All News All the Time

Bill Dwyre, a Los Angeles Times sports writer, made a great point in an August 26 column. Noting all the blogger-style reporters in Beijing, he said "Reporters who once came looking for stories came this time looking for places to sit down and type. Immediately."

Dwyre goes on to point out that "instant gratification" technology may mean that the network's time-honored traditional reporting of games, conventions, etc., may be too slow to satisfy 21st century audiences. Crafting stories and presentations, with enough context and background info to make them compelling, is no longer the point--just get the news out, fast. Viewers must know within seconds who won the match, period.

My favorite paragraph-plus from Dwyre's column:

"What wasn't news became news because we...type it and hit a button that sent it to the world...
"In Chippewa Falls, Wis., Herbie hits a button and yells out, "Hey, ma, Dwight Howard just got the opening tip over Pau Gasol." Herbie is dazzled that he got the word so fast, and the typist is equally dazzled at the speed he got it there. Neither seems to wonder whether what had arrived was worth the effort on either end."

Pay to Track Queries

Here's a service some writers might find useful.

Word Hustler has a database of 3,000 markets and will send your query letters (you write them, of course) and track the queries for you. If you don't have a decent printer, it could be useful. Their rates seem reasonable.

They also encourage you to upload your projects and will automatically send the right number of pages of your screenplay or novel to each contest or market.

Where do they make their money? You pay .99 per submission for under 4 pages. That includes postage (even SASE postage), and the prices go up from there.

I can see where this would be handy, though I doubt I'll be a customer. For me, it's a control issue. I want to see and touch that query letter, not just send a command.

Upload all my writing, set up my queries with a third party? Hmmm. A couple of years ago, I decided to try Writers Market online query tracker--they had a huge database of markets as well. For a couple of months, it worked fine. Then Writers Market shut it down, redesigned it, and--3 or 4 months later--started a new, improved version. All previous records? Gone. Just gone.

Luddites, I think, are usually nice people who've gotten a nasty electrical shock.

World's best hot chocolate

When the topic of "the best hot chocolate in the world" came up on an egroup recently (due, no doubt, to the fact that all of us were dealing with summer heat by imagining ourselves in winter's cold), the winner by consensus was Angelina's in Paris--though other places certainly had votes.

Angelina's website was thoughtfully posted. The first thing to be gleaned from it is that the century-old (est. 1903) tea shop was bought by Groupe Bertrand in 2005.

Am I a luddite for being disappointed by this news?

Not that Group Bertrand is trying to franchise the place, of course. . . oh, wait, they are.

Well, if you had the best hot chocolate in the world, wouldn't you franchise it? I mean, look at these pictures. Doesn't that belong in Disneyland?

Recommended Reading

As a writer, I especially like the way Garth Nix handles scene transitions and the passage of time. But basically, these are just great stories with female heroes.

Once again, thanks to fire...

...archaeological treasures are revealed.

This time in Britain on the Yorkshire moors. According to this story by Martin Wainwright (any relation to Loudon?) in the Guardian, a 6-day fire on Fylingdales Moor burned away the peat to reveal a 3000-year-old landscape. That was in 2003, but it's being reported as if it were new now.

According to the North York Moors National Park, a large grant for more research has just been awarded. That explains the renewed interest.

Rock art was there before, but triple the amount was uncovered by the fire--as well as Mesolithic flint tools and tracks from the 18th century, when shitloads (literally) of urine were brought from London to an alum factory. Great mordant, urine.

Here's an English Heritage site on Fylingdales, showing a barrow from the Bronze Age. The picture is from there as well.

Dark Celtic Anthology seeking entries

I pass this along for those interested--please see the book's website for more details.

The Phantom Queen Awakes
A Dark Celtic Anthology

Edited by Mark S. Deniz & Amanda Pillar

"The Morrígan is commonly portrayed as a triple goddess, but her tripartite nature is uncertain at best. This ambiguity shall be at the heart of The Phantom Queen Awakes. The Phantom Queen Awakes will focus on Morrígan's tripartite nature.

"We want stories set in the ancient world of the Celts, that talk of Morrígan. She does not have to be a central figure (although she must appear at least once in the tale), however we would prefer it if she was....Push the boundaries, for tales that resound with the reader long after they've been put down.

"Supernatural creatures are allowed, although they must be in tune with Celtic mythology. We do not want gratuitous violence or sex scenes. The editors would prefer stories of a darker nature, and are much more likely to take well written stories with this in mind.

Word Count: 50 to 6,000 (the lower word count being reserved for excellent flash fiction and poetry).

Payment: $.01 per word for original stories, no reprints

Deadline: 1st December 2008 - we are implementing a new submission selection for the anthology but will let all authors know as soon as possible after the deadline day as to the decision regarding their story.

Submission Format:

• Please write the title, your name, your address, email, contact numbers and the word count at the top of the manuscript submission.
• Please include the page number in the footer.
• Manuscripts should be in either the Courier New or Times New Roman font.
• Please make sure your manuscript is double-spaced.
• We will only accept manuscripts electronically and they must be in .rtf (rich text format).

Submissions: Send submissions as attachments to: phantom.queen@morriganbooks.com

Green Sahara Findings

Many news outlets have run the story of Paul Sereno's discovery of a cemetery in the Sahara of Niger that dates back to the time that of the Green Sahara--some 10,000 to 6,000 years ago. The best source of info is the Project Exploration site.

The cemetery, literally in the middle of nowhere [albeit a lawless nowhere that requires armed forces to protect it], was found by Sereno in 2000, when he was tracking dinosaur bones. It includes the graves of two groups, separated by thousands of years, who lived near a lake:

• The Kiffians, extremely tall folks who lived from 9700 to 8200 years ago. They sustained themselves by hunting and fishing, and left the area or died out when the lake dried out about 8,000 years ago. But over millennia the climate changed, the lake came back, and...


