
