Plains Indian Ledger Art is a website devoted to the art that Plains Indians developed in the latter half of the 19th Century when they got access to paper and modern painting tools. The gallery has 14 different ledgers, including the famous ledger by Black Hawk. The ledgers depict all kinds of scenes, amusing, violent, mythical, mundane and lots of other facets of life for the Plains Indians. There is also a short history of ledger art but for a bit more information read Drawing on Tribal History by Inga Kiderra.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:10 PM on June 13, 2008 (12 comments)

PhotoGrahambo.com ― Alaskan photoblog by Graham Siebe. Where, what, and how.
posted to MetaFilter by netbros at 10:09 PM on May 16, 2008 (7 comments)

Well, young folk, there was a time, y'know, when bands would put their band name on the kick drum head, so the audience could see the name of the band, y'see? Why, best as I can recall, the The Yardbirds did it, and The Zombies, too. And The Hollies. Oh, and did I mention The Yardbirds? Well, my memory's not what it used to be... oh, and there was those boys from Liverpool, used to sing about Kansas Cty so well, why, you'd think they'd actually been there! Now, there was this one band called themselves the Spencer Davis Group, but I never could figure out why, cause it was that little Winwood fella just outta knee pants who was the star of that show!
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 8:08 AM on May 17, 2008 (20 comments)

The year is 1989, the world of hip hop in mainstream America is dominated by the street hard, in your face West Coast Gangsta Rap genre headed by NWA. And an army of increasingly forgettable imitators as well as genuine ingenuity coming from the opposite coast The pop music market is dominated by the sugary sweet vaguely hip-hopish pop of The New Kids On The Block. And on the corner Crendshaw and Exposition in South Central Los Angeles a group of kids at a health food store called The Good Life Health Food And Resource Center take a weekly Open Mike and turn it into an ongoing hip hop workshop where lyrical prowess, performance, and positivity instead of battling and trash talking was encouraged. In fact, swearing was strictly disallowed at The Good Life.
posted to MetaFilter by mediocre at 9:05 AM on May 17, 2008 (36 comments)

Kumeyaay.info welcomes visitors and indigenous peoples of all tribal nations and provides a casual village environment to share and network their culturally relevant creative work, information and opinions. (previously)
posted to MetaFilter by netbros at 2:06 PM on May 2, 2008 (2 comments)

Alexander "Eck" Robertson (1886 - 1975) was one hell of a fine fiddler, friend. He made, in 1922, what many country music historians consider the first commercial recording of country music. And now some kind soul has made ol' Eck a MySpace page where you can get a taste (five tastes, actually) of some of that bodacious bowing. Then head over to Ragtime Annie's place. What? She's Done Gone? She must've run off with the Arkansaw Traveler. Guess you'll have to make do with that Turkey In The Straw.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 7:35 AM on May 2, 2008 (3 comments)

The Southern Foodways Alliance is one weighed-down church-supper table, full of oral history/blog projects like The Tamale Trail, the Boudin Trail, interviews and recipes from the Bartenders of New Orleans, photo essay/interviews from Birmingham's Greek-Americans, a mess o'homemade films, and a passel of event and BBQ-shack photos on Flickr, all smothered in the tangy-sweet academic goodness of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss. These folks get my vote for most flavorful, funkiest food-loving folklorists in the lower forty-eight.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 6:07 PM on April 28, 2008 (15 comments)

Whole Lotta Shakin' - a PRI documentary series on the history of rockabilly, hosted by Rosie Flores.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 1:24 PM on April 26, 2008 (14 comments)

“We try to follow the footsteps of our elders, who cleared the way for us with their clean minds, hearts, and bodies. They walked in clean land, drank clean water, breathed clean air, and ate clean food provided by Mother Earth. This is the Red Road.” The powwow is an integral part of Native American life, offering the opportunity for peoples to gather and celebrate their spiritual connections to their ancestors, the earth, community, and traditions through drum, song, and dance. The photography of Ben Marra.
posted to MetaFilter by netbros at 5:34 AM on April 26, 2008 (12 comments)

Smooth Jazz, also sometimes referred to as new adult contemporary music or instrumental pop, is generally described as a genre that utilizes instruments and improvisation traditionally associated with jazz and stylistic influences drawn from mostly R&B, but also funk and pop. Since the late 1980s and into the 1990s, it has become successful as a radio format. [source wikipedia]
posted to MetaFilter by netbros at 1:35 PM on April 20, 2008 (251 comments)

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu doesn't speak much, but when he takes up his guitar, he sings, literally and figuratively. He sings of growing up in an Aboriginal community on a remote island off the north coast of Australia; he sings of coming to terms with being born blind; and he sings the creation stories of his Yolngu people.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:34 PM on April 22, 2008 (19 comments)

Ever since I first heard mbira from Zimbabwe almost 30 years ago (via this record), I've been a lover of that enchanting, delicate and intricate music. It's only recently, however, that many of us who aren't actually players of the mbira could see just how the instrument is played: Holding the mbira, and scales - Lesson One - Two - Three - Four, and more and more. And here are some recommended mbira players and groups with MySpace Music pages worth checking out: Spirit Talk Mbira - Mbira Oracle - Kunzawa Mbira Group - Joel Laviolette.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 7:18 AM on April 19, 2008 (18 comments)