• the Tenerians lived at the location from 6600 to 4800 years ago. They buried their dead on their sides, almost in a fetal position, on beds of flowers. The Tenerians raised livestock, and were shorter and lighter in build than the Kiffians.


• The Tholians, a crystalline species...kidding. The other two are real, but don't the names Kiffian and Tenerian sound like aliens from a Star Trek episode?

By 4,500 BP, "the climate began its slow deterioration to present day arid conditions," according to the Project site. It has marvelous photos of the mother-and-children embrace in a Tenerian grave (I'm assuming; that relationship hasn't been proven by dna yet). These photos came from there, but go to the site to see them in their full glory.

The National Geographic site also has a photo essay online of the Gobero cemetery, as well as its feature article on the discovery.

Blog-Surfing: a Rationale

I used to feel guilty, spending an hour that would be more productively used WRITING. No more.

It seems that everyone else considers an hour spent surfing is an an investment, not a waste. Check out blogs, and you'll see immediately that blogger blog about other blogs. Clearly, if everyone else is doing it, it's ok. Right?

So, I scrolled through Infomaniac (which periodically lists Useful Sights for Journalists) and found a link to 10,000 Words, and followed that a collection of sites that will help me learn a language! Wow!

There's Babbel, which is free-while-in-beta-testing (and has a few glitches), BBC Languages (slow to load but fun), Learnit list --with widgets to shoot you 20 new words a day (sounds a lot like school) . . . and more. More ways for me to rationalize frittering away my time, because, let's face it, playing on-line Boggle till my eyes bleed isn't really improving my vocabulary like I thought it would.

And it's all good, cuz I got a blog posting out of it.

Let's start a Feature-A-Month Club!

I scribbled down a quote from Mikki Halpin, book author and former editor for Seventeen , contributing editor for Glamour. She was speaking about the freelance writer's dilemma:

I realized that even if I had a feature every month, I couldn't make a living.

The quote was from a New York Observer article in March or April.

How do we survive? Because, let's face it, most of us can't complain that we sell a feature a month, and it's not enough.

I'm pinning my hopes on the novel. No one will pay for it till it's written, agented, and sold...one out of three for me. These steps can take years. Meanwhile, we either work at other jobs or scramble for writing gigs and send our best article ideas to $1-a-word or $2-a-word markets (for the record, I've never sold to the latter but I know they're there) and hope that the savings can be stretched out a l-i-t-t-l-e bit longer.

On the plus side, there are no more debtors' prisons, and stretching is good for the muscles, right?

Amiens Cathedral

I haven't written about Gaul lately, have I?

this is a picture of Notre Dame Cathedral of Amiens in the summer, when it is cleverly lit to look as it did when it was first built, and all those sculptures were actually painted.

Through August, the lighting starts at 10 P.M.; through September 21, at 9:45 P.M.--that's if I'm reading the website correctly. The spectacle ends then, until the Christmas holidays.

Amiens is a sweet, quiet town at the lowest part of the Somme, with just enough old world charm, canals, art and trendy shops to be well worth a visit. It's named for the Ambiani, the Celtic tribe that controled the territory way back when.

I'm International!

Huzzah!

My article "Resting on a Knife-Edge" is in the new issue of Ancient Warfare. Great illustrations, too.

The article is about Caesar's war with the Belgic tribes of Gaul in his second campaign year, and his near-disastrous run-in with the Nervians. Other articles in the magazine discuss aspects of Julius Caesar's strategy, his legions, the last stand of Vercingetorix in Gaul, and--leaving Caesar aside--Hoplite shields.

Hmmm...what's the dollar-euro exchange rate right now?

Go subscribe! Really, the synchronized diving finals can wait.

Common Ancestor? Try 660,000 years ago

Scientists working on the mitochondrial DNA of Neanderthals have determined that we have to go back 660,000 years to find a common ancestor between them and us. And it looks like there was no interbreeding during the ten or twenty thousand years that both Neanderthals and homo sapiens shared the continents.

Given our taste in men, I can only assume that the Neanderthals were a bit more discriminating. Or maybe it was an in-law thing. In any event, here's the Los Angeles Times story. The Neanderthal DNA was taken from a 38,000-year-old bone found in a Croatian cave.

Underwater Archaeology

"Archaeologists in the UK are exploring a vast expanse of sea floor between southeastern England and the Netherlands that, between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, was a rich landscape inhabited by Mesolithic hunters and gatherers."

Oh! Oh! Oh! The first thing this makes me think of is that Iron Age Europe, 2000 years ago, had a lower, and in some places marshier, coastline than today. I recall reading that Julius Caesar's description of northern Belgae (the Low Countries) validated the beliefs of climatologists who suspected that seas began to rise millennia ago, and were still rising in Caesar's day.

The opening quote, btw, is from an August 5 article by Bradley T. Lepper titled "Underwater Archaeology a new field of exploration." The July 10 issue of Nature (Vol 454) has an article but sadly, you have to pay to see it online. However, if you google Laura Spinney (the author) and Archaeology, you may find a non-commercial copy somewhere. Like here.

The article is about Doggerland, a silly name for the marshy plain that once connected Britain with mainland Europe. Since about 8,0000 years ago, that blasted plain is now under the North Sea--hence the archaeology tie-in. Scientists have not only found artefacts there, but they are able to map the area and spot ancient rivers.

Skipping around, here's a site on the mapping from the University of Birmingham. That's where this picture with the river channel is from.

