In the evening of Christmas 1895, two friends got into an arguments at a saloon in St. Louis. It ended when Lee Sheldon shot and killed William Lyons. It was reported in a newspaper that Lyon had taken Sheldon's hat and would not give it back. Alcohol was involved.  

There were four other murders that Christmas night in St Louis, but this was the one that counted. Work songs, field chants and folktales describing how Lee 'Stack Lee' Shelton killed Billy Lyons started to spring up almost immediately. The earliest written lyrics we have date back to 1903, and the first discs to 1923. There have been well over 200 versions of Stack's story released on record since then, giving him a list of biographers which includes some of the biggest names in popular music. Duke Ellington, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and James Brown have all recorded the song at one time or another, as have Wilson Pickett, The Clash, Bob Dylan, Dr John and Nick Cave. Even Elvis Presley had a stab at it in a 1970 rehearsal session which later surfaced as a bootleg CD.

The new century's seen other media join in too. In 2006, Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix published a fat graphic novel telling Stagger Lee's story in careful detail. Movie versions have come from Samuel L Jackson, who gives a storming live rendition of the song in 2007's Black Snake Moan, and Eric Bibb, who uses it to comment on the action unfolding around his character in the following year's Honeydripper.

Songs about Stagger Lee varied widely in their details over the past century, so what was the real story? Paul Slade did a deep dive into the story of Lee Sheldon, first setting the stage in late 19th-century St. Louis and then following what is known of the crime and what  might be inferred. He also looks into the evolution of the song-story and what different versions meant for their time. -via Strange Company 

Animation has come a long way from hand-drawn stick figures on celluloid. You may argue about which era was best for content and aesthetics, but you have to be impressed at the evolution of techniques, materials, and technology that shape our extensive catalog of animated media. This supercut follows animation over its more than 100—year history. -via Digg

An archaeological study at Dartmouth College had researchers digging up the site of an old outhouse, rehydrating fecal samples, and filtering them to find possible evidence of parasites. This wasn't just any old outhouse, though. It had belonged to the home of a professor and trustee at Dartmouth, and was later sold to a wealthy businessman. In other words, the upper crust.

Despite their wealth and influence, the study reveals some of the same “bathroom drama” researchers would expect to find in urban and lower income areas. Not only did the team unearth bottles containing digestive health elixirs, but fecal fossils still contained eggs of parasitic organisms — like tapeworms.

“Our study is one of the first to demonstrate evidence of parasitic infection in an affluent rural household in the Northeast,” says co-author Theresa Gildner, now an assistant professor of biological anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, in a university release. “Until now, there has not been a lot of evidence that parasitic disease was anywhere else other than urban areas in the early 19th century.”

Not only that, but New England is far from the tropical climates that parasitic worms prefer. The study shows that it would have been a rare person who was able to escape parasite infestation in the 19th century. Read more about the research at Study Finds. -via Strange Company

Impress your prom date when you make them a Cheddar Bay Biscuit Corsage and matching Boutonniere! pic.twitter.com/0iC8MfE1jS

— Red Lobster (@redlobster) April 27, 2021

Like a dark cloud of tangible suffering, prom season has descended upon high schoolers the United States. Prepare yourself accordingly by making a corsage with the help of Red Lobster. That restaurant chain is famous for its signature Cheddar Bay Biscuits, which can become corsages and boutonniere in a pinch.

This video shows you how. Consider yourself warned.

-via Dave Barry

A private Facebook group called "a car club where everyone acts like boomers" is a humor forum where members post as if they were the Boomer gearheads they make fun of. There's a lot of upper case text and grousing about computerized vehicles -you get the idea. Then someone shared a Facebook marketplace post in which Gary Rider is selling his air compressor to raise funds for a liver transplant. Yeah, there are things to make fun of here, like the spelling of "toward," but the group saw more.    

A group member named Patrick Thompson, a voice actor and podcast host who was one of the folks who helped spread word of Rider’s struggles, chatted with me over Facebook Messenger video, and described the group as a “crap-posting car group” and “boredom killer.”

