Buraka Som Sistema is fresh-sounding urban music that harmonizes the sounds of kurduro–also known as Angolan Dance–to generate move-busting grooves on the dance floor. This suburban band from Portugal has just released their first mix CD, Fabriclive 49. PLANET sums the mix up well:

“These escalate the energy level to another place, crunching and smashing everything in their path. The mix moves rapidly, giving you only the choice parts of the selected cuts. This is done skillfully with tracks so appropriate, it propels you around the dance floor — the rapid shifts unfelt.”

[Via: PLANET]

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In the summertime, across America, battalions of ice cream trucks fill the warm air with the seemingly sweet sounds of one unmistakable jingle: Turkey in the Straw. Ice cream, apparently, is best served with a side of racism. Originally called Zip Coon, the popular American folk tune that has now become synonymous with frozen summer treats was first popularized during comedic blackface performances–where white men would use shoe polish or burnt cork to blacken their skin and exaggerate their lips to look more like African slaves–during the early nineteenth century.

Over the years Zip Coon evolved. It became a fiddle competition standard and any old time musician worth his or her salt could play it from memory. Eventually the racist undertones in the lyrics began to disappear, becoming sillier and more nonsensical until Turkey in the Straw, the nursery song many of us grew up loving, was born.

Despite it’s ugly history, the addicting melody of Turkey in the Straw can still be heard blasting from ice cream trucks all over the United States each summer. But this video of a garbage truck, captured in Hoi An, Vietnam, shows that in some places in the world, catchy jingles aren’t just reserved for vehicles that dish out deliciousness.

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Big, interesting trucks are a ubiquitous sight when traveling. Do you remember your first encounter? Was it a rust-covered Russian kamaz that screamed past your taxi on a treacherous mountain road in Central Asia? Or was your first a more ponderous experience, like seeing an ancient truck coughing its way into the African horizon, heroically suffering a mountainous cargo of humans and goats?

When restrictions are nonexistent truckloads come alive with people and animals. But who are the road warriors piloting these behemoths and can they be trusted with such precious cargo? If classic Hollywood movies are to be believed, truckers are fearless roughnecks who pass their days throwing punches and facing down any and all threats:

“I drive truck, break arms, and arm wrestle. It’s what I love to do, it’s what I do best.” – Bob ‘Bull’ Hurley, Over the Top (1987)

“Just remember what ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol’ storm right square in the eye and he says, ‘Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.’” – Jack Burton, Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

“Sonny: Well what if something jumps out into the road and you need to stop?
Jack Crews: You don’t.
[Rig runs over something]
Sonny: What was that?
Jack Crews: A Mazda.” – Black Dog (1998)

So come up with a gnarly handle, buckle your seat belt and shout 10-4 to your good buddy, because this week we are taking you on a visual journey of Truckin, ‘Round the World.

If you like our ‘Round the World series, you might enjoy some of the previous themes: glasses, mowhaks, beer, authorities, fanny packs, dogs, Jesus, swimming, sweaters, mustaches, stairs, chess, foods, silhouettes, outhouses, cemeteries and donkeys.

Click on the thumbnails to view the images. If you’d like to see more work by any of the photographers featured here then follow the link that appears below each photo.

Enjoy.

Follow me on Twitter @Kyle_Cassidy

This week’s Friday Photo winner is Cheryl Willson, for this shot from the Cascade Sled Dog club’s 2008 Frog Lake II Sled Dog race on Mt. Hood in Oregon.

Here’s what Cheryl had to say about the event:

My family looks forward to going to the Frog Lake Sled Dog races every winter. The parking lot at the race can be a little overwhelming. It’s full of dogs yipping and barking, excited to run. If you get out on the course, though, there’s a stark contrast. The dogs and sleds are nearly silent once they’re under way. I love to get out there and try to catch a few of the faces on the move – the Siberian huskies are often trotting calmly and the Alaskan huskies have a slightly crazier “love to run fast” look. Frog Lake II is usually this coming weekend and it is cancelled due to lack of snow. My 4 1/2 year old cried at the news and I’m pretty disappointed too.

Congratulations Cheryl, you win a Sub-Woofer doggie soft-shell activity jacket from D-fa as well as a set of Terramar’s new Performance Base layers.

Want your own chance at winning? Just make sure to follow these two simple Friday Photo contest rules for submission:

1. Submit your best shots to our Flickr pool

2. Send an email describing them to fphoto@wendmag.com (this is also how we’ll contact you if you win)

You can submit photos from anywhere in the world, but we will only ship prizes to addresses within the continental United States.

Feel free to submit as often as you’d like. We choose a winner every Friday. And help us spread the word – we have a new theme (and a new set of prizes) every month.

Watch in horror as French downhill skier Yannick Bertrand takes a slalom gate to the groin while tearing down the mountain at top speed during his December, 2007 super-g attempt in Kvitfjell, Norway. But be warned: the hit is hard. You can actually hear the sloppy crunch of precious parts.