Antikythera Mechanism Decoded . . . partly

You may have read about the Antikythera Mechanism before. A corroded bunch of bronze and iron gears found in a shipwreck in 1901 by Greek sponge divers near the idyllic island town of Antikythera (presumably, humans diving for sponges, not sponges diving for fun. . . because, if it were sponges diving for fun they would have kept the Antikythera for themselves, right?) Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yeah. This thingy was found in a shipwreck over a hundred years ago. What is it? Good question. It' was built in the first century B.C. and looks kinda like a clockwork, only it predates clocks by many centuries. It has 29 surviving gears, according to this BBC story, and one of them contains the dates for the Olympics.

Amazing. Apparently, scientists subjected the thingy (they call it the Antikythera Mechanism, since Mechanism sounds more impressive than Thingy) to tomography. A 3-d image was produced, and:

"The four sectors of the dial are inscribed with a year number and two
Panhellenic Games: the "crown" games of Isthmia, Olympia, Nemea and Pythia; and
two lesser games: Naa (held at Dodona) and a second game which has not yet been
deciphered."

The ancient Olympics were not just every 4 years like now; they were actually four sets of games held over four years.

What I remember reading about the Antikythera is that--although this particular thingy was made long after the death of Archimedes in 212 (in Corinth), historians speculate that it was based on a prototype or design of the great scientist/tinkerer.

Wikipedia's Antikythera Mechanism page is quite up to date on this new research, as well as previous discoveries about the thingy, and has tons of references and links to articles in scientific journals like Nature. The "Antikythera Mechanism Project" maintains an accessible website, though it is being redesigned. It has links to a lot of the scans and digital radiographs of the 82 fragments of said thingy, as well as to much of the scientific data compiled. The pictures here are from their Image Gallery.

Journalism Gig! No Pay! Sign Up Now!

Writers in Los Angeles were [unnecessarily] excited about the Craigslist ad for a NEW MAJOR NEWSPAPER in Los Angeles. Wow! First clue that it was not the answer to your employment woes was that all the attempts to contact the Craigslist address bounced. Oops.

But now they have a website! Nice, professional. . . anticipating a circulation of between 200,000 and 500,000. Wow. And they need writers, web developers, editors. . . and they're not going to pay them.

"You will not be paid for this time now but, you may be considered for what will likely be the most coveted media jobs in the country. "

I'm sure that will entice the many professionals looking to support their families. After all, what do little things like food and shelter mean when weighed against the opportunity to help some starry-eyed cheapskate put out a real newspaper?

Booker Dozen and Free Pictures

For those novelists aspiring to prizes and recognition, and heavily into visualization, the "Booker Dozen" finalists were just announced. So go to the link and picture your name alphabetized between Aravind Adiga and Steve Toltz. The short list for the Man Booker prize will be announced in September.

Between the first and second sentences, if anyone's interested, a 5.8 earthquake shook Los Angeles.

Also of note, PicApp is online! Free pictures!

I haven't quite figured it out, but go here and set yourself up with an account. Then you can search for royalty-free pictures to embed in your own blog. Rather than copying the picture, you get lines of html text to copy into the blog--as I just did with the image of Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre.

Initially, certain lines of the text printed over the picture, extending the margin. Once deleted, the margin snapped back into place, so my advice is to delete with impunity--you can always recopy and paste.

Writing Quotes

I collect writing quotes. I firmly believe every lover of words should collect good quotes, but I have sub-collections dealing with writing and history.

Here's my favorite, from a History Channel interview with David MuCullough: "To write well is to think clearly."

Here's one that was posted on FreelanceWritingGigs yesterday, by Deb--who clearly loves to collect quotes too, since she posted a whole batch of them:

There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That was invented by people in California who couldn’t write. From the great Terry Pratchett

And digging into my own collection once more, here's one from Norman Mailer:

Writing is wonderful when you talk about it. . . But writing as a daily physical activity is not agreeable. You put on weight, you strain your gut, you get gout and chilblains. You’re alone, and every day you have to face a blank piece of paper.

Craigslist Ads that make you go . . . mmmmm

Yes, they do. How to take this freelance writing ad found in the Los Angeles Craiglist today?

Looking for talented writer for only 3 hrs=$300!!!! (Santa Monica)

The successful candidate must have:
- Creative mind
- Excellent verbal and article written skills
- Would prefer BA in english, , or similar degree, but not required.
- Must be Asian, Female, age around 22-28 years old
- Payment will be cash upon work completion
If you recognize yourself through this description, please contact me ASAP.

(email address deleted.)

It all sounded so normal and promising until "Must be Asian, Female, age around 22-28. . . "

Surprised the poster didn't add "HOT!" to the qualifications.

Awards for Gall!

Two things jump out of the news at me (well, more than two, but I grabbed my handy cudgel and beat the rest back into the fiery pit from whence they came). One good, one bad.

The good--and puzzling--gallish thing is my two favorite ballers, Steve Nash of the Suns and Baron Davis of (be still my heart) THE CLIPPERS, riding tandem on a bicycle built for two. If you're wondering which one is Daisy, check out Nash's shirt. Oops--those are hibiscuses, sorry.

There's a short-short-short video of this on BallHype. Don't know who to credit this picture to; most sites say a reader of Barstool Sports submitted it--presumably with no strings, since everyone--even Yahoo!--is using it.

The second, bad gallish thing has to do with archaeology.

Apparently one Tommy Bow, who owns both a construction company and a big piece of property in Illinois, subscribes to the philosophy that "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." After signing agreements with agencies that promised to protect a rare, thousand-year-old archaeological site on his new parcel of land, Bow went ahead and bulldozed it into oblivion.

Read about it in the local paper. Bow says the site's not destroyed and claims that everyone's exaggerating his teensy little mistake, but somehow, I just don't believe him.

The site, btw, included a hundred homes of a nomadic group that may have been the builders, or the immediate ancestors of the builders, of Cahokia. The site on Bow's property had been partially excavated; now it's gone.

