Smoke on the Water and We Will Rock You -- the traditional Japanese versions.
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - View this thread

Mr. Frank J. Stola (flash): a self-described professional musician who mangles any and all genres he attempts. Don't miss his take on instrumental fusion rock classical jazz, revolutionary country n western traditional, or heavy metal instrumental on CD Baby. Equally marvelous are his strange, minimal videos. And don't forget to pick up Mr. Stola's myriad products at his Cafepress store. Is he serious?
posted on Dec 11, 2006 - View this thread

I researched and put an infopiece together after recently learning of bile bears here on Metafilter. Even as an animal professional, I was unaware of the existence of bile bears. Now I know: Bile Bears are live moon bears that are turned into living crated "bile kegs," the bear's bile being extracted by means of a surgically implanted tube and used to treat conditions as varied as gallstones, kidney disorder, and (of course) impotence. After the long-suffering bear dies, the creature's body parts are then sold off individually for further monetary gain. Indeed, it is an appalling practice, but worse I learned the practice is spreading, and in fact demand for bear products is now affecting the bear population of North America, as North American bears are being illegally hunted and harvested for their parts to be used domestically and abroadin the preparation of traditional Chinese medicine.
posted on Nov 30, 2006 - View this thread

When Everybody Called Me Gah-bay-bi-nayss - an ethnographic biography of Paul Peter Buffalo, son of Ojibwa medicine woman and grandson of the great chief Pezeke. Buffalo died in 1977, but spent his last dozen years chronicling his heritage and the things the elders told him. Be sure to check out the entry on John Smith, a wonderful character more popularly known as Wrinkle Meat.
posted on Nov 16, 2006 - View this thread

Made most popular to many Americans as the closing song for the Grand Ole Opry programs, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was written in 1907 by Ada Habershon, an intensely religious young woman and acquaintance of Dwight Moody and Ira David Sankey. The music was "composed" by Charles Gabriel, a popular songwriter and composer of the era who is often solely credited with the song, but while he may have put the notes down on paper, the tune itself already existed as the African-American spiritual Glory Glory / Since I Laid My Burden Down. [lots more inside]
posted on May 26, 2006 - View this thread

The Streets of Laredo: The Cowboy's Lament was originally written as the Irish drover balled Bard of Armaugh (or Armagh), which later mutated into A Handful of Laurel, about a young man dying of syphilis in a London hospital, musing back on his days in the alehouses and whorehouses. Immigrants settling in the Appalachians brought their own version, The Unfortunate Rake, sung as early as 1790, about a young soldier dying of mercury poisoning, a result of treatment for venereal disease, who requests a military funeral - a slight but important evolution from the previous version. The current lyrics are most popularly attributed to cowboy Frances Henry "Frank" Maynard, who copyrighted them in 1879. While various versions of the song were popular in the US before Maynard took pen to paper and needle to wax cylinder (under such titles as Locke Hospital, St. James Infirmary Blues, Tom Sherman's Bar and Way Down in Lodorra), his version is the one with which we are most familiar today.

beat the drum slowly, play the fife lowly / sound the death march as you carry me along / cover my body in sweet-smelling posies / for I'm the young (rake, soldier, man, girl, lass, etc) cut down in (his/her) prime (or and I know I've done wrong)

The song has been recorded by pretty much every country, western and folk-identified musical artist since recording music became practical, although the most popular versions must be those by Arlo Guthrie (who once said it was "the saddest song I know," and who sings it on his album Son of the Wind) and Johnny Cash (who added a few verses to his 1965 version, improving the song a bit and making it more emotionally complex). Roger McGuinn's creative commons-licensed version is one of my personal favorites, as is Bobby Sutliff's version.
posted on Aug 3, 2005 - View this thread

The art of being Kuna - the Kuna, an aboriginal people living off the coast of Panama, are perhaps most famous for their colorful fabric panels called molas. The Kuna women wear these embroidered appliques on blouses. The most prized specimens are those that show some sign of wear, such as fading, distress, or stitch marks, indicating authentic and traditional molas rather than ones produced for tourists. If you'd like to try your hand at making a mola, the 5th grade class at Highland Park can show you how.
posted on Jun 30, 2004 - View this thread

War Rugs woven by Afghanis often depict tanks, planes and guns, but a new set of imagery has appeared recently: the WTC in flames. More in this Forbes article.
posted on Feb 10, 2004 - View this thread