Picking Potatoes in Northern Maine
The Library of Congress has a new photostream on photo-sharing site Flickr. This particular image struck close to home. The caption is “Children gathering potatoes on a large farm, vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Me. Schools do not open until the potatoes are harvested.” I grew up in the neighboring and superior-in-every-way town of Presque Isle (Go Wildcats!) and picked potatoes for exactly one day with a friend of mine before saying the hell with farming and getting a job with the news.
While the schools today open before the potatoes are harvested, they still close down again for Harvest Break from mid-September until the first week or so in October. It’s a way of life that seems to say the more things change the more they stay the same, but it wasn’t always that way.
As the New York Times noted in 1989 in Presque Isle Journal; Changes On Horizon In Fields Of Potatoes changing economic pressures and the mechanization of farming have made the practice of Harvest break less of an economic necessity for farmers or children, but the tradition still seems to be thriving and is a point of pride for the people there.
See also: Aroostook County Potato Harvest and the Bangor Daily News, New hands share hard work of harvest
The world’s largest record collection looks for a home
The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.
Paul Mawhinney was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the years he has amassed what has become the world’s largest record collection. Due to health issues and a struggling record industry Paul is being forced to sell his collection.
Texas Music Matters, KUT
A little slow on the draw, I just came across KUT’s wonderful new Texas Music Matters Blog. Check it out.
[via KUT’s Texas Music Matters]
Video: Food Court, the Musical, from Improv Anywhere
I don’t know, from the looks on some people’s faces improv might be too much to deal with in real life. Brought to you by the good people at Improve Anywhere. Not nearly as mindbending as Human Mirror project below:
Video: Devendra Banhart, Carmensita
Click for direct link to video. Bizarrely addictive.
Surviving an Anaconda Bite
Watch it. Because if you didn’t watch it, in all probability you will get bitten by an Anaconda and then wouldn’t know what to do. Because it happens all the time…
Bitten By An Anaconda - Funny blooper videos are here
National Geographic via what else, Boing Boing.
Lyle Lovett Never Made a Dime on Record Sales
Via GloriousNoise, comes this remarkable fact - “Lyle Lovett has sold 4.6 million albums in the United States since 1991, but
“I’ve never made a dime from a record sale in the history of my record deal. I’ve been very happy with my sales, and certainly my audience has been very supportive. I make a living going out and playing shows.”
“Records are very powerful promotional tools to go out and be able to play on the road, but you do have to think about it as a way of sustaining itself at some point. I’m very excited about being able to do some of that on my own, maybe.”
Sounds like Lyle will be weighing his options when his deal runs out. I’ve heard a number of relatively successful musicians say similar things, but for someone with Lyle’s stature to say that after 20 years of making music - there’s something seriously broken in the music industry.
Guy Clark’s Texas Cookin’
I ran across This is Texas Music’s post of Guy Clark playing Texas Cookin’. That’s Jimmie Dale Gilmore of the Flatlanders playing to his left.
I’m getting hungry all of a sudden…
Feist does 1, 2, 3, 4, Sesame Street Style
Feist remakes 1, 2, 3, 4 Sesame Street style. I haven’t thought Sesame Street was this awesome for a long, long time.
Video: Feist on Sesame Street
2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Texas: A Celebration of Music, Food, and Wine
2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival featured Texas: A Celebration of Music, Food, and Wine with local acts (well, local to us) playing on the National Mall. Clips from the festival performers below, from the Smithsonian Folkways Website.
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Guy Clark and longtime friend Verlon Thompson play under the trees of the National Mall. |
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Meet the Jones Family Singers from Markham, Texas. |
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Three Texan accordionists jam at the Festival. |
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CJ Chenier performs at the Festival. |
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Western swing fiddles and mariachi violins meet up on the Texas Talk Stage. |
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Guy Clark and longtime friend Verlon Thompson play under the trees of the National Mall. |