By now you should understand that “a car club where everyone acts like boomers” is far from an official, well-organized operation. It’s a bunch of people poking fun at old folks. But that’s what makes what happened after Alexander Keeling and others first posted Rider’s compressor listing (see post above) so amazing. The entire community of people who normally just joke about boomers actually banded together to help one out. And in a big way.

A big way is right. The group members pumped up Rider's fundraising efforts to $52,000! Jalopnik spoke to Rider, who said he's "sold" the air compressor hundreds of times, but each time the buyer tells him to keep it. Read the story of the disabled welder and the group that came to his aid at Jalopnik.

(Image credit: Gary Rider)

People are finally starting to see each other after a year of isolation. For many of us, that means trying to gain back lost social skills, so let's make small talk about the only thing that's happened to us recently. I've had a version of this conversation quite a few times lately, which Nick Smith distills into less than a minute. -via reddit

Veermaster Berlin's Instagram page is worth a long scroll through. His cocktails are visually stunning masterpieces. Each one is a carefully presented work of art.

I'm especially taken with this cocktail made with Highclere Castle Gin. Highclere Castle is the magnificent home where the exterior scenes for Downton Abbey were shot. Here's the recipe:

Highclere Castle Gin

Homemade Red Chili infused Yuzu Marmalade and Kafir Lime Leaves Syrup

Elderflower Vanilla Cordial

Dry Vermouth

Sakura Bitter

Egg White

The garnish consists of herbs, forget-me-not flowers, chili powder, and a sheet of gold.

-via In Love with Drinks

Rock 'n' roll guitarists have been smashing guitars onstage since at least 1964, when Pete Townshend of the band The High Numbers got a bit upset and wanted everyone to know about it. The audience was impressed, and he repeated the stunt quite a few more times as the band became known as The Who. After that first time, it was always planned, because guitars are quite expensive. Other musicians followed, impressed by the sheer ballsiness of the gesture.

“I grew up lucky enough to have seen The Who in ’68. I saw Jimi Hendrix twice,” Kiss frontman (and avid guitar-smasher) Paul Stanley told AllMusic in 2016. “The idea of almost ritualistically smashing a guitar is something so cool and touches a nerve in so many people that it seemed like a great way to put a period or to dot the i or cross the t at the end of a show—that this is finite, that this is over, it’s the climax.”

Read why Townshend destroyed his first guitar onstage and how others put their own spin on live destruction, a custom that continues today, at Mental Floss. -via Digg

Because not all women throughout time have had access to Buzzfeed, cartoonist Gemma Correll has helpfully illustrates the demands that past societies have imposed upon women.

Coincidentally, as I wrote this post, my 12-year old daughter passed by and asked me to define a variety of terms on it, including hysteria, lobotomies, and aspic. It was a difficult conversation, but I'm glad that Correll gave me the opportunity to talk about the dangers of jello salads. That era, thankfully, has passed from our time.

Well, sort of. Sony and Nike have collaborated to create a Playstation-themed basketball sneaker for the NBA and Paul George. The sneaker, called  “PG5,” is a design based on a piece of a DualSense controller that was sent to Nike’s senior footwear designer, Tony Hardman. This was because Sony can’t show him the actual console (or any images of it): 

More specifically, [Yuji] Morisawa said he wanted Hardman and Nike to really get a feel for details like the texture and patterns being used across the PS5, such as the small PlayStation squares, triangles, circles, and Xs that are all over the DualSense controller. Those elements were, naturally, hard to show off with a webcam and over Zoom video calls, prompting Morisawa to eventually decide to literally cut off a piece of a DualSense controller and ship it to Hardman so Nike could have a reference point for the sneaker’s design.

“Usually, we are not able to send a sample like this,” Morisawa said about trusting Nike with a PlayStation 5 component before the console had been announced. “But this time I tried really hard and said, ‘I have to send it to them.’ So I cut [the DualSense] out so nobody could see which part it was and I think it helped them that we could actually send the sample to them before production.”