Here's a photo of Cahokia from britannica.com. I'd like to know who built that and I hope Illinois and the Federal government hits Tommy Bow with everything it can. "Philistine asshole" is about the most polite phrase that comes to mind. But I'm still in a good mood over the Davis-Nash picture, so surely someone else could do better.

Greatest Birthday Party Ever

For a 9-year-old. It takes gall to do this:

Or to hold a tarantula or a scorpion:

More gall than I had, anyway. You'll note that no middle-aged females are in these shots!

Who Owns Witch World?

Andre (ne Alice) Norton is in the news, three years after her death. Seems that her will left past royalties to her nurse and caretaker, and future royalties (of posthumously published works) to a fan who became a great friend.

It's all sad and sordid; read about it at CNN or any of the other outlets that printed the AP story. The Tennessee Court of Appeals will have to decide who's right; the caretaker feels that all was to be left to her and has a video with Norton stating as much. The fan/friend, though, disputes.

I'm just surprised that Andre Norton lived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Nothing wrong with it; I've never been there. But like most people, I build up a picture of what kind of person an author is from their books. I knew Andre Norton was a woman, and I pictured her living in Europe, probably Paris. Either that, or New England.

She was born in Cleveland and died in Murfreesboro. Clearly, telepathy isn't one of my gifts.

Les Huitres

Like other areas, France is suffering an oyster blight. But that's like saying, oh, "like Temecula, France has vineyards."

In coastal beds along the north and west coasts, baby oysters have died. Boom. Just like that. Since the babies would have been harvested in 3-4 years, expect the death of romance and mass starvation in France in 2011.

The Los Angeles Times reports this as a side item, almost, to their front page story about similar oyster die-offs along the Pacific Coast: California, Oregon, and Washington. There, the culprit has been found: an insidious bacteria that swept in with warmer water, which can also live quite well in the growing "dead zones" (unoxygenated waters) near the northwest coast.

And our illustrious president stands ready with his veto pen to stop any bills that address climate change. Does he want oysters to go the way of the dodo bird, or is he simply a dodo bird himself?

They were rather slow.

Specialty Bookstores on 3rd

On a walking/eating tour of Third Street in Los Angeles (a real tour, btw, not just lollygagging) . . . (not that there's anything wrong with lollygagging) . . . (and the tour was given by Melting Pot Tours, if you're going to be in Los Angeles and want to stuff yourself, shop, and pick up local history at the same time) . . .I visited two side-by-side specialty bookstores that are now on the internet:

• The Cook's Library, which has books on everything to do with cooking. Everything! And book signings, events, and always a plate of treats out for customers to sample. Of course, on the website you can't taste any treats, but if there's a cooking book you want to locate, these are the people to call.
• Traveler's Bookcase, with every guidebook for every country, as well as sections on adventure travel, traveling with kids, etc. Again, if a tour book has eluded you, they'll hunt it down.

I don't know how they divvy up the books that combine travel AND cooking, but since the store owners and clerks are all best friends, they've come up with something.

As for the picture. . . it's the handle of a doorway across the street. One of those "only in L.A." shots.

Beware of Freeloading Employers!

Writers Weekly has a compact, neat little piece titled "Red Flags in Freelance Help Wanted Ads." Just in case you would like to be alerted to the kind of companies that DON'T pay. I would add one more pet peeve of my own: Beware of projects that will pay on publication, but can't give you a publication date. They mean well, but there's a good chance you'll never see the money.

If we all lived in a perfect world, and were all so wealthy that we didn't have to worry over the rent. . . not paying writers would still be wrong.

Tour de France

It's worth about 22 seconds on the evening news or CNN, but the Tour de France has spent the last three days in my favorite part of the country, Brittany. Brest, the Morbihan Bay, St. Malo, Nantes. Not that anyone--even ESPN--covers it.

However--here is a site that has hour-long highlight videos of each day: Justin.TV

Yay! Another site with pictures and video is Steephill.tv And of course, there is the official Tour website, en francais.

Hommes in tight pants. . . Yes, I am a sports fan. Vive la France!

Orkney Orksplorations

Never been to the Orkneys but no adolescent who fell in love with The Once and Future King can hear "Orkney" without thinking of Morgan le Fay and that poor parboiled cat (Morgan never did find the right bone to make her invisible, did she?)

The BBC reports that a month-long archaeological exploration will commence at the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney. It's the third-largest stone circle in Britain but its age and purpose--even the exact number of original stones--is unknown.

So the archaeologists will dig up trenches from the 1970s, when the last attempt took place, and also do some geophysical surveys.

According to a Historic Scotland report (where this picture comes from), the Ring of Brodgar is included in a World Heritage Site and:

"is one of the best-preserved and largest known henges in the British Isles. It is almost a perfect circle and 36 out of c. 60 original stones survive. The stone circle is surrounded by a substantial rock-cut ditch with two opposing causeways. The monument is surrounded by other standing stones and at least 13 Neolithic and Bronze Age burial mounds."

Nap Article

Freelancers have the luxury (usually) of sleeping and rising when we wish, and that includes taking naps. So here's a great piece from the Boston Globe about the art and joy of napping. It includes a blow-by-blow of the benefits of different nap lengths: which are most refreshing, which make up for lost nighttime sleep, etc.

For a relatively short piece, it had tons of info that I didn't know--such as the fact that caffeine takes 20 to 30 minutes to kick in. Nice, quick graphics, too.

100 Agents?

According to Kriste Matrisch from Writers Relief Inc, ". . . on average, your query needs to be seen by at least 100+ agents before deciding to revise or abandon the project. Securing agent representation is a tough task. "

100? Seriously?

Does this make us happy or sad?

Querying 100 agents is a daunting task--but at least I don't feel so downhearted now. After all, only six have rejected me. Peanuts!

Ms. Matrisch was quoted in Writers-World, btw, in a "here's what our readers say" piece published in issue 8:07 of their emailed newsletter.