If you’re too cowardly to watch the video you can still get a pretty good idea of how painful the situation was by reading this excerpt of the television announcer’s unsympathetic take on the situation:

Oh, the gate to the groin for Yannick Bertrand and you could hear it. And if you are a man you could feel it. Wow! Watch this again….Oh the Frenchman…Oh-ho Monsieurrrrr”. Wow. The boys took a beating on that one. That guy needs a hug. Those are the moments that change your life if you’re a man, I tell you what.

[Via: Portland Mercury]

Follow me on Twitter @Kyle_Cassidy

A proposal by a Canadian archeological firm seeking to test underwater survey equipment in Larsen Sound–an arctic waterway off the coast of Northern Canada–might not be approved on the basis that the location is considered to be the most likely final resting place of two long-lost ships abandoned in the ice over 160 years ago by British Royal Navy Officer and Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin.

ProCom Marine Survey and Archeology’s bid to use autonomous underwater vehicles to “develop solutions relating to offshore surveying for oil and gas in arctic conditions” in Larsen Sound was shot down by the Nunavut Impact Review Board, whose permission is needed to work in the region.

In a letter to territorial Environmental Minister Daniel Shewchuk, the board recommended the proposal should be modified or abandoned completely on the basis of the project’s location and “unacceptable potential adverse impacts to cultural resources.”

Like most famed explorers, Sir John Franklin led a colorful public life. He served as governor of Tasmania for several years and was hailed as the man responsible for mapping the better part of the northern coastline of North America.

But on an ill-fated expedition to chart the Northwest Passage, Franklin’s ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, became encased in ice and were ultimately abandoned. Back in England a £20,000 reward was offered for the safe return of Franklin and his crew members, who were assumed to be wandering around the frozen continent on foot, with rumors of cannibalism. This set off a series of equally-as-doomed wild goose hunts and in the end, more men died searching for Franklin than were on the expedition itself.

While the ships have never been recovered, stores of copper were found in an Inuit village near Larsen Sound. Combined with accounts from Inuit oral history, these finds lead historians to believe that Franklin’s two ships, frozen into the ice, floated into Larsen Sound before sinking into the depths.

[Via: CBC News]

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Paddle to Seattle: Journey through the Inside Passage is a feature documentary chronicling the progress of two intrepid adventurers paddling handmade wooden Pygmy kayaks from Alaska to Seattle.

Follow me on Twitter @Kyle_Cassidy

Environmentalists are once again grappling with small business owners around Yellowstone National Park’s gateway communities over the issue of riding snowmobiles on park grounds.

According to snowmobile advocates, the current winter use plan, which caps snowmobile use in the park at 318 machines per day, will devastate local economies. But some environmentalists, like Coalition of National Park Service Retirees spokesman Bill Wade, argue that Yellowstone officials have already “compromised both sound science and public policy” by allowing the noisy, air-polluting machines into the park in the first place.

But all social issues aside, snowmobiles are fast, powerful vehicles that can be dangerous as hell. Combine that with fearless drivers and you’ve got the makings for some epic wipeout footage. As usual, you are about to witness some pretty gruesome carnage. Heads are crushed and bodies fall off unbelievable precipices. Here at Wend HQ we love a good wipeout, but we’re not morbid. No matter how brutal these crashes are, everybody in the videos lives to ride again.

Consider yourself warned.

Follow me on Twitter @Kyle_Cassidy

From Janelle: (Heads, you lose!)

From William: (There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, crash once, shame on — shame on you. Crash twice — you can’t get hurt again…)

From Mike: (Picture me rollin’)

Everyone loves dolphins, especially when you’re at sea for a long time. Change in scenery is rare when you’re crossing an ocean and any sort of mammal sighting is the event by which you define the day. Several times, while laying below deck in my bunk, I’d hear the cry,”DOLPHINS!!” and would jump up, grab the camera and get on deck for my money shot. But by the time I’d have the right lens in place, and was ready and powered up, the dolphins would be gone. I’d hear, “You should have been up here a second ago, it was amazing.” Or, I’d see them, get my camera, and then they’d be gone. Or, I’d have my camera and shoot 100s of shots of ’something in the water splashing’. Seriously, action sports photographers should train by trying to get images of dolphins from a moving boat. It’s not easy. Well, finally after many, many attempts I got lucky– the coloring of this animal is other worldly. Theses dolphins are extremely adroit, very fast, and much smaller than typical dolphins we see in the Pacific. This one was probably about four feet. I named him PlastStoke.

Poppy Photo: PA

Poppy the springer spaniel could easily be mistaken for a flying dog. After running off the edge of a cliff in pursuit of a seagull, the dog fell 300 feet into the sea below.

Miraculously, Poppy survived the fall and was able to swim to the closest shore where rescue crews found her. Aside from an easily treatable partially collapsed lung, she escaped mostly unscathed.

[Via: Telegraph]

Follow me on Twitter @sarahesterman