The NYT reports, “The folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax was a prodigious collector of traditional music from all over the world and a tireless missionary for that cause. Long before the Internet existed, he envisioned a “global jukebox” to disseminate and analyze the material he had gathered during decades of fieldwork. A decade after his death technology has finally caught up to Lomax’s imagination.
Just as he dreamed, his vast archive — some 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, 5,000 photographs and piles of manuscripts, much of it tucked away in forgotten or inaccessible corners — is being digitized so that the collection can be accessed online. About 17,000 music tracks will be available for free streaming by the end of February, and later some of that music may be for sale as CDs or digital downloads.”
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NBC 33 in Utah reports that a Louisiana film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, won Sundance’s grand jury prize this past weekend: “…tells the story of an 8-year old girl who is forced to learn how to fend for herself in post-Katrina New Orleans after her father falls ill.”
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Ralph’s on the Park is putting a silver Mignon Faget baby in a king cake each Friday (2/3, 2/10, 2/17) for a lucky diner during lunch. I’ve wanted her gumbo necklace for a long time and love the new hive collection. She’s great at doing icons, like Lucky Dog, sno balls, and shotgun houses.
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From the AP article about Louisiana reality shows: With the premiere of the third season of “Swamp People” set for Feb. 9, History is building a swamp in New York’s Chelsea Market this week. From the History Channel site: Now Open at Chelsea Market from February 2 – 12! HISTORY has transformed a 5,600 square foot space within New York City’s Chelsea Market into a south Louisiana swamp experience featuring over 6,500 gallons of water, live alligators and red-eared turtles, 15 feet tall live cypress trees, and over 1,000 live plants indigenous to the region.
Join us at the Swamp in the City where you can meet the cast of Swamp People, check out live alligators, sample free Cajun favorites such as Gumbo and Crawfish Étouffée by renowned Cajun Chef John Folse, listen to live music from Sac Au Lait, and have a chance to win an all-expense paid trip to Louisiana, courtesy of LousianaTravel.com. With live GatorCam.
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Very nice that the Scottsboro Daily Sentinel wrote a complimentary editorial about the Scottsboro Boys Museum.
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When we were in Laurel, MS we stopped at Dickey’s Barbecue — had never heard of it before — and turns out (which we figured out once we got in the parking lot) that it was a franchise which started in Dallas. Not just a franchise, but the fastest-growing barbecue chain in the nation, with a new store opening every six days. This pic above is one of the plates we got, which I think they doubled up one of the other plates’ sides on. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good, either (gas-fired smoker). And the potato salad was like mashed potato salad.
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Douglas A. Blackmon grew up in Leland and went on to become a journalist for the WSJ and author of Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, which won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and was a 2008 best-seller. The movie, based on the book, will be on PBS stations this month. More here.
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Didn’t realize that the new (as of November) curator of art at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Jennifer Jankauskas, was at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center before this position.
Now through March 4, the MMFA has ‘Paintings by Mose Tolliver’ on exhibit. This month’s art auction looks interesting, too. I think I saw at least two sculptures by Frank Fleming.
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This month’s Conservation Biology reports, “Collectively, these results suggest there is virtually no chance the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is currently extant within its historical range in the southeastern United States.” The ivory-billed woodpecker, which Audubon painted and described as common…
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The AP reported on Daniel Moore’s lawsuit with Alabama at the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, “At Thursday’s hearing, the university argued its right to protect its trademark should trump Moore’s First Amendment rights to paint scenes from Alabama football games.
Moore and his attorneys countered that his artwork, which includes paintings, prints and drawings on coffee mugs, is protected free speech and shouldn’t be restricted by trademark law.” What was really interesting were the last two paragraphs:
Media organizations have flocked to Moore’s defense. A friend-of-the-court brief filed by the American Society of Media Photographers and the Alabama Press Association claimed Moore was expressing the culture of his surroundings, much like Claude Monet was inspired by water lilies in France and Pieter Bruegel was moved to portray peasants in Belgium.
Moore, Monet, and Bruegel in the same sentence! Can I get an Amen?!
“Daniel Moore lives in Alabama; he paints football,” the brief said. “To say football is special in Alabama is to understate the state’s passion for and interest in it — not by inches, but by yards.”
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The Washington Post ran the AP piece about the Bill Traylor exhibit at the High. From the AJC, another article. 30 of the Bill Traylor works are from the MMFA.