After a week away (you noticed, right?) I'm back to trolling for jobs. Here's a sample of the opportunities:

• Specialized blog writer who "possesses excellent writing skills" and can devote 10 hours per week "to quickly turn around time-sensitive projects while also handling long-term assignments." Wow, I can do that! But. . . "Though the internship is unpaid, it will allow candidates to work in a real-world online publishing environment while improving their writing skills and building a portfolio of work." Well, once I figure out how to pay my gas bill with a portfolio, I'll apply.
• Interior design/home furnishings daily or weekly feature writer. "If you are looking for a venue to get your design concepts out there, always on to the hottest thing, and have unrivaled taste we’d love to hear from you. " Well, that doesn't describe me. But listen to this: "Please note that this is a start up site and compesation [sic] is currently unavailable. "
• Up and coming funny video blogger: "The exposure you would get (3.5MM visitors) could jumpstart your career."

Now I must admit that intersperse with these gems were full-time jobs paying up to $80,000 per year for experienced copywriters, etc. That just makes it more shameless that these flim-flam bozos pose as legitimate employers!

Ye Olde Paris

Parts of Paris have been dated back to 4,500 B.C. Specifically, the part near the Gare de Lyon, at Bercy, where remains of hunting and fishing village was found. Now, new dig evidence shows that Stone Agers were at least visitng as far back as 7,600 B.C--10,000 years ago! Read all about it at the UK Independent site. Or if you read French, here is INRAP's site. (this picture is from there)

At the southwestern edge of the city on the banks of the Seine--where millenia of silt has protected the evidence--archaeologists from Imrap have found arrowheads. The site was apparently a spot where mesolithic people sorted out their usable flints from the garbage. Ironically, the area will become a recycling station when the research is done and the archaeological dig is covered up.

This new, older site is about a mile from the Eiffel Tower in the 15th arrondisement.

Bill Dwyre in the Times

Some days. the news is so dismal you just have to read the paper backwards. Which led me to Bill Dwyre's Sports Section piece "Whistles aren't the Problem" about a decided lack of credibility in sports officiating.

I like good writing and good ideas. Dwyre points out that disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy has indeed "poisoned the pool," but there's a deeper--or at least, an additional--problem. Us and our short attention span.

"We don't seem to be willing to wait for proof of guilt or innocence these days. Our world moves too fast. We hear it, text-message our assumptions and move quickly to the next arena of instant gratification."

Ouch! That's so true. A bit later in the editorial he says:

"We care only that it is neat and clean and fits perfectly into our current video game mind-set. Quick, visual and over.

"The retaining of the "human element" in sports officiating has long ago lost its appeal. The games, especially on the pro level, aren't so much fun anymore as they are life and death."

I include this picture of a Galaxy game not because there were controversial calls in it, but because I took the picture myself so I can include it without getting into trouble.

Tracy Chapstick Blog

Bowing to reality this one time, I have sadly removed the Craigslist Curmudgeon from my links.

But wait, there's more! I've added Tracy Chapstick, a very funny picture blog. It's really just a picture and caption, takes only a second to read, and will make you laugh if you've ever had to sit through a meeting.

Or as the author describes it: A daily cartoon by a guy who can't draw.

Writers' Homes in Danger?

When I saw a headline "Writers' historic homes in peril" (in the Los Angeles Times, but it's an AP story), and a first line that begins "Mark Twain", my immediate thought was that Twain's Mississippi River-front home was in danger of flooding! Oh, no, and other writers too!

I don't even know if such a home exists, but floodwaters are not what is endangering the former homes of beloved authors.

Nope. Think mundane.

Think foreclosure.

Edith Wharton's former home in Lenox, Massachusetts, is called The Mount. That's it, just above. To avoid foreclosure, the operators of The Mount, which relies on tourism dollars, must come up with $6 million by Halloween. So says the AP, but The Mount's website states the figure is $3 million. Trick or treat!

People are flooded and crushed and starving all over the world--and on Skid Row--and I'm supposed to write a check to help keep a gigantic revenent of the Gilded Age open for the literary-minded tourist?

As for Twain's former home in Hartford, CT--the story says it "can't even afford to buy energy-saving light bulbs that would slash the electric bill."

Surely they could come up with something a little more . . . heartbreaking? Will anyone get emotional over the lack of energy-saving bulbs? Especially when the Twain House website points out that they receive million-dollar grants for ongoing restoration projects!

I'll keep writing my checks to Food Banks. When the hungry of the world are fed, we can use the left over money to spruce up the mansions.

A Curmudgeonly Response

Although I have not had the heart to delete him from my links, it appears the Craigslist Curmudgeon is no more. He has not posted for nearly 3 months.

With amazing synchronicity, however--especially given my post of two days ago, to Harlan Ellison's rant about writers not getting paid or voluntarily working for nothing--I received a form email from a company that had advertised on Craigslist. They called for writers, and I responded. The ad gave the impression they would pay; otherwise, I would not have bothered. Here's what I got back:

Dear Candidate:

Thank you for your response. Here is a link that will give you the job details.
(deleted, since it doesn't)
The above link will give you more information about an unpaid internship. However, we are offering the same job with an hourly pay ranging up to $10.00/hr. . . . (jump through a few more hoops) if you still feel you are qualified and able to do this job, you will receive your first task as an intern delivered to your email.
Although you possess outstanding skill and credentials, we will still require you to go through our internship. It is a free internship, and will provide us with the necessary feedback and will tell both of us, if you have the proper skills to work for us and if it is really something to want to do. . . . We cannot tell you exactly what your rate of pay will be until you complete the first task as an intern. However, I want to let you know that we do give cash gifts to those individuals who exceed our expectations during the internship.

OK, people, can I get a big, loud "What the F@#!" from the congregation?

It's free-lance, not free.