The stark, modal banjo and achingly poignant, weathered voice of the great Dock Boggs [previous] are the perfect aural accompaniment to a slideshow of William Gedney's [previous] powerfully intimate photographs: Kentucky, 1964.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 6:14 AM on April 15, 2008 (11 comments)

Gram Parsons fans take note - there's a recent new biography and a release of 90 minutes of vintage Flying Burrito Brothers. Some rare footage has also recently surfaced online: performing with FBB and duets with Emmylou Harris 1, 2, 3. Other items of note: Emmylou talks about Gram in 2000; British biographical sketch; Keith Richards on Gram in Rolling Stone; an interview with Manuel, the designer of the famous Nudie suit.
posted to MetaFilter by madamjujujive at 7:56 AM on March 7, 2008 (38 comments)

Little Hat Jones - Bye Bye Baby Blues
Bye Bye Baby Blues Tab
Dennis (Little Hat) Jones, a Texas bluesman considered a notable of Naples, Texas. He record ten sides of his own and made nine more accompanying the very idiosyncratic and hard to follow Texas Alexander. Bye Bye Baby Blues is a very sweet song that also appears on the Ghost World soundtrack.
See also Texas Blues Guitar (1929-1935) .
posted to MetaFilter by y2karl at 12:38 AM on February 16, 2008 (7 comments)

... a small, heavy package wrapped in brown paper arrived in the mail at the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City. Inside was a mess of wires. It wasn't a bomb - it turned out to be the only live recording of Woody Guthrie known to exist. The wire was fragile, bent, stretched and twisted. Jamie Howarth applied some algorithms he had developed to restore old recordings, and the result has been nominated for a Grammy.
posted to MetaFilter by dylanjames at 7:40 PM on February 8, 2008 (43 comments)

Kick A Migrant!
posted to MetaFilter by goo at 3:28 PM on February 9, 2008 (69 comments)

The solution to the Mystery of the Face on the Cake (via BoingBoing).
posted to MetaFilter by cerebus19 at 8:05 PM on January 3, 2008 (36 comments)

Chief Marie Smith Jones, 1919-2008. "Eyak language dies with its last speaker." Or download the story directly as an .mp3 from Alaska Public Radio Network .
posted to MetaFilter by fourcheesemac at 9:16 PM on January 22, 2008 (49 comments)

THE church elder’s reaction was one of utter disbelief. Shaking his head emphatically, he couldn’t take in what the distinguished professor from Yale University was telling him. "No," insisted Jim McRae, an elder of the small congregation of Clearwater in Florida. "This way of worshipping comes from our slave past. It grew out of the slave experience, when we came from Africa." But Willie Ruff, an Afro-American professor of music at Yale, was adamant - he had traced the origins of gospel music to Scotland.
posted to MetaFilter by brautigan at 6:08 AM on January 11, 2008 (96 comments)

“I’m an old computer nerd,” Diener said. “I can do anything with computers. Nothing’s wrong with computers. But this is the worst way to run an election.” NYTMag piece on electronic voting, voter confidence, and the impact of old-fashioned problems like printer jams, befuddled voters and volunteers, and interface design flaws. By Clive Thompson.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 6:51 AM on January 5, 2008 (46 comments)

What's up with monocles? Were they an affectation, or did people used to have vision problems in just one eye? Were you supposed to close one eye if you wanted better vision? I would expect having one eye with corrected vision and one without to give you a headache.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bonecrusher at 1:02 PM on December 6, 2007 (10 comments)

Contacting the ex is completely out of the question, but holy mother of croutons her salad dressing was fantastic. She is of Russian-German descent and grew up in the greater Chicago area. Her German grandmother gave her the recipe, supposedly. I have researched German salad dressing to no avail. While telling the truth was not her strength, I cannot find the recipe anywhere, which lends credence to the family recipe story. I have tried and failed to re-create it on my own, many times. The ingredients that I know are in the salad dressing are: aromat (which knowing now that it is MSG, means I will probably leave it out, but might hint at when the recipe was originally created) green onions, tarragon vinegar, one raw egg, fresh cracked black pepper, salt, sugar. I would guess there is garlic in it too, but I am not certain. After reading this post, I'm pretty sure it's not this. I don't remember dill being a strong flavor in the dressing. I've experimented with adding various spices and using olive oil/vegetable oil and cannot get it right. It looks a bit like Caesar salad dressing, but darker in color and less viscous. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Thanks in advance.
posted to Ask Metafilter by luminous phenomena at 8:44 PM on March 9, 2007 (16 comments)

New analysis of the language and gesture of South America's indigenous Aymara people indicates they have a concept of time opposite to all the world's studied cultures -- the past is ahead of them and the future behind. The morphologically-rich language, of which you can hear samples here, may also prove useful to computer scientists due to its unique ternary logic system.
posted to MetaFilter by youarenothere at 4:04 PM on June 12, 2006 (42 comments)

This year's Malinowski Memorial Lecture at the London School of Economics was presented by David Graeber, until recently an Associate Professor at Yale, entitled Beyond Power/Knowledge: an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity. (PDF link) Although Yale declined to provide a reason for Mr. Graeber's recent dismissal, it's likely that his outspoken anarchism and activism, as well as his support for a union of graduate students, were influences in the decision. He explained some of his views on anarchism, "globalization", and, yes, hope for the future, on the Charlie Rose Show. (Youtube) Weekend reading assignment: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. (PDF link)
posted to MetaFilter by dinsdale at 4:56 PM on June 10, 2006 (22 comments)