Image via Input Magazine

Mustatials, a group of ancient monuments discovered in Saudi Arabia, are part of the world’s oldest ritual landscape, according to archaeologists. A study published in Antiquity reported that the monuments were built between 8,500 and 4,800 years ago. Experts have raised numerous theories on the structures’ function, but the new study shows that the monuments could have been used to raise cattle: 

“You don’t get a full understanding of the scale of the structures until you’re there,” archaeologist Hugh Thomas, the director of the project, told New Scientist. “It’s not designed to keep anything in, but to demarcate the space that is clearly an area that needs to be isolated.”

Archaeologists found animal bones on the sites, which seem to be the remains of religious offerings. The presence of cattle skulls in particular suggests the existence of prehistoric cattle cult.

The largest mustatils are more than 1,500 feet long, with one example constructed from 12,000 tons of basalt stone. Some are simple constructions, with low rock walls forming long rectangles. But others are far more complex, with pillars, interior walls, and small chambers that may have been used for ritual sacrifices.

During the construction of the mustatils, Saudi Arabia would have been all but unrecognizable to contemporary eyes, a verdant green landscape where there is now arid desert.

“The environment was certainly much more humid during this period,” Melissa Kennedy, assistant director of the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia project, told Live Science. “Cattle need a lot of water to survive.”

Image via Artnet  

Did you know that you can bake bread using the ground? Iceland’s popular volcanic lava bread is a rye bread that was cooked for 24 hours buried in the country’s hot springs. Food Insider speaks with Sigi Rafn Hilmarsson to learn about the process involved in cooking the baked treat. Check the full video here. 

Image screenshot via Food Insider 

Wow. Zoe Roth became an Internet sensation at the age of four when she stood in front of a burning building with a smirk on her face. Sounds familiar? The image is the famous ‘disaster girl’ meme! Roth, now 21-years-old, has managed to sell the original photograph of the meme as an NFT for a whopping $473,000: 

The picture in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) - a kind of unique digital asset that has exploded in popularity so far in 2021 - was snapped up for 180 Ethereum, which is equivalent to $473,000, by a collector known only as @3FMusic.

An NFT is a unique digital token encrypted with an artist's signature and which verifies its ownership and authenticity and is permanently attached to the piece.

It allows 'original' versions of popular online content - like viral memes and tweets - to be sold as if they were physical pieces of art. 

The collector @3FMusic is reportedly Farzin Fardin Fard, CEO of a Dubai-based music production company, according to Gizmodo.  

Zoe, now a university student and waitress, and her father Dave - who captured the photo - were approached by an anonymous person via email in February who encouraged them to sell the image as an NFT.  

Image via the Daily Mail 

contoh gangguan paling kejam pic.twitter.com/D7b8PeGfvq

— Patengggg (@ftnaziemh) May 2, 2021

Cats love boxes, and they tend to fit themselves inside a cat-sized shape on the floor, even if it's not a box. Cats will even sit inside fake squares. This presents a problem for Muslims. Set a prayer rug out, and the cat will be there. You can see plenty of examples in this Twitter thread.

What to do? The simplest solution has been to get the cat its own prayer rug. These miniature rugs have become rather popular in Malaysia and Indonesia, as you can see from this collection of images.



Now, that's a devout cat! -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Risa Andriana Putri)

Raven is now 13 years old, and sort of retired from running trails. But she has led an amazing life. And she tells us about trail life quite poetically.

Celebrating the joys of mountain biking through the eyes of the trail dog, Raven takes us from her driveway memories in BC to the high deserts of Utah, to freshly cut South African trails and back again. We meet some of the feistiest, four-legged trail personalities along the way, who all enjoy the mountain bike world in their own way, just like us humans do, whether it’s hitting jump lines, lapping through the loam, or setting out to build new trail.

They're all good dogs, and the photography is amazing. Don't miss the credits. -via Everlasting Blort