Harlan Ellison Explains It All For You

HOHOHOHOHO!

Here's a link to a YouTube Video, a rant by Harlan Ellison titled "Pay the Writer."
How comforting to know that Ellison, whom I now revere more than ever, has been burned enough to be good and sore over it. There's a thesis statement about 2 minutes into this 3 minute film: "They always want the writer to work for nothing."

Yes, they do.

Guccione Quote

Bob Guccione (former editor and publisher of SPIN, and current publisher of DISCOVER magazine) said,

"We will see media transform and metamorphose hundreds of times in our lifetime and yet never radically change. It is still and always going to be communication of information, some of it valuable, some of it dangerous, most of it meaningless, between people. The media, our vanities aside, is never the message. The message is the message." (Quoted in the Wooden Horse ezine.)

I wish the message were the message. But the flaw with even the best, most responsible media, as many have pointed out, is that they get to choose what messages to deliver.

Do we have the best, most responsible media to begin with? Uh-uh.

So the news we see is what they've decided to deliver.

• What 10-second clip from a 45-minute speech will be broadcast out of context?


• What foreign crisis will get 60 seconds of precious air time or column inch, and what other hot spots will be ignored?


• Who's face will accompany a splashy headline, whether or not they're truly newsworthy?


• What words sound most intriguing or controversial--again, whether or not they're newsworthy?

In an election year, it's blatant: the media is controlling all that we see and hear about the candidates. It's just the way it is. I don't have a better way, but I wish we would all be aware of how smoothly we're being manipulated.

WW II Veterans Take A Trip

This picture amazes me. This is a Mr. Jost of Montgomery County, Texas. Here's the caption (actually an email from a volunteer named DiAnne Semands):

"My vet Mr. Jost got the only surviving item from his ship: the flag with 48 stars. It was old and tattered, and everyone touched it. His mine-sweeping ship cleared the Japan coast for the great invasion, and then bombs were dropped instead. His ship sank and most men were lost."

Mr. Jost and 98 other WWII Veterans from the county were flown to Washington DC to see the World War II Memorial, over Veterans Day. An organization called Lone Star Honor Flight has dedicated itself to making sure that all WWII Vets get to see the Memorial.

Press coverage of the trip, as well as a slide show with more touching photos by Brad Meyer, is here.

This has nothing to do with archaeology, France, writing, or any of my other topics. I just love this picture.

Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Carhenge

The National Geographic Channel's TV special on Stonehenge and related article in the June 2008 NG Magazine (is that enough links for you?) rekindled my interest in monumental sites.

I actually wrote an article for the Encyclopedia of World Geography on megalyths.

So here is the last word on the subject. Carhenge! It's Real, it's American, and it's Hot!

Freelancing Advice

We never make enough money, do we?

Here's my advice. Make some money each day.

Ideally, that means you submit something for which you'll be paid . Maybe it's a 'how-to' for an internet site, or a magazine filler. In a perfect world, you have contracts for these pieces and you know the company will pay you within a month.

If you don't have an assignment for the day, work hard on getting one. Send queries. Trawl the job sites. Work on your blog or website so that your presentation as a professional is flawless--even if you're still in your pajamas.

But do something, at least five days a week, to get paid. Or start filling out job applications at McDonald's and Subway.

Elaborate Pagan Tomb Under Vatican Opened

It's in every Sunday paper (here's a link to the CBS story). A mausoleum built by a family of slaves for the (presumably) patrician Valeri family during the 2nd century A.D. has been restored and is now open for public viewing -- by appointment.



Apparently there are 22 such tombs, and this is the most elaborate. They were covered up by Emperor Constantine in the 4th century so that a Christian basilica could be built over St. Peter's grave site.


Two really interesting oddities that aren't explained in the AP story: There are some charcoal inscriptions on the walls that were left alone and may point to the actual location of St. Peter's bones. AND the family of slaves were freed and "amassed a vast fortune."

If I weren't so lazy (and if the Stonehenge special weren't starting on NG TV) I'd look for more info. Those points are intriguing!

Stonehenge Secrets

The dating of bodies buried around Stonehenge will be one of the subjects covered on the National Geographic show Stonehenge Decoded. First showing: June 1. But already you can play around on the website, with interactive maps and building simulations.

Turns out Stonehenge may have started out as a cemetery for Really Important People. There are over 200 graves holding cremated bodies, and they date back to periods before the stones were raised. The age of the graves covers several centuries, leading some archaeologists to theorize that this is the cemetery for one great, kingly family that held power for a long time.

It's just too cool. I can't wait for the show. Here's a link to video about the latest discoveries. The story from the June National Geographic Magazine is online too. And this picture's from their site; one of an incredible online gallery.

Pictures of Troy

Just polishing up a quick article called "Did Troy Exist?" and after my research on Schliemann, Dorpfeld, and most recently Manfred Korfmann, I came across this site with photographs of the archaeological site of Troy, in Turkey.

Troy is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but this website is part of Livius: Articles on Ancient History. And that's all I know--except that the pictures are neat. This one is of the southern gate of Troy VI and VII--the Bronze Age fortress believed to be the Troy where Homer's Iliad is based. It was destroyed over 3000 years ago.

BBC Knowledge

Found the press release about the previously-mentioned BBC Knowledge Magazine.

Doesn't look too promising for freelancers: according to this story, the magazine "will draw on the publisher's existing portfolio of quality specialist factual titles including the award-winning popular science title Focus, BBC History Magazine and BBC Wildlife Magazine."

Why? Why do they not want original content? If this magazine is expected to appeal to National Geographic's readership--a lofty ambition--seems kind of arrogant to assume that recycled stories are the items for which intellectual Americans are starved.

Magazines: Bad News Monday

Here's a quickie: ad pages for the first half of 2008 are down 11.13%, according to MinOnline. That means less money to buy the wonderful ideas of freelancers. Not all magazines were down, of course: Bicycling and Runner's World and a few others are exceptions.

