The Jazzmouth Poetry and Jazz Festival is on hiatus this spring, but with the blessing of the committee, Portsmouth Poet Laureate John-Michael Albert will host “Jazzmouth Lite,” a Sunday brunch upstairs at the Press Room on April 28, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

In the corner of the room, between the architecture and cookbook shelves, stood Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, sole members—and married couple—of the indie-pop/folk duo Damon & Naomi.

“I keep getting distracted,” said Yang as she pointed at the books.

“We’re happy to be here. Happy this places exists,” said Krukowski, referring to his love for Portsmouth Book & Bar in particular and bookstores in general.

And the crowd was happy to have them. People clamored into the bookstore café for the much-buzzed-about free show—nearly filling the space to its 93-person capacity and visibly happy to be inside from the cold of a delayed spring.

Though a continuing resolution was passed to prevent a government shutdown, it will not necessarily stop pending furloughs that are expected to begin at the end of April. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard workers are expecting to experience the equivalent to a 20 percent pay cut due to forced days off without pay.

The City of Dover is turning to its residents for guidance on what programs and services are most valuable to the community. The next proposed budget for the city will be presented to the City Council in April and take effect in July.

The city will share an overview of the upcoming budget at a “Budget Revealed” meeting on March 28, and they’ll collect residents’ opinions through April 4.

Some new numbers out from the U.S. Census show that, with the slowly recovering economy, more people are moving around within the United States as employment and housing markets loosen up. But New Hampshire remained largely population neutral between 2010 and 2012.

New Hampshire’s population trends match economic trends that show our economy is not as robust as when it outpaced the U.S. economy during the recession. And the state’s more rural areas—in the North Country and bordering the Connecticut River with Vermont—experienced a population decline ranging from 1 to 5 percent, consistent with the national trend of people moving away from rural areas.

The eighth annual RPM Challenge unites musicians around the Seacoast and around the globe

It’s a difficult task to pull off—writing and recording all new music in 28 days. Most musicians spend months, if not years, crafting songs into albums. And RPMers, rarely, are full-time musicians. They’re husbands, wives, parents and grandparents. Some are students in college, high school and even middle school. Everything about their normal lives continues in February—meals still have to be cooked, cars break down, bosses ask for overtime—and yet since the RPM Challenge’s inception in Portsmouth seven years ago, more than 10,000 people have participated, from the Seacoast, across the country and worldwide.

In my lifetime, television has abandoned its post in the family living room for a whole new—and wholly different—experience.

“We’re getting rid of cable.” I can’t tell you how many times that horrific statement has been unleashed in my living room, often times within earshot of the television. But despite the hurt feelings of an inanimate cable box, it’s true that there’s never been a better time to ditch cable TV.

Landmark Entertainment Group, 1987: In the late 1970s and 1980s, media companies were constantly searching for “toyetic” properties—that is, movies or TV shows that would lend themselves well to line after line of expensive merchandise for children. The search for toyetic franchises led to the development of the cartoons that now power the perpetual motion geek nostalgia machine: “The Transformers,” “G.I. Joe,” “Masters of the Universe,” and even “My Little Pony.” From the garden of toyetic properties sprang some strange fruit, though, most notably “Captain Power.”

After 15 years as one of the consistent events on the Seacoast’s fall culture calendar, the Newmarket Heritage Festival will pause to take a breath and plan for its future.

This week, the state Senate votes on a bill that supporters hope will open the doors to New Hampshire’s first casino.

The disposable income and large population of southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts is an attractive bet for both the private casino industry and plenty of New Hampshire legislators. Supporters see an opportunity for a new source of revenue, while opponents say the net impact is overestimated. The debate comes to a head this week when the Senate votes on SB 152, which has the governor’s support.

New watershed campaigns aim to prevent lawn fertilizer from suffocating Great Bay

Last fall, the New Castle Conservation Commission adopted Lawns2Lobsters to educate residents about the importance of testing their soil before applying nitrogen-rich fertilizer and using the correct amount. “People always think more is better” when it comes to fertilizer, says Bill Stewart, “but then they end up with a burnt-out lawn.” And more polluted waterways.

The fourth annual ArtPM Challenge brings amateurs and professionals together for a show at Buoy Gallery in Kittery.

This year, the challenge was met by 86 artists. Paintings, drawings, prints, mixed-media collages and photographs deck the gallery walls. The overall installation is bold, bright and colorful, a welcome contrast when stepping in from the slushy streetscape outside.

In Eyes ’n’ Ears blends experiments with live art and jazz in Kittery

It was the kind of night one might have found in a basement club in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. Or any of the handful of jazz clubs in New York City, or Chicago. But it was at a packed former Grange hall, now called The Dance Hall, in Kittery, Maine, where the “In Ears ’n’ Eyes” collective performed a mash-up of experimental jazz and live art in an effort to bring a fresh take on standard mediums.

Rated PG: James Franco is Oscar Diggs, a traveling carnival magician, Edison-style tinkerer, con man and flirt. He’s got some goodness in him, but he doesn’t let it distract him because he wants to be a great man, not a good man, and he believes those things are mutually exclusive.

Elias Querejeta Productions, 1973: “Beehive” starts warm and charming, with Luis de Pablo’s pastoral score and title pictures actually drawn by the two juvenile actresses. Spain’s vast Castilian plateau looks lovely and inviting, and Ana and Isabel are studies in childhood beauty—one dark, one light.