For fans of the Latvian team competing in the Winter Olympics, the gains of Salt Lake City have been eroded by what happened Feb. 12 in Vancouver. Just as in previous Olympics, the American television network NBC cut away for a commercial during the moments Latvian athletes—with skeletonist Martins Dukurs carrying the maroon-white-maroon flag—were due to enter Olympic Stadium as part of the opening ceremony.

“Latvia once again screwed and missed for opening ceremonies,” one fan wrote on her Twitter timeline.

For the 2002 games in Salt Lake City, Latvian-Americans convinced NBC to show the team’s entrance live. For the Vancouver games, Latvia only got a brief mention when the network returned from its commercial break.

Artis Inka, editor of the Chicago-area Web site cikaga.com, now is urging readers to contact NBC to make sure the network at least fulfills its promise to provide complete coverage of the Feb. 16 Latvia vs. Russia hockey game.

“As we are all painfully aware, NBC continued its long tradition of virtually ignoring the Latvian Olympic team, as it marched in the opening ceremony,” Inka wrote in a posting on the site’s forum. “This reoccurring inequitable treatment seems to be corporate policy.”

We say it’s time for a different tactic. Let’s not fight NBC and its corporate policy. Instead, let’s join the network in its commercial endeavors: Latvia should just buy a 30-second spot during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics scheduled in the Russian resort city of Sochi.

The commercial might cost about USD 1 million, but it could be money well spent. Several clever marketing campaigns promoting Latvia have been created in recent years. Latvia’s marketers could do it again, perhaps even having some fun at the network’s expense: “Sveiks. We’re Latvia. Right now our team is entering the stadium, waving our flag. But you probably didn’t want to see that anyway…”

This may just be what I need to get me to dust off the kokles on my shelf. The Rīga-based culture management center Lauska has released a book by folklore expert Valdis Muktupāvels, Kokles un koklēšana Latvijā, that tells the stringed instrument’s history and teaches the reader how to play it.

The book comes with a compact disc, “Koklētprieks – skaņojumi, vingrinājumi, repertuārs,” that helps the listener tune the instrument and offers help in learning to play the kokles. Together, the book and the CD are designed to help teachers, folklore ensembles and those who wish to learn on their own, Lauska announced on its Web site.

Until now, Lauska claims, a book about the kokles and systematic instruction in how to play it has not been available—despite the instrument being an icon of Latvian culture. However, readers in the diaspora may be familiar with Koklēšana and Koklēšana II by Andrejs Jansons, published in 1965 and 1977, which helped spread appreciation for the instrument in North America.

Muktupāvels is an expert kokles player and has a doctorate in ethnomusicology. He leads the folklore and ethnology department at the University of Latvia.

The book is in Latvian with English translation by Amanda Jātniece, who is a contributing editor for Latvians Online.

Latvian folk and pagan metal band Skyforger has signed a record deal with California-based Metal Blade Records.

Skyforger has been performing since 1995, releasing five albums and becoming the best known and most popular Latvian metal band. The band has performed worldwide, giving concerts all over Europe and in the United States. Skyforger uses traditional Latvian instruments in its performances, for example the Latvian kokle in a recording of the folk song “Migla migla, rasa rasa.”

Metal Blade Records, founded in 1982 in Los Angeles, is one of the best known and most influential record labels worldwide that deals with metal music. Throughout the years, the company has worked with artists such as Metallica, Slayer, King Diamond and As I Lay Dying, among many other well known metal bands.

Skyforger’s forthcoming album Kurbads will be released on Metal Blade Records on April 23 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy; April 26 in the rest of Europe; and on May 11 in North America.

Kurbads will be a concept album about Latvian folk hero Kurbads, who was born magically from the white mare and did many great deeds.

Skyforger will also be on tour in Europe this spring and summer, including performances at a number of European metal festivals. For further information on the band, visit www.skyforger.com.