OTOH, The Wooden Horse reports that BBC Knowledge Magazine is scheduled for an American rollout in August. Now that's more my kind of publication!

Crystal Skulls Stolen!

My one-time home town, Claremont, CA, doesn't make the TV news often (although it was among the 5 best places to live last year according to Money Magazine)--but when it does, it's pretty wacky.

A New Age shop called Kindred Spirits had a crystal skull on display, and yup, it's gone. According to the Claremont Insider blog and the Daily Bulletin, the skull was on loan and had been displayed for about four months. The owner says it was solid quartz crystal, probably from Brazil, has healing powers . . . . and there are eleven others and if the set is ever assembled together-which-is-destined-to-happen-information-will-be-revealed-to-humanity (I'm wincing as I write this, but if you want to read more along this vein try OfSpiritandSoul.com.)

So maybe the thief is collecting the entire set?

The store's owner says the skull "likes to travel." Right, blame it on the victim. Jeesh!

Pawnshop Francais

"Paris has the Louvre of Pawnshops" proclaims the Los Angeles Times. Their May 12 story is about a Paris pawnshop founded in 1777, affectionately known as Auntie. It's real name is Credit Municipal of Paris, it's on the Right Bank, and here's its pedigree:

• Auguste Rodin hocked his statues to pay for tools


• Claude Monet gave up his wife's medallion, and when she died, he had a friend buy it back so she could wear it in her coffin.


• Items pawned there recently include an $8,000 bottle of Burgundy ("People can now exchange liquidity for liquidity" jokes the the director-general)


• Other clients have included Victor Hugo (who set a scene in Les Miserables there), Emile Zola, and Paul Verlaine

The shop, like all pawnshops in France (there are only 19) is run by the city on a not-for-profit basis. Auntie owns "a sprawling underground maze of rooms that now hold 76,000 boxes of jewelry, racks of furs and countless odds and ends as well as a collection of art second in size only to the Louvre.," per the Times. Ma fois, what I wouldn't give to poke around there.

An MSN story gives more details about the wine business there. MSN says that 93% of the customers redeem their treasures, but 2 or 3 auctions per week are held to dispose of unredeemed articles.

The store, at 55 la Marais (a street where shops are allowed to stay open on Sundays) is called "chez ma tante" or Auntie because for 200 years people have been saying they left jewelry or heirlooms "at my auntie's house." Read about the street itself at Paris Info or Paris Marais.

The Bordeaux Undiscovered blog has a nice article on the shop as well, which is where I found the picture. And all these sites use the same phrases in their story so I suppose there was a major press release in April.

Caesar in Gaul

An exciting find in the Rhone River in France: a bust of Julius Caesar tentatively dated to 46 BC. That would be eight years after he put his finishing touches on the conquest of Gaul.

This AP pictures is copied from the CNN story. CBS and other outlets cover it, but all reports seem to be the same, original AP text.

The bust had been thrown into the river with other items, including a bronze satyr about 27 inches high, and a marble Neptune, 5' 9".

"The site has barely been skimmed," according to Michel L'Hour, who is in charge of the divers who found the articles a few months ago. More dives and research will be done this summer.

The site is near Arles, a city founded by Caesar. The Celts had a habit of making river offerings, but to throw a bunch of Roman statues into the river--from a city founded by Romans, who were probably hated--may have less to do with offerings and more to do with revolt. My guess. Since the statues aren't destroyed or broken though, who knows?

Commensurate Pay

Like most freelancers, I troll job boards online. Craig's List, Deborah Ng's Freelance Writing Jobs, Angela Hoy's Writer's Weekly, Problogger, and on and on.

The pay range is amazing. For every precious $50 per post blog, there are dozens that want to pay zip, or near zip. The Curmudgeon (why isn't he posting?) delights in exposing these sleazebags, but I must put in my two cents as well.

One site wants to employ about 5 freelancers to fill its need for 80-90 posts per month. This site is about pet lovers; they expect their writers to contribute reports on shows, training, medical care, nutrition, the works. How much do they pay? $5 for under 500 words, $10 for 500-1000 words, and a whopping $15 for over 1000 words. Just think--one could work full-time to meet their needs, and still earn less than $25 per day. What an opportunity.

But at least they pay. Another site lists "Commensurate" under their pay category. Commensurate with what? Here's what their job posting says about why you should work for them:

" At this point you’re probably asking yourself “Why should I do this? I have plenty of other things to do!” I hear ya! But here’s the benefit:

• SleazeSite is a powerful brand ... your visibility in the industry will greatly increase by being affiliated with us. And we all know how important image is in the marketing world!
• We know you have your opinions of the industry… this is the perfect place to rant about that brand that you think has it all wrong… or an awesome ad campaign that really turned you on. Your friends probably don’t care to hear every marketing related thought that runs through you head – but you can let it all out in a SleazeSite blog!
• Wow does SleazeSite look great on a resume! Add this experience to your list of amazing-ness
• You can show off to all your co-workers that you write for SleazeSite "
  

Does that sound to you like a site that will be sending you a 1099 next January? I've figured out what they mean by commensurate. Commensurate with your level of stupidity. If you take this job, you deserve what you get: nothing.

Boo, Brian Fagan

Just finished The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization by Brian Fagan. It was a fascinating read, up to a point. I planned to get his newest book (The Long Summer is from 2004) when I was done. How fascinating to read about ancient people and how they were shaped by climate, right?

Towards the end comes a chapter called "Celts and Romans: 1200 BC to AD 900." Wow, right up my alley! I've been studying the Iron Age Celts for years! What insights would I glean?

