Author: pjones

  • Who will be Comin’ Round the Mountain?

    Roger McGuinn’s Folkden song for November is “She’ll be comin’ round the mountain [when she comes].” Roger notes in his description of the song:

    Widely believed to be a children’s song, “She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain” has some interesting roots. It was derived from a spiritual, “When the Chariot Comes” about the second coming of Jesus Christ and the subsequent Rapture. In this version “she” refers to union organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, who traveled the southern United States to promote the formation of labor unions in the Appalachian coal mining camps.
    The song was also popular with railroad work gangs in the Midwestern United States in the 1890s.

    This variation with the answers “Yum Yum, Hi Babe, Whoa Back, Yee Ha” was one my wife Camilla learned as a child in her Beaufort, South Carolina elementary school.

    6 White Horses - from Folkden.com

    Jane Keefer’s Folk Music Index, here at ibiblio, lists a number of versions and alternatives including: Old Ship of Zion ; When the Chariot Comes (noted also by Roger); If You’re All for Freedom ; Ten Virgins; If You Want to Get Your Freedom ; Ding Dong Dollar; She’ll Be Skiing Down the Mountain (from Songs for Swingin’ Housemothers) ; They’ll Be Coming Round ; Coming Down the Chimney (by Raffi).

    While “She’ll be coming round the mountain” isn’t the most reused and rewritten song in the folk tradition, it has had a very active life. At eTree.org, you can download a concert by the Funky Meters (2011 at the Brooklyn Bowl) during which “She’ll be coming round the mountain” is performed between “Iko Iko” and “Junco Partner” all just before “Midnight Rider” (Gregg Allman version).

    If you are interested in Mary Harris “Mother” Jones’ life and times, an audio version of her Autobiography is available for free download from our friends and former ibiblio contributors at LibriVox.

    Mother Jones via LibriVox.org

  • Skeletons from the ibiblio Vault

    From the ibiblio Time Machine:
    Ryan Thornburg and others from Rich Beckman‘s 1996 class document #halloween in Chapel Hill, NC
    (enjoy the broken image maps, links and old school lowlight video from the very scary past)

    1996 on Franklin Street
    “Click here for more” – as we used to say in 1996

  • Bebo White speaking on Web Science @ibiblio speaker Monday October 28 3pm

    What: First American webmaster to discuss emergence of Web science
    When: Monday, Oct. 28, 2013, 3 p.m.
    Where: Freedom Forum Conference Center, Carroll Hall, UNC
    Tag: #BeboUNC
    Official Speaker site: http://jomc.unc.edu/2013events/bebo_white
    Bebo White in Stockhom

    Video of Bebo’s talk here by UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication

    Bebo White, considered to be the “first American webmaster” and one of the founders of the Web engineering discipline, will speak at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication on Oct. 28 at 3 p.m. in the Freedom Forum Conference Center.

    The talk, titled “Emergence of Web Science,” is free and open to the public. The event is co-sponsored by the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the UNC School of Information and Library Science and ibiblio.org.

    For almost two decades the Web has been largely described in terms of the technologies, infrastructure, processes, and methods that define it and the applications it supports. In contrast, White will discuss the emerging discipline of Web science, which seeks to understand the phenomenon that is the Web as an independent entity and the ecology in which it exists.

    Web science explores the roles and the impact that the Web has had and will continue to have in the 21st century. As a result, studies in Web science will help us to understand how the technology might evolve and how we can be prepared for the future Web.

    About Bebo

    White is a departmental associate (emeritus) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the U.S. national laboratory for high-energy physics and basic energy science at Stanford University. Working as a computational physicist, he first became involved with the emerging Web technology while on sabbatical at CERN in 1989.

    Upon his return he was part of the team that established the first non-European Web site at SLAC – the fifth site in the world. Since, his academic research interests have evolved in parallel with Web technology.

    In addition to his work at SLAC, he also holds faculty appointments at other institutions; is a member of the organizing committees of a number of major conferences series, including the International WWW Conference, the International Web Engineering Conference, the Web Science Conference and the IADIS Conference on Web/Internet; and is a frequent conference speaker and paper reviewer.

    The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has selected him to be a part of their Distinguished Speaker Program. He is the author (or co-author) of nine books, and more than 100 papers and journal articles. His current research interests are Web science, social media in education, cloud computing and the Web of Things.

    While at UNC, White played in a jug band with J-school senior lecturer Jock Lauterer. Jock played the hose. Bebo, a juggist, still performs, now with The Tarantulas.

    For more about Bebo White, visit bebowhite.com.