"Its the story of our own village" ~ A journey in Indian street theatre (PDF of article) share's author Joel Lee's experiences wandering around India with three street theatre troupes. Also called the "theater of social change" this grassroots artform has become a powerful means of communication across the barriers of language, literacy and culture in both rural and urban India. [more inside]
posted by infini on Jul 16, 2009 - 6 comments

In July of 1961, the bass genius Scott LaFaro, perished in a fiery car crash after visiting family and friends in upstate NY, just ten days after doing the last gigs he would ever do with the great Bill Evans's trio (which became the legendary live recordings from the Vanguard) . He was only 24 years old. But he was also developing as a fine writer as well, as this Evans trio track - a mystical ballad in 9/4, shows. [more inside]
posted by Seekerofsplendor on Jul 15, 2008 - 20 comments

Wharram Percy [1996 vintage Web] was a Yorkshire Wolds village that survived for more than a millennium before being suddenly depopulated. Was it plague, Viking raids or William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North that drove the people from the land? No, it seems it was the sheep. The main link provides an overview of some of the findings about the village and medieval English peasant life [BBC radio programme] emerging from the decades of archaeological research into Wharram Percy.
posted by Abiezer on Jan 22, 2008 - 16 comments

"Where there is no doctor", a "village health-care handbook", was originally published by Mexican health activists in 1973 as a response to a critical lack of medical care among Mexico's poor. Now available for free download, the book covers such topics as "Family Planning" [pdf], Healing without Medicines [pdf], Common Medicines, their uses and doses [pdf], the right and wrong uses of modern medicines [pdf], and (in the midwives edition) DIY abortion [pdf]. [more inside]
posted by Avenger on Oct 9, 2007 - 11 comments

Road Closed for Tribal Council: Vunivutu Villagers Latest Beneficiaries of the Survivor Boomtown Effect
The hit "reality" TV show, Survivor, premieres tonight on CBS in the United States. Over the past year, a sleepy village on Vanua Levu, the second largest island of Fiji has been hosting the production crew—and reaping the benefits. 150 villagers have been employed by the crew to work about 10 hours a day, seven days a week, for USD 5.00 per hour (and double time on Sundays and holidays). For some it was their first experience in any form of paid employment. This article from the Fiji Post, reposted by a Vanua Levu blogger, gives some behind the scene details. Meanwhile the island's new eco-resort village is putting finishing touches on their community hall. Globe-trotting gap year students and reality TV junkies, look north. Vanua Levu is for lovers. [Survivor Maps, Vorovoro, the eco-resort with a difference, Vorovoro's new bure (community hall), Google's hires satellite image of the area]
posted by rschram on Feb 8, 2007 - 3 comments

Rare photographs of 60's Greenwich Village by Robert Otter. A genuine labor of love project, New York Tenor saxophonist/composer Ned Otter has compiled the work of his father Robert, a gifted photographer who passed away in 1986. Spanning 1962 through 1972, Otter's photographs capture moments from a Greenwich Village of the 60's that seem both inexplicably foreign and timelessly familiar. via alex
posted by rodney stewart on Nov 21, 2005 - 23 comments

Photobloggers discuss subway photography ban to the villiage voice. The proposed ban on photography in NYC subways was previously discussed on metafilter here In response to the ban, photobloggers plan a protest Sunday, June 6 starting at a kiosk for an MTA-sponsored exhibit of photographs celebrating the centennial of the subway, many of which ironically were taken during the previous ban.
posted by KirkJobSluder on Jun 5, 2004 - 8 comments

"A court found 19 inhabitants of the same village guilty of systematically raping or sexually abusing an eleven-year-old girl who had been prostituted by her own father."

Third-world litany? Try Belgium.
posted by donkeyschlong on Sep 3, 2002 - 42 comments