Unfortunately, almost every paragraph about the Celts contained errors of fact and unsubstantiated exaggerations and generalizations. I'll try not to nitpick, but if I can pick out inaccuracies, to me that casts aspersions over the entire book.
Here are some quotes:

• (speaking, I think, of the time immediately after 1200 BC) "In the well-wooded north [of Europe] the egalitarian farming societies of earlier times had given way to small competing dynasties of local chiefs. . . chief vied with chief in the acquisition of the currency of success. This currency was in the form of prestigious ornaments--Baltic amber, and above all, shiny bronze." I'm suspicious. I can't disprove this, but I don't think it can be proven, either. The presence of Baltic amber and bronze in graves does not imply the other generalizations about their society.



• "These people had no powerful kings or centralized bureaucracies. . . Most people dwelled in small, round houses. . . " Suspicion gives way to skepticism. How would he know how powerful or bureaucratic kings/chiefs were 3,000 years ago? He can't. Also, he refers to finds in Germany in this paragraph, so presumably we're talking about the continental Celts. Round houses were popular only in Britain.
  
  
• (speaking of the period after 850 BC) "Raiding and warfare were now an integral part of daily life. In some places, war became endemic, so much so that chiefs built strong fortified settlements. . . By 600 BC, temperate Europe was a landscape of hill forts. . . " His cited source here is Barry Cunliffe's The Ancient Celts. I have that book; Cunliffe speaks of a period of stability around 1000 BC that sparked a rise in population "in some areas" and increased use of farmland. "Hill forts . . . were constructed in some number, indicating that the coercive power of some sector of the population was now able to command surplus labor to aggrandize or protect a chosen settlement. . . " Cunliffe also points out that around 520 BC in the Hallstatt zone, some hill forts were abandoned and others grew larger. But I don't think that translates into any of Fagan's generalizations. OK, at this point I am nitpicking; I admit it.

So I'd better stop. Read Barry Cunliffe yourself, or Peter Beresford Ellis, or Simon James, if you want to know about the Celts. Do not trust Fagan's words--I think most experts would not even accept his broad definition of Celt, which seems to cover every tribe in Europe, except those on the Italian peninsula.

This picture, btw, is of the remains of an oppidum, or hill fort, in France near Huelgoat forest. (Fagan claims that the Celts pretty much deforested areas building their hill forts. But the ancient forests were not cut away, and were quite large back then, according to other sources.)

My point, to re-iterate, is when an authority (which Fagan certainly is) gets the facts wrong in one section of his book, or indulges in generalizations so broad that they become fiction, it shadows all his work on the rest of the book. What parts can I trust?

Snail Mail Postage

Letters now cost .42 each to mail. Postcards are .27.

Envelopes over 6 inches wide or 11-1/2 inches long are .83 for the first ounce, .17 for additional ounces. Which makes it convenient if you're just over an ounce with your clips or proposal: it's $1 even.

The Post Office is so thoughtful that way.

Car Park Dig

Gotta love this story from the BBC: "Archaeology Dig in Car Park Site." The car park's already there, and apparently wants to expand--but 1000-year-old curios must be investigated first.

Realizing that big bucks are involved, I've always wondered about the thick, tall fences that surround construction sites. Are they there to keep out prying eyes, as well as potential thieves? For two years, I watched an entire theater complex go up on a previously-vacant lot in Southern California. Mountains of dirt were moved from one corner to another in the first few months. By law (NAGPRA), if anything is found--pottery shards, charred campfire remains--authorities must be notified and work stopped.

But I wonder--would the landowners, investors, or even laborers say anything, knowing that their livelihood would be cut if work were halted? Is that part of the reason for a fence that no one can see through?

Just a thought. I have no real reason to believe that anything was found.

BLM Finds Way go Fund Archaeology

An innovative way of funding archaeological digs has been hit on in the US Southwest, according to several papers--including this story in the Las Cruces (NM) Sun News. In areas that have been surveyed to death, companies that wish to develop gas and oil resources can choose to fund digs and exploration, rather than pay for more surveys that aren't needed.

The Bureau of Land Management, BLM, is behind this. Just goes to show that our bureacracies can bend in the right directions if everyone cooperates.

Moving Lists

List of things we DON'T have to do anymore when we move:

• Notify every single newsletter and magazines of new address (Thank you, USPS)


• Notify every friend and company with whom we do business (again, I kiss your feet, USPS)


• Wait three weeks for the phone company to send someone out to explain why DSL doesn't work in the new place


• Wait three days till a phone company technician physically hooks up your phone (the good old days. But I am not kissing Verizon's feet, no matter what)


• Wait for electric and gas companies to visit and hook up your utilities

I'm old; I remember when utilities were turned off when a place was unoccupied and had to be reconnected by hand. And the post office used to sell moving kits with dozens of postcards for us to send to all our creditors and friends. Yuck.

I have to do so little that I've forgotten to order new business cards. Vista.com will be my next stop as I surf.

Being Sick is No Fun

But at least I have work to do. And it's work I can do in my bathrobe, sitting around looking up things like fountain pens and American Indian populations and potato blights, in all the books that I refused to get rid of when I moved.

There is a public library across the street, of course. I thought that was wonderful when I moved here...then I found out that the only encyclopedia they have is the World Book Fact Book.

I'm only posting this to prove I haven't died or lost interest in blogging.

Daily Show Researcher

I'm adding that to my list of cool jobs. . . the one I started in the 80s when I heard of a guy who was paid big bucks to fly around the world and spot new trends in hair styles.

Adam Chodikoff gets to cull through videos till his eyes bleed. . . . ok, that doesn't sound so cool, now that I think about it. But as chief researcher at The Daily Show, he's the one who digs up all that archived video that the White House would just as soon we forget about.

Read about him here on the Washington Post site. And watch the clip; it's very funny.

Wish I had more to say but as I'm a sick puppy I'll just crawl back into my cave now.