detail from Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens album Music Inferno: The Indestructible Beat Tour 1988-89
Some great answers in dismas' Ask Metafilter post about Antecedents of the 'worldbeat' guitar sound: "What e.g., Afro-pop artists from the 1980s should I listen to if I really like that sound?"
Whipsnade-june-2005 - 27 by Le Scribbler (cc by)
allkindsoftime talks about seeing hippos up close and personal in Africa in the "I was swallowed by a hippo" thread.
Belle Shore Deco Detail by Atelier Teee (cc by-nc-nd)
What do Art Deco and Archaeology have in common? Quite a bit, if you look at enough Art Deco architecture. Another fabulous deep-dive post from filthy light thief!
1960 Summer Paralympics by brizzle born and bred (cc by-nd)
There has been some good stuff around lately. Hope you didn't miss the inspiring ass-kicking Paralympic athletes...
...or the "spiritual black metal blues" of Zeal and Ardor...
...or this jewelbox of an animated video from the Israeli band Jane Bordeaux....
...or this essay about literature and magic realism in contemporary China...
...or the wide-ranging playlist of music from all over Africa from the 1930s to 1960s...
...or the influential landscapes by once-neglected but newly-renowned African-American painters from Florida.
Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium by paukrus (cc by)
Some great recent posts on the natural world:
A 17th-Century Woman Artist’s Butterfly Journey: gorgeous images and bio info on early entomologist-artist Maria Sibylla Merian
The inner life of the fig: documentary on the sycamore fig tree, focusing on the intricate mutualism between a fig tree and its fig wasp
A tree grows in Israel: an extinct Judean Date Palm is grown from an ancient jar of seeds unearthed by archaeologists
My hovercraft is full of Petromyzon marinus: science, lore, and more on the fearsome sea lamprey
Satan Put the Kettle On: the mystery of Devil's Kettle Falls' vanishing waterfall
Chocolat de Bonnat. Côte d'Ivoire by EverJean (cc by)
I work in southwestern Cote d'Ivoire, just on the border of Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. The men I employ are largely cocoa farmers, when they're not in the forest taking complex observational data on primate behavior and ecology.
ChuraChura responds to, and takes some issue with, a video of Ivorian cacao farmers tasting chocolate for the first time, plus gives a larger picture of the day-to-day reality of the tough economics of farming in the region.
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