about 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'

First, I found out that an album I have wanted for a long time is available on iTunes! "Rhythm of the Pride Lands" was something Lebo M. put out after the success of "The Lion King" but it is no longer in print.

Anyway, I came across this because I started looking into the history of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." This song, which was a hit for The Tokens in 1961, was extensively re-written at that time. It was originally popularized in America by The Weavers who recorded it in 1952.

The original song, as you might imagine, is African, specifically South African. There, it is called "Mbube" which is Zulu for lion. It was written by Solomon Ntsele, known by his clan name as Solomon Linda. He is also primarily responsible for developing and popularizing (in South Africa) the a cappella style of singing that most Americans know from Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

The musicologist Alan Lomax (you knew he was in this story) in the 1950s discovered a 1939 recording that Solomon Linda had done of "Mbube" with his group the Evening Birds. Lomax brought the song to the attention of Pete Seeger.

Seeger misinterpreted the Zulu word uyimbube (Zulu, meaning "you're a lion") as "wimoweh" for The Weavers' recording -- which is why the refrain in the English versions of the song is wimoweh and some people even know it by that name.

that I had forgotten about Gary Grimshaw

who was an artist and White Panther Party member from Detroit. He did a lot of posters for bands playing in town in the '60s. Here's his website: http://www.garygrimshaw.com/

Check out the gallery.

I got there by reading the Free Press (freep.com) and seeing that they are going to tear down the Eastown theater which made me think of the Grande Ballroom. I found a website about the Grande which had a link on it about Grimshaw's recuperation from a serious illness.

about chimeras and more

I learned about Blaschko's Lines which led me to read about chimeras who carry two sets of DNA because they are made up of two embryos that fused at some point during development. Chimeras are made up of four parent cells (two fertilized eggs or early embryos fused together. Then, I read about Lydia Fairchild who is a chimera -- and it nearly cost her custody of her children. Despite my fascination with medical mysteries and with conjoined twins, I never watched the television show about Fairchild called "I Am My Own Twin." Incredibly fascinating, even if I don't understand much of the genetics.

that the actor who plays Freddy Rumsen

on Mad Men -- Joel Murray -- is the brother of some guy named Bill Murray. And Brian Doyle-Murray. Had no idea.

that Microsoft created the Arial typeface

Yeah, I should have know this but I did not. Arial was designed in 1982 for Monotype Typography and Microsft used it so it would not have to pay for Helvetica.

Sayeth Wikipedia:

Arial is held in disregard by some professional typographers and type enthusiasts, for reasons relating to its similarity to other typefaces and the involvement of Microsoft in its development and distribution. It is reinforced by Arial's apparent status as a de facto Helvetica stand-in, but without paying royalties, or credit, to Helvetica. Arial's glyph widths are nearly identical to those of Helvetica, rather than Monotype Grotesque, on which Arial is otherwise based, and many people are unable to tell the difference between Helvetica, Arial and other similar fonts.

Some thought the SCDP (Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) logo used on Mad Men was Arial, but the font is Akzidenz-Grotesk, which is a period-correct choice.

how Maida Heatter became famous

(unless you're a baking foodie, you probably don't think she's famous)

OK, so first: As far as I know, you can't really get canned elephant meat anymore, since African elephants made the endangered species list in the '80s. But 40 years ago you could, and in 1968, when the Republicans had their national convention in Miami, an enterprising local restaurateur called her daughter up in New York and had her send down a couple of cases of canned elephant meat from Bloomingdale's for a festive special: elephant omelets. They didn't sell a single order, but the stunt worked: Craig Claiborne, food editor of the New York Times, flew down to interview the cook and, incidentally, was blown away by her desserts. He urged her to write a book, and so was born the career of cookbook legend Maida Heatter.

http://www.salon.com/food/feature/2010/07/30/convenience_foods_slide_show/slideshow.html (slide 9)

For the Curious, the Internet is

the greatest thing ever! I continually do searches where one thing leads to another and I learn all kinds of stuff. So, I will use this blog to capture what I learned on the Internet today.