I've been on a bit of a
Smithsonian Folkways kick this week, working through some of their older stuff. In part that's because I know the annual
Smithsonian Folklife Festival is being held this week. I went to the Festival one summer about 15 years ago, and I thought it was one of the cooler events I had the chance to attend in DC. They always pick 2 or 3 folk traditions to focus on and one of the foci of the 2009 edition is called "Giving Voice: The Power of Words in African American Culture." As part of a family concert today,
Ella Jenkins and
Christylez Bacon performed and there's video.
Non-embeddable video, but oh well... Go
here to see video (right now it's at the top but I'm sure you'll have to scroll down as the Festival goes on). There's nothing particularly amazing about Jenkins' video except the fact that
every single person is participating. Seriously, I've been to enough kids' shows to see how a lot of adults don't typically do all the interacting their kids do -- not here, which I think says volumes about Jenkins' command of an audience. (Look at all those adults up in front with her.) And Christylez does some pretty cool beatboxing mixed with go-go in his video.
You can also watch Jenkins perform with
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer (and, I think Bacon) perform live in concert on Saturday starting at 5:30 East Coast time. Watch the webcast
here.
As previously reported, They Might Be Giants' Here Comes Science CD/DVD set is to be released in September. Amazon has it up for preorder available September 1. (I wouldn't be surprised if that date slipped a little bit, though.) Although there's no track listing just yet, here's a list of the items described on the album cover, starting at the upper left:
apatosaurus
anthropoidea
coccinella
lepidoptera
pinophyta
rocket
telescope
microscope
magnoliophyta
john (flansburgh)
atom
test tube
john (linnell)
Where's my geology song?
Also, apparently CD cases are 4.75" square.
A couple months back, I 
